Adam Sinclair, an idealistic, bright-eyed green homebuilder, took a hard look at the world of residential construction and found it wanting. “There has to be a better way,” he says, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get there. In his opinion, that best way will include LEED certifications for homes and post-occupancy evaluations (POEs), an information-gathering process he knows will never win a popularity contest with builders. “Nobody wants to have their shortcomings pointed out,” he explained. But he’s ready to bring them for him and his team. We won’t care, he says, it will only make us better builders.
A hard-working perfectionist living in the Atlantic Highlands, Mr. Sinclair comes off as a friendly, easy-going, ‘oh my gosh’ guy. But in fact, he says that he is never satisfied. “It’s a problem”, he admits, “I always know that things can be done better. That there is something else that can be changed”.
This is his way of being, both in the growth of his business and in the challenge of building green, which he is currently taking on with two new residential projects: one, for a client, aims to achieve LEED for Homes Gold certification, the another, an Energy Star certified home that was built to spec. “To get LEED for Homes certification, you must complete Energy Star certification, so you can do both,” he said. “Energy Star looks at how the home works, the mechanics. LEED for Homes combines whole-building design with an integrated systems approach that also focuses on a home’s impact on its surrounding environment.” The first of their recent projects is built to standard state and municipal code requirements. Today, you won’t build a house for anybody unless they’re at least willing to go Energy Star, and I’d rather they get LEED, she said.
Yet despite his own total immersion in green building, Adam Sinclair worries that progress in the rest of the world is advancing at a snail’s pace. “We’re not building structures to correct 21st century standards, especially on the residential side,” he says. “Builders are behaving the same way they have since the building boom of the 1950s, when the idea was to pick them up and sell them, or sell them before they were even built. That’s when the quality of construction went down. , and construction increased the amount, and that’s where we are today,” he says. Although small builders like Mr. Sinclair are fixing the problem, he feels that until production builders start to take the lead, it won’t be enough. Green construction makes him sleep better at night, but he says the greater good of the environment remains at risk. “Production builders are always looking for ways to build smarter and more cost-effectively. Now they need to focus more on energy consumption and environmental impact,” he said.
This is where post-occupancy evaluations (POEs) come into play, according to Jennifer Senick, executive director of the Rutgers Center for Green Building in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “The buildings are programmed to meet the anticipated needs of the occupants in areas such as energy, efficient use of water, and durability of materials,” she explained. “The SOPs consist of measuring the performance of a building in comparison with what was projected, and they also study the satisfaction of the occupants, as well as their habits and behaviors within the structures.” Thus, the entry points form a feedback loop that leads to better design and better operation of buildings, she explained. Noting that much of green building is about remembering practices we’ve forgotten, he gave the easy-to-understand example of daylighting, an important concept in the green building movement because it reduces reliance on electricity, among other things. But in fact, someone could have their studio in a daylit location and then find that there is a glare on their consumer’s screen. So they pull down the blinds, at which point there isn’t enough light; to turn on the lights. Really good design professionals are aware that when humans and technology come together, the results can be unpredictable, he noted, saying much more attention is deserved in this area.
Despite Mr. Sinclair’s passion for green building, he was propelled into building in 1997 by a career accident, not a career choice. He worked as a Longbranch Beach lifeguard and was hired the same day for a renovation/restoration project that became the “Into the Sea” Bed and Breakfast located at Avon by the Sea in Monmouth. “They fired me in the morning and hired me that afternoon,” he recalls. He stayed with that company until he launched FLUID Construction LLC, in November 2002. It was just himself and a helper. Working long hours, to high standards, and charging low prices, he worked his way up to a five-man crew and was close to bankruptcy… until his accountant stopped him. “He was working 60 to 80 hours a week and losing money,” he recalls. Exhausted and discouraged, he considered turning his back on the entire enterprise. But no other builder he knew of was doing what he wanted to do. So he took a deep breath and decided that what was needed was more brains and less brawn. Reading the books, she took a hard look at his business, raised the prices, and rematched just for himself and a helper. Today, his business is growing. Although he still relies primarily on word of mouth, the future looks good and he has big plans for a new website, web-based advertising, and a targeted mailing campaign for architects and other professional change agents. In short, the tables have turned and he is looking forward to building green, targeting LEED designations and working on point-of-entry projects, which will drive awareness and visibility.
This should happen fairly soon according to Jennifer Senick, who co-chairs the recently formed (November 2007) Green Building Benefits Consortium with USGBC-NJ President Andy Topinka. The new organization is made up of a group of 12 stakeholders (green building owners and operators) who are interested in conducting about six case studies in NJ, she said. They are in the process of structuring POE evaluations around the 3 properties built by Mr. Sinclair, with funding and materials provided in kind by BASF. They are all in Atlantic Highlands on adjacent lots, with similar square footage, making for “a really nice potential case study layout,” Ms. Senick noted. Since more points of entry are done in larger commercial and multi-family buildings than in single-family residential buildings, she feels this is an opportunity to gather good data. This kind of available symmetry is very rare in the social sciences, she said. It will give you a good basis for comparison. For the Consortium, 2008 is expected to be the year of case studies.
Looking to the future, Mr. Sinclair’s newest project will be the renovation/restoration of a 100 year old Masonic Lodge in Fair Haven (Monmouth) that will become a center for holistic healing. His first step will be to bring in experienced LEED NC (new construction) architects. We need to clarify our clients’ requests for the project and meet their needs within the parameters of the LEED NC protocol, he said. With all this new activity, he hopes to develop a business platform and plan that will bring his company’s building capacity to at least 10 homes a year over the next three years.
Adam Sinclair now serves as Vice President of the USGBC-NJ Central Jersey Branch working on education and membership.
You can contact him at [email protected] or 732.291.1592(p) with any questions or comments about building green homes.