Eco-friendly house going up

August 10, 2006

Eco-friendly house going up
‘We’re building a big cooler’
By Eric EyreStaff writer

This is no ordinary house. Robert Dorsey is building the home of the future.
Dorsey and his crew were putting up 6-inch-thick walls Wednesday afternoon. The walls were something called SIPs, or structured insulated panels, pieces of Styrofoam sandwiched between two boards of plywood.
Such walls are exceptionally strong and energy-efficient. The house’s 8-inch-thick ceiling also will be made of the stuff.
“We like to say we’re building a big Styrofoam cooler and putting a heck of a thick lid on top,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey is building The EcoDwell Project, a three-bedroom, two-bath home at 1547 Jackson St. on Charleston’s East End.

It’s a “green” house — eco-friendly and energy-efficient — that someday will be owned by a low-income family. The Charleston Area Alliance and Religious Coalition for Community Renewal are sponsoring the $200,000 project.
“You want to try to use as many materials as you can that are recycled or those that can be recycled when they go out, and preferably both,” said Dorsey, 53, who usually does home remodeling.

When Dorsey and his crew needed to fill a space under the house’s concrete porch, they used crushed glass from the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority’s recycling center on Slack Street — instead of sand and gravel. The authority donated the ground-up mix of old bottles and jars.
The crawl space under the 1,300-square-foot house is enclosed, which will keep the foundation and first floor at the same temperature. The siding will be made of cement board instead of vinyl or metal. The roof will be aluminum.
Inside, hardwood floors will be “sustainable forest certified,” meaning “for every tree you take, you plant one,” Dorsey said.
A high-efficiency gas furnace will heat the house while a heat pump will provide air conditioning.

“You will heat and cool this for half the cost of the house next door,” Dorsey said. “Green is all about conserving natural resources.”
The EcoDwell Project also will serve as a learning laboratory.
Starting at 3 p.m. today, local builders, architects and building inspectors are invited to the site for a series of classes about building energy-saving and environmentally friendly homes. Dorsey and other experts will talk about the crawl space and Styrofoam-plywood walls this afternoon.
Future topics include landscaping, roofing, siding, windows and doors. There will be eight training sessions that will run through November, when Dorsey hopes to finish the house.

The home will be open for tours for a month or two, and a family is expected to move in sometime early next year. The house’s sale price is expected to be far less than the cost to build it.
“This family is going to get a top quality house,” said Susie Salisbury, senior vice president of community development at the Charleston Area Alliance. “It’s an awesome house.”
A Web site — www.ecodwell.info — includes floor plans, construction videos and a schedule of classes.

The project, which received local, state and federal grants, was started by the former Charleston Renaissance Corp. WVU Tech students assisted with the house design.
The project’s sponsors hope the Jackson Street house will serve as a springboard for more eco-friendly building in West Virginia.

To contact staff writer Eric Eyre, use e-mail or call 348-4869.




Crushed glass from the Charleston recycling center was used to fill in a space under the front porch.