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Yahoo!Santa Barbara City College will soon be offering a new class on implementing green practices in home development.
This course was created by the Construction Academy, which offers 18 courses, now including this eight-week class beginning January 27.
Taught by SBCC’s Dr. Patrick Foster — a construction instructor who has previously worked in green contracting — the class will meet weeknights with additional field trips on Saturdays. Though the costs involved in green construction and its less-ecofriendly counterpart are initially similar, Foster said the long-term energy and money saved with the former is unbelievable: it’s a win-win situation.
The Construction Academy offers education on various construction jobs, such as carpentry, concrete work, engineering, and site management. Many who enroll are already working, Foster explained, and can attend the drop-in classes for specific skills. No experience is necessary for any of the classes, however. Foster said he hopes the Construction Academy will develop into a sequence of classes and electives that would give people working in this industry a better chance at getting work.
The course will be based on From the Ground Up — a film that was created by Brooks Institute professor Tracy Trotter and her students and that will be featured this year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The film documents the building of a home by Joe Campanelli of Campanelli Construction and, in doing so, discusses such green construction issues as water, materials, and energy use. Campanelli Construction is also one of the founders of the Santa Barbara Contractors Association’s Built Green Santa Barbara, a nonprofit that promotes efficient development, planning, and production. The Santa Barbara Contractors Association has also created a construction guide which will also be used on the course. Foster described the document as a comprehensive guide to starting the process of creating a home.
The class was made possible by a two-year sustainable grant. Those interested can register for it at the SBCC Web site. “This will hopefully orient our program in a more green way,” Foster said of the value of the class in the context of SBCC’s construction program as a whole.
The class begins on January 27.
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Green building sounds and is wonderful. So is caviar and fine Champagne. However, you and I cannot afford it so just forget about it. I recently looked into getting fancy new thermal windows and discovered it would take 80 years to pay back my gas bill reduction. I guess I'll just learn to live with sweaters for 3 months of the year. Maybe in New England or the mid west it pays but not here in SB. Now if a small percentage of that 700 Billion were just handed out in checks for retrofitting homes and apartments we might create a few million new jobs and cut down drastically on foreign oil imports. Think it might happen? Sorry, no millionaires get rich with that approach so forget it.
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Noletaman (anonymous profile)
January 27, 2009 at 9:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Noletaman: what specifically were you looking into? Double-paned or triple-paned windows? I have heard the triple-paned are ridiculously expensive but perhaps you can get double-paned within your price range.
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billclausen (anonymous profile)
January 30, 2009 at 7:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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