Utilities

Disaster Aftermath
11/10/10 1:42pm

Houston Buying 25 Shipping-Container Offices for Emergency Solar Power

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Green Design and Development, Houston Architects, Office Space, Utilities
18 Comments

A small fleet of modified shipping containers outfitted with adjustable solar panels will soon serve as mobile emergency power supplies for the city of Houston. City officials are currently negotiating a contract to purchase 25 of the units, which are based on a prototype originally deployed as the green-themed sales office of a Montrose condo project. The solar-powered containers, called SPACE (“Solar Powered Adaptive Container for Everyone“), were created by a joint venture of local architecture firm Metalab, Joey Romano’s Harvest Moon Development, and design firm ttweak (best known for the popular “Houston. It’s Worth It.” marketing campaign). City sustainability director Laura Spanjian announced at the opening of the University of Houston’s Green Building Components Expo last month that SPACE and energy company Ameresco had been selected through a public-application process to supply the city with the mobile “solar generators.” Spanjian now tells Swamplot the contract should be complete “in a few weeks.”

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Discovery Green
07/12/10 8:17am

Swamplot Street Sleuths: The Air Up There

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Downtown, Hotels, Openings and Closings, Utilities
No Comments

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Answers to two questions left over from last week:

  • Discovery Green: The sleek, silver and blue Skyline Bar & Grill on the 24th floor of the Hilton Americas hotel is gone. In its place is the Skyline Ballroom, shown above in flouncier attire, courtesy of a reader who pointed us to the hotel’s meeting-room brochure. The 3,275-sq.-ft. space is now available for banquets and receptions. Meanwhile across the green, reception of the 10 wind turbines recently installed at the top of the brand-new 30-story Hess Tower has been just a little bumpy. “The turbines are functional,” reports engineer and new Metro board member Christof Spieler. “Whether they’re economical is another question…. the turbulence at the top of a building means it’s not nearly as good a place for a wind turbine as an open plain.” But it all adds up, commenter Mt figures: “Power Bill savings: Negligible, PR Value for [an] oil and gas company: PRICELESS!”

We’ll post more reader questions tomorrow. Send us what you’ve got before then!

Photo of Skyline Ballroom: Hilton Americas—Houston

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Quicklink
04/22/10 11:00am

Flushing for Dollars

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Utilities
46 Comments

FLUSHING FOR DOLLARS Houston’s City Council voted 12-3 yesterday to hike water and sewer rates for single-family homes by 27.7 percent, with the first increases beginning June 1: “Water rates for apartments will go up nearly 24 percent and businesses will see a nearly nine percent hike. However, single families will have gradual increases over three years until they are paying the full 100 percent cost of use, whereas apartments and business have to start paying that full cost right away.” [abc13]

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Construction Materials
07/23/09 12:37pm

Wilshire Village Apartments Demo: Maybe Not Quite Yet

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Demolitions, Lancaster Place, Utilities
4 Comments

Here’s a little video sent to Swamplot from this morning, showing what appeared to a reader to be the beginning of the end for the Wilshire Village apartments. But in a comment to that post, Lynn Edmundson from Historic Houston reports this demo work isn’t really all it’s been cracked up to be:

I just returned from the site…and it looks like they are just breaking up the surface concrete. The contractors on the site are installing plumbing/water lines…and are not with the demolition company.

New plumbing lines? What for?

Meanwhile, Historic Houston Salvage to the . . . rescue? Edmundson adds:

With the permission of the contractors on the site, someone with me was able to look into one of the apartments and there is beautiful oak flooring still inside the apartments waiting to be reclaimed!

Video: Swamplot inbox

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Utilities
06/08/09 1:19pm

Texas Solar Sunset

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No Comments

There’ll be no new Texas rebates for solar panels after all: That combined-solar bill that appeared to have support from legislators in both parties died at the end of the session from a procedural manuever.

In its last incarnation, the legislation would have given rebates over the next 5 years to Texas homeowners and businesses who install solar panels, and required electric companies to pay a fair market price for electricity pumped back into the grid by its solar-powered customers.

The only solar-related legislation that passed, according to Luke Metzger of Environment Texas, was a provision to let homeowners finance their solar installations with help from the local government, and pay back the cost via extra property taxes over 20 years.

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Green Design and Development
05/28/09 1:02pm

The Latest on Houston and Texas Incentives for Solar Power

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Utilities
7 Comments

A new single bill providing rebates over the next 5 years for Texas homeowners and businesses who install solar panels — and requiring electric companies to pay a fair market price for the excess electricity solar-powered customers generate — now appears likely to reach the governor’s desk.

The Chronicle‘s Tom Fowler provides a local angle:

An installed residential solar system for a 2,100-square-foot home costs about $25,500, according to Houston-based Standard Renewable Energy. Existing federal incentives would knock about $7,650 off the price. In Austin, residents can get another $13,500 in incentives, in Dallas about $7,900, but Houston offers no such advantages.

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Crime
04/01/09 1:14pm

What Do You Do When the Neighbors Really Suck?

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Missouri City, Neighborhood Disputes, Quail Glen, Utilities
13 Comments

A Swamplot reader from the Missouri City neighborhood of Quail Glen writes in asking for help figuring out what to do about a neighbor who’s tapped her water line:

“. . . the guilty party had dug up the ground and connected a line from [their house] (previous and currently disconnected for several months) into the active line that provides water that we are paying for. This investigation was initially sparked during January 2009 due to skyrocketing water bills. After several visits to our home and meter, the City of Houston discovered the problem on today. When confronted, the inhabitants fabricated a story saying that they pay a 300.00 water bill each month to the City of Houston (despite their account being disconnected) and that they are moving anyway.

Our reader has a bit more to say about those neighbors:

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Apartments
03/23/09 8:18am

City Building Official to Wilshire Village: Everybody Out, Really

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Hazards, Lancaster Place, Neighborhood Disputes, Utilities
2 Comments

These bright letters, dated this past Friday, are now posted throughout the Wilshire Village Apartments. They’re a friendly notice from the city Building Official, informing the remaining residents of the 17-building maintenance-deprived apartment complex at Alabama and Dunlavy that their residences “pose a serious and immediate hazard to the occupants” — and yanking all Certificates of Occupancy.

Oh . . . but all is not lost! The owner can appeal:

The Owner of the Property is entitled to request a hearing by delivering a written request to the Building Official at 3300 Main, Houston Texas 77002. The Building Official or his designee shall hold a hearing within three business days after receiving such request, unless the owner requests an extension of time.

Given the apparent owner’s evident interest in scrapping the place, that’s not likely. Any objections from anybody else?

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Apartments
03/12/09 2:53pm

Wilshire Village Moving Day: They Shall Be Released

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Lancaster Place, Neighborhood Disputes, Utilities
14 Comments

The latest from the drawn-out, soap-opera-worthy Wilshire Village kick-’em-out festival: A source tells Swamplot that owner Matt Dilick’s Commerce Equities has informed a tenant that electricity for the 8-acre complex will be turned off on March 28th.

Plus: complaints about what our source terms the “psychological warfare” waged against the remaining residents of the complex on Dunlavy and W. Alabama:

[Dilick] has never identified himself as the owner or contacted [any of the residents]. An army of COH inspectors was here as well as the Fire Marshal touring the property with Jay Cohen, to whom [residents have] paid rent for 20 years. Now [the complex has been] papered with fire hazard and code violation signs. It preys on your mind. Why can’t Dilick say he’s the owner and give . . . a proper eviction notice? Guess it’s cheaper to scare [them] out.

The source also claims a city representative had instructed residents not to pay rent for March, but also told them they could be evicted with only 24 hours notice. And then there’s a little rumor Swamplot’s source has heard — that the place will be bulldozed on March 29th.

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Buildings for Sale
02/26/09 10:57am

Green Sales Offices for Sale: Solar Powered Shipping Containers for Everyone

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Green Design and Development, Houston Architects, Office Space, Real Estate Marketing, Utilities
4 Comments

The solar-powered portable building fashioned from recycled shipping containers that’s been waiting patiently at the corner of Hyde Park and Waugh since last September isn’t just the sales office for the Mirabeau B. condo. It’s also a prototype.

Designers Joe Meppelink and Andrew Vrana of Metalab have teamed up with ttweak Renewables (creators of the Mirabeau B.’s sales graphics) and Harvest Moon (the condo’s developer) to market the structures, which they call SPACE. That stands for Solar Powered Attractive Container for Everyone — though more likely it’ll be for companies that want a sales center that also works as a big green sign.

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Attractions
02/20/09 6:42pm

Sagemont Cross: New Higher Power Lines Beltway 8

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Ellington Field, Public Art, Religious Facilities, Utilities
54 Comments

What’s this? A new clean, modern design for the high-voltage power line structures along the Sam Houston Tollway, just west of I-45 South?

Naah — it’s Sagemont Church’s new 170-ft.-tall steel cross, viewed in its natural setting. Plus: It lights up at night!

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Apartments
02/11/09 3:43pm

Wilshire Village Utility Work

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Lancaster Place, Neighborhood Disputes, Redevelopment, Utilities
4 Comments

A reader sends in this photo of the corner of Sul Ross and Woodhead, just west of the Wilshire Village Apartments, showing what appears to be work on wastewater lines connecting to the complex. Sul Ross dead-ends into a parking lot at the garden apartments at the end of the block.

The utility work was mentioned in this reader comment on Swamplot’s original story on Wilshire Village. Two weeks ago, tenants at the 70-year-old complex received mysterious notices demanding they vacate the property by the end of this month.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Art
02/09/09 3:43pm

Seen on the Street: Vultures, Galveston Vacancy, Rice Trailer

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Attractions, Critters, Cypress, Development Strategies, Disaster Aftermath, Galveston, Rice University, Utilities
2 Comments

A few fun pics from around and about town! First, this crowd of black vultures ponders its next real-estate venture from atop a communications tower parked in a gated community in Cypress. Photographer Karen Morris happened upon the scene on Eldridge near Grant Rd.:

It was an awesome sight. Personally, if they adorned my rooftop every evening, I’d clean the roof, sell the house and move to the other side of town. . . . Black Vultures/Buzzards are a bit smaller and less colorful that the Turkey Vulture. They tend to follow the Turkey Vulture because it has a keener sense of smell and can find it’s meal through use of that sense. They eat dead animals and occasionally capture small live animals (field mice, etc.). Although they do not build a nest, they will take an abandoned nest. Often roost together as seen in this set of photos. If startled while roosting, they will regurgitate with power and accuracy.

More local habitat:

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Alternative Energy
01/09/09 11:12am

Pimp My FEMA Trailer

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Art, Attractions, Disaster Aftermath, Green Design and Development, Home Design, Manufactured Homes, Temporary Housing, Utilities
2 Comments

A few months after Ike, this tricked-out FEMA trailer rolls into Houston as . . . art?? Paul Villinski’s reworked 30-ft. Gulfstream “Cavalier” trailer, which took the artist 7 months to mod, will be parked outside the Rice University Art Gallery starting later this month.

Re-born as the Emergency Response Studio, the trailer’s formaldehyde-ridden original materials are replaced by entirely “green” technology and building materials, including recycled denim insulation, bamboo cabinetry, compact fluorescent lighting, reclaimed wood, and natural linoleum floor tiles made from linseed oil. It is powered by eight mammoth batteries that store energy generated by an array of solar panels and a “micro” wind turbine atop a 40-foot high mast. Not only practical, Emergency Response Studio is a visually engaging structure with an expansive work area featuring a wall section that lowers to become a deck. A ten-foot, elliptical geodesic skylight allows extra headroom and natural lighting in the work area. Though designed as an artist’s studio and residence, Emergency Response Studio is an ingenious prototype for self-sufficient, solar-powered mobile housing.

Party on the back deck!

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