Habitat Build-A-Thon 2010

I'll be participating in Habitat for Humanity East Bay's annual Earth Day build-a-thon. It's not just a blitz build to kick start the construction of homes for deserving families, it's also Habitat East Bay's biggest fundraiser. Any amount you can contribute is appreciated! Or if you want to participate, check out the build-a-thon page.

Greening Oakland Homes

Yesterday in Montclair was the first of a series of info fairs to help educate Oaklanders about making their homes more energy and water efficient. It was put on by Greening Oakland Homes, an out shoot of the Montclair Community Action Group.

Exhibitors included:

• Ashby Lumber - green material supplier
• Building Solutions - home energy auditor and contractor
• City of Oakland Public Works Department
• Custom Creation Interiors - window treatments design consultant
• East Bay Solar Neighborhood - non-profit solar education
• Greywater Action - non-profit greywater consulting
• Lunt Marymore - plumbing contractor
• Moore Mechanical - plumbing contractor
• Rising Sun Energy Center - non-profit inspections by trained youth
• Save a Lot Solar - solar installer
• Wooden Window - window/door fabricator and installer

greening Oakland homes fair

The fair was aimed at average homeowners here in Oakland, informing them of the range of products and services available. Besides a small exhibit floor, several of the exhibitors spoke on different subjects. Levi Blankenship of Building Solutions talked about what's involved in a home energy audit, and what's commonly recommended to improve things. I've been following green building for 5+ years as part of the work for the addition I built and remodel, the main focus of my other blog, DIY Insanity. But I learned some things, too, like that on average, there's 30% leakage from forced-air HVAC ducts in Bay Area homes, even some with relatively new HVAC systems. If the ducts are in a crawlspace or attic like most, that means almost a third of the energy is wasted.

One of the main take-aways is that it pays to look at the process in 3 stages: better sealing of the building and ducts, then correctly sizing HVAC and appliances, and then consider things like solar panels. Photovoltaic solar panels may be a lot sexier than sealing your HVAC ducts and adding insulation, but they cost a lot more, too. In terms of comfort, overall efficiency, and payback of your investment, it makes sense to make your building more efficient before trying to power it with solar.

The next fair is tentatively scheduled to be part of the Temescal Street Fair in June. If you're a homeowner, or just interested in how to make homes more energy and water efficient, it's worth checking out.

my Oakland map

Finishing off map week is the most accurate but least useful map: how I visualize Oakland. It's by definition 100% accurate because it's how I think of things, but it's not terribly useful outside of telling people how I think of our fair city.

View my Oakland map in a larger map
It's kind of like a single data point in the Mapping Oakland project. Not nearly as useful as a bunch of maps like this aggregated together.

Some good news is that I heard back from Robert, the researcher behind the Mapping Oakland project. Although the web page hasn't been updated, he's still working on things:

I am actually finishing up the analysis for Temescal and Fruitvale districts... I hope to have the maps up on the web page sometime by mid April. I'm presenting the results in April, so after I complete my presentation I will have a bit of time to start uploading the maps to the net.

Back to my map. You may be wondering why some large areas are a single district, while a few small neighborhoods get labeled. In no particular order:

• Hiller Highlands - this is known (at least by name) to most residents of the Oakland hills, because it's where the 1991 Oakland firestorm started
• Sobrante Park - this neighborhood at the far south end of Oakland is where I've been volunteering to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity East Bay for the last several years (and an older development 10+ years ago, too)
• Village Bottoms - I first heard of Village Bottoms because of a workshop at West Coast Green last year
• Ghosttown - I heard about Ghosttown because of Ghost Town Farm, Novella Carpenter's urban farm. It got a big jump in publicity when she published Farm City, a book about her experiences with urban farming.

The rest of my map is much more arbitrary, depending on how much time I've spent in different parts of Oakland and their proximity to different landmarks like Lake Merritt or the zoo.

All in all, not a particularly useful map. It'd be great to be able to compare other people's similar maps, though not very practical because of the difficulty in creating them.

Oakland Council Districts

Continuing with my map mania, I've created a Google map of the City Council districts. It's based on the City of Oakland Council District Locator map, but being in Google Maps means you can easily layer it with other maps. Some interesting things I noticed: District 1 includes a swath of the hills north of Panoramic Hill, all the way up to and beyond Grizzly Peak Blvd. -- I didn't know that was part of Oakland. Also of note are the large areas of the bay included in districts 3 and 7.

View Oakland City Council Districts in a larger map

As with the neighborhoods map, any errors are likely mine, not from the source map. In many places the district boundaries follow roads or streams, but I had to make a few guesses here and there, and the areas over the bay are approximations based on the original map.

How are the districts divided? According to the city charter, it's based on the previous districts, but every 10 years after 1993 or if significant territory is annexed the boundaries can be adjusted:

Section 203. Nomination and Election of Councilmembers... The districts shall be as they exist upon the taking effect of this section, until revised by ordinance. In the year 1993, and every ten years thereafter, and whenever any substantial territory is annexed to or consolidated with the City, the Council shall form new districts not exceeding seven. Districts shall be composed of contiguous territory, as equal as possible in population, and as geographically compact as practicable. No change in the boundary of a district shall operate to exclude an incumbent from office before the expiration of the term for which he was elected or appointed.

signs: Baptist Church

Evergreen Missionary
Baptist Church

I spotted this sign on my way back from Pill Hill. We've been over there frequently the past week, as K's sister had open heart surgery to replace part of her aorta that had an aneurysm. She's doing well, and will be going home in the next day or so to start the next stage of her recovery.