Recycled homes

Here’s an interesting post on houses made of some unusual things, including airplanes, missile silos, and more.

Other green houses

Check out this post at Mother Nature Network on ten great green homes!  My faves are #2, #6, and #10.  #2 is not surprising, as it’s by Michelle Kaufmann, whose prefab homes we considered carefully before deciding to design our own.

Ta da!

Check out our new aluminum and glass garage doors:

Right now, the glass is very … well … CLEAR.  We’re going to have it tinted frosted white for privacy. Plus, when the lights are on in the garage at night, those doors are going to GLOW.

As you can also see, the driveway has been paved.  This was definitely not the most eco-friendly choice we could have made, but we needed to weigh the environment vs. our budget and the budget won this time.

Inside the house, things are nearly done.  In fact, Jeff the Builder said we could start bringing some stuff over this weekend, so we’re going to focus on setting up the kitchen, the children’s toy room (so they’ll have a place to play while we’re working), and the upstairs closets.  Depending on how things look, we might also work on the children’s rooms, but we’ll just have to see.

Speaking of play spots, do you want to see the Secret Attic?

Here’s a shot of the ladder, which is not complete, so the child in the photo was not allowed to go any higher:

Here’s a close up of the materials used for the ladder:

And here’s what it looks like inside:

Doesn’t it feel like a cozy cabin?  We’re going to put a rug in there make things even cozier and possibly some big cushions/pillows.   The girls haven’t seen the Secret Attic yet, so they’re going to be THRILLED to finally get up there in a week or so.

More soon!

Deluxe plumbing, part 3

The final piece to our plumbing puzzle is the water heater itself.  We had originally planned (and budgeted) for a solar water heater.  The idea seemed so simple and elegant; just circulate the incoming cold water through a collector on the roof before storing it in a tank inside for use later.  Alas, every system we looked at turned out to be far more complicated and expensive than we expected.  Since we don’t live in the tropics, we would have had to go with a system that included various pumps, sensors, etc. in order to prevent everything from freezing/breaking in the winter.  All told, it was going to cost several thousand dollars, take up a lot of space, involve a lot of moving parts and maintenance, and look rather unsightly on the roof.

We also considered a tankless water heater, which is all the rage these days.  Instead of storing a large supply of water that is always heated to a set temperature, they simply heat the water as it’s being used.  Their main advantages are:

• Since you’re not endlessly heating water to be used later, you eliminate the standby energy losses (the heat that continually leaks from even a well-insulated tank).
• They take up a lot less space than a traditional water heater.  Their dimensions are typically only about 1 ft. x 1 ft x 6 inches, and they mount to the wall, thus taking up no floor space.
• In theory, you’ll never run out of hot water since it’s just heated as it’s needed.

The downsides to tankless heaters are:

• They require a huge electrical load (the new house is all-electric, so a gas water heater wasn’t an option).  When they’re running, they require almost 100 amps of power!
• If the power goes out, the hot water ceases immediately, which is not such a great thing if you’re in the middle of a shower.
• They have a set capacity for how much water they can heat at one time, and if you exceed that, there’s no backup storage to draw from.
• They typically only save about 30% compared to a standard electric water heater.
• It can be finicky about detecting when to start heating the water, so you can never get a slow stream of hot water; there needs to be a minimal volume of water flowing through before it knows to start heating it.

In the end, we went with a regular electric water heater with a heat-pump water heater add-on.  This works on the same principle as a heat pump HVAC system; instead of using resistance heat, it exchanges latent heat from the air, concentrates it, then sends it to the water heater.  The bottom line is that it uses only about 25% of the energy that a regular water heater uses.  It wound up costing well under $1000, so it will more than pay for itself from day one (saves more on the monthly electric bill than it adds to the monthly mortgage).  The water heater itself will almost never turn on unless the heat pump add-on needs some assistance, so it mainly just serves as water storage.

The heat pump add-on is the box on top of the water heater tank

We also went with just a 50-gallon tank since we have the help of the drainwater heat recovery system, so there won’t be a lot of extra energy used to heat up a huge tank of water.  For reference, our current house has a 50-gallon water heater with no special features, and we almost never run out of hot water.  It helps to have water-efficient appliances, especially the front-loading washing machine, which uses half as much water as a regular top-loader.

Let there be light, part 3

Ready for more photos?
This is the view that greeted me when I went over to the house on this dreary, cold, wet day:

That’s the light in the dining area and here’s what it looks like closer up:

The lantern is from Pearl River Department Store in Chinatown, New York City.  I love the look of white paper lanterns — they give off such a nice soft light.  And you may may remember from yesterday’s post that we put a large round lantern in the craft room.  Furthermore, we also have three small ones in the living room:

(Lanterns from Ikea.)

