Category Archives: Construction

Feldheim, an Energy Self-Sufficient Community

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A version of this post appears at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com.

entrance to Feldheim

entrance to Feldheim

From a distance, Feldheim looks like many other rural villages in Germany: a cluster of buildings surrounded by farmland and forests.   The backdrop includes numerous wind turbines, but that’s not unusual in Germany’s breezy north.  What is unusual is that there are two signs welcoming visitors to Feldheim: the typical yellow sign that is found at the edge of every village, and another in blue and white announcing that Feldheim is an “Energieautarker Ortsteil,” or an energy self-sufficient district.  In 2010, Feldheim became one of the first villages in Germany to supply all of its own electricity and heat.

I visited Feldheim twice recently.  During my first visit I met with Michael Knape, the mayor of Treuenbrietzen, the adjacent town to which Feldheim belongs.  I had seen Mr. Knape give a presentation about Feldheim at a bioenergy village conference in Berlin, and I was eager to follow up with him.  He suggested that we meet “at the construction site” in Feldheim.  When I asked which one, he sounded surprised: “There’s only one.”

Finding the jobsite was not difficult.  Feldheim has just one main street, and most of the village’s homes are on it.  I pulled up to a two story building wrapped in scaffolding. Several masons were repointing brick and reproducing masonry moldings on the front of the building, while at the gable end, another crew was installing batts of mineral wool insulation on the walls.  A large sign out front announced the Neue-Energien-Forum Feldheim, or “New Energy Forum Feldheim.”   I noticed an electric vehicle charging station adjacent to the building.

New Energy Forum Feldheim

New Energy Forum Feldheim

As Mr. Knape and I settled into a temporary conference room that had been set up on site, I asked him “Why Feldheim? Why here?”

“In the early 1990s, ” he told me, “a graduate student named Michael Raschemann visited the village while looking for a location to install four wind turbines.”  The conditions in Feldheim seemed promising because the area is windy, and the land surrounding the village is relatively flat.  In his subsequent discussions with the villagers, Mr. Raschemann proved adept at addressing the villagers’ concerns and winning their trust.  He even offered local residents the opportunity to invest in one of the four wind turbines — a wise investment, as it turned out.  The story of Feldheim becoming energy self-sufficient is largely about the successful public-private partnership between Energiequelle, the company that Mr. Raschemann founded, and the village of Feldheim. Continue reading →

Germany’s Building Energy Efficiency Ordinance

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[A version of this post also appears at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com]

In mid October of last year, the German government approved amendments to its Energie Einsparung Verordnung (EnEV), the federal ordinance that mandates energy efficiency for buildings.  Negotiations about revisions to the EnEV were prolonged and heated. The ordinance that was passed is a testament both to the collaborative abilities of the government’s various factions, and to the importance the German public places on the country’s Energy Transition. This latest version of the EnEV reflects the government’s relevant energy policy decisions, and it brings the ordinance into alignment with the latest European Union Directive regarding building energy performance.

energy performance scale showing site (above) and source (below) energy demand

energy performance scale showing site (above) and source (below) energy demand

On May 1 of this year, the changes that were approved last October came into force. New requirements relating to building energy labeling and heating systems are now in effect, but a key provision of the so-called EnEV 2014 — tighter requirements for building energy efficiency — will not be in force until 2016. Continue reading →

BauTec 2014

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[A version of this article was also posted at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com].

BauTec 2014

BauTec 2014

I recently attended BauTec, a trade fair for the construction industry that is held annually in Berlin. According to the show’s marketers, BauTec is “the year’s most important trade industry event.” I found the show to be impressive, inspiring and overwhelming.  Each of ten large halls at Berlin’s International Conference Center was filled with exhibits and booths dedicated to a different segment of the construction industry: Windows/Doors/Glazing, Plumbing/Heating/Cooling, etc.  I ended up visiting the show on three different days to attend seminars being held in tandem with the trade show, and to walk the trade show floor.   Continue reading →

Echoes of World War II

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bombed excavator

bombed excavator

Annette, our daughters and I spent New Year’s Eve in Bonn with Annette’s two sisters and their families.  On the drive back to Berlin, I heard numerous reports on the radio about an explosion in the Nordrhein-Westfalen town of Euskirchen.  The operator of a large excavator working at a rubble disposal yard had been killed when his machine struck what was thought to be unexploded ordinance from WWII.  Windows within a 500 meter radius were shattered by the blast.  Debris from the explosion was found nearly a kilometer away. The authorities believe that this bomb may previously have been encased in concrete, as was sometimes done when defusing was not feasible.

Approximately one tenth of the millions of bombs dropped by British and American planes on Germany during WWII did not explode.  Every year, over 2,000 tons of unexploded bombs and other munitions are recovered.  Unexploded ordinance is common enough that companies routinely hire private bomb disposal teams to check that sites are safe prior to construction.  Safely disposing of the bombs is increasingly difficult as they decay over time. Continue reading →

Bauhaus

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[A version of this article was also posted at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com].

