Building Green on Green

Our retrofit project is moving along on schedule and on budget.  And it is busy!  As we move closer and closer to October, we will be ratcheting up the work that is occurring simultaneously; a number of trades will be on-site with even more activity than we’ve seen so far.

In the next week alone, weather permitting, our plans are to:

• Sandblast in preparation for the Dryvit façade application
• Apply the Dryvit facade to the penthouse and the north side of the building
• Demolish the sidewalks in preparation for Increte’s decorative concrete sidewalks

We will also be continuing with the following projects:

• Removing first floor windows
• Trenching for the wind turbine
• The work on the first floor

Things are coming together quickly, and we’re looking forward to the day when Tremco employees, customers, prospects and others can enjoy the completed vision of our sustainable, high-performance headquarters.

The Tremco Headquarters continues on its green path with the help of sister company Dryvit Systems, Inc.  The penthouse is the focus this week.  Metal lath has been installed over the block exterior walls in anticipation of the new Dryvit Outsulation® Plus MD exterior façade.  When completed, employees and visitors will see a Dryvit finish that resembles granite.  Dryvit’s finish is called TerraNeo®.  It is lightweight, requires low maintenance and is installed quickly, easily and with little waste.  The photo in this post is what you’ll see. 

What the building will get is a super-insulated, weather-tight exterior wall that will save energy and money for the life of the building. 

As this work progresses on the penthouse, the entrance way/canopy area surrounding the front door of the building is getting prepped for the Dryvit Outsulation Plus MD.  Scaffolding has been installed, and soon the system will be adhesively fastened to the existing slate. 

Stay tuned for more details.

Earlier, we talked about how efficiently people and equipment have been moved as part of our renovation.  About 80 people were relocated to a nearby facility; the other moves are between floors so new windows can be installed, HVAC equipment upgraded and other work done to make this a more comfortable, high performance building.  This is all done with minimal disruption to our business.

When people arrive at their temporary workspaces, they have boxes, dial tones, computer power, plants—they’re ready to go after they unpack.  All the effort to make the moves a success takes place behind the scenes–at night or on weekends–by seven different teams.  

And, it’s time to shine a little light on them.  Thanks to: 

• Tremco’s facility team for coordinating the moves and handling the cleaning (using environmentally-friendly cleaning products from RPM);
• Our IT team, who works on their own and with support from LakeTec (computers) and AT&T (phones) to remove, reinstall and test all of our technology, and make sure it’s working properly;
• Integrity Design, who tears down all the necessary furniture and reassembles it in the new workspaces;
• Sparks Moving, who moves the individual boxes and chairs; and 
• Plant Collage, who moves our plants among floors and to our offsite location (and we have more plants that you’d think).

Thank you again to everyone on these teams.

…And use it to generate electricity for our headquarters.

Just last week we posted information and photos about digging the foundation for our wind turbine. Well, things move quickly, and earlier this week the wind turbine installation was completed; it rises above the parking lot between the Green Road North building and “the east building,” which is the headquarters of Tremco Commercial Sealants & Weatherproofing.

The wind turbine is a Cool Breeze V-II (model WEA 32-20K) by Sinfonia Technology Co., Ltd. Rather than using traditional blade design, the Cool Breeze employs vertical-axis designed aluminum alloy blades that handle changes in wind direction easily—and it can get windy in Northeast Ohio.

The wind turbine is a great example of the kind of technology that helps make a facility sustainable. It provides a clean, totally renewable source of energy that doesn’t produce CO2 or use fossil fuel and can generate power round the clock. Together with the photovoltaic roof we are installing on the “south building” on our campus, the wind turbine should help lower our energy costs and will certainly reduce our use of non-renewable energy sources.

Has your company thought about wind power to become more sustainable? What do you see as the future of wind power?

Photos will be posted soon, so please check back.

In addition to installing energy efficient windows, we have incorporated a state-of-the-art window covering treatment into our renovation. The roller shades were designed by the Draper Company together with Budget Blinds, and incorporate both form and function. The shade cloth fabric not only deals with heat gain and glare, but it was also designed to blend in with the exterior appearance.

We have paid a lot of attention to making our building not only sustainable and high performance, but also attractive. The last thing we wanted to see is the loss of continuity from outside the building by selecting a window covering treatment that stands out rather than blending in.

