Getting it green

By Nicole DeCosta

The Lake Oswego Review, May 14, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Charlie Weiss and Katharine Lawrence’s two Leapfrog Houses, as they are called, surpass other environmentally-consciously built homes by leaps and bounds.

And that was the point.

Located next to Riverdale High School — the one for sale is at 541 S.W. Maplecrest Court — the sustainably-built homes fulfill a large number of the criteria established by the United States of Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System for homes.

In other words, the homes are green — really green — and recently gained the much-coveted LEED Platinum status.

And Weiss and Lawrence live in the LEED Platinum home next door with a similar floorplan and the same sustainable features. Newly completed, plans for the homes began a decade ago and Green Hammer Building Contractors broke ground on the property a year ago.

So, why build the homes?

“To make a point,” Weiss said. “You can build a very livable house, that is kind of cool and that is very, very green.”

The 2,600-square-foot Leapfrog House for sale — and their own home, which they refer to by the same name — is unusual in its performance and material choices. So, the couple built the exteriors — with fiber cement siding, recyclable corrugated steel and a Galvalume roof — to not look or operate like “normal houses.”

“I wanted them to be visibly different,” Weiss said of the modern architecture of his homes within the established Portland neighborhood.

And they thought of everything to maintain a healthy environment, inside and outside the home: sustainable site development, water and energy savings, materials and resources selection.

Metal “walk-off grates,” as Weiss calls them, serve as front door mats.

“The stuff that comes off your shoes is the single largest contributor to indoor air quality problems,” he said of the home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and 600-square-feet above the garage that can be “built-to-suit.” Energy-efficient appliances and light fixtures are used throughout.

The doorbell doesn’t use electricity. Once inside, the sleek and open floorplan proves that green building can be stylish and functional.

The foundation is insulated with perlite from eastern Oregon — “the little white bits that you see in potting soil used to retain moisture,” Weiss said of the volcanic rock. The concrete floor on the main level is warmed using a hydronic radiant floor heating system with a ground-source heat pump.

“The concrete itself is made up of 35-to 45-percent fly-ash, a waste product from coal burning power plants,” Weiss said. No carpet was used within the home because of its difficulty to clean and chemical emmissions from installation.

An efficient, clean-burning wood stove provides extra warmth and operates like a catalytic converter, which is used to reduce the toxicity of emissions from an internal combustion engine.

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