Ever green
Couple’s passion for sustainable building leads to showcase home
by Hilary Parker

Nestled among the clapboard homes of varying styles and vintages in the South Hill neighborhood of Bellingham sits a modest stucco cottage – its footprint just more than 1,000 square feet. While it’s clear the home is new construction, the lot’s mature Douglas fir and cedars give the air of a well-established dwelling.
The home of Rick Dubrow and Cindi Landreth – husband and wife team of A-1 Builders and Adaptations, A-1’s design divison – made their home the ultimate test kitchen for their “green” design and building practices.
Green practices in design and building are environmentally responsible – minimizing materials, especially new ones, reusing/reclaiming materials, plus promoting energy efficiency and a host of other sustainable practices.
“This is the greenest thing I’ve ever built,” says Dubrow, although A-1 has been a frontrunner in the commitment to building green for “seemingly forever.”
The home, featured on Whatcom County’s Sustainable Connections home and landscape tour in both 2004 and 2005, has also been a catalyst for other local builders to incorporate more green practices into their projects, says Dubrow.
While many builders share the ideals of sustainable practices, it isn’t easy to be the first to jump into the pool. But Dubrow says he’s seeing more and more builders take that plunge. “It seems to have reached a tipping point,” he said.
As for promoting their own business, “[The home] was an exclamation point that caught more attention,” remarked Landreth.

Sustainable, maintainable
The major difference between the Dubrow/Landreth home and a traditionally constructed home is its walls. Made of a concrete form system called Rastra, the walls have superior insulation, soundproofing and fire protection qualities.
“It’s like building with Lego blocks.” says Dubrow. “It’s very cool.”
Visitors can peek at the home’s innards through a tiny door in the wall of the utility room. “It’s a trend in alternative housing called a truth window,” explains Dubrow.
Another innovative feature is the sealed crawlspace. Traditional wisdom says a home’s crawlspace should not be completely airtight as it hampers airflow, but a negative-flow vent in the home actually sucks the potentially stagnant air out and keeps the air circulating throughout the home. Dubrow believes it’s the only such crawl space in the county.
The exterior is finished in pre-colored stucco, which doesn’t require painting – a low maintenance feature the couple consciously considered in all their materials. Another low-maintenance feature is the Lowen aluminum-clad wood window casings, which are built to last and don’t require painting.
“It frees us up to live the lifestyle we want to live,” says Landreth. That includes plenty of outdoor time camping, hiking and backpacking.
The small footprint of the home was another conscious design feature, minimizing the home’s ecological footprint. Smaller is better for a number of reasons, from less upkeep to using fewer materials and requiring less energy to heat.
Upfront costs for sustainable building can come with a higher price tag, but those costs are balanced by the savings realized down the road.
“In the short run this high-quality-component home is about the same cost when compared to the same size home using more traditional materials and systems,” says Dubrow. “In the long run this high-quality-component home is the cheapest way to build. Rot and bugs cannot damage our foundation and exterior shell; the windows and roofing should last forever; it’s cheap to heat; cleaning is a snap.”
To make the most of the small space, Landreth wanted a room for her projects, and somewhere for future grandkids. The solution was to add a 330-square-foot multipurpose room upstairs. A large interior window at one end of the room looks down onto the living room. The window also opens to let in the main floor’s warm air to heat the space, which doesn’t have its own heat source.

Living in a de-material world
Another alternative building hallmark, explains Dubrow, is the idea of dematerialization, using fewer materials in building, and choosing materials wisely – looking for sustainable options and salvaged materials.
Many of the materials throughout the house fit that description, from the Rastra to the blown-in cellulose (newspaper) insulation to the front door.
Made from redwood reclaimed from a pickle barrel, the front door has a dark patina that makes it look centuries old. The redwood was also used as trim around the ceiling and lower windowsills – other spots are trimless, in keeping with dematerialization. Recycled chalkboard lines the windowsills.
Other environmentally savvy materials and uses include wheatboard cabinet boxes for the cherry-faced kitchen cabinets. Made in the same way as traditional particleboard, the material is made from recycled wheat chaff – a more sustainable product and one that off-gasses less, which makes for better air quality within the home. Glue-lam beams, made of smaller pieces of timber, spare old-growth and mature timbers.
Another aspect of dematerialization is investing in long-lasting materials that will stand the test of time. This includes choosing appliances with a long lifecycle. For instance, says Landreth, the home’s dishwasher has a lifecycle of 25 years compared to the standard 10 years of most dishwashers.

Zen den
The home’s clean lines are part of the contemporary look of many alternative homes, but they also reflect Dubrow and Landreth’s “zen” aesthetic.
A small alcove between the entry and the kitchen serves as the home’s tokonoma, a traditional element of Japanese interior design.
This tokonoma, however, has a Western influence. A mounted poster with a historic photograph of an American Indian hangs on the wall, and a circle of found rocks from their travels sits on a bench made of reclaimed chalkboard.
Also reminiscent of Japanese architecture is the home’s open, airy feel. Even where walls are constructed peek-a-boo openings allow light and/or sightlines to travel from room-to-room. For instance, a cutout in the wall between the kitchen and living area lets Landreth keep an eye on the movie when she’s making popcorn.
Three sets of large sliding glass doors along the kitchen and the living room merge the two living spaces – indoors and out. “[I like] this feeling of being inside and outside at the same time,” says Dubrow.
Bringing the outdoors in also lends the ambiance of a cabin to the home, a feeling they wanted to recreate from their time spent at Cabin 7 at Silver Lake Park.
When asked what element of the home she likes best, Landreth pauses, then answers. “It’s the whole feeling of the house.”