Unity College plans $1.3M ‘green’ building expansion

UNITY – Energy-efficient buildings don’t have to look like architectural experiments or cost twice what conventional structures cost, Unity College professor Mick Womersley believes.

Womersley has been involved in the planning for two new buildings at the environmental college in western Waldo County. The college wants to build a health center and another dormitory.

College officials hope work on the $1.3 million expansion – which includes landscaping, a parking lot and drainage work – can begin by June 1 and be completed by early September. By designing the structures to be energy-efficient, the additional cost of making them “green” could be recouped in a few years.

Incoming President Mitchell Thomashow has a particular interest in environmental sustainability, Womersley said, and wants to see the college continue building in a way that is ecofriendly and cost-effective.

The dormitory will be a single-story structure of 5,000 to 6,000 square feet to house 27 students, Womersley said. The health center will be a single-story structure measuring 66 feet by 29 feet.

“We have plenty of land here,” he said, which makes the single-story structures attractive, as do the energy-efficient qualities of a single-level building.

Rather than try to build a showcase structure, Womersley said, the college opted for straightforward, modest but highly efficient buildings.

“What colleges tend to do is build one flagship building” that features “green” materials and energy-efficient elements, then leave the rest of the campus alone, he said, which he characterized as “buying off their students and their critics.”

Unity College’s budget is driven almost entirely by tuition, not endowment, Womersley said, and students would object to poor use of those funds.

“We will get it in the neck if we waste their money,” he said.

To ensure frugality, a student sits on the committee planning the new buildings.

Beginning with insulated slabs, the structures will be framed with two-by-six studs and insulated with “blown-in blanket” material, a nontoxic Fiberglas-latex mix that can be sprayed into the wall cavities, eliminating air pockets associated with Fiberglas bats.

With walls 7 to 8 feet high, the buildings use less material, and the roof becomes a bigger part of the energy efficiency, Womersley said. The buildings will use 12 inches of Fiberglas insulation bats in the ceiling to achieve heat retention of about R-55.

The college plans to splurge on its windows, using Andersen products, and “really nice institutional doors.” Solar tubes, an inexpensive way to bring light into a room from the roof, will be used, as will cathedral ceilings in the dorm’s lounge.

Pairs of doors will be used in the main entrances to create airlocks, another energy saving. Emergency doors will be superinsulated and placed so students are not likely to use them in routine exits.

The buildings will be heated with a conventional oil-fired boiler.

“We thought about going to biomass,” Womersley said, but a consistent supply of the fuel is not available.

The exteriors will use brick around entranceways and cedar siding or a white clapboard material made from recycled material that never needs painting, he said.

“We’ve built quite a few small ‘green’ buildings” and retrofitted older buildings with an eye to efficiency, he said, and more is expected.

In addition to the two new structures, a parking lot will be expanded.

Last summer, Koons Hall and the Student Activities Center were renovated and a new wing was added to Cianchette Hall.

Interim President Mark Lapping said the college contacted the state energy office about its goals for increased energy efficiency and was referred to a private energy auditing company.

For about $10,000, the firm visited and analyzed each campus building and made recommendations for changes that would produce savings.

Lapping said the college’s trustees are committed to renovating two buildings a year for the next five years to achieve energy efficiency.