By Jason Hildago, Reno Gazette-Journal

Going old vs. going new.

That’s apparently the key question when tackling a renewable building project.

Once associated mostly with free-spirited hippies and tree-hugging nature lovers, going green has made serious gains within the general public’s consciousness in just the past few years.

“The perception of green building used to be of people living out on the sticks and off the grid with windmills and battery packs,” said Allyson Wong, co-owner and architect at GuiDenby, a design-build construction company in Reno. “But that’s not what green building is about anymore. It’s become very sophisticated and more mainstream than it was just a short time ago.”

So much so that solar installations now account for 90 percent of the work done by Aspen Electric, a Reno-based electrical installation and repair company.

“In the last two-and-a-half years, we’ve really started to focus on solar electric installations,” said Shawn O’Meara, a managing member for the limited liability company. “Almost everybody’s somewhat familiar with it now. Even if they don’t know much about it, a lot more people are definitely thinking about it.”

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