Integrated Water Strategies for The Loom House

Innovative water harvesting and onsite wastewater treatment systems help create the world's first renovated home to achieve Living Building Challenge certification while also advancing water policy.

Designed by mid-century modern architect, Hal Moldstad, the Loom House is a 3,200-square-foot structure on .65 acres on Bainbridge Island, where groundwater provides the only source of drinking water. In updating the property, which consisted of two residences, the homeowners wanted to create a home that would restore the land and become the first residential remodel to meet the stringent requirements of the Living Building Challenge (LBC).

As the water consultant on a design team led by the Miller Hull Partnership, Biohabitats developed strategies to ensure that the site’s water infrastructure respected existing hydrology and operated within a defined water budget. After developing a water balance and collaborating with the client and design team, Biohabitats developed three systems. A rainwater to potable system collects and sends water from roofs to an underground cistern and mechanical room, where it is filtered, disinfected, and pressurized for distribution for all water demand. A separate system harvests and directs rainwater from the carport roof into two above ground cisterns, where it is available for landscape irrigation. An onsite system collects and treats all of the wastewater from the Loom House through a recirculating textile filter before dispersing high quality effluent into the site landscaping through a subsurface drip dispersal system.

Although City policy required buildings within the sewer service area, like the Loom House, to connect to the sewer main, the design team and the Living Future Institute addressed the City’s concerns and ultimately, an ordinance allowing onsite blackwater treatment was passed. This opened the door for others to employ an onsite wastewater treatment practice that could help replenish the aquifer, lessen the burden on the municipal sewer system, and protect the Puget Sound. Loom House was the first renovated home to achieve LBC certification, and at the time of certification, was one of only four residences in the world to do so.

TAGS

• Analysis+Planning
• Assessment+Monitoring
• Design