Building Green Hits "Tipping Point"

Building green continues to grow in importance, according to a new McGraw-Hill Construction survey cosponsored by the National Association of Home Builders.

"It's official. Green has gone mainstream," said Ray Tonjes, chair of NAHB's green building subcommittee. "We're ready for the market transformation."

The new survey focuses on changes in green building activity between 2001 and 2007 , the effect of the down market on green home building, opinions and preferences of builders for green materials and processes, and triggers and obstacles affecting green building expansion. Major findings:

This year, residential green building is expected to reach $12 billion to $20 billion (6Vo to l}Vo of the overall market).

By 2012, it should double to l27o to 2OVo of the market-or $40 billion to $70 billion.

. 4OVo of builders think green building helps market homes in a down market.

. Quality has emerged as the most important reason for building green. Previously, builders were motivated by energy cost savings of green homes and doing the right thing. The change is likely due to green home marketing and how it improves quality of life.

"We have hit the tipping point for builders going green," said McGrawHill's Harvey Bernstein. "This year, the number of builders who are moderately green (with 307o green projects) has surpassed those with a low share of green (those who are green in less than l57o oftheir projects).

He said that next year will bring even greater growth, with highly green builders (those with 6OEo green projects) surpassing those with a low share of green.

"This year has seen an 87o jump over last year, and we expect another lOVa increase next year," he said.

Co-op Adds Voice System

Do it Best Corp. has installed voice-directed logistics systems at four of its Retail Service Centers and will install the technology at its four other RSCs by the end of next month.

Last year, Do it Best completed a pilot of the Jennifer logistics system running on the Motorola MC9090 mobile computers at its Dixon, Il., RSC. In February, it was installed in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

"Jennifer has already had a measurable impact on the quality of service we provide to our member-owners by improving the accuracy and efficiency of order fulfillment at our Dixon and Cape Girardeau retail service centers," said John Snider, v.p. of logistics at Do it Best. "Our move from paper-based processes to nextgeneration voice-directed work has significant benefits for our customers, the 4,100 member-owned Do it Best hardware stores that depend on our RSCs for timely, efficient, and accurate delivery."

Running on Motorola mobile computers, the "speech-recognition technology enables customers like Do it Best to operate more efficiently by eliminating the need to manually enter data or read instructions," said Motorola's Brian Viscount.

Roseburg Plant Diversifies

Roseburg Forest Products, Roseburg, Or., plans to produce wood-fuel pellets at its particleboard manufacturing facility in Dillard, Or., and market them through West Oregon Wood Products, Columbia City, Or.

"The addition of a pellet mill will give Roseburg the flexibility to substitute pellets for commodity particleboard production during the home-heating season," said Darrell Keeling, v.p.-composite manufacturing. "We will put our wood fiber to the best use while continuing to serve our panel customers."

Initial production capacity will be 22900 tons of pellets per year, with potential to expand in the future. "Particleboard remains our primary product at the Dillard composite panel facility," said Keeling. "The addition of the pellet business will allow us to stabilize our raw material supply."

Home Depot Ditches 65 Sites

By the end of this month, Home Depot will shutter 15 locations from North Dakota eastward, marking the first time that the chain has closed namesake big box stores due to poor performance.

Closing are units in E. Fort Wayne and Marion, In.; Frankfort, Ky.; Opelousas, La.; Cottage Grove, Mn.; East Brunswick and Saddle Brook. N.J.: Rome. N.Y.: Bismarck, N.D.; Findlay and Lima, Oh.; Brattleboro, Vt., and Beaver Dam, Fond du Lac, and Milwaukee, Wi.

Depot is also canceling 50 new projects, reducing its store openings this year to 36 in the U.S. and 19 international.

The 15 closures will cost the company $186 million, while abandoning the 50 sites will cost another $400 million in "capitalized development costs and ongoing obligation."

FSC Blesses 84 Lumber Locations

84 Lumber Co. has earned Forest Stewardship Council chain-of-custody certification for 26 of its stores, including five in the West.

Among the locations checked out through Scientific

Certification Systems were Las Vegas, Nv.; Henderson, Co.; Chandler, Az.,and Beaumont and Hesperia, Ca.

Certification enables the stores to sell FSC-certified material, both in stock and through special orders on a project-by-project basis.

"FSC-certified products are a value-added service for our increasingly environmentally conscious customers," said Kathleen Mannas, green products manager at 84 Lumber.

Norbord Settles OSB Lawsuit

Norbord has become the sixth of eight OSB producers to agree to settle allegations of price fixing (see May, page 46).

While denying any wrongdoing, Norbord agreed to pay $30 million to retailers and wholesalers that bought OSB, joining Ainsworth, Potlatch, Tolko, Georgia-Pacific, and J.M. Huber in settling. Norbord also agreed to place $2.2 million into an escrow account for consumers who bought OSB.

Barrie Shineton, c.e.o. of Toronto-based Norbord, called the decision to settle was "both difficult and disappointing. We are certain that Norbord has not violated the law; however, jury trials are inherently unpredictable and we could not guarantee a positive verdict. Given this risk, the magnitude of the plaintiffs' claims, and the fact that any damages would be tripled under U.S. antitrust law, going to trial would have been irresponsible because it would have put the entire company at risk."

Louisiana-Pacific and Weyerhaeuser continue fighting the suit.

