Courtyard cottages

Springtime is around the corner and its a great time to come out and see what's new at Pringle Creek Community. Designer and builder Spectra Construction has two cottage homes that are close to completion. These unique single-level homes are two bedroom/two bath, LEED gold certified, and are each available for under $200,000. This includes landscaping and access to the geo-thermal heating and cooling system. The courtyard cottages share a common backyard green space. They are at different stages of construction but in both cases a buyer is able to choose finish details such as cabinet design, paint colors, countertops and bath fixtures.

Call (503.315.1055) or email (sarah@pringlecreek.com) Sarah de Haan for a personal tour of these homes and the community.

Photo log

Sanyo solar photovoltaic panels on Painter's Hall

Recycled decking and trellis on Painter's Hall

Painter's Hall in the sun

Paco on the greenroof

Oak log

Marge walking Sampson

Lumber milled onsite . . .

. . . becomes coffee table

Pringle Creek's geothermal heating and cooling system

At Pringle Creek Community we've been busy with several projects--cottage homes, Painter's Hall, greenhouses, geo-thermal system, two new custom homes, and organizing our community gardens, as well as other endeavors. So much going on that we've neglected to keep up to date about it here on the "community news" page. We'll get caught up right now and over the next few weeks.

Regarding Pringle Creek Community's geo-thermal heating and cooling system, here, from the case study by Opsis Architecture, is a brief explanation:

A well designed for domestic water use and irrigation, located at the Pringle Creek site, has been utilized for a GPHS (ground source heat pump system) water distribution system. The well has a 280 gallon per minute capacity for delivering water at a 59 degree temperature. The GPHS district loop will extract the ambient earth temperature water from the production well pump and deliver the water to each lot via a supply piping system within the street right of way. At each lot, the water will be borrowed and circulated through a heat pump where the heat will be either extracted from the water in the heating mode, or rejected to the water in the cooling mode. After passing through the lot, the heat pump returns the water through a return piping system, where it either becomes available for irrigation use or it is returned to the aquifer via injection wells. Untilized by half the lots at Pringle Creek, the GPHS system is approximately 300% more efficient at delivering heat that a gas furnace.

Construction Continues at Pringle Creek Community

The new three-story custom home of Ms. Kristen Duss is set adjacent to green space and enjoys a view of the Village Green. It is the second home design based on the "Tall House" concept, with a garage tucked, and primary living spaces on the second and third levels. For information about the tall house built for the Wilsons check out the Portland Spaces article and this drawing from our website.

Kristen's tall house is framed up.

The view out the side window down Cousteau Loop.

The view from the top floor.

Moving, slowly, away from cars

A thoughtful New York Times article, Is Happiness Still That New Car Smell?, looks into changing attitudes about cars. Many people are deciding they can live without one, whether because of environmental or financial concerns. The article misses a pertinent point: If you use your car a lot, perhaps a couple trips a day, each trip is not terribly expensive. But if you use your car only twice a week, each trip becomes very expensive. This is because the cost of insurance is the same in both cases, and because of depreciation. The value of your car goes down each year even if you don't use it very much. So a logical answer for many people is car-sharing, which is available in Portland with Zipcar or with U Car Share. A brief web search failed to locate any car sharing in Salem.

Here are some sections of the article:

Whether because of cost, convenience or environmental awareness, a small but growing number of people are making individual decisions to get rid of their automobiles and rely on public transportation, car-sharing programs and rental cars.

“There’s a cultural change taking place,” said John Casesa, a veteran auto industry analyst and partner in the Casesa Shapiro Group. “It’s partly because of the severe economic contraction. But younger consumers are viewing an automobile with a jaundiced eye. They don’t view the car the way their parents did, and they don’t have the money that their parents did.”

. . .

“People are questioning car purchases more than we’ve ever seen in recent history,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends and insights for TrueCar, a company that tracks car-buying habits.

Young, cash-strapped consumers are delaying their first purchases longer, he said, robbing automakers of the chance to attract them early and keep their business as they move up in life.
Across the country, empty nesters are moving back into cities and shedding their cars. Toyota has identified 60 locales where it has seen this occur, according to James E. Lentz, the president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., and it has begun thinking about whether it needs to open satellite offices to serve customers who’ve moved away from suburban dealerships.

Are you ready to give up your car for a Honda U3-X? It is referenced in the above NYT article.

Photo log: Painter's Hall

The door pull on the front door is old steam pipe from the conservatory.

The trellis is also made of old steam pipe reclaimed from the conservatory.

The steps up to Painter's Hall are made from broken up slabs from deconstructed buildings
and from trees milled onsite.

This photo shows the trellis and one of the two Painter's Hall entryway double doors.

Painter's Hall going for LEED platinum:
we're almost there.

Below is a photo of the solar panels on the Painter's Hall. The photo and caption are from an article in the Sunday Oregonian about the new Sanyo solar panel manufacturing facility in Salem that just opened.

Sanyo solar panels are among the most efficient at capturing sunlight for electricity. The company utilizes a hybrid of two solar technologies to produce panels that can be used in extreme heat, cloudy weather and capture sunlight from both the top and the bottom . . .

santiago

Painter's Hall going for LEED platinum

The Statesman Journal had a fine article the other day (and then reprinted in a special "South Salem" section) about Pringle Creek's remodeled Painter's Hall: Salem site closes in on platinum designation.

Its walls are so thick, its ceiling so insulated and its heating so efficient that nary a wisp of energy will leave the building.

