Eco Construction — South Dakota

All this week, the Eco Women will be investigating eco construction in the U.S. and abroad. How hard or easy is it to build green? What are some of the materials and techniques available?

Part 3 of 5.  For Parts 1 and 2, click here and here.

Today, the Eco Women will look at eco construction in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Britt has been blogging about the process at Prairie Hills and we encourage you to go over there and admire some of her gorgeous photos, such as this one:

The Challenges of Rural Living — by Britt

We call the Black Hills of South Dakota home. For those of you not familiar with this little piece of heaven, let’s get acquainted. The Black Hills get their name from the Lakota term “Paha Sapa” translated literally to “Black Hills”. The reason? We are surrounded by Ponderosa pine trees, when viewed from a distance they look black. This is where Dances with Wolves was filmed. And Hidalgo a bit farther south. More recently National Treasure II was here (That lake behind the boys’ heads? Yeah, that’s actually about 20 miles south of Mt. Rushmore at Custer State Park. Sorry.). And don’t forget Deadwood –- we have the original, including Wild Bill and Calamity Jane’s graves. There are five national parks in the area -– Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, and Devils Tower (that’s actually in Wyoming, but they’re still part of the Black Hills). And don’t forget Crazy Horse –- the monstrous carving of the Native American hero which is in progress here. If you like motorcycles you should visit us the first full week in August for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally when over half a million riders visit us. (For the record, that’s nearly the same as the entire state’s population.) Most of the area is actually a designated National Forest — the Black Hills National Forest (they’re so darn creative). We are also home to Harney Peak, the highest point in North America east of the Rockies. It’s a great hike with a cool fire tower lookout on top.

The wildlife is abundant here –  from cute (but garden munching) deer, rabbits, chipmunks, and squirrels to the more majestic elk and wild buffalo and the frightening mountain lions and bobcats. I often have run-ins with the resident mountain goats at work. They like to block me from getting into my car (they really like to lick the salt off in the winter):

But really –- that’s just a small part. You’re not here to learn about the Hills. So here’s a map. And here’s a link to the major tourism group. Here’s the state’s version.

And don’t worry, you can say it. I sure did before I moved here –- “Who the heck lives in South Dakota?!?” Now, I say we do. And we love it. It’s beautiful country where the folks are friendly and the views spectacular. So come visit us.

For those of you who don’t know us, here’s our home on the web. My husband has lived here nearly all his life. In fact, his parents still live in the home he grew up in a mere five miles outside of our tiny town (population 600). I moved here in early 2001. We married in 2002 and have a vivacious boy who will be 2 in October. We’re both Civil Engineers by education. I now work for Xanterra Parks & Resorts (a major concessionaire to the NPS) doing Environmental Management. Josh is the general manager of the largest resort in the Black Hills. To start our lives, we bought a cute little home in Josh’s hometown. But our dream has always been to purchase a bit of land and build a home. In early August of 2007, we made the first step purchasing a bit over seven acres about two miles from town. Check it out here. We got it awful durn cheap for this area.

Here’s a little bit of trivia for you: The billionaires are said to be forcing the millionaires out of Jackson Hole, WY. Those poor displaced millionaires? They’re coming here to buy land and build their mansions. Most land we’ve seen is listed at about $20-$25K an acre. That doesn’t seem like much to most big city folks who are paying five times that for a sliver of suburbia. But remember the economy here is mostly tourism and logging. The average household income is a whopping $36K. (And I suspect some of that number is inflated by those millionaires…)

But anyway … the reason we got it on the cheap? We had to beg the Forest Service to let us get access to it. The lot is bordered on one side by the Mickelson Trail. Another side is private land with a house a couple hundred yards away or more. The two other sides are Forest Service land. But wait, I know I tend to ramble. So just go here for the gory details of our fight for a driveway. Suffice it to say; when we bought the property we knew this could potentially be a two year battle through red tape. We also knew there was a 99.99% certainty we’d get the easement. So we jumped.

A year and so many broken promises later (not to mention nearly $2,000), we are ready to close on the construction loan. Our builder is ready to send the dirt guys onto the property. The easement? Uh, I have a copy … kinda. It’s still not official, as it’s lacking a couple signatures. But we have faith it’ll be here soon. Luckily the bank is happy with what we have and the dirt guys don’t technically need it to get started on the drive. We have to cross a creek to get to the house site. Nothing can happen, including the perk test, until we get a road and culvert put in. And winter is coming too soon!

