Creating a green lodging facility starts long before installation of low-flow showerheads and the purchasing of organic cleaners. For newly built or expanded motels, lodges, bed and breakfasts and other hospitality facilities, some of the most important environmentally responsible features are ones the guests will never see.
A case in point is the structural framing—the guts of any building that form the skeleton upon which everything else is built. The type of framing used is important in green construction since it makes up a large portion of the materials in buildings and in turn affects a number of issues ranging from use of natural resources to long-term energy demand.
For low-rise lodging facilities, architects and owners frequently opt for wood given its affordability, design flexibility and ready availability. Now, it also is becoming a top choice for facilities designed to meet green building goals.
Wood framing—including dimension lumber, specialty engineered wood studs and beams and engineered sheathing panels—has several environmental advantages to consider:
• Comes from a renewable, natural resource;
• Stores more CO2 than is produced in its manufacture; and
• Is energy efficient to produce.
Renewable, Natural Resource
Wood is unique among structural materials—including steel and concrete—in coming from a renewable resource. Each year, American forest landowners plant approximately two billion trees, and others reseed naturally. Forest growth has consistently exceeded harvest since the 1940s and the United States today has more forested area than it did in the 1920s. As such, wood can be a natural choice for green buildings.
Much of the discussion around global warming focuses on slowing the growth in carbon emissions. Using wood for home construction, instead of more energy intensive building products, can actually help offset CO2 contributions. A single tree can absorb more than 10 pounds of CO2 each year, and at harvest, much of the carbon remains locked up in the resulting wood building products throughout their useful lives. Taking manufacturing into account, there is a net carbon reduction benefit from wood products when used instead of other common building products such as steel and concrete. For example, Weyerhaeuser found that its softwood lumber products store more than five times the carbon than is emitted to produce them.
In lodging facilities, the benefits can be substantial. In a three-story, 64-room Microtel Inn & Suites in Ontario, Canada, analysis by the Canadian Wood Council showed that the wood-framed building stored an amount of carbon equal to that emitted by a passenger car over 38 years—all at 30 percent lower cost than steel framing for this hotel.
Energy Efficiency
From a life cycle perspective, wood is an energy efficient material. It takes less energy to manufacture, transport, construct and maintain than other structural framing materials. A study by the ATHENA Sustainable Materials Institute comparing wood, steel and concrete buildings for the first 20 years of their lives found that relative to wood, steel and concrete embody 26 percent and 57 percent more energy, respectively.
Looking at the big picture, wood accounts for 47 percent of all raw materials manufactured in the United States, while only using 4 percent of the energy to make the materials.
Beyond the inherent environmental advantages of wood, technology allows for even more efficient use of this resource. Engineered wood products such as laminated strand lumber and parallel strand lumber, for example, can be made from logs that are too small for conventional solid-sawn lumber. The manufacturing processes for these materials use virtually every portion of every log to produce strong, straight and consistent framing members.
Lodging designers and contractors can also use building methods that optimize the use of wood, helping them earn points in green building rating programs such as LEED. Precision end-trimmed and labeled materials or panelized components can help reduce the need for material cutting on the jobsite, thereby reducing construction scrap. Such methods have the added benefit of reducing building time and improving overall quality.
Choosing Certified Wood
While wood offers some significant environmental advantages, it is important to select materials that come from responsibly managed forests. Independent certification programs such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) label wood that was grown and harvested using practices that protect water quality and wildlife habitat. Such certifications also require sustainable harvest levels and prompt replanting to ensure a continuing supply.
An easy-to-use resource for determining the green features of a manufacturer’s products is the SAVE program from ICC-ES—the code evaluation organization. They issue reports that verify the sustainability of building materials and list how the products may qualify for green building points within rating systems such as LEED. An example of such a report for wood products is VAR 1008, which reports on iLevel lumber and engineered wood products.
Wood provides a number of important environmental advantages for green construction. At the same time, it performs well in low-rise lodging facilities of all types. Wood-framed structures hold up well in earthquakes and high winds, are accepted in building codes, and can be easily adapted over time as building needs change. For additional information on ways wood can be part of a green project, contact a building material dealer or manufacturer.
Nate Jorgensen is the vice president of residential sales for iLevel by Weyerhaeuser. iLevel offers a range of environmentally responsible structural framing materials, including SFI-certified products such as iLevel Framer Series Lumber, Weyerhaeuser Pro Series Lumber, TimberStrand LSL, Parallam PSL and iLevel Edge Gold floor panels. Go to www.iLevel.com or call (888) 453-8358 for more information.
