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Letter to the editor

This home is so green, it's gold

Building with Earth-friendly materials and reusing water earns elite certification.

By Judy Stark, Times Homes and Garden Editor
Published February 9, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [James Borchuck | Times] A spiral staircase leads to a loft. The ceiling is inexpensive birch plywood; the floors are bamboo.

ST. PETERSBURG - The "green" home that has been under construction since May on a quiet street in northeast St. Petersburg opens its doors to the public today and Sunday.

Visitors will see the only home in Florida that has been certified "gold" by the U.S. Green Building Coalition under its LEED program - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - and one of only 19 gold-certified homes in the nation. Details on the LEED program, Page 5F.

"I haven't stood back to look at it for a while, but it looks good," owner Darren Brinkley, 37, said a few days ago as he stepped into the street to get a long look at the home. His parents, Jan and Tony, regular winter visitors from England, were putting on the finishing touches, polishing and painting for the weekend open house.

It was last May that Brinkley began deconstructing a rundown 744-square-foot home on the site, removing and recycling doors and windows, leaving only the original walls to become what is now an oversize two-car garage (with its original terrazzo floor). The new home - four bedrooms and three baths in 2,000 air-conditioned square feet - rests on pilings above the original building. He and a few friends and his father "did 95 percent of the work ourselves."

Brinkley plans to use the contemporary-style home as a model to show prospective clients that a green home "isn't a mud hut with a chimney in the middle."

Among the home's green features:

- Bamboo flooring

- Recycled-glass countertops in the kitchen

- Low- or no-VOC paints, stains and finishes

- Dual-flush toilets

- Walls and roof constructed from structural insulated panels, sandwiches of foam sided with wood

- A geothermal heating and air-conditioning system

- A graywater reuse system that recycles water from the bathroom sinks and showers and the washing machine to flush toilets

- A 1,000-gallon rainwater cistern

- Florida-friendly landscaping

- A backyard pond to attract birds and wildlife, fed by runoff from the dehumidifier

- Energy Star appliances

The home is certified by the federal Energy Star program to be at least 15 percent more efficient than codes require. By Energy Star's estimate, his electric bill will be $100 a month. Brinkley thinks it will be even lower, around $70 a month. He used no solar energy: "The house is designed and built so efficiently, it's not cost-effective," he said of solar. "The key to a truly green home is to start at the design and planning stage."

That's what he intends to do through his business, REAL Building, a green consulting firm. The name stands for "responsible, efficient, attainable living."

Brinkley said a Realtor recently valued the home at $549,000. The county has not yet appraised it for tax purposes. "Building green costs no more than conventional building," he said. He said most prospective clients "do know how much they have to spend" and are willing to make tradeoffs to achieve their priorities within their budget.

What's gratifying, he said, is the support he received from city officials and inspectors and from "green" suppliers, and the increasing awareness of green building as mainstream.

Now, two years after he first sketched out the house while on vacation in the French Alps, "everyone knows what green building is."

Judy Stark can be reached at jstark@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8446.

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Visiting the house

Darren Brinkley's "green" home is open for public tours from noon to 6 p.m. today and Sunday.

The house is at 216 84th Ave. NE in the Riviera Bay neighborhood of St. Petersburg. From Fourth Street N, turn east on 83rd Avenue N. Cross the canal and turn left on Orient Way NE, then immediately left on 84th Avenue NE. The house is ahead on the left.

Information: (727) 388-9777 or www.realbuilding.com.

What does LEED mean?

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, operation and construction of high-performance green buildings.

There are four certification levels - certified, silver, gold and platinum - depending on the number of credits accrued in five green design categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources and indoor environmental quality.

The program is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council. Information: www.usgbc.gov, or the National Resource Defense Council site at www.nrdc.org.

For information about the Energy Star program, administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, go to www.energystar.gov.

[Last modified February 8, 2008, 11:38:30]