Home That Grows

When building or buying a home, you probably have a wish list. Whether you are drawn to the home due to its overall aesthetic or location you may fall short of some of the items listed. As your family and finances grow, why not allow for your house to grow alongside. When buying or building a house there are a few things that you can look for to assure you that your design can adapt with you.

During the search or design of your new home the floor plan plays a key role in the future ability for growth. Unfinished basements and attics with connections to the outside with comfortable overhead clearance are perfect for later adding space. This approach is the easiest and most cost effective as it allows you to grow your space without building new space outside the envelope of your existing home.

When remodeling or adding on it is best to maintain the integrity of your existing home, making sure that the work enhances the overall plan rather than detracting from what is there. The floor plan’s adjacencies to other rooms as well as to the outside can make for a seamless expansion of space. Floor plans and sites that allow for clear circulation to the addition are key. For example a bathroom, closet or laundry room at the end of a hallway on an exterior wall would be a great place to add onto. This will maintain a clear circulation path to the new addition.

So remember when you are out on the hunt for your next home do not get discouraged if it does not meet every criteria on your list. Simply select a design that can grow alongside you and your family.

Generators: Another Source of Comfort and Security

Generators! I love generators. They can really make life simple when life gets difficult due to adverse weather, local earthwork, a vehicle running into a power pole, or even routine service. Very hot days and very cold days may cause a power utility to “brown out” a neighborhood. I have lived in many climate zones and have lost power for many reasons. Some of my homes had provisions for temporary power but most did not.

Recently a client called. “John, I hate to be a bother, but the power in our new home is acting weird. Only about half of our electrical fixtures are working. I have walked the entire home and it is weird.” This had happen to my home just a few weeks earlier, but I thought there was no way it could have been the same problem of an old underground line being corroded. This was a brand new home we recently completed. I had supervised the install of all the utilities at their home. I asked if they had had any other underground work done since moving in and the answer was no. Almost as an afterthought she added: “It seems everything we need is running but a lot of circuits are not.”

Ah hah! My old gray mind finally clicked. Was the generator running, I asked? She could not hear it. I asked that she check and, sure enough, it was quietly purring away. Sweet!

Because the home network and computers were on the generator powered circuits, she was able to bring up the website for the power utility and discovered an outage had been reported. She was amazed that it was so simple. The security system did not issue a peep. The switch over was so quick and seamless that she had not noticed the change. This was a comfort for her and she was able to go back to work, telecommuting.

While recently attending the International Builders Show, I spoke to Generac, a leading manufacture of generators, to learn about whole house generator coverage. It’s a challenge, because you want strike a balance between cost, complexity and benefit. Generac has a new Nexus breaker panel that does the trick. It can handle up to 6 large 220 circuits. In effect, it manages large loads and the starting of big motors  such as heating elements, air conditioning, well pumps, septic pumps, electric stoves, or water heaters. It allows only one or two of these to start or operate at the same time, essentially managing the house loads and telling the generator how hard to work. In the homes we design and build, the remaining electrical loads are generally light. CFL and LED lighting use tiny amounts of energy. Energy star appliances sip energy. WaterSense fixtures use less water allowing well and septic pumps to work less. What that means is that the same generator that is usually specified for partial home coverage may service an entire BuildSense or other energy efficient home.

What Does the Builder Want?

That is the most important thing, isn’t it? Or, wait, maybe not. Shouldn’t your choices drive your project? A loosely designed and defined and unspecified project delivers what the builder wants. A thoughtfully and thoroughly designed and fully specified project delivers what you want. It’s as simple as that. Odds are there will not be full alignment of goals between you and your builder. Some cases may be closer than others, but the likelihood of perfect alignment is slim to none.