In the meantime I’m fighting the eco-battle. The Black Hills are behind the game. Folks are slow to change and we’re so isolated that technology lags. Even recycling, which you probably take for granted, is laughable where it even exists. I could go on for days about the challenges I run into through my professional life. But you’re not here for that. Maybe later. You want to hear about our construction…

My grand plan had been to build a green home with SIPs (see Recycla’s post on her eco home) for walls and a geothermal heat system at its core. (You can see our plans here and some details here.)  We are also taking advantage of passive solar. The green products I would like in my home are a mile long list. I do this for a living but I also believe the fewer chemicals you bring into a home the healthier your family will be. I grow most of our vegetables and put extra away to last us through the winter. We harvest local berries for jams, jellies, and deserts. You bet your buttons you’ll get homemade goodies from me at the holidays. I also believe in reducing my impact on this planet as much as possible.

But let’s talk about those two core ideas.

• The SIPs — I know all of about a half dozen houses in the area that have been built using them. Knowledgeable builders are rare. Additionally, the closest company that makes them is over six hours away. Have you seen fuel costs lately? Immediately every builder jumps on the “it’ll practically double the cost” bandwagon. In fact, I still haven’t been able to get my builder to give me a detailed cost differential. Maybe this week … and he’s used them before!
• The geothermal heat pump — This is also relatively unknown here in the Hills so folks tend to oversize it and get poor results, or flat out get scared by the price tag. It’s jumped the price of my construction by nearly $20K. And we have the luxury of putting in a horizontal rather than vertical system. Because these Hills? They’re gorgeous –- but they’re made out of granite. Costs a pretty penny to drill a bunch of holes in granite. The double whammy for all this? It affects my appraised value zero. There are so few houses built using these technologies and they are sold so rarely the appraiser cannot establish additional value for their use. *sigh* We are on an extremely tight budget (hey, we’re young, and we’re in the midst of growing our family!). So far I’ve been able to keep the geothermal in but it means we’ll be doing a lot of work ourselves -– laying the hardwood floors, doing all the tile work, installing all the lights, getting a friend to lend us a hand with the plumbing, etc etc. I’m afraid the SIPs are just not going to make the final budget.

Some other frustrations …

• Recycled roofing — I really really wanted to use these. None of the building supply areas out here even knew what they were (nor did my builder). When I finally got someone to give me a quote? $500 a square foot. That’s about five times the average cost of a roof.
• Dual-flush toilets –- I will have to have these specially ordered through a plumbing supply company because no one carries them.
  
• Counters — I can’t fit engineered quartz counters into my budget (and its manufacturing scares me a bit), and natural stone is also looking a bit extravagant, even the ever-abundant local slate. We’ll probably go with a traditional laminate countertop. Because let me tell you, they’ve really greened those up lately. And they offer low VOC adhesives if you ask. I’m really liking the WilsonArt HD finishes this week. We’re also looking for some butcher block to recycle into part of our countertop.
• Flooring — We’ve put the word out with relatives on the other side of the state and in Illinois that we’re looking for wide plank flooring salvaged from old farmhouses. (Unlike the Black Hills the east side of SD looks like…Iowa.) If they don’t find any we’ll probably use a reclaimed lumber resale store. We’re looking at recycled and recyclable carpet for those areas that will get it.
  
• Other stuff — I’d love to find some old crystal doorknobs. Maybe some salvaged light fixtures that will fit compact fluorescents. The windows will all be low-e. The siding will be Hardi Plank. The deck will be a recycled lumber. The paint will all be no VOC. (See Recycla’s post.) I’d really like to use either Milk Paint or Mythic Paint, but that will probably mean hauling it back from Denver so I may go with a more widely available version at one of the big box stores a mere 30 miles from us.

I am fortunate in one aspect –- I travel to Denver quite often for my job (and sometimes for fun). It’s 5.5 hours away, but they do have architectural salvage stores there where I can search for reclaimed and reusable products. We just might test the limits of what the Prius can fit over the winter. My husband and I are not afraid of hard work. Just major price tags…

Thanks to Britt for her fabulous and very informative post!  Tune in tomorrow when the Eco Women take their investigations across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland!