Missoula’s ‘Make My House Green’ Project Educates and Inspires

By Jessica Mayrer, 5-31-07

	Caption: Above: Caleb Beaudin reviews blueprints for Missoula's "Make My House Green" project on Thursday while Matt Grehan (back left) and Daniel McCue place footings for the house located at 646 Longstaff Street. Middle: Insulation removed from the original ceiling of the Longstaff home will be reused in the finished garage. Below: Daniel McCue (left) and Matt Grehan place footings on Tuesday as part of Missoula's "Make My House Green" project. Photos by Anne Medley.

As Americans bemoan bank-busting power bills, balmy winters, brimming land fills and an uncertain energy future, a new local home renovation project hopes to inspire Missoulians to use recycled materials and energy efficient construction to build “green.”

The Make My House Green Project, a public demonstration on green building methods, is the brainchild of Caleb Beaudin, a Missoula contractor and Corey Williamson, a Missoula Realtor.  The two purchased a home on Longstaff Street in Missoula solely to tear it down and rebuild it green.  To do this, they have assembled the “Green Team,” a group of contractors, architects, roofers, and others to build what Williams calls “one of the most conscious rebuilds in Missoula.”

While Beaudin acknowledges building green costs more, over the long run it will save money and help to ease the planet’s strain, he says.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that buildings account for 39 percent of total energy use and 68 percent of total electricity consumption.

Williamson expects the power bills on the greened home to be about half that of a comparable conventional home.

Beaudin’s construction crew started pulling apart the house about two weeks ago.  (Incidentally, the home, built in 1925, had a mummified cat in the walls, complete with skin, whiskers and teeth along with an old map, from 1958, charting local fishing holes.)

Much of the wood taken from the original structure will go back into the renovated house and other wood, unfit for construction, will be ground into mulch and reused later.  Old cement from the project will be put back into the foundation and the roof will be made of enviro-shake, which will essentially last forever, Beaudin said. 

In a few weeks electrical work and plumbing will start.  From there, a radiant heating system will be installed and polyurethane foam sprayed into the walls to keep the home airtight.  A heat recovery process will also be used, capable of removing pollutants from inside the home and recapturing heat, said Russ Hellum, a Green Team member and owner of Energetechs Consulting.

The Green Team focuses on buying local and using materials that are energy efficient.  Throughout the project the Team will do a cost analysis to provide the public with a financially sound way to go green, he said.

“We’re really trying to educate the public,” Williamson said. 

The Green Team will hold open houses beginning in July to explain and demonstrate the renovation process.  A suggested $10 donation will go to HomeResource, a Missoula non-profit building center that collects and sells recycled building materials. 

The crew estimates that by the end of August, native plants and water-wise landscaping will complete the home’s restoration. 

When the house is sold, 25 percent of the profit will go to HomeWord, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing affordable and environmentally sound housing to Montanans. 

“We want to build a house that’s going to last 100s of years,” Beaudin said.  “It’s a big waste to build a house every 75 years, tear it down, and take it all the way to the dump.”

For more information check out their website: www.localmissoula.com/MMHG.htm