House in East Liberty to teach about safety and savings on energy
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Christov Churchward, a student Conservation Association Fellow working with ACTION-Housing demonstrates different water conservation shower heads in the bathroom of ACTION-Housing's Pittsburgh Green House (PGH) in East Liberty. The house will be used as a training site for homeowners and contractors to learn how to make their homes more energy efficient.
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An affordable mortgage isn't the only thing that makes a home affordable, and ACTION-Housing will use an old East Liberty house to show people what they can do to spend less on a place to live.
A regional provider of weatherization assistance to 33,000 low-income households, ACTION-Housing has bought and stripped down a 110-year-old three-story house to train contractors, home owners and renters of all incomes how to make their homes safer while reducing energy use and waste.
The Pittsburgh Green House, at 308 N. Sheridan Ave., will be open to the public in mid-January, with programs, classes and tours to follow.
Representatives of numerous environmental organizations said they know of no other real-house workshop in the area.
"We have a robust education program," said Lindsay Ruprecht, ACTION-Housing's sustainable community development coordinator. "This house will be an extension of that."
ACTION-Housing bought the house from East Liberty Development Inc. in June for $65,000. The house had accommodated four apartments until spring. The last renovation appears to have been done in the late '70s or early '80s.
During the summer and through the fall, crews gutted the house and did a stripped-down renovation to create kitchen and bathroom classrooms, a resource library and demonstration areas where people can compare storm windows, test appliances, learn how programmable thermostats work and see how reversing the direction of a ceiling fan can help spread warm air in winter.
The house will have a classroom for PowerPoint discussions and online file sharing classes, video instructions and talks on such topics as green cleaning methods and how to find a home's energy leaks. It also will maintain a data base of resources.
"We wanted to give people a deep, hands-on education," Ms. Ruprecht said. The house will remain stripped down so methods can be repeated class after class. "We'll be blowing insulation and taking it back out, and people will be crawling around in the attic doing all the things you do when you're working on an old house," she said.
Linda Metropulos, a sustainability and development consultant to ACTION-Housing, said part of the incentive is to make Pittsburgh's old housing stock as viable as possible because new affordable housing is not keeping pace with demand.
"It's great to have a client that is so aware of the connection between energy efficiency and affordability and so willing to take the message to the general public," she said.
In addition to its educational component, ACTION-Housing owns and provides support services to 1,200 affordable housing units in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.
Ms. Ruprecht said the Pittsburgh Green House also will be used by pre-apprentices of the Minority and Women's Educational Labor Agency to learn skills that can translate into jobs.
"We want to start with the no-cost, low-cost ways to save, and people can work their way toward net zero energy use," she said. "If we can help people reduce energy consumption by 10-20 percent, that's huge."
Mike Gable, executive director at Construction Junction, a nonprofit that sells reusable building materials, said ACTION-Housing has donated materials from its de-construction of the house.
"They asked if we'd be interested in doing a workshop on deconstruction or reuse of materials, and we will be doing something along those lines. There are many simple, low-cost things people can do that a lot of times they think are beyond their skill level."
Aurora Sharrard, director of innovation at the Green Building Alliance, participated in ACTION-Housing's early planning meetings about Pittsburgh Green House.
"We're considering how we can partner with them and use the house to host Green Building Alliance events," she said. "It's a wonderful opportunity to reach out to Pittsburgh residents."
First Published December 12, 2011 12:00 am
