Sustainable Churchs Continued
November 6th, 2009 | Project Showcase, Unique Trends | churches, religious, religious market, susta, Sustainable Design, tom reilly
As a follow-up to our first Sustainable Church post, Tom R was able to visit with a few more in his area. All of them thoroughly believed in the benefits of Reward insulating concrete forms and the green building initiatives of the churches.
Tim Miller, who GC’d the Portage Community Chapel in Portage, OH was kind enough to share information on this proejct. The Portage Community Chapel was an addition to an existing facility but the addition dwarfed the original structure. Included in the new portion of the building is a gymnasium, 2 stories of classrooms and all-purpose rooms, all of which utilized Reward for the exterior walls.
Miller is a member of the Portage Community Chapel, and one unique aspect of the church’s decision was the ability to use volunteers to help in the construction. Similar to Habitat for Humanity, Portage uses volunteers, usually church members, to help construct not only their own buildings, but to assist in the construction of other religious and/or non-profit facilities as well. Miller was able to train the volunteers to help in building this project with relative ease, mostly due to the simplicity of Reward’s system. In addition, Miller had a heat-loss audit performed for the building long before construction ever started, and the energy savings inherent with Reward’s products versus traditional methods made it an easy decision for the building committee.
It makes sense that churches would look at Insulating Concrete Form construction. Churches have been and continue to be anchors in communities across the US, and as such, when they look to build they want their structures to last for generations of the congregation. ICF technology helps them do that.
Most churches and church building committees work on very tight budgets so they want the most bang for their buck. Again, Reward ICF’s help them achieve that with competitive first costs and ongoing contributions through reduced energy requirements throughout the life of the building (which is longer when built with Reward versus traditional construction methods.) When you add it all up, it’s easy to see why Reward is often the choice for new church construction.
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