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At the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting Thursday, preservationists and architects warned against stripping historic buildings off their original windows, explaining that it could take away character-defining features, and advised homeowners to instead invest in sealing problem areas, weather-stripping and making use of natural ventilation. 

Called “Greening Your Historic Building,” the hour-long session was run by Billi Romain, Berkeley’s sustainability coordinator and Tom Dufurrena, principal at Page & Turnbull. They guided citizens through the city’s Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance (RECO) and sustainability measures as part of Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan, which proposes to cut Berkeley’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. 

The public review and comment period for the draft has been extended till Jan. 16 and can be viewed at www.BerkeleyClimateAction.org. 

Although Thursday’s green tip mainly revolved around how to make residential buildings air-tight, Dufurrena told the Planet after the meeting that there was more to historic preservation than what meets the eye. 

“People that are maintaining historic buildings are already playing a part in preservation,” he said. “The embodied energy already put in the building is being recouped rather than it being demolished and going to a landfill. We should maintain buildings not just as a part of our physical resource but also as a cultural resource. A lot of the older historic buildings are not as efficient in terms of insulation but there is value there.” 

Dufurrena said that homeowners could choose from either the Greenpoint principles or LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification when it was time to evaluate buildings for restoration, adding that Greenpoint was geared principally toward residences while LEED’s primary focus was on commercial properties. 

LEED, he said, was mainly targeting new buildings and upgrading systems located inside buildings. 

“It doesn’t have a lot of emphasis on historic buildings but there are some projects out there,” he said. 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation—which provides a comprehensive guide to greening historic buildings—encourages development which is environmentally, economically and socially sustainable and calls on homeowners to re-invest in older and historic communities as an important way to address climate change. 

Insulating old buildings to lessen the heat which gets lost in them is a great way to green historic buildings, Dufurrena said. 

“Originally, woodframe buildings were not built for insulation,” he said. “But a lot of historic buildings have windows which are fairly distinctive. If you take them away or change them, you change the building. Sometimes impulsive homeowners will take away the windows and replace them with double pane ones. It does not make economic sense and defers from the historic characteristic.” 

Dufurrena said that homeowners should resist this temptation and instead try to install really good seals around windows and carry out air flow tests. 

“Most people are very interested in doing that,” he said. “Whenever there’s an opportunity to improve energy performance of a building people should take advantage of it. It doesn’t have to be a formal process, people can do it on their own.” 

Neal Dessno, the city’s energy planning officer, said that the Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance, put into effect in the 1980s, required residents to carry out 10 measures—including insulating attics and getting low flow installations—to help reduce energy loss every time a building was sold or remodeled. 

Dessno said that natural gas consumption in residential buildings had gone down drastically since the law was put into place and added that city was currently working to update it in order to make it more flexible and tailor-made for individual needs. 

Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Carrie Olson said that although she appreciated the city’s efforts to encourage historic preservation, she wanted to see the Climate Action Plan reflect it in more detail. 

“I am looking forward to what must be a new draft of the Climate Action Plan,” she said Monday. “Historic preservation wasn’t presented at all in the current draft. At this point I just consider it to be chatter. It doesn’t mean anything until the city actually has something to offer. Historic preservation is extremely important. These are 50 percent of our green house gases and yet the Climate Action Plan talks more about getting people out of their cars and into buses.” 

For more information on Greening Historic Buildings visit: www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=29154 or www.preservationnation.org/issues/sustainability 

For information on RECO visit: www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=16030 

To review and comment on Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan visit: www.berkeleyclimateaction.org