I have to apologize once again for my bad photography.  These photos simply don’t convey how great these lights are.

Alas, that’s it for the lanterns.  Pete asked me not to go overboard with them and five is probably pushing it.

It turns out that the lights we chose to hang over the peninsula aren’t going to work for some technical reason or the others, so we picked out others online last night.

Oh, and here is a not-so great shot of the lights on the front porch:

Do you see that rain coming down?  It is nasty out there.  At some point, I promise to take more photos of the porch, because we used some interesting materials.

Also , I can finally show you these marvelous photos of the shelves in the pantry:

Yes my friends, we have GORGEOUS L-shaped poplar shelves in the pantry.  I’m never going to want to close the beautiful pocket door that I begged for.

Jesse and Tom asked me what I was going to do with so much shelf space and I told them it was going to be my Armageddon Pantry.  They thought I was joking.

More soon!

Let there be light, part 2

Today, when I went by the house, there were lots of lights on!

I should mention that we made a point to buy only energy efficient lights, so it’s all mostly fluorescent, with a few LED lights  thrown in.

As promised from yesterday, the sconces in the upstairs hall:

(Sconces from eBay.)

Also upstairs, the lights in the girls’ toy room:

(Lights from Ikea.)

One thing I’ve always wanted is a light directly over the shower, so we now have one:

Here’s a photo of light in the craft room.  Sorry about the bad photo quality — the room is actually much brighter and airier.

(Light from Ikea.)

The laundry room now has an abundance of light due to this enormous fluorescent tube that’s just above the doors:

Downstairs, this is in the study:

(Light from Ikea.)

And, in the foyer:

That’s actually a square, not a triangle.  (Like from Ikea.)

As for yesterday’s puzzle, the poplar wood is for the pantry shelving, which looks wonderful.  I’ll post photos tomorrow.

Jen wants a paint sprayer for Christmas

Guess what’s happening inside the house this week?

Today the guys are priming the walls.  Tomorrow, they’ll work on the ceilings.  Then, the walls on the first floor.  Their paint sprayer is SO COOL.

BTW, the NO-VOC paint is truly almost odorless.

(P.S. to Pete:  I don’t really want a paint sprayer, so please buy me something else instead.)

Using low- and no-VOC paints

One thing Pete and I have been adamant about is using low- and no-VOC paints, stains, and other materials in the house. We don’t want volatile organic compounds out-gassing in our house for years, especially since we have children.  We discussed this with Jeff the Builder early in the process and it turns out that he was already using low- and no-VOC products in his work.

A large part of this equation is the interior paints.  Months ago, Pete read Consumer Reports‘ latest research on paint.  They only liked three low-/no-VOC paints, only two of which are available in our area.  I checked online where I could buy the paint and then made a drive to the closest Home Depot this summer, which is 30 minutes away.

I wanted to match some colors that we have in our current house  so I picked up lots of color chips and taped them to the walls I was trying to match.  I looked at the colors for several days and eliminated colors whenever one didn’t seem right.  Eventually, I made my choices.  For months, I’ve been waiting for Jeff the Builder to ask for the paint chips.  He asked a few days ago and wants them soon.

A couple days ago, I drove back to Home Depot in order to pick up duplicate copies of the paint chips we’d chosen.  That way, Jeff the Builder would have a set and I could keep a set for our files — with two active children in the house, it’s a certainty that we’ll be touching up paint within months of moving in.

While I was there, I talked to the store employees in the paint department.  It turns out that they don’t actually carry the low-VOC version of the paint, even though the website said they did.  Grrrr…

Luckily, the store does carry a no-VOC paint that’s made by the same people — but it hasn’t been rated by Consumer Reports yet.  So now I have to decide whether or not to go with this brand.  I went ahead and picked up paint chips and am going to another store here in town that carries the second brand that Consumer Reports said tested well.  Since I’m matching existing colors, it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to finalize my decisions quickly.  But still…

In terms of what’s going on at the house, the drywall people have been finishing things up there and the walls look great.  The guys also worked on the walls inside the Secret Attic.  Drywall won’t fit through the opening, so the guys are using a light-colored wood to finish the walls.  And, since Jeff is picking up the kitchen cabinets in a few days, he and I went over his diagram of the exact layout and configuration of the cabinets and drawers.  It’s going to be gorgeous!

Do these jeans make my house look fat?

