A latest housing development at Eielson Air Force Base known as Air Force Military Housing is anticipated to receive one of the major certification for the environmentally-friendly building construction. The new housing construction with around 349 housing units will provide housing facilities to nearly half of the population located at the military base.
According to Bob Strum, the project manager for the construction with a mandate from the military for energy efficient buildings, the new house constructions will deploy Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) standards. The new buildings will be constructed to meet the LEED Gold standards. Such certification will enable the buildings to be the first to attain such a rating in Alaska.
The eco-friendly features planned in the constructions will include a heating system that utilize the waste heat received from the Eielson’s power plant instead of a floorboard heating or heating oil utilizing system. The homes will be sealed and insulated properly to preserve heat within the buildings. Also, the heat recovery ventilators proposed for the buildings will reuse the heat from the stale air leaving the building to heat the fresh air entering the buildings.
According to Colleen Groll, from O’Brien, a Seattle-based company engaged in the certification process, the homes are designed to endure the blower test and hold the air inside the building five times better than a normal home. The houses are designed and constructed by Lakeshore Engineering and Osborne Construction based at Kirkland, Wash. The construction is expected get completed by next year and some of the completed units have been brought to the construction location.
Source: http://www.eielson.af.mil/