Water Conservation by Design

The  GreenBy3 team went to Hendersonville this week to work on some of the finishing touches being made to Biz611. The interior is really taking shape and looking good and there is lots of activity outside the building.

We were glad to see a paved parking lot, despite frequent rain in the last few weeks. Solar panels are in place. A grid is being installed on the east wall facing Church Street that will be the trellis for the “green wall”. Landscaping crews were installing plants including relocating trees and plantings that had outgrown their placement at the Landmark Apartments .

We want to give you a closer look at a cleverly designed water conservation feature — the inverted roof.

In this picture you see the east wall of the building (with the trellis for the living wall). You can also see how the roof angels down toward the middle on each side. This design captures rainwater in a trough. Half of the captured rain water runs to the east side to water the green wall and the other to the west side.

On the west end of the building, the inverted roof channel collects water to these downspouts where gravity directs it to another trough that carries it to three cisterns at the end of the building. The wooden patio flooring you see in the lower right is a raised floor, designed so that rain will run under it and into the trough as well.

Here is where the water collection trough comes off the west end of the roof above the cisterns where it will be stored until needed. The cisterns are connected by PVC pipe so they fill as one.

Water collected in this way will be used as the non-potable grey water for the building —  to flush toilets and other possible uses.

Inside the building, electronic monitors will display real-time energy saving performance data including water usage. Tenants and visitors will be able to see the community, environmental and financial advantages of capturing rain water for non-potable purposes.

Tagged: Biz 611