As promised, here is the low-down on the various types of insulation that we’re using in the new house.  I’ll start from the inside out:

2nd floor hallway (laundry room on left)

That’s the insulation that we’re using for acoustic purposes in the interior walls and floors throughout the house.  We’re not putting it everywhere, but we’re using it for places where we want to minimize noise transfer from room to room, such as the bedrooms, bathrooms, and laundry room.  This isn’t your standard out-gassing, scratchy fiberglass; it’s made of recycled blue jeans, treated with (non-toxic) borates for fire-, mold-, and pest- protection.  It’s much denser than fiberglass, so it makes a good acoustic barrier, and it doesn’t produce any harmful vapors (fiberglass has formaldehyde).  It’s also as soft as you’d expect old blue jeans to be, so you don’t even need gloves to install it, and since it’s made almost entirely of recycled material, it’s eco-friendly.

Next is the spray foam that we’re using to insulate the ceiling and interior wall of the garage, as well as the band-boards, which are the structural components that the joists and trusses are anchored into.  This is what we planned to use for these spots from the beginning, although I did a bunch of research into other materials.  The downside to spray foam is that it’s quite a bit more expensive than alternatives.  However, Jeff the Builder felt that it was important to seal the garage from the rest of the house, and since the foam expands to fill all the nooks and crannies around the ductwork and joists, it was the best option.  It also provides very good thermal and acoustic performance.

Garage ceiling

As noted before, the entire wall structure of the basement is made of Superior Walls, which are insulated, precast concrete sections.  We got the Xi model, which has an R-value of 12.5.  [Note: R-value is the standard measure of insulation performance, and it's linear; for example, R-20 is twice as well-insulated as R10.  Standard 2x4 frame walls are usually insulated to R-13, and 2x6 frame walls usually go to R-19.]  Since most of the basement is underground, thus well-insulated by the earth, R-12.5 should be plenty, but we’re having JtB add more foam board insulation to the above-ground portions of the walls of the mancave, bringing those walls to R-20.

We also insulated the floor of the mancave before pouring the slab, which is a step that is often overlooked but highly recommended by building experts.  Even though the ground is a good insulator, it’s always around 55 degrees (that’s Fahrenheit, in case our British readers were freaking out), so it’s hard for the basement to get fully warm if there’s nothing but concrete on the floor.  By insulating the slab, we should have a nice, warm basement in the winter.

The SIPs that form the roof and exterior walls of the house have polyurethane foam in the center, so we don’t need to use any additional insulation there.  The ones we have are rated at R-24 for the walls and R-40 for the roof, which is far beyond standard insulation.

I should also mention the concept of thermal breaks (don’t go to sleep on me here!):  In standard walls that are framed with wood studs, the insulation (usually fiberglass batts) only fills the cavities between the studs, which means that the portion of the walls where the studs are is essentially uninsulated.  Consequently, an R-13 rating for this kind of wall is over-optimistic; the effective R-value is probably around 10, assuming no air leakage, which stud-framed walls are prone to.  The SIPs and Superior Walls have no uninsulated studs in the middle and are completely sealed from air leakage, so their real-world R-values are pretty much the same as their rated R-values.  [Technical note: the Superior Walls do have concrete studs, but they are wrapped all the way around with insulation]

The only weak links in our insulation are the windows and doors, but even there we got the highest-performing ones that we could get (within reason).  We’re using all double-pane, low-e, argon filled windows, and the doors are fully-insulated with foam.

I think it’s time for me to end this lesson.

Deluxe plumbing

Check out the two drain lines that will be connected to all of the 2nd-floor plumbing:

Jeff the Builder is our spokesmodel

The black pipe on the right is cast iron instead of the usual PVC plastic; the heavy cast iron muffles most of the noise of the water cascading down the drain whenever someone flushes the toilet.  This is one of those little details that higher-end builders recommend, and it’s been on my dream-house wish list for many years. I think we’ll really notice the reduction in sound (especially since this wall borders our eating area), and the total additional cost was only around $250.

The copper pipe on the left is the centerpiece of our drainwater heat-recovery system.  The water from the two showers/tubs on the 2nd floor drains through the center of this pipe, while cold incoming water flows upward through the tight coil wrapped around the outside.  This transfers heat from the warm drain water to the cold water flowing into the water heater.  As a result, the water heater has to do much less work to heat the water to the correct temperature.  Not only does this save energy (and $$$), but it also effectively increases the capacity of the water heater.  It’s unclear to me why every new house doesn’t have this; it has no moving parts and should pay for itself from day one, since it will reduce our electric bill by more than it adds to our mortgage.

We’re having a couple of other cool plumbing features installed in the very near future, so I’ll have a post on them once I have pictures.