Buildings are one of the largest and fastest growing sources of climate pollution. In Seattle, they’re responsible for more than a third of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions.
What to do? Well, on Thursday, local leaders celebrated the groundbreaking of a new building that demonstrates some answers.
A net-zero-energy high-rise apartment building.
Arlan Collins, the CEO of Sustainable Living Innovations, which is heading up the project, says they’ve rethought all engineering concepts. One example: recycling all the energy they can on site.
“So we have a gray water system and we pick up the shower water and the washing machine water and the bathroom water, and it comes down through the pipes into the basement,” Collins explains. “And the first thing we do with that water is pull the heat out of it with the heat exchanger and put it back in the hot water tank. So the heat now that we made with prior energy, it never left the building.”
According to a news release, the high-rise will be constructed using proprietary, tech-enabled building panels made in Washington, which are pre-manufactured with electrical wiring, plumbing and mechanical equipment pre-installed.
The 15-story building at 303 Battery St. in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood will have 112 units, with 27 of those units designated as affordable housing.
