3.15 Regenerative Retrofit with Ryan McEvoy

So I make electricity from the sun. With that electricity, I make water out of air.  With that water, it goes to the pressure tank.  That pressure tank would then take it to the water heater. The water heater is a heat pump water heater, which we use the electricity from the sun to heat the water heater. The bi-product of water heater is the air conditioning.  That’s the only air conditioning we would use, which we pipe the air conditioning out of the water heater into the house.  Then you take a shower, and that shower water goes out to my fruit trees in the front yard, and that was all gravity fed.  So make electricity, make water, heat the water with the electricity from the sun, shower then feed the fruit trees.  

-Ryan McEvoy

Ryan McEvoy, a principal and founder of Gaia Development.  While Gaia Development has an impressive track record of developing and/or consulting for more than 500 sustainable buildings around the world, our conversation was about Campbell Collective, which is a residential property he bought and renovated in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles guided by the Living Building Challenge garnering Zero-Energy Certification.  Ryan explains why he chose to go with the Living Building Challenge (LBC)  program as opposed to LEED, and how the process of putting together his net-positive water and net-positive energy went, and how he ended up with three petals out of seven for LBC.  With regenerative and permaculture design, the place is now an urban farm oasis providing the community with fruits, vegetables and herbs.  As he prepares the property for an upcoming home tour for USGBC-LA in November, he shares with us the challenges he had so far and the vision he has for the property for the future.