Green Life Smart Life Announces Building Partners for Home Sustainability Project

From hardwood flooring to roofing solutions, eco-conscious manufacturers sign on to support Green Life Smart Life's quest for LEED-H certification.

Narragansett, RI - March 3, 2009 - Green Life Smart Life', a Rhode Island-based green building showcase home, proudly announces the addition of six new building partners that are committed to helping homeowners understand what is necessary to achieve LEED-H® certification. Each company brings cutting-edge products and long histories in sustainable building to the project. The new partners are DaVinci Roofscapes®, Eldorado Stone ®, Benjamin Obdyke Incorporated, Carlisle Wide Plank Floors®, Liberty Cedar and Titan Wood.


DaVinci Roofscapes, the project's newest Gold-level sponsor, will showcase its revolutionary synthetic slate roofing tiles, which replicate the natural texture of quarried slate in DaVinci's authentic-looking Cool Weathered Gray. Rated for the home's 120-m.p.h. wind-zone, the roofing tiles are maintenance-free, incredibly durable, and made of 100 percent virgin resin to assure product consistency and longevity. DaVinci's proprietarily engineered polymer incorporates fire retardant and state-of-the-art UV and color stabilizers that are specifically formulated to withstand the wide variety of challenging environments to which roofing materials are exposed year after year. The roofing tiles are 100 percent recyclable and are backed by a 50-year warranty. More cost-effective and far more eco-conscious than natural slate, the tiles are factory collated to assure a distinctive color blend every time, as well as fast, worry-free installation, with no special labor, framing or materials required. The roof will help the project qualify for points in the LEED-H Materials and Resources category.

Eldorado Stone will provide the stone veneer for the home's custom built fireplace, exterior barbeque patio, foundation face and wine cellar. It offers sustainable solutions for LEED-H requirements. With a 50-year warranty and extremely low maintenance, Eldorado Stone does not rust, rot or burn, making it a highly durable stone treatment. Eldorado Stone now offers custom mixes made from pre-and post-consumer recycled content, including glass, plastics and up to 25 percent Fly Ash, a byproduct of coal burning. As part of its commitment to creating more sustainable products, the company utilizes waste-water recycling and incorporates local raw materials in its manufacturing process. The stone will help Green Life Smart Life qualify for LEED-H points in both the Materials & Resources category as well as qualifying percentages for recycled content.

Benjamin Obdkye is outfitting the Green Life Smart Life home with its Home Slicker® product to extend the life of its Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®)-certified white cedar shingles. Home Slicker provides a continuous space for drainage and drying, a thermal break and pressure equalization between the layer of sheathing and the siding. These technologies will work in concert to eliminate the threat of trapped moisture between the exterior walls of the home. The Green life Smart Life team included Home Slicker as a durability measure in its Durability Checklist as part of its LEED-H application to extend the life of the shingles even in the harsh weather elements of coastal R.I., such as wind-driven rain.

Carlisle Wide Plank Floors® is supplying custom-made FSC®-certified antique reclaimed hardwood wide plank floors to Green Life Smart Life. The wood for the floors will be harvested from an old abandoned barn in New England. Carlisle is working closely with the Green Life Smart Life team to find just the right local barn that captures the family essence of the project. The Carlisle floors will cover more than 45 percent of the home's floor surface area, which will qualify Green Life Smart Life for full LEED-H points. Reclaimed wood from old barns slated for demolition reduces the overall embodied energy of the floor, eliminates the need to harvest new trees, and provides the home with a beautiful design element.

Accoya® wood by Titan Wood will supply Green Life Smart Life with all of the FSC-certified wood for the home's deck and front porch. Accoya® wood is a proven "new wood species" that is made only from sustainably sourced wood. Once the sustainable wood is harvested, it undergoes an acetylation process that alters its actual cell structure by transforming free hydroxyl groups into acetyl groups. Because this "modified" wood absorbs 80 percent less water than does conventional wood, the wood is substantially more stable, lasts much longer and requires far less maintenance. Additionally, the acetylation process makes the wood indigestible to fungi and pests, which don't even recognize it as a food source. The use of Accoya® wood will help the project gain half of a LEED-H point in the category of Materials & Resources, exterior decking and contribute to the overall percentage of FSC wood used in the home.

Locally-owned Liberty Cedar is providing the home's beautiful and sustainable white cedar shingles, which are (FSC)-certified. Liberty Cedar is also providing the elegant FSC-certified cedar rafter tails, which exemplify the company's superior mill working capabilities.

"We are excited to be working with such well-respected manufacturers," said homeowner Kimberly Hageman. "Each company provides the Green Life Smart Life project with a unique design that meshes beautifully with our overall vision. The companies behind these great products are known for their staggering commitment to sustainability and green building. We are so proud to feature them in our home."

For more information, please visit www.greenlifesmartlife.com. To learn more about our sponsors, visit www.greenlifesmartlife.com/sponsors.

About Green Life Smart Life'
The Green Life Smart Life project was inspired by a real family that has been on the quest to live on the RI coast since 2000. The family has spent a year designing a green home that captures the views of Narragansett Bay and the Newport Bridge; handles the Northeast corridor's harsh weather elements; and balances the unique constraints of building green and staying on a budget. By creating a powerful coalition of sponsor partners across multiple industries, Green Life Smart Life will be a homeowner showcase on residential green building resources, environmentally preferable products, energy saving strategies and smart technologies.

Press Contact:
Caster Communications, Inc. at 401.792.7080
Lauren Simmen lsimmen@castercomm.com
shley Daigneault Ashley@castercomm.com

For digital images log on to www.castercomm.com

All product and company names referred to herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Featured Product

MORNINGSTAR - GenStar MPPT

MORNINGSTAR - GenStar MPPT

GenStar MPPT is the industry's first fully integrated solar DC charging system, an all-new design with "lithium DNA" from the leader in charge controllers. Out of the box, GenStar is an overachiever-delivering legendary Morningstar quality, efficiency, power and reliability along with the latest in advanced communications and control technologies. All the most installer-requested features are on-board; additional features can be easily added via Morningstar's ReadyBlock expansion technology, with snap-in blocks that provide battery metering and monitoring, signaling and load control, and lithium battery communications/control