Net Zero Building
When I returned to Oregon after grad school, I was full of energy and optimism but not a job. In order to keep busy while pursuing passion, I took the LEED AP exam. My dad’s side of the family are architects and builders, and I’d grown up around house plans and job sites. I dreamed of helping the ‘built environment’ become greener and even almost landed a job at the very cool Brightworks. I have never been able to put the LEED information to test, but the concepts have been bouncing around in my head for 10 years.
For the first eight years of Dirt Hugger, we worked out of office trailers. We remodeled them with 100% daylighting, reclaimed and reused everything, and low VOC paints. They were as glorious as job shacks at a dirt factory could be. In 2018 we bit the bullet to build an actual building. Tyler was convinced there was ZERO return on investment, but our frozen popsicle mechanics and office party phone sales people begged there might be a benefit to having a shop and offices.
We did not go the LEED route when building our building, but the principles held. We have daylighting, indoor air quality, local materials, and more. We have a huge leg up with our compost heating/cooling system, which negated the number one energy consumer of commercial buildings - 35% on average (US Dept of Energy). Daylighting chips into the next largest energy consumer (11%). And at the end of 2020, our building hit its biggest accomplishment yet, net zero energy.
When we built the building, we designed the roof orientation and slope with solar in mind. With federal tax credits reducing, we scrambled with Common Energy to install a 25Kw solar array on our roof. This array is projected to accommodate all of our buildings' needs plus some extra for the rest of our facility (roughly 72% of our site total single phase energy consumption will be covered.) Big thanks to Sorensen Construction, Underwood Electric and Klickitat PUD for helping us make it happen!
We are thrilled to make this final installment towards net zero. Now if we can only do the same for our business as a whole - as composters, we provide a carbon sink but we still use a lot of energy to get there (mostly diesel)...