Good planning, fine weather and a diligent effort by everyone working on the Green Road high performance renovation are keeping the project on schedule. Among the things that have been happening or will take place this week are: 

• Excavating and pouring the foundation for our wind turbine, which will be installed between the headquarters and our East building and used to help generate electricity; and for the new stairs on our South building, which will lead to the roof where our photovoltaic system will be installed 
• Installing attractive roller shades to mitigate glare
• Installing windows on the south side of the third floor and beginning work on the HVAC on the north side of the same floor
• Reviewing samples of Increte stamped concrete for our decorative sidewalks. Besides being aesthetically pleasing, the sidewalks need to be slip resistant and durable to stand up to snow removal equipment

Increte Systems is a division of Euclid Chemical Company, a part of the RPM Building Solutions Group. 

New photos are being posted to Flickr, including shots from the wind turbine foundation work and a membrane being installed on our north canopy.

The second floor windows are just about complete.  The windows are installed, and they are weather-tight. The snap cover aesthetic finish will be installed after the Dryvit® installation.  Work is now beginning on the third floor windows.  The sleek ribbon of green glass in the center of the building is a sharp contrast to the dated window configurations above and below, providing a sneak peak of what is to come. 

The head of the windows, corners and transition to the canopy roofs over the front and back entranceways, which are typically problematic, were easily accommodated with the ribbed silicone extrusion, which is part of the pre-engineered Proglaze ETA Engineered Transition Assembly, ensuring a problem-free and secure seal.  The silicone sheet could be engineered on-site to adapt to existing conditions and tie into the new roofing system being installed on the canopy so the third floor (without any extraordinary conditions) should be a snap.  Adding to our sense of security is the fact that the translucent, ribbed silicone material allows for easy inspection to ensure sufficient sealant has been applied and retained throughout the job.

The BioTray™ system has long been used as a major component of our vegetated roof.  Now Tremco Roofing has taken its belief in the BioTray system, which is being used in our renovation, one step further by acquiring the product line from its owner, Rana Creek.  

BioTray is a natural, biodegradable modular system for vegetated roofs.  The modules are 17” square trays composed of natural latex and coconut coir. Coconut coir is a fibrous, rapidly renewable product derived from coconut husks.  Unlike traditional modular systems, the coconut fiber decomposes over time, and the BioTray module is converted into soil.  This eliminates the use of plastic in growing and installing vegetated roofs, increasing the sustainability of the roof.

Among the benefits that BioTray systems offer vegetated roofing system customers are:   

• Pre-establishing plants in an offsite nursery, allowing installation of vegetated roofs that are 100% grown out from day one, without the risk of shocking the plants during installation
• A potentially broader plant palette.  The modules can hold 3”-6” of growing media (soil), and they can be placed on top of varying depths of a growing medium to support intensive vegetated roof designs.  As they decompose, they add to the soil’s depth, so the roof can support a wider array of plants, specifically those with deeper root systems
• Increasing the flexibility of roof design because of the broader palette
• The ability to be installed on sloped applications, in addition to standard flat roof installations, making it an excellent option for unusual roof designs

Vegetated roofs throughout the country use the BioTray system. Among Tremco Roofing’s installations are the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, the Haines Recreation Center in Laredo, Texas, and the Greensburg, Kansas City Hall, where the company donated the roof as part of the effort to help the town rebuild as a model of sustainability after being devastated by a tornado.  

On our building, the vegetated roof is a huge part of our strategy to capture and reuse rainwater.  Rainwater will filter through the roof to pipes that will carry it to cisterns, where it will be stored and used for irrigation on the property.

A large part of the success of a project as complex as our renovation rides on the performance of our quality partners.  

One of those is Wyco, LLC, which is managing all of our recycling with a goal of sending nothing to a landfill.  So far, Wyco has recycled materials taken from our window replacement and the tear-offs of two roofs.

To learn more about Wyco, LLC’s efforts on our behalf, click here.

So far the Tremco renovation is moving along according to schedule.  Mother Nature for the most part has been cooperative and allowed us to stay on plan. 

The second floor work is almost complete.  Much of our efforts are HVAC related; while not something you can readily see, it will make a huge difference in our comfort level and energy consumption. 

Seeing the windows being installed on the second floor; however, is visible progress and provides a glimpse of what the building will look like when complete.  We’re all anxiously awaiting the Dryvit facade to be applied so we can see our building with its finished appearance.

In addition, we’re just about ready to move the 3^rd floor employees down to the second floor so that work can begin on the 3^rd floor.  Our WTI employees (2^nd floor) will remain down the street in a leased facility until the project is complete. 

Throughout this project, we’ve been vigilant in our recycling/reusing efforts. The slate that came off the penthouse will be used in walkways on the vegetative roof, and the gravel that came off the roof will be used to support new sidewalks coming later in the project.  We’ve also donated curtains and window blinds to Habitat for Humanity. 

This echoes our effort to become zero landfill here on the Green Road campus by the end of the project.  We have a team of dedicated employees working to determine the best solutions for our site to accomplish this.