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BY Erika Alexia Tsoukanelis
Nov/Dec 2008
There is never a shortage of good green intentions, especially in our liberal Hudson Valley. Often, however, there is a shortage of funds to back these intentions. Or so we may think. It runs through the minds of many when they hear talk of solar panels, geothermal heating and cooling, net-zero efficiency: How I would love to, but I just can’t afford it. Sean Ritchey and Jim Decker of Deep Green Building in Kingston understand this common concern. That’s why they do all they can to make their services available to the ordinary property owner.
“Green is associated with million-dollar homes,” says Ritchey. “That is a 1 percent market. What we really need to figure out is how to build green houses that consume no energy for the rest of us. We’re really focusing on pushing the net-zero-energy-consuming house down to the middle class.”
Before co-founding Deep Green, Ritchey worked at the environmental non-profit organization Hudson Valley Sloop Clearwater in Poughkeepsie as the director of the internship program, teaching college students from five campuses to perform energy audits and make efficiency recommendations for buildings and grounds at their schools. He met Decker in Woodstock, where they were both basking in that town’s exciting 2007 zero-carbon legislation.
Decker had recently moved to the Hudson Valley from Oakland, Calif., where he’d had a 30-year career as a project management consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. When he left the consulting world in 2000, he applied two of his skills—creative problem-solving and client focus—to building a successful business as a residential contractor.
Recognizing the need for an environmentally conscious building company in this area, the men combined their interests and expertise to open the doors of Deep Green in March of 2007. They offered the community high-quality renovation and new construction, with the goal of delivering beautiful, nontoxic homes that leave the faintest of carbon footprints.
Ritchey and Decker’s first project was the renovation of a single-family colonial in Mystic, Conn. The owner, Molly McKay, was interested in decreasing the amount of her energy usage. She also wanted to make better use of her downstairs, to make it a more livable space. Deep Green began in the attic by replacing fiberglass with blown-in cellulose insulation. A solar-powered attic vent fan was installed. This work was finished in July, and McKay immediately noticed a difference: Her upstairs stayed cooler than ever. And the replacement of traditional double-hung windows with triple-paned casement windows resulted in a significantly lower heating bill the following winter, although the price of fuel had, of course, gone up since the previous year.
Renovation of the lower level was part green, part mainstream. While the wall insulation is all locally produced polyiso rigid foam, and a solar electrical system was mounted on the roof, eco-friendly kitchen cabinetry and countertops proved too expensive for McKay’s budget. Deep Green accommodated this by placing standard Lowe’s ware beside cutting-edge green materials. McKay appreciated their flexibility and has no regrets. And she regards her financial outlay as well worth it.
“You have to be flexible about the payback, look at the long range,” McKay says. “Fossil fuel prices are going to keep rising. The first winter you spend less than the winter before; when prices are going up, you’re already slightly ahead of the game. It’s an investment that makes your house more valuable, and the less wasteful we all are in the long run, the greater the general good.”
Deep Green client Judith Horner agrees. Already passionate about green construction and solar energy before meeting Ritchey and Decker, the pair’s ongoing work on her property—a former factory on the first floor of a 1920s carriage house—has turned her into a major advocate.
Horner first came to the Hudson Valley from the West Coast with AmeriCorps VISTA. But it was while working for Habitat for Humanity in Newburgh that she fell in love with the area and decided to relocate. The carriage house she bought in Kingston needed tender attention. Brick and exposed beams were covered by dry wall underneath plastic. Expansive networks of pigeon nests and countless rodents ran beneath the ceiling material. And it was terribly hard to keep the old factory from freezing.
“The goal was to clear out the old and see what I had, to prepare it to…be a living and working space,” Horner says. “Deep Green has been willing to work with me in stages, and work with my vision as it developed. We worked for a year together and reached the first stage, which was clearing out the unnecessary stuff and putting in the bones for the next part of the project. Although it’s not ready to be lived in yet, we set up the bones of the plumbing. A radiant floor-heating system is there, and for places where we couldn’t build into the floor, we got old radiators and refurbished them.” She hopes to install a solar electrical system and a living roof, eventually. Working in stages with Deep Green has made this—her dream project—well within her fixed means.
“I hear the same story over and over again,” says Ritchey. “People go to a contractor or architect who tells them it’s going to cost $300-a-square-foot to go green. That approach is so fundamentally wrong. Budget is one of the first things we establish in our initial round of conversations about any design project. Efficiency targets, lifestyle targets, and budget targets start every conversation. If a client wants to design a home with net-zero energy bills and not spend a lot to do so, there are going to be times when they make trade-offs.
“We ask questions like, ‘Do you want to build this third bedroom and unnecessarily large living space, or do you want to find good ways to make this place feel more alive and large, and put the money into better energy efficiency?’ Rather than designing a big, expensive building and then asking how to make it green, the greening itself becomes the driver.”
Now that more consumers have access to eco-conscious construction than ever before, the future seems brighter. But there is still progress to be made in ensuring that such services and goods continue to become more affordable. Deep Green Building is on the forefront of such progress, helping to lead the Hudson Valley down an ever-greener path.
