Rainwater Harvesting - Stone 34 Case Study

Michael Hendrick | McKinstry

SUMMARY: Explore the water conservation and treatment requirements of Seattle’s Deep Green Pilot Program. The discussion will include a high-level summary of the unique site and regional challenges affecting water re-use, and design techniques and technologies implemented to achieve market-leading potable water reductions. Measured potable water and stormwater re-use from the first year of occupancy and operation will be shared and discussed.

BIO: Michael Hedrick, McKinstry, is a mechanical engineer working in the building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and plumbing industry. His passion and interest in sustainability has created opportunities to work on some of lowest energy and water-consuming buildings in the region over his eight year career. He is delighted to wake up every day and apply his skills to help building developers and managers make smart decisions to save energy and water, one kilowatt, one gallon at a time. It’s all engineering.

NOTE TAKING TOOLS: We have developed a wide range of ready-to-use note taking tools, as well as follow up questions, and a public speaking rubric to help you get the most out of each expert talk. All of the options are posted as word.docx’s so feel free to download, adopt or adapt for your own purposes.

LINKS FOR LEARNING:

Rainwater Harvesting: Any home can harvest their rainwater. In some states, you are limited in how much rain you can capture as it is considered part of the public water supply. However, in Washington you are free to capture as much rainfall as you’d like. Learn more about the Washington Department of Ecology’s perspective on rainwater collection here, and you can calculate how much rain you can catch at the City of Seattle’s site on rain water harvesting here. You may even qualify for a rebate through the Rain Wise program!

How much water does a standard building use? The Seattle 2030 District, a high-performance building district in downtown Seattle, has set some baseline metrics for water, energy and transportation. They set baseline water metrics per building type so that a building could understand how they were performing compared to their peers. For example, a school uses on average 11 gallons per square foot per year, whereas a restaurant uses over 125. You can find all these numbers and more in the full report.

Ultra high-performance construction: The City of Seattle established a program called the “Living Building Pilot” that offers incentives and departures from code for buildings that meet high-performance requirements. Stone34 was one of the first buildings to go through this program’s predecessor. The Living Building Pilot program is modeled on the Living Building Challenge, the world’s strictest sustainability standard.