We are working on classic design for aging-in-place house for a couple in Harrisonburg. The goal is to make the home a forever home. Using aging-in-place strategies we are designing a home that can adapt over time to the needs of our clients. From the open floor plan to wide doorways the home can accommodate people of all abilities.
Making the home energy-efficient and comfortable keeps the house usable for a long time and affordable to heat and cool. Reducing long-term expenses due to conditioning the home provides payback every month. This is important as you age and you move to a fixed income. It is also important at all other points in your life as you want to spend as little as possible on heating and cooling so you can maximize enjoyment.
Using durable materials will make the house long-lasting and easy to maintain. Again reducing long-term costs associated with maintenance of the home.
We are including a roll-in shower, sitting space in the kitchen, no-step entry, and doors with lever handles to make the house flexible for changing needs.
There is no way of knowing what will happen in the future, but making the home as affordable as possible and adaptable will increase the possibility of making this a home for a lifetime.
I do a lot of energy audits for Harrisonburg Electric Commission, they offer them free to their customers. The problems I find in most houses are very similar and are caused by lack of building science understanding. Air leaks in your thermal envelope are the biggest source of comfort issues and wasted energy for heating and cooling. You can find air leaks in your thermal envelope by looking at fiberglass insulation.
Find places where your pink fiberglass is black and this is an air leak.
This yellow insulation shows air moving through the wall from an unconditioned attic into a conditioned space. Stop the leaks and you will improve comfort and reduce wasted energy. It is easy to fix this kind of leak. You can remove the insulation and spray foam the cavity or you can cover the leak with a solid surface material and caulk the joints. These leaks add up quick and cost you a ton of comfort and money. You may hear from framers that you don’t want a house that is too tight. That is true, but you don’t want random air leaks around your house that add up to the size of a window. Control your air intake through your HVAC system and plug the air leaks in your home.
THE GAINES GROUP of CHARLOTTESVILLE AND HARRISONBURG Best of Houzz
Awarded Best Of Houzz 2016
Over 35 Million Monthly Unique Users Nominated Best Home Building, Remodeling and Design Professionals in North America and Around the World
Harrisonburg, Virginia,January 24, 2016 – The Gaines Groupof Charlottesville and Harrisonburghas won “Best Of Customer Service” on Houzz®, the leading platform for home remodeling and design. The 30-year-old architectural firm was chosen by the more than 35 million monthly unique users that comprise the Houzz community from among more than one million active home building, remodeling and design industry professionals.
The Best Of Houzz is awarded annually in three categories: Design, Customer Service and Photography. Customer Service honors are based on several factors, including the number and quality of client reviews a professional received in 2015. A “Best Of Houzz 2016” badge will appear on winners’ profiles, as a sign of their commitment to excellence. These badges help homeowners identify popular and top-rated home professionals in every metro area on Houzz.
“We have been very fortunate this past year to have incredible clients with fun projects. I am thrilled to have so many happy clients doing projects we are very proud to include in our portfolio” said Charles Hendricks. “Anyone building, remodeling or decorating looks to Houzz for the most talented and service-oriented professionals” said Liza Hausman, vice president of Industry Marketing for Houzz. “We’re so pleased to recognize The Gaines Group, voted one of our “Best Of Houzz” professionals by our enormous community of homeowners and design enthusiasts actively remodeling and decorating their homes.”
Named the “Best Small Architectural Firm” in a worldwide vote of USGBC members for the best of building awards, The Gaines Group is celebrating 30 years of service this year. With dedication to our clients we strive to create design that can provide a better future. We want to see that our work made a difference and the community is a better place for it.Why we do it? Because we want our clients to have comfortable beautiful healthy spaces to live, play, and work.
About Houzz
Houzz is the leading platform for home remodeling and design, providing people with everything they need to improve their homes from start to finish – online or from a mobile device. From decorating a small room to building a custom home and everything in between, Houzz connects millions of homeowners, home design enthusiasts and home improvement professionals across the country and around the world. With the largest residential design database in the world and a vibrant community empowered by technology, Houzz is the easiest way for people to find inspiration, get advice, buy products and hire the professionals they need to help turn their ideas into reality. Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, Houzz also has international offices in London, Berlin, Sydney, Moscow and Tokyo. Houzz and the Houzz logo are registered trademarks of Houzz Inc. worldwide. For more information, visit houzz.com.
Snow may help identify places you are wasting money
There was a time I enjoyed snow – that time has passed. To me now, snow is an interruption in my schedule, plowing a driveway, shoveling many hours, and dangerous roads. However, it is also an easy time to identify energy leaks in your home. Snow may help identify places you are wasting money through air leaks and poor insulation.
For instance, in this house we used to own in Timberville had a major insulation problem in the bonus room. That room above the garage was always a few degrees different from the rest of the house. You can see the snow has melted at the roof / wall intersection from heat coming through to the outside. When we did an energy audit on this house we found that the wall did have insulation in it. It was just installed in a way that allowed air movement and in one case a bridge to the outside. This room’s comfort issues and thermal bridge was corrected by Elite Insulation adding a layer of foam to create an air barrier on the outside of the existing fiberglass insulation. The room comfort was considerably improved.
From the front of the house you can see the trusses in the roof over the garage. This indicated more air movement from the conditioned space. This attic space was not accessible so all we could do when we insulated was to fix the back half of the roof cutting down most of the air movement. You can see there is again warmth coming through the wall at the roof intersection above the porch. Not an area that is easily fixed after construction so make sure you get it right during construction. All in we spend $1,500 fixing insulation problems on this house and lowered our annual energy bills by $500.
At our new (old) house there is still much work to be done. See the melted snow in between the windows on the roof – that is air escaping out of the hood vent above the stove. We need to improve our insulation in the attic to fix this problem. Also you can see we have storm windows which traps the warm moist air escaping from the house in between the window and outside creating condensation. We have a LOT of warmth leaking from out windows. However, this is the last thing we will fix as it is the most expensive and has the longest payback period of changes we could make to the house.
With this particular storm the snow drifts are massive. Nothing you can do here other than hope they do not pull gutters down or worse cause a roof collapse. Our roofs here are designed for 43 pounds of snow load psf. We should be ok now that the snow has stopped, but I will remain nervous until it melts.
Finally, watch how the snow melts on your roof. This will tell you, compared to your neighbors with a roof facing the same direction if you are average or above average with your attic insulation. I know our house needs attention since we don’t yet have R-72 insulation in the attic. If you are building a new house this is the time to get these details right, it will cost you less and save you more. If you have an existing house, things can be fixed to work more efficiently, but there is only so much to be done. The best we have done on an existing home is a 65% reduction in energy use. Let me know if you want help identifying the problems that need addressed at your home.
Canstruction Harrisonburg 2016 is a unique international nonprofit organization which hosts competitions, exhibitions, and events showcasing colossal structures made entirely out of full cans of food. After the structures are built the creations are on display on the public as a giant art exhibition. At the end of the viewing, all food is donated to local food banks.
Why Canstruction Matters?
The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank exists for a few very simple reasons: Food sustains life. It restores options. It provides hope.
BRAFB is an emergency food assistance agency that serves more than 114,000 people each month, a near record in the Food Bank’s history. Last year, we distributed 18 million meals to hungry families across the Blue Ridge. We expect to serve even more this year. The economy might be improving for many of us, but for the working poor, hunger is a daily struggle. Families shouldn’t have to choose between paying the electric bill or buying groceries.
About Canstruction
Founded in 1992, Canstruction promotes the design community and raises food for hunger relief efforts. More than 100 Canstruction competitions were held in cities around the world last year, making it one of the largest international food drives.
