What is sustainability? In the popular press these days, it almost appears as if the word “sustainability” has simply replaced the term “environmentally friendly.” This, however, doesn’t capture the idea completely. The original concept behind the sustainability movement was that our society and structures would be designed and built in such a way as to maintain a balance between three …
Value engineering is the process of reviewing a design to find elements that could be changed to reduce the cost of construction. It’s a process that can be applied at any stage of the development of a design for a project.
We often see it in the letters to the editor, or the Beefs and Bouquets: “Developers just take our money and leave town,” or “Developers will just take the profits and give nothing back to our community.” These statements assume that developers of residential and commercial properties face little risk, pay little to the communities in which they develop and …
If you live on a rural property, with no municipal connection to a sanitary sewer, you will have an onsite wastewater disposal system, commonly referred to as a septic field. Typically, this system consists of a septic tank and an infiltration field. The tank is the initial treatment and allows the solids to settle out. The field then treats the …
