Kane officials tour buildings for green inspiration

Motion sensors track every movement made in the Pingree Grove Police Department. It's not a security feature, but a facet of “green” building technology used to determine if a room needs lights or not. Pingree Grove opened the building in 2008 after deciding to pay more money for a smaller building that hopefully contained enough green efficiencies to save money in the long run.

A team of Kane County elected officials and employees toured a series of green buildings last week to determine the value of implementing similar energy efficiencies in its government buildings. If the cost savings project out, the county will take further steps to write incentives into its building codes, encouraging green construction and, perhaps, punishing less environmentally-friendly construction techniques.

The police station recycles all the mounds of paperwork it produces and kept 86 percent of the waste generated in constructing the building out of landfills. When the boiler failed in January 2009, the temperature in the building only dropped 11 degrees by the next day, saving thousands of dollars if pipes had burst.

Judson University in Elgin didn't build its Harm A. Weber Academic Center so much to save money as much as it did to send a message to students. Curtis Sartor, dean of the School of Art, Design & Architecture, said the Evangelical school has a higher obligation to the environment.

“Being an Evangelical University really fits in with environmental stewardship,” Sartor said. “The building is a reflection of what we believe.”

The structure is so energy-efficient it doesn't burn any fossil fuels for at least two months out of the year. The building has two layers of insulation and a photovoltaic forced air system that heats and cools according to the season through a special duct system and facade. The school is currently compiling data on a computer system that runs the building to determine precise energy costs and savings. Early results show the use of more natural gas than originally thought, but also far less electricity than expected.

Elgin Academy's Harold D. Rider Family Media, Science, and Fine Arts Center automatically received earth-friendly points for converting a brownfield site created by an old gas station into a structure now used by the whole city. The building is 21 percent more energy-efficient than a conventional school building and uses 36 percent less water. More efficiency was created by adding a black box theater and office space in the lower levels to create a multiuse facility.

“It's critical that if you're going to do a sustainability project that your concept is integrated in from the very beginning,” said Bruce Dahlquist of DLA Architects, Ltd., the company that designed the building. “You don't want to just look at cost. You want to look at the payback and life cycle of the building.”

For 1 to 2 percent more in cost, Dahlquist said the result is a building that “will last for generations” with less harm to the environment than most other schools.

The school is similar to the Rakow Branch of the Gail Borden Public Library in that part of the mission of having the green building is to help educate youth about nature. All the wood at the library is either bamboo or comes from local pine trees. A timing system at the library turns on and off all the library's computers at the same time to conserve energy. And even the parking lot at the Bowes Road location caters to nature with low pollution lights, special parking for energy-efficient vehicles and a reflective roof that drips water precisely onto groups of native plantings.

County board members will discuss the insights they gained on the tour at the next meeting of their Energy and Environmental Committee.