I’ve heard people say many times that specifications drive up cost. This is absolutely true. Here, the old adage you get what you pay for applies. Take windows, for example. There are a vast array of choices that cover the gamut of finishes, color, performance, durability, glazing, cost, and materials. If performance (sun-tempered house), exterior color (red), and materials (wood interior) are most important to you and durability (limited warranty effort) and cost (keep the bid low) are most important to the builder, you have a discrepancy and a problem if your choice is not specified. Just as it is your choice whether you spend your money on a BMW or a Ford Fiesta, it is your choice whether you buy high-end clad wood windows or vinyl windows. A high performance BMW costs about 500% (yup) more than a Ford Fiesta. The range for window cost is just as extreme.

When price shopping, it is impossible to have apples-to-apples cost information without thorough plans and full specifications - Period. How can you place a price tag on a project if you don’t know what you are pricing? I’ve heard countless times from owners and builders that a basic plan and elevations (schematic level design) are sufficient for pricing, permitting, and building. This is absolutely not true. One of my many favorite examples of this desperate and unfortunate process is pricing without a power and lighting plan. We find that our clients are quite particular (and rightly so) about lighting locations and fixtures, switching, power locations, data locations, media locations, security systems, and audio systems. To include the cheapest code standard power and lighting plan and Home Depot chic fixtures in a custom house is generally a fundamental misunderstanding of your wishes. If what you want (not what the builder wants) is three times the work and three times the cost of a code standard plan and a code standard plan is included in the contract, you have a discrepancy and a big cost problem during construction. Again, the solution is to design and specify what you want.

Your choices may very well cost more than the code standard and they will likely cost more than the builder’s choices. This is one part of the significant value of design. Your project. Your choices. Your money.

Building Exteriors General Rule: Don’t Transition Materials or Colors at Outside Corners

I encourage all designers to make use of three-dimensional modeling tools (electronic or physical) because we happen to live in a three-dimensional world. We build volumes and inhabit space. It is unfortunate that architectural “elevations” are drawn as flat planes representing one face of a building without perspective. This among other factors, such as an emphasis on the building “Front” and reduction of the other elevations to only sides and back, has resulted in some basic neglect of how a building should be finished. Along the line, there was a loss in translation when a set of construction drawings of a building that was not a perfect square or rectangle became only four elevations and a plan. Where a builder saw brick, he placed brick. Where he saw wood, he placed wood. However, since the drawings did not convey every face of the three-dimensional building, he elected to use the less expensive wood material where there was no indication. The brick transitioned to wood around an outside corner. So what was intended to be a solid brick volume became a plane of brick on the front of a volume. Eventually, this became an acceptable norm of the building industry. Now we have entire neighborhoods showcasing brick and stone veneers along the “front” or streetside elevation, but nowhere else. Sometimes there will even be an extruded bay or gable area faced in a different brick or stone or other material which also does not turn the corner for a few feet. Does that look better? Did it even save any money? Look at the building in three-dimensions. Show the hidden elevations in the drawings so all materials are clearly annotated. Clearly indicate that no materials should transition at an outside corner. Many of these buildings would look better without brick or stone, but simply with a good paint scheme that displays them as volumes and not planes. As such, it is also good to indicate that paint colors should not transition at an outside corner. Happy designing and building!

Random location for material transition plainly looks bad

Even higher quality homes exhibit the "front" elevation syndrome.

These extruded bays with full material wrap appear as solid volumes and look complete.

Here, stone transitions to siding along the same flat plan. Increasing the plan area by extruding the stone faced wall 24" or so and returning the stone material on both sides would have provided a complete volume feeling as indicated in the photo above.

Information Can Change Behavior - An Energy Use Story

I keep the information tracking system in my Volkswagen TDI set to average MPG. When I get a little heavy on the accelerator (which happens from time to time), my mileage reflects my driving. When it drops below 40 MPG, I change my behavior because that threshold (for some reason) is important to me.

