February 11, 2000

County Line in Erie offers EcoBuild’s green lumber

BOULDER – David Adamson is a green advocate. The founder and sole operator of locally-based EcoBuild, he serves as a representative, broker and marketer of ecologically sound building material. Adamson started the company in May of 1999, but the former environmental activist has had a hand in green building for the past eight years.
He first got involved when he saw that his experience could be put to even greater use in the private sector.
“Businesses and builders and developers are recognizing the market value of health and environmental quality in buildings,” he said. “Buyers need to know that it is possible to make a better building for the same cost.”
When it comes to building, he says wood is a great product, but it depends on how it’s harvested. “There’s a difference between replanting trees and maintaining a forest,” he says.
EcoBuild sells third-party certified sustainably harvested lumber, which means that in order for the lumber to be considered ecologically friendly, its harvesting must be approved by a third-party agency. In the end, he says the goal is to be able to cut trees and still have a forest where bears would actually like to live.
County Line Lumber in Erie is the first dealer involved in Adamson’s program to mainstream green building products. Charlie Diller, sales associate at County Line, said it’s not a hot item right now.
EcoBuild recommends a host of interior and exterior building materials, mostly wood products. Costs are generally 5 to 10 percent more than conventional wood. EcoBuild lumber is slightly more expensive than standard types, but not much. At County Line, Diller said it’s only about 2 or 3 percent more. So while the EcoBuild lumber would cost $772 per thousand board-feet, the same amount of standard, or treated lumber, would cost $749.
Part of the lumber’s higher cost has to do with the process by which it was harvested. But as far as sales go, it’s more about getting the word out.
County Line has only been selling EcoBuild lumber since November, but it’s not a product you can just put in to the market and expect it to sell – you have to go out and contact people. Since County Line started selling the lumber, Adamson has been working to bring consumers there.
Right now, Diller said most of the lumber is being sold to individual buyers, not large developers, but Adamson is brokering the material to local projects as well.
The Stapleton Airport redevelopment has pledged to use it and Don Johnson, developer of Erie Village, a large commercial and residential development, may be working to incorporate EcoBuild material into this project.
In addition to lumber yards, he’s working on getting interior products into flooring stores. He has been establishing relationships with several local retailers including Planetary Solutions in Boulder.
Overall, Adamson says there is a strong and growing interest among large developers in green building. Over 80 builders nationwide are involved in the home builders association’s green building program, and there are a number of large green projects being developed across the country.
Through his work, Adamson is looking to improve existing and new buildings, to make them healthier, save energy and reduce their impact on the environment. But his reasons for recommending green building materials to developers and consumers are just as practical as they are environmentally beneficial. In the end, he says, you will get a building that performs better.
By using healthier building materials, he says employers can create healthier work conditions that will inevitably increase employee productivity by reducing the risk of employee absenteeism.
In many instances, Adamson says colds and flus are directly related to common toxins like formaldehyde glue. Used in many building materials, the glue is one of the most common components of indoor air pollution.
By eliminating many of the chemicals that can lead to “sick buildings,” he says the use of environmental materials will reduce maintenance costs in the long run.
“They’ve made buildings more energy efficient, but haven’t insulated them properly. All this can add up to an unhealthy indoor environment,” he says.
With each green building project, Adamson looks at four main elements: the building’s healthfulness when it was first constructed, its use and its embodied energy. Whether or not a building saves energy and how much energy it will use is the biggest environmental footprint.

BOULDER – David Adamson is a green advocate. The founder and sole operator of locally-based EcoBuild, he serves as a representative, broker and marketer of ecologically sound building material. Adamson started the company in May of 1999, but the former environmental activist has had a hand in green building for the past eight years.
He first got involved when he saw that his experience could be put to even greater use in the private sector.
“Businesses and builders and developers are recognizing the market value of health and environmental quality in buildings,” he said. “Buyers need to know…

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