Building Green in Bibb
by Cyndy Cerbin

Rick McKnight was green when most of us still won-dered what that meant. Eight years ago he bought one of the first hybrid cars on the market. Marquette McKnight has turned green, too, scrib-bling notes on every square inch of a piece of paper before putting it in the re-cycling bin. The couple says they’re not “greenie weenies” but they do know it’s time to do their part for the environ-ment.

That sense of responsibility and a desire to livemore simply led the McKnights to build the house of their dreams, a house just about half the size of their old home. The new home sits on a hill overlooking the Chattahoochee River in Bibb City. It’s modern and bold, and gives a decidedly new air to the old mill town.

From outward appearances, there’s nothing green about this house. No solar panels on the roof, no windmills in the back yard. But inside, carefully integrated in high design, is a host of features that make this house stand out from the rest. The countertops are recycled concrete. The appliances are energy efficient, the windows—covering almost all of the home’s back wall—are low-E glass, which has a coating to either reflect or absorb sunlight. The water heater is tankless and provides hot water only when it’s needed. The spray-on insulation is a new product designed to block drafts, condensation and outdoor allergens. The fireplace is gas and specially-made to minimize emissions in tightly built homes.

The lot the McKnights built on had an old Boy Scout cabin on it. They tore down most of the building but kept the same footprint and reused the structure’s old stone foundation. They cleaned up stones from the old fireplace to use in patching old windows and doors. The lot is small and on the side of a hill, so they built up to get the space they needed. Saving surrounding trees and plants was another big part of the plan.

Rick’s looking forward to a nomaintenance yard. “The front yard’s got rocks. You don’t have to cut it. You don’t have to fertilize and have the rain wash it down into the river.” Natural vegetation covers the hill in the back that drops down to the north River Walk. They plan to plant only native, drought resistant plants, and will use a drip irrigation system to save water. The rocks will help keep the soil cool and moist.

Spilling from the open living space on the main level is a 650-square-foot deck. It’s made from a composite material that includes recycled wood waste. The deck is built around a giant tree, probably a hundred years old. Marquette calls it the Dad Tree, because her father often built decks around trees to save them from the axe. Even the tree fits into the energy efficiency plan. It shades the house from the summer sun and when the leaves fall in the winter, it allows the sun to warm up the living space.

The deck is Rick’s favorite part of the house. “It’s like an outdoor living room for us,” he said. “Having a footprint of two stories that are 1,200-square-feet apiece, that’s not an awful lot of space.
But this just opens up the whole world to us. And with the big windows it’s like living in a tree house.”

Shades of Green
John Teeples is the expert the McKnights called on to make all this happen. The contractor has built three of the four homes in Columbus that are considered green homes. He uses Energy Star and EarthCraft building programs, which set the standards on everything from land use and site planning to materials selection, energy efficiency and indoor air quality.

The McKnights’ home earned an Energy Star rating of 75, which means their house operates 25 percent more efficiently than a similar non-green house would. And that translates into 25 percent energy savings.

The McKnights acknowledge this kind of construction costs more, at least initially. “You can’t be poor and build green,” Rick quipped. But Marquette says there’s more to it than that. “Yes, it does cost more, but we expect to get that extra cost back in energy savings.” They’ll be able to measure that after a few more utility bills come in.

Teeples says the McKnights included a lot of features in their home to make it uniquely theirs. But he says you can make any style house green. “One of the fallacies of green building is that you have to build something very unusual, unique or different. But that’s not the case. Green can be built into any house.”

The features that make a house green can cost as little as one- to three-percent more than a traditional house, Teeples said. “When you’re building green, you’re given kind of a shopping list of choices to make. You don’t have to choose everything to have a green house.”

Hurdles to Clear
Teeples has been building houses for 23 years. Doing more with less made the McKnight house interesting for him. His biggest challenge was working on the side of a steep hill. “The deck is 35 feet off the ground, the ridge of the roof is 50-60 feetground, so the sheer heights and uneven terrain made it extremely difficult,” Teeples recalled. “It’s a lot easier when you can back up your pickup truck and get to all four sides.”

What Teeples does like about the lot is that it’s small—about half an acre—a key element in reducing his clients’ impact on the environment.

For the McKnights, the biggest challenge was in finding products that were both green and in line with their design. “We wanted to buy as many things as we could locally,” Marquette explained. “We’re both small business people; we want people to support us, and we want to support local people.” They found eco-friendly products were much more available in theWest and Northwest, but that shipping costs from such a distance drove costs even higher. They were surprised that even in Atlanta availability was limited.

“They wanted a house that didn’t look like every other house. They wanted something special and unique to them,” Teeples said. “It was challenging to find some of the materials that would give them that look and wouldn’t break the bank.”

