It’s that time of year again, when thousands of people from all over, flock to St. Paul to the Minnesota State Fair. Somehow over the past several years between the funnel cakes, concerts, rides and events 350,000 people have taken the time to tour the Eco Experience in the Progress Center Building, making it the single largest event of its kind in the country. The Eco Experience is a collection of resources, experts and exhibitors showcasing a variety of cutting edge green technologies surrounding it’s key attraction the Eco House. The Eco House itself is a collection of green technology alternatives as they may appear in a real world application.

This year I had the honor of receiving a tour of the Eco Experience’s featured Eco House, just days before it’s opening to the public. The 2008 Eco House was designed by Minnesota based Architectural firm Sala Architects and is based on a 2000 sq. ft. modern style home, that SALA designed for a client who became more interested in green building during last years Eco Experience.

The Eco House (at roughly 980 sq ft) is a little more like a cross section or sampling of a home, then it is a complete home, but none the less extraordinary. Constructed in just three weeks, by Showcase Renovations Inc. and Panel Works Plus, the Eco house is designed to give visitors to the Eco Experience examples real life applications of ways that green building can be implemented in both new construction, renovation or remodeling. This years building features structurally Insulated Panels (SIPs) to make up it’s core structure. It’s exterior is a combination of green friendly material including cementboard siding, Richlite, and glass. The structure is designed to be passive solar with the majority of it’s triple paned Marvin Windows facing the southern exposure. As well as active solar, through the use of solar thermal hot water heating, solar photovoltaic, and solar hot air systems provided by Twin Cities based Powerfully Green. Even the landscaping is designed to showcase green construction at its best. A permeable paver patio system, along with front steps made of Vast recycled rubber paver blocks, a rainwater capture system, rain gardens and a green planted roof. The interior, not to be outdone, includes Richlite, linoleum and Vetrazzo (crubside recycled glass) countertops, reconstituted veneer cabinets, bamboo and linoleum flooring and recycled glass tiles, all provide by Natural Built Home of the Twin Cities.

Although the home is filled with a collection of green friendly products, my tour guide for the day, Architect Marc Sloot (of Sala Architects), pointed out that green goes beyond substrates and surface materials, and directly to design itself. From site placement to key features, like a high usable ratio of square footage to wall and roof surface area, contributing to better energy efficiency. Additionally, Sloot observed that although any home style can utilize green building techniques, modern design often lends itself to the use of simple, readily available materials, resulting in reduced material use and waste. Sloot also noted that by making sure that the home is not only functional but beautiful, you will most likely better meet the needs of the home owners and give the home a longer lifecycle — definitely green.

So my big question of the day, and one I’m sure several readers are asking —so how is a temporary home green? Well even that question was something the people at the Eco Experience were ready for. Sala Architects paid careful attention to make sure that all the windows used in the Eco House could be re-purposed in the original projects layout. As well, all the SIPs panels, flooring, cabinets, lights and just about everything else outside of sheetrock and some cut pieces of flooring will be accounted for at the completion of the project. But maybe more importantly, the impact that this short lived project and it’s materials may have on the way people look at building in the future, makes it all a little more green.

A rendering of the Eco House at the Minnesota State Fair, Eco Experience.

The Exterior of the home on Minnehaha Creek that served as inspiration for this years Eco House.

The Exterior of this Years Eco House at the Minnesota State Fair Eco Experience features a modern design and green materials.

Triple paned Marvin windows and metal awnings help to harness and shiled the sun for a passive solar effect.

This Solar hot air panel is one of several active solar devices this years home will feature.

The kitchen will feature high efficiency appliances along with alternative cabinet materials such as reconstituted veneers, linoleum countertops and recycled glass tiles.

The fireplace was wrapped in thin steel sheeting (an inherently recycled material)
to give it a really cool visual effect.

When the project is completed on Wednesday and ready for fairgoers this wall section will be filled with a variety of green friendly alternative insulation —here you can see one example, denim insulation.

The table as we saw it the day of the Eastvold furniture show.

