Greenbuilding Features

We’ve focused more on meeting the Architecture 2030 goals for reducing energy use. We don’t yet have our final calculation of Energy Use Intensity (EUI), but it looks like we will have an EUI of slightly less than 23.

The Ramona’s carefully engineered envelope and mechanical systems are not only good for the planet, but they also translate into lower monthly utility bills and make a healthier living space for you and your family. We believe you will be proud to live here.

Here are just a few of the “green” features of the Ramona :

1) BUILDING ENVELOPE (the walls, windows, and roof)

The first step in designing an energy-efficient building is to keep the heat inside in the winter and keep the cold air out. This means having good insulation and a good air barrier. Here’s how we do that at the Ramona:

    Walls

    • Air tightness – The exterior walls are wrapped with commercial Tyvek. The Tyvek joints are lapped and sealed with a high-performing tape. The inside of the wall is covered with a membrane that stops air, but can adjust its permeability to let vapor pass through as needed. That membrane is covered with 2 layers of sheetrock with overlapping joints.
    • Insulation – The wall cavities (the spaces between the 2x6 studs) are filled with a blown-in insulation that produces an R-23 rating, about 10-20% more thermal efficiency than conventional batt insulation provides. The blown-in insulation fills the wall cavity completely. Conventional batt insulation is a good product, but the installation can leave gaps and voids that reduce its effectiveness.

    Windows

    • Air tightness – The casement windows have 3 layers of gaskets and have hardware that latches at three points on the window frame. This pulls the window tightly shut to protect against air leakage. The window frames are caulked and sealed in place on the inside and outside, and the edges are wrapped and sealed tightly to the Tyvek wrapping.
    • Insulating value – The Ramona’s casement windows have argon-filled insulating glass and a vinyl frame that doesn’t conduct heat the way the aluminum windows do. These and other measures result in an extremely efficient U-value of 0.26, almost twice as effective as a conventional aluminum window.

    Roof

    • Air tightness – The Ramona’s outside air barrier continues across the roof to prevent air escaping out of the top of the building. The Ramona also has fewer roof penetrations because we used a heat recovery system in place of conventional exhaust fans and because we carefully designed plumbing vents to consolidate them and avoid punching unnecessary holes in the building envelope.
    • Insulation – The Ramona uses rigid insulation installed on top of the roof trusses instead of the more common method of laying batt insulation in the bottom of the trusses. This produces a high R-value evenly across the roof and avoids the cold spots and gaps that result when batts are fitted between trusses. This also eliminates the need to bring outside air into the attic for ventilation and keeps the building warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.
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2) USING LESS ENERGY

    Inside your apartment

    • The tight building envelope, the good insulation, and the high-performance windows will help keep your heat from escaping through the outside walls and will keep drafts from sneaking in.
    • Zonal heating systems allow you to have heat where you need it and to avoid heating rooms you’re not using.
    • Electronic thermostats are more energy-efficient than a conventional thermostat and the digital display allows you to set the heat precisely where you want it.
    • The refrigerators and dishwashers are Energy-Star rated so they use much less energy than conventional kitchen appliances.
    • The light fixtures are all fluorescent with built-in ballasts (even more energy-efficient than screw-in compact fluorescent lamps.)

    In the Rest of the Building

    • The Ramona has high-efficiency traction elevators – they use about 2/3 less electricity than a conventional hydraulic elevator uses.
    • All of the lights in the halls, offices, garage, and other common areas use very high-efficiency fluorescent lamps and ballasts. (Many lights are controlled by occupancy or daylight sensors so that they turn on automatically when needed and turn off when they aren’t needed.)
    • The Ramona has very high efficiency central boilers for heating your hot water. These gas-fired boilers use much less energy to produce hot water than the individual electric hot waters heaters that are often found in apartments.
    • The Ramona uses high-efficiency air-to-air heat pumps for heating and cooling the common areas of the buildings and for supplying the make-up air into the apartments. (The cooling equipment includes “economizers” that can switch to using outside air for cooling when the outside temperatures are lower than the indoor temperature settings.)
    • The Ramona has a heat recovery system to minimize wasted heat. Many new multi-family buildings use bathroom exhaust fans that run continuously and blow the heated exhaust air directly to the outside. At the Ramona, the heated exhaust air is collected into a heat-recovery wheel that extracts the heat and uses it to pre-heat the incoming air. This reduces the amount of energy needed to heat the hallways.
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3) VENTILATION SYSTEMS – Out Goes the Bad Air, In Comes the Good Air

When we pay so much attention to stopping unwanted air coming through your walls and windows, we also need make sure that “good air” can get inside your apartment. We do that by using healthy materials and having a pretty sophisticated ventilation system.

