GREEN IDEAS

The New York City metro area generally doesn't have the drought issues of some other parts of the country, but water conservation still remains a good idea. While consumption, condensation and rain make Earth a closed-loop system, we use up our relatively scarce fresh water faster than it can be replenished. Nor is it guaranteed that the quality of the replenished water will be the same. Treating water to make it drinkable takes major expenditure of energy and equipment — and low levels of water in reservoirs can mean higher concentrations of pollutants. Plus, water rates are up and bills are going through the roof.

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Engineers and architects routinely evaluate building systems by examining such visible components as the façade, roofing membrane, parapets, boilers, pipes, etc. But when seeking to determine whether a building's problems may be due to less visible underlying conditions investigative probes are often required.

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"You can do it. We can help." So goes the motto of a home-improvement chain. And that very ethos applied to Winston Tower, at 143-51 Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, where the condo board of that 135-unit building did its city-mandated energy benchmarking in-house instead of hiring an outside firm.

"The benchmarking software is not as user-friendly as the city claims, but we did it ourselves," says veteran board-member Brook Haberman, who adds that the board had been active in energy saving even before the city unveiled its Greener, Greater Buildings Plan (GGBP) a few years ago.

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A reader asks: I sit on the co-op board of a six-story building in Inwood. We recently hired an engineer to design and administer the replacement of our roof system over a wooden deck, which over the years has suffered serious water damage and created persistent leaks. The engineer has requested several investigative probes, which will cost us an additional $4,500. I know that doesn't sound like a lot for a $350,000 project, but the co-op's finances are tight, so we're wondering if probes are really necessary. What exactly are these probes?

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The condo board at Brook Haberman's building is pretty savvy. At least, that's what David Grumet thinks. Grumet is the director of operations at iAG Energy, a firm that performs energy audits, and he should know. He's dealt with dozens of boards in the last year doing what he did for Haberman's building: tracking down energy failings in accordance with recent laws.

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The condo board at Brook Haberman's building is pretty savvy. At least, that's what David Grumet thinks. Grumet is the director of operations at iAG Energy, a firm that performs energy audits, and he should know. He's dealt with dozens of boards in the last year doing what he did for Haberman's building: tracking down energy failings in accordance with recent laws.

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Every successful cooperative or condominium needs an Ideas Guy, the one who says: "We need this, we want this, and let me tell you why." At the 325-unit Brevoort East at 20 East 9th Street in Greenwich Village, 31-year co-op board veteran Jay Silverzweig is it. His own mantra for what makes a project succeed consists of three words: "conception and execution." Recent cogeneration and Local Law 11 initiatives are among the many works he has overseen since moving here in 1982. In fact, he describes infrastructure projects and financial affairs as "my little niche in the building."

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In 1950, a young Jay Silverzweig, the owner of a plastics business, watched electricity costs take a toll on his neighbors in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Two fellow entrepreneurs, who used steam to clean rags, finally decided to get off the electric grid and worked out a cogeneration system (or CHP, i.e., "combined heat and power") that uses natural gas to produce electrical and thermal power.

More than 60 years later, those early experiments in alternative energy were lurking somewhere in Silverzweig's mind as he spearheaded the $1.5 million cogen project at the Brevoort East, a 26-story, 325-unit cooperative at 20 East 9th Street in Greenwich Village.

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A few days before Christmas, as part of Michael Bloomberg's six-year-old PlaNYC, the outgoing mayor rolled out the New York City Carbon Challenge, an ambitious effort to get the city's three million units of multifamily housing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 30 percent over the next 10 years.

Co-ops and condos are a big part of this mix. Their 400,000 units make up about 16 percent of the city's multifamily housing — and residential buildings account for more than one-third of the city's greenhouse gas emissions.

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Providing heat is one of the biggest expenses for your cooperative or condominium. In this second Teachable Moments column to look at condo and co-op boards' options for switching from fuel oil, three experienced property managers tell you much of what you need to think about when you're considering such a changeover. And some of it's not the conventional wisdom.

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