The table with the final finish on it, and in our dining room, here you can see the one single leg on the south end of the table.

The south end of the table features one leg located at the center while this angle shows the north end of the table with two “L” shaped legs, each formed out of one one long Douglas Fir Timber.

A few weeks back I wrote about, and then attended a furniture show by our cabinet makers Eastvold Custom. The work at the show was stunning. An incredible collection of mostly modern, incredibly crafted furniture pieces, on display as art. In the mix of items was a dining table, that almost appeared to be the perfect match for our breakfast bar. The 8 ft long , 32″ wide, reclaimed Douglas Fir, timber table was an eye catcher to say the least. Not only was the wood stunning but it featured a wonderfully unique design —3 interchanging L shaped forms, that created the legs and top of the table. The wood was highly refined but had yet to see any final protective finish coating. Stacy and I asked about the table and were told that it was sold to a woman in NYC.

I had taken a few shots of various pieces of furniture during the show that I shared with a couple of my co-workers, so I had referenced back to the table several times over the next few days to admire it. About a week after the Show I got a call from Matt Eastvold, telling me that they had just a few remaining pieces from their show/sale, and among these piece was the table. Apparently, the cost of moving a very large table across the country, and into a NYC apartment was significantly more expensive than the original purchaser had imagined, and had decided to pass on it. This meant that it was back on the table, to be purchased. Having expressed some interest in it the day of the show we were the first to be made aware of it. After taking a couple of measurements of our dining room space, to ensure that the table would fit (both physically and visually), we decided to purchase it. I called Matt the next day and we made arrangements to have it finished to match our breakfast bar and delivered in 3 weeks.

On Friday the table arrived, in 3 large sections and was set in place in our dining room. Both Ben (from Eastvold) and Stacy had the same reaction upon seeing it go into the space “it looks like it was made for the space”, when I saw it, I had to agree. I contacted Matt Friday evening and asked him to dig up the information for me on the origin of the wood. I love know where the wood came from (maybe an old school or an aircraft hanger) and then trying to find old photos and information about the building online — I guess that makes me a bit of a history nerd, but a history nerd with a really cool table.

Our Plants arrive.

The Swedish Columnar Aspen goes into place at the corner of the house. The tree will eventually fill out to about 8 ft in diameter.

The front rain gardens get their first row of native plants—Little Bluestem. Down the middle a tall white spikey native called Culver’s Root will sit. Both of these plant do well with lots of water which is perfect for the rain gardens.

Both natives and non-natives fill the bed off the side of the patio. The non-native in the center area is a grass called Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass and is common in organic designs. It’s perfect for us because it’s height (3′ to 5′ at full growth) and feathery texture softens the visual lines of the concrete pillar. The plant on the outside is a native called Blazing Star.

Our landscape plan has had almost as much thought put into it as our entire house. Although the initial conceptual design played out rather quickly, the fine details of which plants we would select has been a rather drawn out one.

Our landscape Designer (Dustin Halverson) had planned for a tree to be placed close to the front windows of the house on the southwest corner. Although the tree was designed to provide some shade to the larger windows on this side of our house, its main purpose from a design perspective was to provide a sense of scale. For this reason, we opted for a Swedish Columnar Aspen. Its tall column like shape, gives the complementary height we need to tie the landscaping and the house together, without impeding on the actual structure itself. After mulling over a half dozen tree options this would prove to be one one of our easier design decisions.

There is so much to take in when selecting plants for your landscaping, grasses vs. flowers, native vs. cultivars/non-natives, size and shape, bloom time, soil type, and even color all come into play. Adding to the mix, we have committed to making our landscape be a functional piece of our homes “green friendly” design, and have received a grant from the Ramsey Washington Metro Watershed District to do so. This means, that native plants will need to be a large portion of our plantings in order to meet our obligation with the RWMWD.

Stacy and I both wanted plants that would work well with the lines of our house by having some similar sense of control and geometry. At the same time we knew (and Dustin reinforced the fact) that we would need to utilize these plantings to soften some of the lines and allow us to merge our home in with the surround landscape. For this reason, we have picked a mixture of natives, cultivars/non-natives. In some cases we have segregated the natives to specific areas like the rain gardens. While in other cases we’ve mixed the two, for either a sense of texture or or to create some variation in height or color.

After some negotiation we had settled on an initial planting plan, but the day before the plants were to arrive we started second guessing some of our choices. We both were hoping to have some nice bright oranges or reds out front but for the most part these are cultivars and we wanted to keep the rain gardens filled with natives. Our second choice in this case was some geometric looking bulb like plants called Allium (members of the onion family) but the ones we had seen and liked (in white) proved to be a cultivars as well. Although we had found a great resource for selecting native plants (bluethumb.org) having not seen many of the plants in person we were still feeling a bit uneasy. We decided to make a trip out to the Watershed district building, to look at their collection of plants, and see first hand what they might look like. This proved to be a huge help. Our contact at the watershed (Julie) proved to be incredibly helpful, not only showing us the plants we were interested in, but showing us many of them in various stages of growth. We also discovered several new plants like Culvers Root which we decided to integrate into our design. Ultimately, our trip to the watershed building validated many of the plant selections that Dustin had suggested, but also proved to be invaluable in helping us find some new options. We were also able to see how our rather small plants will blossom and grow into more substantial and prominent elements of our design over time, and see how the various combinations of plants will work together. I’d highly recommend you make a field trip of like this of your own if you’re going to make a substantial investments in your landscaping.

The 24″ x 24″ pavers appear to float away from the main structure, helping to maintain the our designs overall theme of sliding planes, that mimics the lots natural landscape.

The odd pie shape of our lot and the relatively strange shape that it provided for a our yard, meant that we needed some way to connect the house to these outlying spaces. In my initial drawings/sketches that we provide to our landscape architect Dustin Halverson I sketched out the idea of a series of concrete pavers that appeared to float away from the main structure of the building and towards the larger side yard. This would ultimately be an access path to a potential firepit/BBQ as well as the badminton/lawn bowling and playground areas. Dustin agreed that this would be a good solution to the challenge and with a few minor adjustments we made this apart of our plan.

After waiting roughly a month for our sod to set it’s roots, Dustin and the landscaping crew returned to start the next phase of the process. The pavers were laid out in the desired pattern and then flags were placed to mark the corners of each stone, so the sod could be cut away, allowing them to set the pavers flush to grade. The tricky part is setting the pavers square as well as not breaking the 24″ x 24″ pavers, which are surprisingly fragile. Tomorrow the crew returns to set the pavers into final position.

The Hardiboard around the garage, was the first area to get the two-tone color treatment of Turkish Coffee and Black Bean.

The front of the house and the garage get random matching pattern of two-tone brown that unites the two spaces.

The first green went on and felt a little too yellow for what we were trying to achieve.

The second green was still vibrant but easier on the eyes—much better. Now we need to touch up the front edge of the awning in the Black Bean and it’s complete.

When we first moved into our house this past December, there was so much to do. The exterior of our house was wrapped only in it’s vapor barrier sheeting, the Hardiboard siding was yet to go up and the awning at the front door was not even on our radar. What all of this meant, was that at some point down the road we were going to have to do some painting on the exterior of our house, to get it completed.

For several months as we waited for the snow to melt and then the rains to finally stop (we could use a little now), looking up at the unpainted sections of our house and knowing it need to be painted made me ill. The pieces of Hardiboard were divided into gridded sections separated by metal Z-channel, which seem to mean hours of time consuming trim work. When we finally got started with painting it a few weeks back, we were really surprised at how quickly it seemed to go. The divided sections actually proved to be a bonus as it allowed us to paint one color of the two-tone design at a time. Additionally, we could do a couple of quick sections in the evening or over a couple of hours on a Saturday without having to commit the enitr weekend to working on the house. We’ve now completed almost all of the front of the house in both colors but will need to get a small section of scaffolding to reach some of the very top pieces and most of the 4ft overhang and we’ll be done.

