Stuart music school gets 'green' transformation

After reading Sally Swartz's column ("St. Lucie hopes solar plan soars") and working on the premise that "the greenest building is the one that's already built," a Stuart couple has put action to words with their 50-plus-year-old building.

Established more than 16 years ago, the Stuart School of Music on South Kanner Highway has undergone a transformational face-lift, moving into the 21st century as the first "green" music school in Florida.

Started by owner and director Cindy Kessler, the Stuart School of Music provides eight studios, 11 instructors and more than 300 students . The school is showcasing a thin-film, photovoltaic solar system that is laminated onto a new standing seam metal roof. The school's first month of electrical production has averaged more than 21 kilowatts per day.

Contained within an educational kiosk in the great room, a touchscreen monitor allows students, parents, and visitors to observe not only real-time solar electrical production, but allows them to check daily, weekly, monthly, and lifetime environmental offsets provided by the system. Unlike the traditional external framed panels that mount on rooftop brackets, this thin-film solar laminate is the thickness of a credit card and is applied to the roofing material with peel-and-stick adhesion.

Boasting a Miami-Dade County product approval, this thin-film solar laminate by Uni-Solar carries a 140 mph wind rating when applied to an acceptable roofing material. Coupled with low-energy windows, increased insulation, LED lighting, low-flow plumbing fixtures and non-volatile organic chemical paints, the Stuart School of Music strives to achieve its environmental goal of "living lightly upon the earth."