Archive for July, 2009

Not On Price Alone

Monday, July 27th, 2009

This is from an e-newsletter that I received from Ron Jones at the Green Builder.  I asked his permission to re-print it here:

Ask any home buyer or homeowner how many leaks in their roof or spewing plumbing joints would be acceptable. What about gas leaks or faulty electrical circuits? How many doors or windows are allowed to be left out? How large a hole can the builder or remodeler leave in the ceiling, wall, or floor and still call the job complete and satisfactory?

Now, ask that same consumer how much of the energy and water that they pay good money to bring into their homes they are willing to waste every month because of poor design, obsolete products, shoddy workmanship, mediocre materials, and inefficient mechanical systems. (Never mind the fact that their lifestyle and habits will have just as large an impact on these resources—if not more—than the sum of the building quality.)

Most of the studies I have seen estimate that as much as 30% to 40% of the energy brought into American buildings, including residences, for space heating, air-conditioning, ventilation, water heating, and operating appliances is never put to its intended use. It is simply wasted. As for water, these waste estimates range from 15% to 35%, and even higher in some parts of the country.

Does anyone reading this newsletter believe the cost of traditionally produced energy is going to go down? Does anyone on a public water system anywhere in the country think they pay the true cost of sourcing, treating, and delivering a gallon of safe, potable water to the tap? Does anyone know of a city council, a county commission, or other government body that has the political will to charge the electorate the real cost of anything, fearing that people mostly vote their pocketbooks, when they can instead externalize portions of these costs and cloak them by a variety of means?

I am always amazed when I hear builders and remodelers say that their customers are not willing to pay extra for higher quality or performance or that they are only willing to spend more if an acceptable payback can be assured. Sorry, that simply does not fly with me. If this were true then there would only be one model of each product, the cheapest version possible. And somebody please tell me what the ROI is on a brand-new big-screen HD television. Sure, price matters but people don’t make purchasing decisions on price alone.

No, my experience across the 25 years that I delivered homes to my customers was that they invariably chose to buy the best product, component, or system that they could afford. Sure, there were trade-offs. It was regularly necessary to balance the level of performance or price point with the overall budget until an acceptable bottom line was reached. And often they looked to me for my advice on what parts of the project they should prioritize, not only for the sake of resale value, but to help them understand where they could economize with the least impact on their quality of life.

Today, homeowners and home buyers are beginning to look at the long-term ramifications of their selections. They are realizing that operational costs, replacement rates, maintenance expenses, reliability and durability—not just the initial purchase price—are all keys to their ability to afford any dwelling over the long haul.

They are also carefully factoring insurance costs, property taxes, and the soft costs associated with their chosen type of financing vehicle (especially in the case of adjustable rate mortgages) with a keener awareness that keeping the lights on, the appliances running, the water heater fired up and the living space comfortably conditioned all come at a price, month after month, and must be transparent in the calculation.

Industry groups and individual building professionals have got to abandon their outdated circle the wagons mentality when it comes to attempting to forestall regulations requiring higher levels of performance and put an end to the monotonous messaging of denial and fear that only tell part of the affordability story. Trade associations, like NAHB, are not speaking for all of their members when they lobby lawmakers to limit increases in performance regulations to no more than token increments.

Many builders, remodelers, and contractors are already delivering performance that well exceeds the embarrassingly low minimum requirements held forever sacred by the foot draggers. It is time that the achievers are represented and rewarded rather than continuing to protect and defend those who make up the lowest common denominator.

Any building professional who believes it is possible to succeed going forward on the basis of price alone, or that higher building performance will remain voluntary, is in for a rude awakening. At the end of the day, a level playing field, an understanding that the market paradigm has definitely shifted, and a genuine determination to deliver the best performance and highest quality product possible are the keys to successful building, satisfied customers, and a brighter future for everyone.

By Ron Jones, The Gatekeeper @ www.thegreenbuilder.com

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Designing Your Home Can Be Overwhelming!

Monday, July 20th, 2009

For many homeowners, working with a design professional and arriving at that “perfect” plan for their new home can be tiring and down right overwhelming!  Between late nights after work revising floor plans on scraps of paper and finalizing blueprints with the designer,  things get “complicated” and often leaving people feeling worried that their no getting exactly what they wanted from their design or designer. 

The truth is, many homeowners don’t know enough about what it takes to design a home to get what they want from the start.  In some cases, communication issues skew the collaboration process and in others certain “wish-list” items conflict with the size, style or more usually – the budget!  And occasionally homeowners feel shy about challenging trained professionals. 

