8-29-14

22B — August 29 - September 11, 2014 — Green Buildings — M id A tlantic

Real Estate Journal

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G reen B uildings

By Christian Hudson, Hudson Management “Why we went with wood”: a five-story hotel made of wood

Founded in 1984, AccuTech is one of the few New Jersey firms with a proven record of accomplishment in preparing and managing complete environmental sampling and remediaiton projects.

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W

e knew it would gen- erate a lot of buzz when we decided

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in the middle of the Great Recession to build a new five story hotel in Rehoboth Beach on Coastal Highway. But we never anticipated howmuch of that buzz would be about our construction methods. Our construction methods have been the subject of more than one local talk radio show, and there have been multiple queries to various state and county approval agencies. In general, people are demand- ing to know if it is even legal to build a multi-story hotel

AccuTech Environmental Services, Inc. 43 West Front Street - Rear Suite, Keyport, NJ 07735

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out of wood! As a result, we want to take the opportunity to explain… First we want to clear the air about concerns and confu- sion over the legality of using wood. Yes – it is legal to use wood to build a multi-story commercial building. From large apartment buildings and condo complexes to single family homes, many large con- struction projects on Delmarva choose to go with wood as well. In Australia for instance, they are building seven story struc- tures out of wooden wall pan- els. Builders are still required to follow all of the building codes, ordinances, and regula- tions - but it is legal to do. When properly designed, the structure is also just as strong and durable as other construc- tion methods. For our hotel we hired a team including an architect, structural engineer, civil engineer, and a mechani- cal engineer to do the initial design work. We then submitted our drawings for review by the various state and county re- view/approval agencies. All commercial jobs, especially ho- tels, receive extensive scrutiny for fire and life safety related issues. We received our ap- provals, including those from the State Fire Marshall and Sussex County Building Code Departments. Sam Yoder & Sons, LLC out of Greenwood, Delaware provided wooden wall panels for the project. They design and build the panels in their factory, and ship them to the construction job site as they are needed. This allows whole sections of walls, both interior and exterior, to be raised all at once. This saves considerable time as opposed to having continued on page 26B

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