The bad green project examined
My recent post called “Is green building dangerous?” raised a number of 
comments. In the post, I mentioned a project that had won a significant green award but was “poisoning” its inhabitants. One commenter asked for more information on the subject, so I went to Dan Morris, the indoor air quality specialist mentioned, for specifics on the project. Here is his response (WARNING, may be overly technical):
Morris said the problem with the green house in question was the location of things. It had a large gas water heater used to heat the hydronic infloor heating and domestic hot water that was in a small laundry room with a washer, dryer, an exhaust fan and a fixed window. The occupants were not “poisoned” (as I originally stated) but were exposed to somewhat elevated levels of carbon monoxide over long periods in the house (either way though, it’s not good for you).
Morris said the carbon monoxide and other trace pollutants found in the flue gasses from gas combustion were drawn into the house whenever the dryer or exhaust fan was operated when the water/space heater was operating. The dryer or exhaust fan took air out of the laundry room with no provision for make-up air from outdoors. The only open hole to the outdoors was the water heater flue. The make-up air was drawn down the flue pipe and back drafted the water heater. In short, it was out of balance and pressure.
In Morris’ words: “What was so disturbing about this house was that no one understood the basics of building science, or were not paying attention. This includes the: architect or building designer, builder, homeowners, code officials/inspectors, green building award people.”
Obviously, this isn’t every green designer or builder or award program… but how common is it? And whose responsibility was it to notice that all those things should not have been in the same room?
Another commenter, SteamboatEcoBroker, said with newer green buildings, air quality and ventilation systems are a must because they are much tighter than older buildings. So should more attention be paid to the air quality systems in a green building? Do green building systems focus too much on energy and not enough on other important aspects?
If you have any insights, please share them with me below.
Tags: indoor air quality, Problems, Projects
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August 13th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
I’m not sure we have enough information here to really make a thorough analysis of the problem. In my projects, it really is a team effort with the Architect, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, plumber, project manager, and general contractor. When building any structure, we have to work as a team to make sure that we’re not implementing a design that doesn’t make sense or is not optimal.
In the scenario that you have described above, you’ve mentioned so many different systems that different trades are responsible for. You’ve mentioned half a dozen systems like the gas hot water heater for the hydronic in-floor heating, domestic hot water, washer dryer, exhaust fan, fixed windows, there’s definitely coordination that needs to occur between these trades. Perhaps this specific occurrence is a break-down in communication between the trades and general contractor. Perhaps lack of experience.
As for too much focus on energy, well, certainly when looking at the bottom line, the single largest operating expense for a building is the electrical bill. It would not surprise me one bit that there’s so much emphasis on this area. As that’s one area that drives ROI for a green built project. Sometimes business decisions over shadow the big picture. I think that all projects that are managed in a good way should be looked at in a holistic manner.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
[...] My recent post called =93Is green building dangerous?=94 raised a nu= mber of mryuk.jpg comments. In the post, I mentioned a project that had won= a significant green award but was =93poisoning=94 its inhabitants. = One commenter asked for more …Posted from By Katie [...]
August 14th, 2008 at 8:16 am
[...] The bad green project examined -… [...]
August 14th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I’m not sure there is any excuse for the building official in this instance, (or the mechanical engineer if there was one); but this is an example of what happens when one thing (in this case “green” but sometimes its “design” or “cost” ) overshadows the complexity of a project. Architecture is hard. complicated architecture is even harder. Balancing multiple conflicting requirements requires an understanding of what they all do, and learning how to do that takes time in the business. in most cases the Owner is not knowledgeable enough to question what is occurring on their house, and has to rely on the licensed professionals to make good decisions.
that being said, the “basics of building science” aren’t readily understood in most of the offices I’ve worked in. there aren’t any unyielding rules (except “water runs downhill”) for most of the interplay of systems, and understanding the subtleties of the interplay usually requires someone who makes an effort at that part of the build process. As more practices try to place an emphasis on “green” they are going to have to equally place an emphasis on understanding how systems work together.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I’m staying on the side of “isolated occurrence” here Katie (see my comment on your “Is GB Dangerous” post) because, while this is obviously a serious problem for this building, it is really only one building that we are talking about. And it is a problem that could have happened in any building constructed today. After all, a tighter envelope is hardly a groundbreaking green building technique. In fact, as building codes change, tighter envelopes are becoming more and more common.
That said, I wonder what role building codes and inspectors played in all of this? I just wrote an article in Sustainable Industries on the <a href=”http://www.sustainableindustries.com/greenbuilding/26191524.html”intersection of building code and green building called “Cracking the Code.” The story is about efforts to “green” the code and issues builders have with the code but some of my interview subjects told me that they are available and willing to talk with build teams from the very start of a project to help them deal with all sorts of issues green and not before any concrete is poured.
This problem, it seems to me, is something that should have been caught by one of the members of the build/design team, yes, but failing that, where was the inspector?
August 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
whoops, sorry for the messed up HTML in my last post. If I could edit it, I would.