Dyson Building Center Gets Greener Every Day
Posted for Dyson Building Center
The 273 solar panels on the roof of Dyson Building Center on Route 5 in Great Mills, MD, is certainly the stand-out contributor to the “GOING GREEN” commitment made by this multi-generational, family-owned company.
And it’s impressive to see a solar conversion of the entire sawmill, lumberyard, and full-service hardware, it is not the culmination of Dyson Building Center’s goal. The company is determined to model green-behavior to conserve for the future, and also supply of green and conserving solutions to their customers as well.
Dyson Building Center followed their solar, electricity conservation down to switching all interior fluorescent lighting to more energy efficient lighting, in direct support of the emPower Maryland Program’s goal to reduce the state’s energy consumption by 15 percent by 2015. Additionally, motion sensing lighting went into the offices and stock rooms and automatically shut off if no motion (no people) are in the rooms.
“Our goal,” says Neal Dyson, “again, and again, is to reduce energy consumption with everything we do.”
Dyson Building Center launched an aggressive recycling program that includes sorting and providing all cardboard products to another local, small business for recycling, Steve Dyson Hauling.
The next phase of “GOING GREEN” will be the upgrade of the HVAC system from an oil based boiler system to a much more efficient electric (solar) based system that may end up being geothermal. “We’re researching and searching for the most energy efficient system going on now,” said Neal Dyson.
Green-products are those that have less of an environmental impact or are less detrimental to human health than the traditional product equivalent. Already many green products have been added to the Dyson Building Center’s inventory. Additionally, many of Dyson Building Center’s product distributors, suppliers, and manufacturers are committing to producing and supplying a greater number of green products.
Dyson Building Center will be using small “Green Product” labels on each item so customers can easily identify which items are green. The business’ goal is to have one-third of the center’s inventory be ‘green-products’ by 2016.
Already, Neal Dyson works in a family sawmill grown into a full-service building supply center run completely by solar power. “Pretty progressive stuff for a small business that has been around now for nearly 100 years,” he said.
