Re: innovative stuff (from Tom Lent w/ link)
From: Fred H. Olson (fholsoncohousing.org)
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 04:06:13 -0600 (MDT)
Tom Lent <tlent [at] igc.org>
Berkeley Cohousing and Energy & Environmental Consulting
is the author of the message below it was posted by 
Fred the cohousing-L list manager:  fholson [at] cohousing.org

Note: Tom no longer subscribes to Cohousing-L (couldn't keep up with the
email volume).  You may want to send copies of replies to him (not Fred!).
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 21:02:31 -0700
From: Tom Lent <tlent [at] igc.org>

[Of interest to those reading this thread may be Tom's ...]
paper about what we did in Berkeley Cohousing to try to push the
sustainable envelope... and some of the lessons we learned in the
process.  The paper can be found on Tom's web site.  See 
http://tlent.home.igc.org/  

It is a bit dated now since we finished construction a couple
of years ago and the availability of materials is changing rapidly, but
there is still plenty of useful info in it. 

I would urge people to try hard to do the right thing and
(this is a lesson that I didn't really elaborate on in the paper but
should) Don't give up if your first quote for the environmentally better
material option is way higher than the standard. That happened to us on
paint. Our painter gave us nearly a doubling of the price to paint with
no VOC paint at first, claiming his supplier charged lots more for it.
We made a few calls around to suppliers and found someone who provided
the same stuff for just a few percent over the other paint. We ended up
getting sustainably harvested redwood from EcoTimber for the same price
as the going rate for the unsustainable stuff at the time. Be persistent
and invest some time in research and you may be able to afford things
you initially think you can't.

Tom


+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tom Lent - Energy & Environmental Consulting                |
|            2220-F Sacramento Street, Berkeley, CA 94702-1907|
|            510-845-5600  510-549-3749(fax)  tlent [at] igc.org   |
|            http://tlent.home.igc.org/                       |
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