Healthy Materials

  • Low VOC materials and sealants – Many building products have materials that break down over time and emit “volatile organic compounds” (VOCs) that can be unhealthy. We have specified zero-VOC or low-VOC materials, paints, adhesives, carpet, pads, etc. and have used formaldehyde-free panels in the cabinets.

Exhaust Fans

  • Bathrooms – Exhaust fans are running quietly in every bathroom all the time. This gets out the moisture that can cause mold. (These are nice, and they’re not unusual in newer apartments.)
  • Kitchens – We have run the exhaust system into the kitchen. This is pretty unusual in an apartment building. This helps remove the smells and moisture from your cooking. These also run continuously.

Air supply – The engineers call this “make-up air”. When exhaust fans take air out of your apartment, you need to bring in more air to replace it.

  • In many apartment buildings, engineers count on most or all of that “make-up air” being pulled through the outside walls and windows. Bad news for the tenant. That means cold winter air comes in to replace the air that you paid to heat.
  • Some buildings supply the “make-up air” into the hallway and leave a gap under the apartment doors for it to pass through. This is a better system, but it can be hard to control how much air gets into each apartment and it doesn’t help circulate the air within the apartment.
  • At the Ramona, we have done something different. We have run ductwork into each apartment to supply the make-up air. This provides a much more effective way to be sure each apartment is getting the right amount of air and helps to circulate it within the apartment. We pay to heat that air in the winter (and cool it in the summer) so that it doesn’t cost you anything to have good quality make-up air.
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4) RENEWABLE SOURCES OF ENERGY – Reducing the Use of Fossil Fuels

After we do everything we can to reduce the demand for energy, then we focus on seeing how much of it we can produce on site from renewable sources.

  • Photovoltaic Solar Panels – The south section of the Ramona’s roof is lined with panels, which are projected to produce almost 30 kWh of electricity.
  • Solar Hot Water – The north section of roof holds the building’s solar hot water panels. The array of solar panels will generate up to 49 percent of the building’s hot water.
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5) USING LESS WATER

Water is a scarce natural resource (though it sometimes doesn’t seem that way in Portland). At the Ramona, we’re doing what we can to help you reduce water use.

  • Plumbing fixtures – Toilets use 1.28 gallons per flush, some of the most efficient toilets available. Showerheads use 1.5 gallons per minutes, more efficient than required by code. Low-flow aerators at the kitchen and bathroom sinks help reduce water use.
  • Water submeters – At the Ramona, tenants pay their own water and sewer bills. (This helps keep rents lower.) This means you get rewarded for using less water and you don’t get penalized with higher rents when your neighbors take hour-long showers. (Some studies have found that buildings with submeters use 15-25% less water than comparable buildings without submeters.)
  • Irrigation – We have tried to landscape with plants that need less irrigation. We have installed efficient drip irrigation where possible. We are using rain sensors so that the irrigation won’t run when it isn’t needed.
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6) KEEPING THE RIVER CLEAN

  • Eco Roof – The Ramona’s roof is covered with 3.5″ of lightweight soil and planted with native vegetation. This helps to absorb rainwater and filters the water that does go to the city’s storm sewers.
  • Courtyard – The courtyard has landscaping, planters, and filtration systems that will also reduce or slow the run-off into the storm sewers and will filter what does get through.
  • Infiltration swale – Along Quimby Street, we constructed a large planting area that will absorb and filter the runoff from ½ of the street along that block. We have worked with the city to use soils, plants, and filters to do this as effectively as possible.
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