Here are some tips to help you get the right plan, right from the start:

1. So, Whose House Is This Anyway?

Some homeowners say that they worry that the architect or professional designer will follow his or her own vision, or intimidate them into not speaking up with requests.  I’ve seen it happen way too many times where an architect will absolutely overwhelm homeowner objections with a tirade of “architect-speak” that no one can understand much less respond to.  Don’t let that happen to you!  Obviously you need to hire a design professional that can offer his or herexpertise and guidence when needed, but this is YOUR home and you need to feel that the designer is listening and resonding to you.  The best home designs are the result of an easy and respectful collaboration between designers and homeowners.

2.  Feel Free To Mix And Match Styles.

No matter what aesthetic you love, don’t think that you need to follow that style rigidly.  It’s rare to find a perfect fit with any exact style.  Be open to taking the gist of what you think represents the home of your dreams and allowing it to be molded and evolved to fit the way that you live, the lay of your land and your neighborhood.  A good example of this are most lake or hillside homes that present one architectural style on the approach side and perhaps something much more open and casual  towards the lake or view side.

3.  Hire A Designer That Knows The Medium.

Even if your brother-in-law, the architect, is an expert in sleek contemporary homes, but you want a Victorian lake home it probably won’t work out.  Take a look at the designer’s website portfolio to see what they have designed in the past.  Or make sure that they have experience in whatever building method that you are interested in such as green homes, timber frame, log or hybrid.  Each method has idiosyncrasies that an experienced designer will be able to embrace and enhance to your benefit.

4.  Know What You Want.

The best way to do this is to make a list of  your priorites from most desired to least desired.  Don’t make the mistake of leaving less important things off the list.  Sometimes those smaller items can be incorporated into the design for minimal cost.  We ask all of our clients to fill out our Design Questionnaire before we start the design process.  Sometimes we even get couples that fill the form out seperately to see how closely their individual visions intersect!  Your list can become the benchmark to ensure that your designer is developing a plan that represents the needs and wishes you have for your new home.

5.  Make Sure That You Understand What You Are Seeing!

Many, perhaps most, clients are certainly not trained to read blueprints and really do not understand what they are looking at.  How may times have I heard someone exclaim “So THAT’S what it looks like!” when they see their home being framed in.  No more!  We still start the conceptual design with sketches, but advance rapidly into 3D Cad design.  Residential design software has advanced tremendously in the last few years and it is very easy to create realistic 3d models of your home which are incredibly easy to understand and even easier to manipulate until it’s just the way that you want.  From that 3D model, all of your floor plans, elevations and house sections will be created.  So if you are like most of our clients, make sure that your designer can do 3D modeling.

6.  Be Realistic About The Budget.

Money is always extremely important and having the homeowner and the designer agree on a realistic budget BEFORE the design starts is the most important thing that you can do to ensure a successful outcome.  This allows the designer to design your home to the budget rather than design your dream home only to price it out after months of design work only to find that it grossly exceeds the amount that you want to invest in your home.  In our office, we prepare a very simple comparison of your “wish list” that you compiled in our Design Questionnaire to a home that is similar and that we have completed recently.  This gives us real construction numbers to use to create a ballpark estimated budget range for your new home.  Sometimes that  number is simply more than clients want to invest in their new home, so they tell us what amount they are comfortable with and we suggest compromises to the “wish list” that will allow us to get to that figure.

7.  Use Visual Aids To Convey Your Ideas.

We ask our clients to bring as many pictures as possible of elements that you want when discussing concepts for your new home.  Rip out magazine articles and take pictures of homes that you like as you drive around.  Keep folders for different rooms and the exterior features that you want.  And it’s important to show your designer not only what you do love, but also what you hate!  It does not have to be exact at all – just a single element that you really like or the ambience of a photograph that “feels” right.  The more ideas and insight that you can give your designer, the better.

8.  Be True To Yourself And What You Want From Your New Home.

Remember that building a new home will not change who you are.  Homes should not be transformative, but reflective.  A great design for you will celebrate you, your family, your values and personality.  Think about it – Your way of life now is probably going to be pretty similar to what it’s going to be in the future.  A home can be a wonderful reflection of that, so embrace it.

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“Green” Myths

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Let’s set the record straight on four of the biggest misconceptions of going green.

Myth #1:  Green building costs a lot more than conventional building.

The truth is there are lots of examples of green homes that cost more than their conventional counterparts, and some the highest-profile demonstration green homes are incredibly expensive. And, yes, it’s also true that many of the building materials we think of as “green” (bamboo flooring, composite decking and recycled-glass tiles) are more expensive than their non-green counterparts. Features like photovoltaic (solar electric) panels and geothermal heat pumps are anything but cheap.

But, it’s very possible to build a green home with just a moderate increase in construction costs—or none at all. First, a large part of what we consider conventional construction by today’s standards is already green.  One of the most important green strategies, building smaller, almost always brings the price down. If you thought you needed a 3,000-squarefoot home, think again. You can get by with less than 2,200 square feet with better design and really analyzing what spaces you will actually use.