Painting the siding presented us with another design issue. The two-tone brown color, coupled with the silver of the UniClad siding looks really nice, but it seemed to be lacking something. I was feeling it and then Stacy said it, it seemed a bit pedestrian, so we decided that it might be fun to bring in a little punch of color to the underside of the front awning. Stacy went out and pulled a couple of dozen samples of colors we could use, and we settled on a crisp citrus green color. If you know anything about color, you know greens can be tricky. A little to yellow and they become acidic looking, a little too much blue and it can start looking primary, not the color we were looking for. In This case, the color proved to be a little to yellow and neither of us were in love with it. We decided to pick another green color to paint (Green Tease), and this time I think we got it right. The color is a nice contrast to the neutral silver/gray and rich browns of the siding, and a nice little unexpected twist to our house when people come to the front door.

With our grass now coming in at full capacity, it appears that we are in need of a new lawn mower. We own a manual, reel style, push mower, that we used at our last house to cut the relatively small front yard (but the size of our new lawn and the time it would take will not make this a realistic option) We have sworn ourselves off the use of a traditional gas powered mower (based on their incredibly polluting nature), which means we need to settle on some sort of electric mower. I’ve never owned one before, although I remember years ago seeing a friend’s parent mowing their lawn tethered to the house by a long extension cord. Although I am finding there are now a lot of options when it comes to electric mowers both those that require corded operation and those that run on a battery I am struggling to determine which one is best for us.

From what I understand reel style mowers actually provide the healthiest style cut for your lawn and there appear to be a couple mowers that offer this option. the SunLawn EM-2 model (a cordless option) got high reviews from Wired Magazine and weighs in at roughly 39 lbs. one of the lightest mowers I could find that wasn’t powered soley by my legs. Unfortunately, for me one the drawbacks to the Sunlawn is its rather “Wally and the Beav” design, which reminds me of something that you might find at the back of your grandparents storage shed—not horrible looking but certainly not really very nice looking either. The other option for reel mowers that caught my eye, is the Brill ASM380 Reel Mower (another cordless option) with a more updated design style, and a remarkably light weight of only 29lbs. However, as I dug deeper in my search the ASM380 model has been discontinued by the manufacturer with the release of an new mower in June of 2008. The German Engineer, Brill mower can actually be operated as a traditional push mower if the battery were to run out, before the lawn was completed. Since it’s recommended for a lawn of about 2,500 sq. ft. or less this push mower feature might actually come in handy.

The other option in electric mowers, is the more common rotary style cutting system. The apparent darling of this category is the Nuetron Electric Mower. with it’s stylish fresh green exterior making it appealing to look at. Plus, it features a wonderful little features like a push button start (with safety key), relatively long run time of 45-60 minutes and boast being the most powerful battery powered mower you can buy (360 watt-hours of battery energy.) Its draw backs, in this case are its rotary blade and weight of 69lbs. Another one of the rotary options is the Desa® Remington® Electric Mower, which boasts being the first and only 60 volt battery mower with 60 minutes of run time and corded option. The design of the Remington looks a bit more like a traditional gas mower, nothing really “wowing” here but not bad looking either. The great feature of this mower (in my opinion) is the option to either run it from the battery or as a corded model. I can imagine that there may be a few times that I might forget to plug it in before my next use or run out of juice before I get the lawn completed so this would be a great little feature.

I’ve tried to read a few online reviews as well as pick up on what users are saying in various forums, but the feedback seems to be greatly varied. People either totally love whichever model they have, or they completely loath it. All of them claim to cut tall grass and give a long run time but at the same time, without first-hand experience, I can’t separate marketing hype from manufacturing performance. What I’d really like to do is line the various models up across my front yard and test them side-by-side, to see which is best for me. Since that is not so likely to happen, I’m asking if anyone out there can share with me their first hand experience with their electric mower.

The Sunlawn EM2

The Brill ASM380

The Nuetron Electric Mower

Desa Remington Electric Mower