Green Building is a leading-edge approach to construction and planning
that results in reduced expenditure of natural resources, less waste and pollution, enhanced health, and increased profitability. We are fully committed to this sensible and responsible philosophy, and continually realizes its benefits firsthand.

Sota Construction Services Inc. is a financial supporter of the Green Building Alliance and Conservation Consultant Inc. in Pittsburgh, and is also a member of the United States Green Building Council. Ernie Sota, president of Sota Construction Services Inc, is a registered LEED professional. LEED is a rating system for green buildings. See www.usgbc.org for more information.

Through thoughtful design and building techniques, our Green Building projects have proven to be efficiently sustainable, cost-saving in both construction and in operation, and minimally damaging to the environment.

These buildings are energy-efficient and offer high indoor environmental quality, which are attributes obtained through the use of effective insulating methods and innovative air handling and exchange equipment.

One example of our work in Green Building is the Carson Retirement Residence/Sarah Street Apartments project, shown below.  Our studies of the energy usage for the multifamily buildings
shown on our projects pages show that they are they are extremely energy efficient when using the metric of btu/sf/degree day of heating.  These buildings are showing a consumption of approximately 6 btu per sf using this metrc for total energy including heating,cooling, lighting, plug loads and domestic hot water usage.

This 99 unit project was constructed of precast plank and insulated concrete formed walls. At the time, it was the largest building in Pennsylvania built using this method. This type of construction provides exceptionally high insulation and sound qualities (STC values) for the building. Other measures such as high efficiency water source heat pumps and boilers, Low-E glazing, low-voc paints and adhesives were some of the items that contributed to this being a 'greener' project.

Another of our successful green projects is the Summit Retirement Residence, a former school that Sota renovated into a 55 unit affordable housing facility for seniors. Along with using the Green Building techniques described above, Sota was able to reuse tons of terra cotta from the buildings interior walls, crushing it on-site and using it as fill to raise the former gymnasium area to bring it to the same level as the rest of the building.



    

The Felician Sisters Convent and Sacred Heart High School is a LEED registered Sota project with a gold rating target. The project's Green construction elements included significant reuse of existing materials, specification of recycled content materials, recycling of on-site construction waste. and specification of sustainable furniture.

Besides the reuse of over 300 doors and transoms, miles of wood trim and 1 acre of wood flooring, all of the new partitions were built using recycled metal studs, recycled drywall made from fly-ash and recycled mineral wool sound insulation.

Extensive interviews with the Sisters regarding the occupancy schedule of the various spaces allowed the HVAC system to be reduced by 45 tons. High efficiency water source heat pumps were used with energy recovery units on the roof to provide fresh air and recover energy from the exhausted air. The building exceeds ASHRAE 90.1 for energy efficiency by 35% providing significant long term savings and environmental benefits. DOE 2 modeling of various alternatives was used to evaluate thermal improvements. The over 900 windows in the building are used to maximize natural lighting of the spaces. White reflective TPO roofing was used to minimize heat island effect and to reduce load. A direct digital control system will provide setback and monitoring of the hvac units.Waste heat from kitchen refrigeration will be input into the heat pump water loop. Photocells in the classrooms will turn off lights when natural light is present.





    

    

Sota Construction Services Inc. wrote a grant proposal for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Energy Harvesting Program and has installed an evacuated tube solar domestic hot water heating system on the RossHill Retirement Residence.

see http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07249/814832-54.stm
for more information on this installation which is one of the largest ever installed in Western Pennsylvania