Making Our Home a Home Sweet Home: Part 4 – If Only We Could Start Over

A house is a system.  It is made up of separate systems that have unique functions, but, like we’re discovering in medicine, thanks to Patch Adams and many others, you do best when you treat the patient, not just the disease—the whole rather than the individual pieces.  How the individual components interact with each other is critical in the overall success of an organism, or a building.  Prescribing treatment for one ailment may cause side effects.  Yet, both in home comfort improvement and in medicine, budgets (of money, time and tolerance) may limit the possibilities.  We want the house to succeed—but more so for the folks who call it home.  That takes thoughtful prioritization.

Like an organism, the way a house interacts with its surroundings—what it lets in and keeps out, and when—determines its comfort, performance, and longevity.  Like a body’s skin, the exterior of a home must manage water, moisture, air (and all that’s in it), temperature, light, sound, and even other organisms introduced by its environment.  Bodies and homes need fresh air, fresh water, and a healthy amount of sunlight.  The respiratory and digestive systems and skin are wonderfully capable of ensure healthy quantities of all of these, but, like a building, it requires proper user input.  If not, we know what can happen.  Some bodies are able to handle negligence better than others.  Homes are the same way, and can easily be designed to control these elements.  Or, redesigned, as best we can.  If not, deterioration and discomfort move in.

So, if we can’t start over, we still have the chance to make what we have work better.  For centuries, as human shelter progressed, keeping critters (the big ones) out was job one.  After we got the hang of that, water was next.  For some houses, it still is next.  We all know if we have a leak in the roof how much more an emergency that is than an air leak!  And, rightly so, because water is destructive.

But, once we get water out of the picture, air is next.

Making Our Home a Home Sweet Home: Part 1 - Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home. It’s pretty easy to read that phrase as cliché, passé, or as a slogan some potato chip maker might use to associate the taste of their potato chips with warm fuzzy feelings. I used to think all these things, until very recently, when my wife, Beth, and I decided to do some work at our house to improve comfort, health and performance. It’s actually been sort of transformational for me, making physical investments in this house. I’m buying into it, literally and figuratively.  Into the house, and the place, the neighborhood, the town, for our marriage, our family, our home. It feels good.

See, we’re traveling people. We both were born on other sides of the planet, and made our way to a common hometown on Virginia. Our nearly ten years here in Durham is practically the longest either one of us has spent in one place, let alone one house.  It has been a long process settling in here, but each year it feels more and more like home, especially with three little girls under the roof (when they’re not raising the roof!).

We’ve done some painting, made some minor interior changes over the years, but I didn’t really start to feel ownership in the place until we started making some significant comfort improvements. Sure, I have dreams (big ones) about designing and building a home for us someday. Who doesn’t? And, for crying out loud, I work at a design-build company, so the waiting strikes me each day as I view the delightful design work gracing the monitors around the office! Alas, it is not time, but we have warmed to our little Durham bungalow, and even a bit more, literally, with the recent work we have done. Bloom where you’re planted - Puttin’ down roots - Love the home you’re with. Choose your phrase, that’s what we’re doing!

What have I done, already, you ask? Great question. I’m a Home Performance Specialist after all.  So, I put my work into practice on my own home. Over the next week or so, I’ll walk you through the former state of our home, the approach I have for generating decision making, and the decisions we made for our home and our comfort. Stay tuned!

           Pictured Above: Bradley, Beth, and the girls at home.

Hot Water Fast

For comfort, for saving water, and for saving energy, the best possible solution is to minimize the amount of water between your fixtures and water heater.  Simple as that. The lower the volume of water between the heater and fixture, the sooner you get hot water when you turn on the tap (comfort), the less water that flows down the drain while waiting (saving water), and the less water that sits and cools in the line after you turn off the tap (saving energy). To this end, locating the water heater centrally in the house and as close as possible to the fixtures is critical. Parallel piping manifold systems reduce the water volume as well. Parallel piping systems have home run lines from a manifold to each fixture and use much smaller lines (for sinks, 3/8" lines for sinks instead of a combination of 3/4" and 1/2" lines). There are 11.00 cups of water per 30' of 3/4" ID line, 4.89 cups per 30' of 1/2" ID line, and 2.75 cups per 30' of 3/8" ID line, a significant difference. In other words, you can see hot water 2 to 4 times as fast with a parallel piping system versus a conventional branch system.

There are a few other benefits as well. One, no pressure balance issues.  You can flush the toilet while the love of your life is in the shower and they will not see the slightest temperature dip or spike.  Two, there are few if any fittings on the home runs so the system is more durable and the flow is smoother and faster (less turbulence) in the pipes. Lastly, you can turn off any line at the manifold so maintenance and repair just got easier.

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Sustainability Is Not a New Idea

My grandfather would pick up a bent nail, walk it over to his dusty and scarred workbench in the farm garage, and, using a ball peen hammer and his ancient anvil, he would straighten the nail for re-use in the next project. Nothing on the Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania farm was wasted. Table and cooking scraps were fed to the hogs, as were loose shell eggs and dead chickens. Wood scraps from building projects were used for heating fuel. Animal waste was used as fertilizer. I was the low man on the totem pole, so I had the questionable privilege of pulling the chicken manure spreader, a horrendous machine that flung the manure on to the fields with rotating chains that dip and throw, dip and throw. I still use tractors today just like the Farmall that pulled that spreader, more than 50 years old and still going strong. These machines are solid, durable and sustainable well beyond the typical meaning of these words.

Sustainability is not a new idea. In fact, it is a very old idea rooted in frugality, necessity, and utility. Diligently selecting quality durable goods, carefully maintaining those products or materials, and reaping a long return from those choices is original sustainability. Directly recycling or re-using waste or materials is original sustainability. Turning down the winter thermostat and wearing a sweater is original sustainability. Doing without what you do not need is original sustainability. Conservation is original sustainability.

A long-term affordable and sustainable house fits comfortably with the original idea of sustainability. Choose a smaller house that uses fewer materials. Require a strong and durable house. Select a better house now and reap the benefits over time. Ask for a home that uses half the energy of a typical house. Choose a healthy and comfortable house. Learn how to operate and maintain your home for optimal performance. Know the things that you can do right now like changing furnace filters regularly for positive impact on your health and wallet. Select a climate appropriate house. Ask for a home oriented and designed for passive heating and passive cooling. Use daylight instead of artificial light. Choose a house where the interior is connected to the exterior. Select substance in lieu of false decoration, better insulation instead of plastic shutters or fake gables.

Every sustainable choice has its pros and cons. My incredibly durable Farmall tractors have terrible fuel economy. Bamboo is a rapidly renewable material but it typically ships from Asia. Foam insulation helps create a very energy efficient house but is difficult to deconstruct, separate, and recycle at the end of its useful life. Each decision must be made in the context of the total green building system and based on your parameters and current building science information.

An affordable and sustainable house is a house that would make sense to my Grandfather. A home where he would nod and notice that it is a substantive home, well-built, and solid. A home without a lot of flash or glitter but that is warm, conservation-minded, and comfortable. A house that really is the American dream.