Besides the challenges of product availability, environmentalists in this area have run into road blocks at the statehouse. In many states, residents receive rebates or tax credits for going green. The McKnights say Georgia has a tax rebate plan, but it’s unfunded. Rick said without incentives, installing solar panels or a geothermal heating and cooling system would have been cost prohibitive. “As good as it is to do that,” he said, “you could never recoup what it cost you.

“It’s a sea change for all us. Things that save energy, they’ve got to get cheap enough that it’s easy for people to do the right thing.We need to find a way to buy a hybrid car that doesn’t cost $6,000 more than a gasoline powered one. I’m sure the technology is there, if they’ll just do it.” Rick hopes that whatever actions state or federal governments take “are not just a stop gap for today, but something that will change our lives for tomorrow.”

Why not Bibb?
As theMcKnights considered sites for their new home, the idea of building in Bibb City fell out of the sky. “We used to ride bikes and walk along the north RiverWalk a lot,” Rick said. “One day we
heard—just south of where we are now—pickin’ and grinnin’ music, country music, being played live, a banjo and guitar and this guy singing. It was peaceful and quiet and cooler than other parts of
the city.We turned to each other and said ‘wouldn’t this be a great place to live?’”

“We see heron, we see tons of geese and ducks, and I guess it’s just the life of the river that is so neat,” Marquette added. “It makes you feel more in touch.”

Once a vibrant and self-contained city, Bibb City began to fade in concert with the textile industry. Owners of The The master bath features a steam shower and garden tub. The face of the tub, inside the shower and the backsplash of the vanity are covered in stacked stone in shades of copper and brown. “Bibb Mill, who actually ran the city and built hundreds of homes for mill workers, shut down in 2000. A massive fire last year left the landmark in ruins. But the McKnights are confident they made the right choice.

“Bibb is as close to urban revitalization as you’ll see around here,”Marquette said. “There’s still a lot of work to do, but we have really great neighbors and this is a place where kids still play kick ball in the street.”

The McKnights like the piece of history that came with their property, too. They’re told it was once a revolutionary war campsite, and in fact, they unearthed a number of old bottles that attest to that. Later, the Bibb Mill built a Boy Scout hut there to serve all the families of its employees. The scouts stopped using the hut about 10 years ago. “We did not expect when we bought it that we would have so many people come by who had been in Troop 1 and had great memories that they wanted to share with us,” Marquette said.

“Why not Bibb City?” Rick replied. “Bicyclists and walkers wave to us from the RiverWalk. There are some of the most fabulous, fabulous views here. And on our particular lot, it’s like we’re in our own little world, our own little treehouse.”

Urban Pioneers
Some people call the McKnights “urban pioneers.” But they think of themselves more as “infill developers.” Infill refers to the practice of building on developed land that’s no longer in use. The McKnights believe there’s a lot of opportunity for infill development in Columbus, even if it doesn’t entail green construction.

But before the green movement can take hold here, they say, people are going to have to start thinking differently. “It took $4-a-gallon gas to get people to take a closer look at hybrid cars,” Rick said. “It might take exorbitant building costs or through-the-roof energy prices to get people to take a closer look at building green.”

Teeples is a bit of an urban pioneer, too. He’s gone green because that’s the way he sees the market moving. “If you look around the country, out west in California and in some of the bigger cities, a much larger percentage of construction is being built green,” he said. “I think over time you’ll see those ratios increasing.”

Teeples believes it’s just a matter of time before Columbus gets excited about green building. “I think as the customer becomes more educated on this topic they’re going to demand it more, and it will have a bigger presence in this community.”

He’s putting his money where his mouth is. He and two other developers have teamed up on a new subdivision in Harris County that will boast 27 new green homes. He’s seen lots of interest in the project from potential buyers.

“I think maybe the greenest part of all this,” Marquette said, “is living more moderately. There’s no reason two people need 4500 or 6500 square feet to live in. This whole McMansion thing where you need five or six bedrooms and bathrooms for each one and a keeping room and waiting room and a separate dining room... It’s just room after room that you don’t use.We don’t want to live that way anymore.We don’t want the upkeep and maintenance. It’s just a lifestyle change.”

Despite the costs and challenges, the McKnights are emphatic that the effort was worth it. “We feel better about doing it,” Rick said. “I just think it’s the right thing to do. If we all do our own little part, all those things put together can have a big impact.”

“We’re aware that all of us, as Americans especially, have left a bigger footprint than we ought to,” Marquette added. “So we’re reducing our footprint a little bit and hopefully we’re reducing it for our children as well.”

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