Alviston Blog

One of the primary reasons that low-income families lose their homes is because they can’t pay their utility bills.

Marlin and I met last week with Arlen Hill from Smee Builders and Dave Carpenter and Frank Ruiz from CSET, Community Services and Employment Training in Visalia to talk about a way to remedy this.

We’ve been working with CSET for over a year on the concept of building truly affordable, energy-efficient homes. From the start, Dave has been enthusiastic about the idea as he sees the future of home construction having no choice but to become much more energy-efficient and much less wasteful.

The first four homes would be built using CSET’s labor, which is the key to making the homes affordable. The walls will be made of insulated concrete forms, ICFs, and the roofs would be made from structural insulated panels, or SIPs. This process makes for an almost air-tight house that is extremely well-insulated, quiet and very fast to build.

Since some of these materials do cost more than building conventionally, the key is efficiency and keeping the labor costs down. The benefits are many: homes that are much more energy-efficient and durable, plus invaluable training for the CSET workers to build energy efficiently.

It’s going to take some very forward thinking to get this to happen, especially during these trying times. But I believe, that the current economy, combined with soaring energy costs, is going to drive green building even faster. In fact, it could lead the way out of our current crisis and help make Tulare County the leader in affordable green building.

Mark Alvis

On Thursday, Alviston and Alvis Projects took their show on the road for a meeting with the great folks at the Mariposa Rotary.

We talked about how Alviston has come to be “the center of the sustainable universe” and showed them a brief tour of the site.

It always amazes me how truly interested people are in building green. There were lots of great questions, which tells me that the information on Alviston.com is very much in demand.  So we’ve decided to do more of these types of presentations in the future. Please let us know if you have a group that would like to hear more about Alviston.com and everything sustainable. The folks at the Rotary say we put on a pretty good show.

I did a “show and tell” about ICFs, SIPs, PV and radiant heat. But it seemed that the greatest interest was in pervious concrete. My prediction that just like photovoltaics have really taken off in the last year, all of the energy-efficient building products and systems will follow. It is my belief that the green building industry can greatly help with this countries struggling economy. 

Thanks to all the Rotary folks for having us up, and feeding us a great breakfast. Especially to Jeanie Bartholomew who hosted us.

Mark Alvis

I wonder if leaders ever actually make a conscious decision: “I’m going to be a leader.”

Somehow, I don’t think so. I think that leaders are a lot like artists, it’s not a power thing, or an ego trip or glory, or anything like that.  True leaders are simply compelled.

I’ve met a few of them in my life. Once when I was working at the local CBS affiliate as a videographer, I got the chance to shoot some video for 48 Hours, the TV show. I got to meet the producer, whose name I can’t remember. What impressed me about her was her ability to lead her entire crew seemingly without effort, as if there was no question in her mind that she was doing what she was put on the earth to do.

(Personally, I sometimes have trouble deciding what shirt to put on in the morning.)

Another leader I met recently is a man with a name you can’t forget: John Smith. John works at SIM Architects here in Fresno.  He is heading up the team that is designing the new Buchanan Energy Building for Clovis Unified. The building will feature many new energy-efficient building materials and systems. It will have shop space where students will be able to actually build and test the devices that will power our future. 

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting John you already know what I mean, he’s one of those people who others just want to follow. But while this may come naturally to them, I think what really makes them true leaders is that they do realize the stakes. Being a leader is risky, usually involving unknowns, new territory and tremendous resistance to change. Being a leader is hard.

In designing the new Energy Building for Buchanan, John and his collegues at SIM have set a course of change for the San Joaquin Valley, and possibly the entire state. Instead of designing from the standpoint of, “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” John is saying, “This is the way we need to do it now. ”

Mark Alvis