THE GREEN STATUS OF FIRE STATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES:AN ANALYSIS OF LEED-NC V3

Fire protection is an essential public service but also one of the costliest ones.Considerable resources are devoted to fire protection including equipment,staff,training,and the facilities to house them.Fire stations,in particular,have a significant cost impact on state and municipal budgets.Fire stations are required in most local governments and like other municipal buildings are central to identity.To limit the cost of operating a fire station,municipalities have looked to more green building options.Green-rating systems such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design(LEED)system have been used in the U.S.to assess green buildings.Thus,this paper aims to analyze 95 certified fire stations under the LEED-NC 2009 version(v3)that are located in the United States.A scorecard analysis(credits and points)of public data available serve as the foundation to describe the status of the green design and construction of these fire stations.The findings indicate that the points in the Material Resources(MR)category are achieved at the lowest rate compared to the other categories,on average 38%of 14 available points were earned.In addi­tion,the points in the Energy and Atmosphere(EA)category are one of the lowest achievement rates,equal to 40.2%.The data also shows that 82%of LEED-certified fire stations belong to career or mostly career type,which are municipality fire depart­ments funded by local governments.The significance of this study is to demonstrate the importance of both MR and EA categories for the design and construction phases of green fire stations.

PERCEPTIONS OF COMPRESSED EARTH BLOCK AMONG RESIDENTIAL CONTRACTORS IN NORTH CAROLINA:AN EXPLORATORY EVALUATION

Compressed carth blocks(CEB)retain the environmental benchts of traditional carthen construction while reducing labor costs and project duration.Despitc these advantages,CEB remains a niche matcrial in the U.S.This study explored residential contractors'perceptions of CEB as a barrier to adoption.A survey was distributed to residential contractors in the North Carolina Picdmont,a region that possscs ideal soil for carthen buildings.Construction professionals in states where carthen construction has a larger market share(New Mexico,Oklahoma,and Texas)were also qucricd for comparison.Respondents with no CEB expcrience provided significantly(p<0.05)lower levcls of agreement with statements that CEB is cost ffective,struc-turally safe and acsthetically appcaling than did respondents with CEB experience.Intervicws conducted with an cxperienced CEB contractor and a manufacturer ol CEB production cquipment provided additional insight and informed the quantita-tive results.Findings represcnt an important stcp in exploring stakcholder perceptions as an impediment to the adoption of non-conventional matcrials like CEB in the residential construction scctor.Educating the next gencration of builders and home-owners is a key component for the implementation of CEB construction.Educational strategics,study limitations and opportunitics for further rescarch arc discussed.