Do solar panels belong on a 200-year-old building?
Wait a minute – solar panels’ historic character?
Should photovoltaic panels be visibly mounted on a historic building’s roof?
More than 30 architects, engineers, planners, elected officials and government administrators provided differing answers to these and other questions at Integrating Sustainability and Historic Preservation: The Cultural and Historical Dimensions of ‘Green’ – an April 3 workshop at the University of Delaware’s Virden Conference Center in Lewes.
“Are we making preservation work too hard?” asked David Ames during the workshop’s wrap-up discussion on integrating architectural sustainability with historic preservation.
Ames is a University of Delaware professor of urban affairs and director of the school’s Center for Historic Architecture and Design.
“We’ve built some bad stuff that we might not want to preserve,” Ames said.
Among questions that sparked divergent answers: – What’s the overall effect of government policies that favor demolishing rather than reusing old government-owned structures?
What are the long-term implications of the recent negative shift in global economies? What’s the most cost-effective thing a homeowner can do to a structure? Is it more cost effective, energy efficient and environmentally beneficial to demolish an old building and replace it with a new one?
“We’re out of manufacturing, and we’re very nearly out of money. The Chinese are going to cut us off [financially],” said Wilmington-based architect Charlie Weymouth about long-term economic conditions.
“Where does the consumer enter into the conversation?” asked Ian Mulholland, president of Green Technologies International Corp., a Milford-based company that integrates numerous green technologies into its projects.
Sara Sweeney, an architect with EcoVision Green Solutions of Collingswood, N.J., said before a homeowner spends big money on items such as solar panels or other renewable-energy systems, they should first do a deep energy retrofit.
“Deep energy retrofitting makes an old building thermally tight,” Sweeney said. She said it pays to seal out drafts and improve a home’s insulation.
“If you properly seal the house there’s a potential 20 percent return on investment. You have to seal tight and ventilate right,” Sweeney said.
Mulholland said advertising by window manufacturers deceives homeowners, telling them that installing replacement windows is cost effective.
“The return on investment to replace windows is only about 4 percent,” Mulholland said.
“But what about comfort?” asked Sussex County Councilwoman Joan Deaver.
Mulholland said adding insulating window treatments improves comfort level. “The real easy stuff you should be doing today,” he said.
Barbara Warnell of Interior Space Planning and Design in Lewes said schools, especially those built in the 1980s, are demolished instead of being reused “just because it’s not working today.”
“Standards change and needs change,” Warnell said, raising the question of why architectural sustainability matters – and why maintain a building – if it’s going to be demolished in 40 years?
“These schools have shells that are in good shape – the floors are in good shape. They make magnificent apartments and living spaces,” said Ginny Weeks, chairwoman of Milton’s Planning & Zoning Commission.
“But there are times that you just have to take a building down because it just doesn’t work anymore,” said architect Jay Cooperson of Cooperson Associates in Wilmington. So do solar panels belong on historic structures?
“You can include solar panels; you just have to be careful about where you put them,” said Liz Creveling Petrella of the National Park Service’s Technical Preservation Service.
“Preservation’s thought has become more progressive,” said Anita Franchetti, Delaware field representative from the Philadelphia office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“I think it’s an interesting look of old and new. It shows a building’s adaptability,” Sweeney said.
The American Institute of Architects Delaware chapter, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Preservation Delaware and the Town of Milton co-sponsored the workshop.
