Green building trends on the rise in the Kootenays

Green building is thriving in the Nelson area

This green building project is sutuated in Art Gibbon Park in Nelson. — Photo courtesy Paula Kiss

Whether the goal is to save money, the environment or protect the health of building occupants, green building has been on the rise in recent years and the Kootenays are no exception.

Nelson has long seen as an epicentre of green culture in the Kootenays,  and green building is definitely thriving in this West Kootenay city. One of the best resources for anyone interested in learning more and sourcing materials is The Building Tree, a local business owned by Paula Kiss that helps facilitate green building in the community.

All this makes Kiss, also a Nelson city councillor, a great person to talk with about green building trends in the region.

Kiss said the most popular form of green building in the area is simply making more energy-efficient structures – in an effort to save money in the face of rising energy costs or just to make buildings more comfortable and to reduce our carbon footprint.

“Even though we haven’t really seen energy prices go up, it’s sound logic to expect it to happen,” Kiss said. “So a large focus is on energy efficiency with things like better insulation – even the building code has changed around that. Also more efficient appliances, heating systems and water fixtures; there’s a general focus on energy efficiency in every regard.”

She adds that LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification standards that many new building projects in the area aspire to have changed manufacturing standards towards more sustainable products as well.

“The manufacturing industry has changed with more sensitivity towards natural resources,” Kiss said. “They waste less or use materials that are more renewable or less toxic.

“Nothing has done more (than LEED) to change the overall industry. The rating system sets standards that manufacturers have to adhere to for their products to qualify for use in the larger commercial projects. That has had an effect across North America.”

Young people in the area who are concerned about their health and the health of their families are driving another major consideration in local green building, Kiss said.

“People are definitely more sensitive about their own personal health, which is one of the defining elements of green building,” she says. “If your building doesn’t create a healthy, happy environment for people to exist in, it’s detrimental to humanity and the rest of our ecology . . . It seems that this suddenly becomes a priority when people have kids. There’s suddenly a really important reason to think about what your building is doing to your environment around you.”

Kiss added that the Nelson area has many early adopters of leading-edge green building techniques that take a 360-degree approach to the practice.

“These people are thinking about everything,” she said. “Is the building going to last for 100 years? Does it have ventilation and lighting systems that are passive? Are they using materials that are biodegradable, reusable or, most importantly local?”

Many of these green building techniques are finding their way into the mainstream in the area, including in the renovation of the former CP Rail station that will soon house the Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce.

Kiss said the builder working on that project proposed a solution to the poor insulation in the building that involved installing a second envelope wall inside the walls made of clay bricks that will make it not only super insulated but also passively heat and cool it in winter and summer, respectively.

“It’s an entire second wall structure made of clay bricks that allows you to super insulate and introduces a thermal mass,” Kiss said. “So it behaves more like a cave. It never gets any drafts; when it’s hot outside it stays cool, and when it’s cool outside it stays warm.”