The so-called Painter's Hall is so "green" that it is on track to get the highest green-building rating by the U.S. Green Building Council: platinum.

It will be the first platinum commercial building in Salem, one of 11 in Oregon and one of 52 along the West Coast.

Click here to see a Statesman Journal photo gallery of green buildings in the Salem area. Pringle Creek Community is featured in photo #14 (Wilsons' house), #22 through #28 (Painter's Hall), and #39 and #40 (the new houses).

Recent events at Pringle Creek were great success

Thanks everyone who helped with last week’s events! Eric Corey Freed’s presentation was both entertaining (he has a hilarious and sarcastic sense of humor) and chilling (we were floored by the scientific evidence of human impact on the world). Thanks to the Salem Chapter of the AIA!

The workshop put on by the Natural Step was in-depth and very sophisticated. There were 35 professionals, ranging from the Executive Director of the Salem Art Association to the Green Building Coordinator for the Oregon Homebuilder's Association, all interested in incorporating principles of the Natural Step framework for sustainability into their business and personal lives.

The Oregon Environmental Council workshop on low-impact development had 40 attendees, mainly public works officials, city planners and local developers and contractors. Incredibly informative and engaging. Afterwards we had a tour of Pringle Creek, which was great. After spending hours talking about concepts, it’s great to step outside and experience the concepts in practice.

For last Saturday’s Salem Green + Solar Home Tour, we had 130 people, which was a pretty solid turnout. It was inspiring to see the things homeowners in Salem are doing, from ultra-airtight low energy construction to solar hot water systems to interiors finished with materials either FSC-certified, reclaimed, or made from recycled content. These homeowners are the pioneering leaders and visionaries of today, they are way ahead of the curve, and are inspiring others to do the same. Great event, all education-based, it’s our pleasure to host it each year. People really get a lot out of it. Thanks everyone!

santiago

The above-referenced events were held in the recently retrofitted Painter's Hall. Attendees were very impressed. Anyone interested in holding an event here should give a call to Sarah at the Pringle Creek office, 503-371-3790.

Below are some very recent photos showing some of the new construction.

Keeping Salem/Keizer Cool & Climate-Friendly: Creating Livable Communities Through Blueprint Planning

Event annnouncement: Join 1000 Friends of Oregon and Oregon Environmental Council’s Chris Hagerbaumer to find out about ways we can make Salem-Keizer a more sustainable, climate-friendly community.

To help Oregon meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets and create more livable communities, the newly created Task Force on Greenhouse Gas Emissions is considering strategies to reduce global warming pollution through smarter land use and transportation planning.

Come join the conversation about practical, common sense strategies to provide Oregon's fastest-growing communities with better transportation choices, lower household transportation costs and ways to make your neighborhood vibrant and healthy for our families and future generations. Event will also feature an introduction by Senate President Peter Courtney.

Join us to find out what you can do to help keep Salem/Keizer a cool place to live!

When: Wednesday, October 28, 6pm - 7:30pm

Where: Salem Central Library’s Anderson Room, 585 Liberty St SE, Salem

RSVP: Call or email Tara Sulzen, Field Organizer with 1000 Friends at tara@friends.org or call 503 497 1000 ext. 153.

Statesman Journal article on Green and Solar Tour

The article below was in the Statesman Journal on September 30 in anticipation of the Green and Solar Tour that took place last weekend.

Salem tour puts spotlight on eight sustainable homes

Event promotes solar energy and green living

By Stefanie Knowlton

Eight of Salem's most environmentally friendly homes will be open to the public Saturday for the Salem Green + Solar Home Tour.

The tour, now in its third year, shows off Salem's quiet green-building revolution, which includes everything from a 1946 farmhouse with solar panels to a home under construction that's set to be one of the most energy efficient in the country.

Sustainable homes make sense, especially in a struggling economy, said James Santana with Pringle Creek Community, which helped organize the tour.

"The basic tenants of sustainability, resource conservation, smart design, massive reductions in energy use, buying local products, could not be any more relevant than here and now."

The tour is one of 14 throughout the state this fall designed to promote solar energy and green living. They're a part of the National Solar Tour day Saturday. The nonprofit Solar Oregon touts Oregon's tours as the biggest events of their kind in the nation.

Salem resident Sally White is one of the stops on Salem's tour. White installed solar panels on her 900-square-foot farmhouse. She and her husband paid about $28,000 for the panels and a solar hot water heater, but they got nearly half that back in tax incentives this year and the rest will take care of itself in energy savings, Sally White said.

Their electric bills average about $5 in the summer and peak at $23 in January.

Other stops on the tour include Salem's first green roof, which uses living plants to clean runoff and cool the building, and one of the West Coast's first Passive House homes, which uses building techniques to create a nearly air-tight envelope for minimum heat loss. The result is so efficient that residents' body heat contribute a sizeable amount of the home's warmth.

Owners Sarah Evans and Stuart Rue are eager to share their home even if it's still six months away from completion.

Visitors will be able to see the bones of the house, Santana said, which is one of the most important aspects. That's where you can see the double frame that's key to its energy efficiency.

"It gives us the chance to understand how it works and gain an appreciation for why its design is so much smarter," Santana said.

sknowlto@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6735

Sally White's house on Wallace Road NW is one of eight featured in the third annual Salem Green + Solar Home Tour. Her rainwater-collecting tank gathered 400 gallons during Tuesday's rains alone.