A practical guide to reducing our carbon footprint and improving our quality of life

This article was written by Guido Hartray, AIA, Architect, Partner, Marvel and Board candidate #1.

What if the co-op gave you the option of swapping out your drafty, double-hung windows and window AC for efficient casement windows and an electric heat pump unit that could heat, cool, and ventilate your apartment? It wouldn’t be cheap, but it would be a worthwhile investment for anyone who wants to upgrade—and every shareholder who made the change would help bring us one step closer to Local Law 97 compliance. 

As architects, we are always trying to find solutions that satisfy wants and needs at the same time. While most of us know that we should make changes in our lives to reduce our carbon footprint, the reality is that people are more likely to actually do these things if they offer us some tangible benefit or quality of life improvement. We are more likely to compost if we can see the results in our thriving plants; we will commute by bike if the streetscapes are safe and beautiful and bike parking is convenient and inexpensive; and we will turn down our thermostat rather than opening a window to keep our apartment from overheating if it’s easy to do. Designing for sustainability is about making more efficient choices easy, and making buildings more comfortable and more efficient at the same time.

There are a number of ways that our co-op could put this strategy into practice. Some are global changes that we could implement all at once. Some are “opt-in” investments that shareholders could choose if they want to improve quality of life and energy efficiency at the same time, or if they want to make changes as part of a planned apartment renovation. The below is not an exhaustive list and all of these options need further study, but here are five steps we should consider to get started. 

Domestic hot water is the hot water in your shower or kitchen. Our co-op currently heats that water by burning natural gas. Electric heat pumps can reduce our carbon footprint by taking advantage of the shift to renewable, non-fossil fuel electrical generation which is expected to ramp up over the next few years. While domestic hot water uses less than half of the energy it takes to heat our apartments, it’s still worth focusing on because we need that hot water all year long. That’s also why heat pumps are particularly efficient—because they collect the heat from the air outside, they are very efficient in the spring, summer, and fall. 

Board treasurer Chris McCartin brought up this option in LL97 discussions, and according to studies my office (Marvel) completed for similar buildings, this approach could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 6%. Equally important, it can be done without doing work in individual apartments, so it won’t be disruptive to residents.

Heating is a huge cost and a major source of emissions, so making changes there will give us a lot of bang for our buck and allow us to take advantage of other efficiency upgrades we’ll discuss later in this article.

Right now, residents only have the option to turn our radiators on and off (scalding our hands in the process); there’s no way for us to control the temperature accurately. That leads to the common situation where it’s so hot inside an apartment in January that residents have to open a window to cool off. 

But these valves, which cost about $100–$200 dollars each (plus an estimated $100-$200 in maintenance staff time for installation of each one), would allow you to set a specific temperature for your apartment. Some models even allow you to control the temperature for each room from your phone. Having better control would bring an immediate reduction in energy consumption because being able to conveniently control the temperature with a thermostat would keep us from wasting energy and letting our hard-earned dollars blow out the window in the winter.

With around 1700 units in our co-op, it’s important to test energy conservation solutions to learn what works best before implementation in hundreds and hundreds of units; ideally, that information would then be available to all shareholders. One important test to perform is called a blower door test. It can point to solutions for both our old double-hung windows and the replacements many of us paid to install. Even the replacements are very drafty, which means the energy we use to heat, cool, or humidify goes out the window. (We have had to hang a blanket on our daughter’s window on windy winter days!) The blower door test can help identify improvements that could make them more efficient (e.g., replacing seals or injecting foam in the space between the window and the wall). It can also identify windows that work better so that those become the standard for any future replacement.

Running this kind of test only costs around $500, so even if it needs to be run a number of times on a few designated “model apartments” throughout our buildings, this would be money well-spent, to determine what works best, and would help us save a lot of money in the long run.

Our exterior walls are made up of brick and concrete block with no insulation, so adding even a little makes a big impact because it can double or triple the insulating quality of the wall. Based on energy modeling my firm completed for similar buildings, 1” of insulation can reduce our carbon emissions by 24%, and insulation is relatively inexpensive. The challenge is that this would be very disruptive to install in an occupied apartment, so it makes sense to do it while you’re already doing other work—it’s both cheaper and less of a hassle to do it this way. So the co-op could make this a requirement for any major renovation—or at least give shareholders who are doing a big renovation some kind of an incentive to do it. This approach, along with a commitment to adding insulation to any vacant, co-op owned apartments, would result in low-cost energy improvements over time.

(While we are at it, we should encourage acoustic insulation between apartments as part of any major renovation. It will not help our energy performance, but will enhance our quality of life!)

Many shareholders complain about having “upgraded” their windows—using the co-op’s pre-approved installation companies and window types—and still having drafty windows that make it impossible to humidify in winter (because the air you humidify blows right out the window). Our windows are aluminum and most are not “thermally broken,” which means there is nothing separating the outside part of the frame from the inside, and the frame lets in the cold in winter. While we have the option of upgrading to new windows with thermally broken frames, these are a small improvement—they still perform poorly compared to what is available on the market today. That is money that shareholders are already spending, and that could be doing much more to improve our energy performance. With the blower door test described above, we can verify performance and be certain shareholders will get real results. We could also negotiate a bulk rate for shareholders who sign on for the work within a limited time window to incentivize adoption. Sign me up!

Electric heat pumps use technology similar to what’s in a refrigerator or an air conditioner to move heat around, cooling warm spaces and warming cold spaces. Because the heat is transferred as opposed to generated, they are generally quite efficient. Electric heat pumps were rare on the NYC market a few years ago, but they have become the standard for most new multifamily buildings. Meanwhile, the companies that make them have been adapting their products to retrofit solutions for older multifamily buildings. This includes making units that operate on 110 volts (the voltage we already have in our apartments) and that integrate air supply and return above the windowsill so they can be installed without changing the existing masonry openings. We’d need engineering studies to determine how many of these units our current electrical system can support, and the pumps may need to work in tandem with the existing steam heat on very cold days to limit the electrical load. But these are studies the co-op should do. Wouldn’t it be great to never have to install or remove a window AC again? 

Composting organics and yard waste will not help with Local Law 97, but it can reduce our carbon footprint and reduce cost compared to buying mulch and fertilizer. An aerated 3-bin system like the one that Earth Matter on Governor’s Island uses can efficiently turn yard waste and household organics into compost, which many of our landscape areas desperately need. Seward Park has some very dedicated gardeners; we should give them the tools to increase their impact.