One way remodelers are playing catch-up is by attending conferences, such as the GreenBuild conference, which drew more than 13,000 building professionals to Denver last fall, far more than the 10,000 who attended the previous year. Another is through continuing education.
Michael McCutcheon of McCutcheon Construction in Berkeley, Calif., says that, if anything, the green movement is encouraging remodelers to take their game to a higher level through education and third-party certification programs. The National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) started a pilot training program in green remodeling this fall, and many local green programs offer training courses, as well. A number of those courses are geared toward experienced remodelers looking for a deeper understanding of building science.
For example, McCutcheon recently attended an advanced continuing-education class through Build It Green (www.builditgreen.org), a West Coast green-building program. They spent almost an entire day talking about waterproofing. “We talked about the exact right way to waterproof certain details on a building,” McCutcheon says. “Everyone learned from it. And this was in the advanced class. The point is, the fundamentals of this industry are still poorly understood.”
The waterproofing discussion underscores McCutcheon’s belief that the green movement will raise the bar for the entire trade. In other words, building green is ultimately about building better. “If we can waterproof correctly, the building lasts longer. That’s green. Green is really just best practices,” he says.“I don’t believe that if you’re not doing straw-bale construction, you’re not green. That precludes the rest of us from taking baby steps.” And everyone has to start somewhere.
STARTING POINTS Indeed, while consumers around the country are raring to go, green remodeling has only been aggressively embraced by contractors in pockets where local green-building programs or legislation exist — areas such as Seattle, Boulder, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Austin, Texas. “Remodelers in those markets really have taken the lead,” Johnston says.
Holding remodelers back, in many cases, are perceptions that green remodeling is too expensive, that the materials are too time-consuming to work with, that the subject matter is too esoteric. For a long time, remodelers have taken for granted construction materials and methods that use non-renewable materials and energy sources, hold up poorly over time, and contribute to indoor air pollution. A structure that isn’t built to last will be demolished too soon, adding more waste to landfills and demanding new resources for rebuilding. “Reversing the course” means rethinking the process from start to finish.
Yet other remodelers say they’re ready to embrace green building, but feel they’ve been left behind. For example, LEED certification (offered by the U.S.Green Building Council) only applies to new construction. And there’s currently no national green certification for remodelers, although that’s changing. NARI announced it will launch a certification program this fall — and immediately after the announcement, there were 120 people on the waiting list. The industry seems poised to jump into the mainstream with both feet.
Green remodeling may be a trend, McCutcheon says, but it isn’t a fleeting one. “Green building is really just smart building. We’ve been doing these same things for 25 years, only now we’re calling it green,” he says. “We’ve been saving people money, choosing products that last, and finding the most beautiful solutions.”
In the pages that follow, experts and remodelers talk about why the time is right to join the green movement, how to get employees and subcontractors to incorporate green practices into their routines, how to sell the green approach to clients, and what to do with all those reusable building materials from the job you’re working on now. In short, you’ll have a good sense of what comes next in the greening of your business. Because chances are, even if you’re still on the sidelines of this movement, you won’t be for long.