Mallett House Deep Energy Retrofit Project Passes Town Project Review Board.

Today, we’re ecstatic to announce that the Mallett House Deep Energy Retrofit project that we began spear-heading nearly two years ago just this week passed the Freeport, ME Project Review Board. The project - which aims to complete a deep energy retrofit of an historic 19th century home at 57 Depot Street in downtown Freeport - still has some hurdles to jump before the shovels hit dirt, but this is a big step in the right direction.

With help from Building Science Corporation, which has led the engineering and architectural aspects of the renovation, HUD, Scott Simons Architects, numerous private contributors, and the ever stalwart non-profit owner of the building, Freeport Community Services, the gleam in our eye two years ago was to open-source a deep energy reduction of an existing building--in this case, a badly dilapidated, neglected building--that is representative of a broad swath of New England architecture. Our aim is to prove that deep energy reductions and careful historic preservation can coexist, and to open source the entire process, shedding light on the difficulties, as well as the possibilities, that such a project entails.

The fact that it’s taken us this long to get the project passed the review board is, sadly, emblematic of a perceived conflict between advocates of historic preservation and building energy efficiency. Historic preservationists harbor a fear that the concept of superinsulation, which in existing buildings often demands adding exterior insulation, will do harm to the historic character of buildings. While we're empathetic to this concern, we take the view that if we don’t begin to address the gargantuan energy waste that the vast majority of our older buildings contribute to, historic preservation will become, in the long run, a luxury that we simply can’t afford. Particularly as the real estate market becomes more sensitive to the energy performance of buildings, it would be a needless tragedy for the entire swath of historic buildings to be uniformly classified as poor energy performers.

We've labored long and hard to do this right, and tried our very best to engage state and local historic preservationists. While we were successful addressing State and Federal concerns, and have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with them, our friends at the Freeport Historical Society remain doggedly opposed to our proposed renovation of this building.

At the core of the historic preservation concern is that a deep reduction--meaning getting the building's energy use down by more than 50%--almost always necessitates superinsulation, a process of expanding the depth (and thermal resistance) of the entire building envelope--walls, roofs and basement. In our case, after exhaustive consideration of the options, we determined the least destructive approach was to insulate out rather than in. There's much to be explained about this decision which I'll do in a subsequent post, but in the end the exterior siding is decrepit, and the moisture and air barrier is 125 year old damaged tar paper. That needs to be fixed, and given that, adding exterior rigid foam insulation is the way to go. We're proposing 2" of foam on the walls and 4" on the roof.

That one aspect of the project--so simple, cost effective and, from a building science standpoint, such an ideal wall--makes preservationists see red. The historic preservation community hates superinsulation like Congressional Republicans hate climate science. 

From the outset, our view was that the two ideals of preservation and deep energy reduction could coexist in happy matrimony. Our architectureal drawings and CAD models show that the increased dimensions will not materially change the important streetview aspect of the building. We've invested significant time and money in addressing every last detail of trim and windows and materials to assure that the insulation expansion retains all of the lovely features of this sweet little house in precise proportion to it's original historical construction. This week, the Freeport Project Review Board, after thoroughly evaluating our plan down to the detail, decided that it was unanimously in favor of the project moving forward.

We’ve been loath to publish project updates thus far for fear of jinxing ourselves and winding up with a stalled project, but believe we’ve reached a point where we can start to discuss the Mallett House project openly.

The project is very, very close to getting underway. Building Science Corp has completed a parametric energy analysis; the engineering work is done; funding is largely in place. Our negotiations with State and Federal preservations agencies are complete. In March, we hope to clear the final hurdle of site issues such as parking and drainage. Then, because of the federal funding, we'll go out to competitive bid, select a builder, and get underway. Barring further delays, we'll start work this spring.

As the project unfolds we’ll start keeping you more regularly updated, so stay tuned in for some in-depth project information including envelope details, projected energy reductions and planned on-site renewable installations. For now, we’re happy to just get this project out into the open.

In the mean time, if you have any thoughts about the compatibility of energy efficiency and historic preservation, we’d certainly love to hear them.

Updated, 2-12-11. Added documents below:

Project Review Board Staff Report on 57 Depot Street Ordinance Compliance

Project Review Board Member Cliff Goodall's Analysis of Ordinance Applicability to Specific Historic Preservation Issues 

Freeport Historical Society Letter to Aaron Shapiro, November, 9, 2010.