My apologies to anyone who is expecting a post about the influential modernist design/build movement that flourished in 1920’s Germany.  The Bauhaus of this post’s title is a home center along the lines of Home Depot and Lowe’s in America.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus

I haven’t actually found any hardware stores in Berlin — something akin to Aubuchon in New Hampshire, or the mom-and-pop hardware stores that may still exist in some small towns in America. The biggest home improvement store chain in Germany is called OBI, which is the third largest such company in the world, after Home Depot and Lowe’s.  I have heard that there is an OBI up in the Mitte section of Berlin, but Bauhaus is the home improvement store that I have seen while biking around town.  In fact, a large new branch of this Swiss-based retailer is being constructed not far from our apartment.  DIY is apparently alive and well in Berlin.

A couple of weeks ago, I had occasion to pick up a few items at Bauhaus.  Since I was not in a rush, I decided to tour the store with my camera, taking photos of things that seemed notable, particularly as compared with the product selection at home improvement stores in the US.

The rest of this post contains lots of photos interspersed with brief notes.  If visiting the Home Depot doesn’t give you the shivers, you might find something of interest herein.

Continue reading →

Energetische Sanierung

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[A version of this post was published at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com on 7Jan14]

I don’t know whether there are any building geeks reading this blog, but if so, here’s a post for them.  I am including more photos of insulation details than a normal person would find interesting.

2 stuccoed facadeA few weeks ago while biking back from a visit to Rani’s high school, I stopped at a job site that had previously caught my eye. Although the buildings were shrouded in the usual scaffolding and screening, I could tell that the work involved “energetische sanierung,” or energy retrofitting.

Two workers were installing rigid foam around newly-installed windows.  I asked if I could take some photos, explaining that I was a project manager from the US, and interested in energy efficiency.  As often happens in this situation, their initial reticence gave way to a quick tour of the work and informative answers to my questions.

While the materials and techniques used on this project are run-of-the-mill for Germany, and may be of limited applicability to projects in New England, I like to think that sharing them might contribute to innovative thinking in someone, somewhere.  The rest of this post contains photos and notes about the insulating skin being installed on the building.

Continue reading →

Open Built Sidewalks

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Open Building is the most compelling framework for envisioning building construction that I have come across.  Ideas that were originally formulated by the Dutch architect John Habraken have been further developed by others, including Stewart Brand in the book How Buildings Learn, and Tedd Benson and his team at Bensonwood Homes.  Back in 2006 while working at Bensonwood, I wrote an article about Open Building for Fine Homebuilding Magazine.

One of the essential tenets of Open Building is that buildings should be flexible and adaptable, because their functions change over time, as do the environmental conditions in which they exist.  Buildings are seen as being made up of layers that have distinct lifespans and differing needs for access and modification.  For example, the structure of a building should be long-lasting and well-protected, and not entangled with layers such as the mechanical and electrical systems that require more frequent access, or the insulating skin that should be continuous.

Traveling around Berlin, I have been thinking about Open Building in the context of underground construction.  Continue reading →

Stadtpalais am Roseneck — Exterior Insulation

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Construction — both new buildings and renovations — seems to be thriving in Berlin.  A local example is the large apartment complex being built at the end of our block.  The image shown on the billboard out front is not in keeping with the spirit of the neighborhood, but it reflects real estate values that have been rising steadily over the past few years.

Stadtpalais am Roseneck

Stadtpalais am Roseneck

Just what the neighborhood needs?

Just what the neighborhood needs?

I walk or bike by the job site several times a day.  While I enjoy checking on the progress, I have also felt some version of “work envy.”  There is probably a word for this in German.  It would capture the feeling that I should be working on a project like that — a mixture of desire and obligation.  While passing the job site, I have even gone so far as to try to identify the person in charge — the site superintendent or project manager — to whom I would walk up and say, Here I am, ready to work, let’s go.  This fantasy quickly fades as I remember that I don’t yet have an official work permit.  More importantly, in thinking about our year in Berlin, I have determined that there are likely better ways for me to make use of the time than as a Handwerker at the local Baustelle.

The following photos focus on the exterior skin of insulation that is being installed on the cast concrete walls of the building.  Rigid insulation in the form of mineral wool or polystyrene foam is finished with stucco.  In the U.S. we would call this EIFS (“Exterior Insulation and Finishing System”).  Here in Germany, this seems to be the most common method for insulating new buildings and retrofitting existing ones.

Continue reading →

District Heating in Berlin

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Sedanstr 1What can I say?  I’m interested in underground utilities: those hidden networks of tunnels, pipes and wires that provide so many of the services that we tend to take for granted.

This block-long excavation at the side of a residential street looked to me like it involved municipal water and Sedanstr 3sewer pipes, but the men working on it told me that they were upgrading distribution for heat and domestic hot water.  I presume that the smaller pipes with the thick white insulation are carrying heat and hot water.

Where does the hot water come from? “Ein Heizungskessel” — a boiler.

I later learned via a  quick internet search that:

Berlin ranks top among the cities in Germany with regard to its use of cogeneration systems. The city has the largest district-heating network in Western Europe. A 1,600-kilometer network of pipes delivers heat to consumers using resource-conserving technologies. Over 280 cogeneration plants across the city provide reliable and environmentally friendly heat and electricity. Nearly 30 percent of the district-heating market in Berlin is supplied by cogeneration plants, and the city has long-term plans to boost this percentage further.

So a distributed network of cogeneration plants, fired primarily by natural gas and coal, creates electricity and heat for a significant portion of the city.

Before we arrived in Germany, I had been planning to look into the biomass-fired (wood chips and pellets) district heating systems that have been developed in Northern Austria.  I was not expecting to find examples of district heating systems under my feet in Berlin.