Jeff Locke, ex-Conrad Forest Products, has joined the sales & marketing team at Thunderbolt Wood Treating Co., Riverbank, Ca. His duties will include web and media development and maintenance.

Mike McKanna has opened Coeur d'Alene Forest Products, Coeur d'Alene, Id., focusing on specialty cedar, pine, and Douglas fir.

Leslie Boies has joined C & D Lumber Co., Riddle, Or., as marketing & sales mgr.

Dan Semsak is the new sales mgr. at Pacific Woodtech, Burlington, Wa. Bruce Avery has been promoted to purchasing mgr.

Jim Skinner has been named president of SierraPine, Roseville, Ca.

Orville Shockey, ex-Georgia-Pacific, is new to Cascade Structural Laminators, Chehalis, Wa., as operations mgr.

Steve Osterman has been named Pacific Northwest regional mgr. for Fiber Composites' Fiberon product line. Sam Cannon is new as a Northern California decking specialist.

Lisa Buenzli Peterson, ex-Johns Manville, has been appointed v.p. of marketing for ProBuild Holdings, Denver, Co.

Michael Mahre has resigned from Building Materials Holding Corp., San Francisco, Ca., after six years as president and c.e.o. of its SelectBuild unit. Stanley Wilson, president and chief operating officer of sister company BMC West, will oversee both divisions (see related story, p.27).

Craig Bryan has been named v.p. of business strategy for lumber industry advertising and public relations agency Purdie Rogers, Seattle, Wa.

Tom Parks, Buse Timber & Sales, Everett, Wa., has been named 2008 president of the West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau.

Marissa Romero is store mgr. of the new Home Depot in Las Vegas, Nv.

Larry Baab has joined Ames True Temper, as senior v.p. of sales & marketing.

W. Timothy Yaggi was appointed president of Masco's North America Builder Group, Taylor, Mi.

Karessa Lipz is providing sexual harassment training at Mungus-Fungus Forest Products, Climax, Nv., according to co-owners Hugh Mungus and Freddy Fungus.

Dealer Must Wait To Rebuild

Complex Woodland, Ca., building codes and regulations have delayed rebuilding of a storage structure at Yolo Lumber that was destroyed by an April 6 fire.

"People don't realize the stuff you have to go through when you have a fire, just to put a building back up," said owner Larry Miller. "At this rate, it's going to be months."

Besides lumber, the building also contained the company's tools and the site's electrical panels.

The 40'x80' structure was built in the 1950s, when the business was owned by Miller's father-in-law. "Since then, they've come up with all kinds of new stuff," Miller said. "It's not that we don't want to build something the right way; we just want to build something."

In order to obtain a commercial building permit, he had to submit six sets of architectural and structural plans, two sets of energy calculations, two sets of soils reports by a geotechnical engineer, two sets of roof truss calculations, and a plan showing any trees on the property.

Miller said his business has gone down 4O7o since the fire. "There's a lot of stuff I can't buy because I don't have a building to put it in and you can't just put it out in the sun," he said. "Right now, we've got a couple of saws set up in the parking lot, but not nearly what we'd like to have. At this rate, we'll probably have to put up some kind of tent, and I'm thinking of putting a sign above it that says, 'Woodland Circus,' because that's what this feels like."

Sierra-Pacific Wins Lawsuit

After seven years of litigation, the California Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision and denied the claims of Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch and Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center that Sierra-Pacific Industries, Redding, Ca., needs to more thoroughly assess the impacts of clear cutting on wildlife.

The court decreed that SPI does not need to formally consider a range of ways to evaluate the cumulative impacts of its forestry practices, and that the company's timber harvest plans meet the letter of the law.

Rather than ruling on whether or not clear cutting was harmful to wildlife, or whether herbicide spraying caused environmental damage, the court narrowly focused on technicalities regarding the adequacy of the state's regulatory process and its assessment of SPI's cumulative impacts on forests and wildlife.

The case originated in 2001, when two local conservation groups challenged the California Department of Forestry over three timber harvest plans filed by SPI that targeted a total of more than 1,100 acres of clear cuts, or similarly logged areas, near California's Calaveras Big Trees State Park. As soon as the CDF approved SPI's harvest plans, the activist groups filed suit against both SPI and the CDF.

Two Coat Exterior Prime

0ur two-coat process starts with an aLkyd seater to btock tannin migration, foltowed by a high-performance acrytic primer. The resutt: RESERVE quatity, inside and out.

Superior Wood

Made of quatity, clear, finger-jointed Western Red Cedar or Redwood, these products are naturalty designed for exterior use-both species are ideaI for enduring extreme weather.

Surfacing + Sizes + Lengths

RESERVE products come in a wide range of sizes, lengths and finishes. Whether the project catls for 51S2E or S4S, we offer [engths ranging from 16'to 20'. Pattern stock is atso avaitabte.

Lx4 - 1-x12 s/axQs/axll

2x4 - 2Yt2

The Finest Stock, The Best Coating

Our Siskiyou

Forest Products

RESERVE line is specially manufactured and treated to create the highest quality product available. Using state-of-the-art application and curing equipment, our premium Western Red Cedar and Redwood stock is made to last for many generations. We are proud to offer a beautiful, durable product that is ready for installation and final painting the moment it reaches the craftsmen.