Q & A: Green Building with Concrete

By Jim Peterson, President of ConcreteNetwork.com

Site George Henderson PermaCrete Nashville, TN
George Henderson, president and CEO of Quality Systems Inc.

Green Memo from Perma-Crete (PDF)

Site Green Memo Quality Systems, Inc.


Read the full memo (PDF) from Perma-Crete which details their new green policies to their dealers.


George Henderson, president and CEO of Quality Systems Inc. (maker of Perma-Crete products), recently wrote a memorandum discussing the green movement. In it he noted what green building is; facts and figures about green building; the LEED system; and definition of standards for green building (see sidebar to download the full document).I had a chance to talk to George on this subject recently:

JP: George, what's driving the move to go green? All one sees in magazines and in the news is "green".

GH: The first driver of the green movement is that energy costs are rising dramatically - having a profound effect on the economies of countries around the world. Secondly, the news of global warming is everywhere you turn. People can agree about global warming occurring or not agree about it - regardless, it's now a huge issue.

JP: Quality Systems, Inc. is an active member of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), when did you start making green a priority?

GH: It really became a big push for our company within the last 12 months. Nashville, our home town, just got its first LEED certified building. Homebuilders and government agencies across the country are going green in ever increasing numbers. The other motivator for us is VOC limits, volatile organic compounds, which are constantly being lowered. Simply meeting the minimum U.S. standard for VOC emissions is no longer sufficient for products to gain green status. So there is no choice but to be a leader in producing green products. LEED, VOC limits, the whole green movement, this all filters down to the architects and specifiers who determine what is going to get built.

JP: How are Perma-Crete products green?

GH: Perma-Crete products are all water-based or waterborne products, and over 90% of them now have VOC ratings well under 100 g/l which, as a result, qualify them as green simply because of their extremely low, environmentally-safe VOC content. Importantly, one hundred percent of all out-gassing in Perma-Crete products occurs in less than seven days, regardless of the type of application.

JP: Quality Systems, Inc. is in full compliance for Thermal and Moisture Protection code criteria by the ICC-ES (ICC Evaluation Service, Inc.) on commercial and residential vertical surface applications for Perma-Crete surface coating products. When did you start extending efforts to get this approval?

GH: We worked on getting this approval for two years. It's not an easy task. None of the original testing from the 90's was accepted (fire test, flame spread, smoke spread, accelerated weathering tests, water absorption tests, etc.). We started the process in the fall of 2004 and on October 1, 2006 were approved for vertical surface applications (ESR-1637). We expect to get approval for horizontal applications in early 2008.

JP: You have a huge network of Perma-Crete dealers across the world. What dealer education efforts regarding the green building movement is Quality Systems making?

GH: We have a brand new web site with extensive information highlighting our ICC-ES compliance, LEED information, and all of our products VOC ratings. We are also modifying our advertising to highlight the green benefits of our products too.

Site website Quality Systems, Inc.
Perma-Crete's new web site is heavy on green building information and VOC ratings of their products

JP: Does Quality Systems have anyone in the company that is LEED certified?

GH: Our architect, James Hoffman, will be LEED certified in the next 90 days. He is also developing an online course to provide training and continuing education credits for architects. This program should be online in the first quarter of 2008. We will use a third party to administrate the program, grade the test, issue the certificates, plus notify the licensing boards. This will all be provided at no charge to architects.

JP: Tell me about the Product Demonstration Center in Nashville.

GH: Dealers from all over the world come to train at our facility - we have interior and exterior, custom-equipped dealer installation stations. Each attendee gets his own training station. Dealers can come back anytime for advanced training or send new hires to the training at no charge.

JP: Is there a category in which you see huge growth potential?

GH: Insulated Concrete Forms. As an ICF builder, isn't one of your best selling points the strength of the wall? Then, why put a soft coating on the outside surface? Perma-Cerete is a great solution. We started with ICF's in 1994. We have grown along with the ICF market, which is the fastest building system going.

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