We recently started the install of our energy monitoring system for our office building at 502 Rigsbee. As of today, we can track the total energy generated by the PV system and the building’s total energy use. Our plan is to have full circuit-by-circuit monitoring in place in the coming weeks. The energy geek in all of us can check it out at:

http://egauge3135.egaug.es/

I’ve been on a rampage about how and when we use energy ever since we started to see this information. Why is our building using so much power at night when we have moderate and comfortable evenings with outside temperatures lower than the settings on our thermostats? What else is using power besides our HVAC system? Look at that spike in energy use during our grand opening party! A few hundred people really heat up the place. Why is that computer monitor on when not in use? Are our motion sensors working correctly and shutting off our lights when we forget to turn them off? How much power does our UV rainwater filter use? Yes, I can drive myself a little crazy with this stuff, but the information allows us to take care of three major items. One, we can assure the systems we have installed are functioning properly as designed and installed. Two, we can address those items and see direct results. Three, we can modify behavior to assure we are using the facility to assure the greatest efficiency.

When you have data, all these things come to the forefront. When our building is using more energy at night than I think it should, I use the information and investigate. If you know where the waste is, you can change the right things. Without the information, energy guzzlers just keep quietly guzzling often with little real benefit.

Although we are not yet showing the power generated by the wind turbines and we are not yet seeing individual circuit use, we have enough information to start changing behavior and tweaking systems. With the monitoring system fully functional, we can continue to tune our habits and systems for maximum benefit and minimal energy use.

Information changes behavior for the better.

Making Our Home a Home Sweet Home - Part 11: ENERGY STAR washer

Unfortunately, I did not think far enough ahead to take pictures of our old washer and dryer, but suffice it to say that they were old, loud, and inconsistent.  They were used when they were given to us when we moved to Durham (10 years ago). The free price tag, which thrilled our graduate student and first-time schoolteacher budget, was a deceptive value that failed us for too many years.  While they were free, the water use and higher wattage motors meant we were paying for it with each use.  The stackable washer and dryer we bought this year are the lower end Samsung front loaders that still have vibration reduction technology (VRT™), which allows faster spin speeds and dryer clothes after washing.  They aren't as quiet as they claim (I think it's because of the stacking), but their performance trumps that for me.  ENERGY STAR’s website tells us that an ENERGY STAR washer uses 14 gallons of water per load versus 27 gallons for standard machines. Our 10 year old machine may have used up to 35 gallons per load. According to Whirlpool, a machine from 1994-2003 uses about 904 kWh per year versus 192 kWh annual use for a new ENERGY STAR washer. A washing machine using 30% less energy and 50% less water can translate to annual savings of $100-$150 and more depending on the size of your family and machine use.

New stackable VRT washer and dryer

Making our Home a Home Sweet Home - Part 10: Why pay to heat and cool your home when you’re not even there?

If you’re looking for a really low hanging fruit to save some money on utility bills, simply head out and buy a programmable thermostat at your local home improvement store.  They are relatively easy to install, with a couple standard tools, if you follow the instructions (which is of course pretty important).
Sometimes I wish I would have made all of the improvements I’ve mentioned in this series in sequence with enough space in between the phases to see what kind of impact each one had on savings, but in this case my impatience outweighed my need for science.  Once you learn something about building science, the things in your own home begin to glare at you.  I just want to make those things go away.
While I don’t have clear numbers for you on what the programmable thermostat saved us at my home, the EPA publishes some industry averages.  They say folks save an average of $180 a year by replacing a conventional thermostat with a programmable one.  It is certainly part of the story that resulted in our receiving a letter from PSNC that our equal pay gas bill would be $13 per month instead of $43.  Some of that is attributed to better insulation and air-sealing, but the thermostat ensures that our HVAC system can relax during times we are either not in the house, or when we are asleep.  Those are the largest proportions of time in the life of a house, and big opportunities for savings.
There is a range of programmable thermostats, from ones that have standard times and periods of day predetermined without customizability, to ones that can link up with your wifi network so you can control them with your smart phone when you’re out of town, across the street.  The one you see here cost me about $70.  But, as you can see from the EPA information above, it pays for itself, on average, in less than half a year.  That’s both smart and puts money back in your pocket.
What are you waiting for?  I was proud of my accomplishment.  You will be, too!

Remove old thermostat

Wire and mount new thermostat

Program and Save!!!