A key aspect of green design is a better-insulated envelope (walls, roof, windows and foundation) that will curb heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer, so another way to reduce costs is to improve your home’s insulation. Using structural insulated panels (SIPs) and energy-efficient windows are two ways to raise your home’s R-value. And if the R-value can be significantly increased, it can be possible to greatly reduce or even eliminate a traditional whole-house heating system and opt for less-expensive and innovative systems. The money you save can offset much of the envelope improvements.

Myth #2:  Green homes look different than “ordinary” houses.

There are many green homes that are fairly unconventional: straw-bale houses with roof-mounted photo-voltaic panels or passive-solar homes buried into a south-facing hillside. Remember the “Envelope” homes of the early 70’s?  Who could live in that!  But now most green homes are almost identical in appearance to conventional housing. Much of what makes a house “green” is hard to notice unless you look carefully: thicker walls to increase insulation, better windows with multiple low-E coatings, energy-efficient appliances and water-saving fixtures. Good architectural design can integrate south-facing windows, which support passive solar heating, into a fairly ordinary design.

Green design is also about durability, and you could argue that “timeless architecture” is a big part of building a house that endures. The home has to be beautiful and comfortable if it’s going to last for centuries. A green home should look good enough that people will want to live in it today and a hundred years from now.

Myth #3:  Green building is mostly about using eco-friendly materials.

Though green materials, like reclaimed wood floors or sustainable compressed-paper countertops, can reduce the environmental impact of a home, far more important are energy performance and location. Energy-efficient design is fairly obvious, but few people think about how significant location is, relative to the overall environmental performance of a house as well as issues such as water efficiency, moisture control and indoor-air quality.

It’s possible to build a green home without using any recycled materials. Conversely, it’s also possible to build a house using almost entirely “green” products that wouldn’t be considered green if that house isn’t energy-efficient, suffers moisture problems or is too large.

Myth #4:  Green building is a fad.

As someone who’s been promoting responsible building practices since the 1970s, I’ve seen my share of fads come and go. People still argue that soaring energy prices will never last. “Drill, baby, drill!!”

What has been a fad is the era of fossil-fuel dependence. If you look at the oil that’s been expended since the mid-1800s, 68 percent has been consumed since I founded my first construction company in 1976. Think about that! In just the span of three decades, two-thirds of the oil in the history of the world has been used—and, not insignificantly, the burning of that fuel has released all of that stored carbon as carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. The reality is that many of the houses we’re building today are dependent on cheap fossil-fuel energy. They’ll become obsolete long before their useful life is up—like most fads.

Building a green home is far from a fleeting trend; it’s common sense. Within a few years environmentally conscious construction will be standard practice, and homes not built to such standards will be devalued, making building a green home a shrewd investment in your future.

Some GREEN tips:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (Reclaim). Incorporating this mantra into your lifestyle is the first step to going green.

Incorporate dimmers for your incandescent bulbs. By dimming your lights just 25 percent, you’re only using 20 percent of the electricity you’d typically use and your bulbs will last much longer.

Buy better light bulbs. Energy Star-qualified CFLs (compact fluorescent bulbs) use 75 percent less energy than standard lighting, and LEDs (light emitting diodes) can reduce energy consumption by 80 to 90 percent.

Build with low-emitting and solvent-free adhesives (e.g., grout for tile) as an overall plan to ensure good indoor-air quality.

Switch to Energy Star qualified appliances which use 10 to 15 percent less energy and water than standard models. (Appliances account for up to 34 percent of your home’s utility bill.)

Service your furnace annually. Look for furnaces with annual fuel utilization efficiency ratings of 90 percent or higher.

Use low-flow showerheads and faucets to reduce water usage. Screwing on a WaterSense labeled faucet can decrease the amount of water a household uses by more than 500 gallons per year.

Choose sustainable flooring made from reclaimed wood, rapidly renewable bamboo, recycled ceramic tile or wool carpet.

Install high efficiency toilets (HETs). They use 20 percent less water than ultra-low-flush toilets. Toilets account for approximately 30 percent of indoor water consumption.

Use low-VOC paints, stains and finishes, which are guaranteed to have less than 250 g/L VOC content, contributing to healthy indoor-air quality.

Wrap your home in structural insulated panels (SIPs). They not only have high R-values, they also create a tight shell, the other major component for an efficient home.

Harvest rain for household uses such as irrigation. (Roof runoff will be your main source for this.) 

Solar electric and thermal-energy systems use sunlight to heat water and make electricity without greenhouse gas emissions. They can reduce your monthly energy bills; plus, you may be able to sell energy back to your local power company.

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