Crosswood Apartments Achieves Earth Advantage Multifamily Platinum Certification

Crosswood Apartments—a 113,000-sf, cross-laminated timber (CLT), 6-story apartment building in Eugene—has officially received Earth Advantage Platinum Certification for multifamily housing.

Earth Advantage is a nonprofit that focuses on the impacts of residential construction, both new and substantial rehabilitation, on the climate and society. Its mission is to help “create an informed and humane residential real estate marketplace.”

The Earth Advantage Multifamily Certification standard addresses sustainability via five pillars: Energy, Health, Land, Materials, and Water. They offer a comprehensive certification program that promotes energy efficiency, healthier indoor air quality, material responsibility, water savings, and other environmentally responsible building practices. Properties are inspected multiple times to ensure they comply with Earth Advantage’s stringent requirements. Best practices in design, building, and operation are paramount in the certification process. While most code buildings have a lifespan of up to 50 years, certified buildings are planned for over 100 years.

Crosswood Apartments - Construction Sequences (Aerials/Drone Photography - John Hyland Construction)

Working with the Earth Advantage team, whose headquarters are in downtown Portland, our team of architects, engineers, and contractors earned 120 points and a +/-22.7% performance over baseline permitted code on the approved whole building predictive as-built energy model. Performance testing conducted included unitized average compartmentalization results of 0.20 CFM50 per square foot of enclosure, which approximates a 4.40 ACH50. In other words, technicians performed a 50 pascal positive pressure test (commonly called “blower door testing”) and recorded an air leakage rate of .2 cubic feet per minute, or roughly 4.4 air changes per hour; areas of air leakage were minimal and far less than the maximum allowable leakage rate for code.

Crosswood achieved a score of 92 out of 100 according to the ENERGY STAR assessment of a building’s energy efficiency as compared with similar buildings nationwide, adjusting for climate and business activity. Here are more of the building’s stats from the Statement of Energy Performance (SEP) report: