Paul Nutcher is the membership director for the US Green Building Council Chapter in Central Florida (USGBC-CF). For more information, visit www.usgbc.org.
Selecting green products for new hospital construction can have a positive impact on patient outcomes and the productivity of its medical staff. Therefore, the owners of the 12,000-square-foot LEED-certified hospital within Washington state's Gateway Medical Center specified the hospital's building envelope with great care, including a durable ENERGY STAR single-ply roofing system from IB Roof Systems.
Roofing industry experts predict that some 450 million square feet of ballasted roof installed from 1976 and 1996 will be in need of replacing within the next decade.
On one such project, Bill O'Neill, president of Building Envelope Management Inc. of Boston, was hired by a building owner to look at a 225,000-square-foot combined warehouse and office building in Peabody, Mass.