Custom Home – How to Get Started (Part 7) – Moving the dirt

Thinking of building a custom home? Know the steps so you can control the process. The next step in our series is just after you sign the contract with a contractor – what happens?

Catch up on this series “Custom Home – How to Get Started” with the following links:

Part onePart twoPart threePart fourPart fivePart six – Part seven

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Custom Home – Albemarle County

So you have signed a contract with a contractor and you are ready for the work to start. The next step is for the contractor to apply for a permit. This could happen prior to signing the contract depending on your approach in the previous steps. The permit review process usually takes a couple of weeks, even up to a month. The local official who has jurisdiction has to review your plans for compliance with the local building codes. This code review process is important to make sure you don’t have any issues after construction has started, but is not an exhaustive review to make sure things are right. They are simply looking for code compliance. The process usually goes very smooth if you have a complete set of plans developed by an architect.

The contractor also needs to sign his contracts with sub-contractors that are going to perform parts of the work. This may include the plumber, electrician, site excavator, framer… and all things in between. Once the contracts are signed and a permit is issued, the digging is scheduled and work begins. Important steps not to overlook include the surveyor showing up to mark the corners and making sure erosion control measures are being installed.

Green Term Defined: Indoor Environmental Quality

Green Term Defined: Indoor Environmental Quality

The average American spends a large amount of their time indoors in our current society (according to an EPA survey, 90% of our time is inside). This makes the Indoor Environmental Quality of your built environment critical. This is the air that you breathe, the type of light, the sounds, and the comfort you feel.

Indoor air quality is impacted by carbon monoxide, radon, VOC’s, particulates, mold, bacteria, and smoke. I just had a meeting in my office this week where those visiting came in just as the lawyer upstairs went out with his pipe lit and no respect for others. If your HVAC system is not designed to provide ventilation all the products and their associated chemicals you bring into your space off-gas and have nowhere to go. In turn your lungs become the filter for these chemicals.

The type of lighting you use for a space is critical for your comfort. It does not matter is you use LED or incandescent, using it in the correct way is more important for comfort. Of course, bringing in natural daylight into a space has been shown in many studies to be the best for your health. This may not apply depending on the task you are performing – ever try to see a computer screen that faces a window? Of course you can create appropriate lighting in spaces through design.

In our office it seems that headphones are the way to go, but I remember back when I started we simply played a radio in the background. The level and type of noise in a space can have a huge impact on your environmental quality. Living near a heavily used road, airport, or nightclub impacts how your able to rest and recharge. I know I rarely go to the restaurant across the street from my office because the music is always so loud – yes I realize that this makes me old. You can control the noise in a space through design.

Solarize Harrisonburg Update – Sign up today

solarize

Solarize Harrisonburg is moving forward and big news was announced this past week. The RFP was issued. The advantage to being involved in Solarize Harrisonburg is the potential for your solar system being 30% off the traditional cost. Let us know what you think of the solarize movement in the comments below.

Some key dates moving forward are as follows:

1. RFP Issue Date: August 19, 2014

2. Proposals Due: September 11th, 2014 by 4:59pm

3. Selection Committee Meeting: Week of September 15, 2014

4. Notice of Intent to Award: September 22, 2014

5. Contract Negotiations Completed: September 24. 2014

6. Deadline for new participants to sign up: October 31, 2014

7. Deadline for all site visits to be completed: November 14, 2104

8. Deadline for all proposals to be provided to participants: November 21, 2014

9. Deadline for all signed contracts: December 12, 2014

solar coop process

Custom Home – How to Get Started (Part 4)

Catch up on this series “Custom Home – How to Get Started” with the following links:

Part onePart twoPart three – Part four – Part fivePart sixPart seven

Custom homeNow that the design process has kicked off there are a series of steps that will take place. You have hired an architect, who is an expert at this process. Trust them. Personally I have had a building that I designed, have emotional attachment to, and a professional duty to make sure it is done right under construction continuously for the last 11 years. Trust me, I know the process. 

There are three phases of design: schematic design, design development, and construction documents. Each phase will deliver a different level of detail and information and each phase requires certain questions and answers. Your architect is your guide to help you build your custom home with comfort and confidence.

The schematic design phase sets the program for the project. The conclusion of this phase will see the creation of sketches of spaces showing connections and relationships, square footage estimates, basic section, renderings, and a general idea of the overall aesthetic of the project.

Custom homeThe second stage, design development, identifies the materials, window and door locations, room sizes, as well as solidifying the plans and elevations. The structural design for the project will be largely figured out during this phase as well as dimensions of all spaces. This is the last phase where major design elements evolve and most questions are answered at the conclusion of this time.

The last stage of the design process is the creation of construction documents. This stage develops the drawings needed for construction. Details are created, final selections are confirmed, notes are added for specific elements of the project and the structural system is finalized. The contractor can solidify a price for construction and the contract will be based on these drawings.Custom home

Green Term Defined: Blower Door Test

IR_0137The most important cost-effective construction solution used to lower energy bills is a reduction of air-leakage. The test used to determine air tightness in a home is required in the 2009 International Residential Code, it is called a blower door test. However, there is a second compliance method, the visual inspection, that most builders in Virginia use to show compliance.

blower doorBuilding code specifies that “the building thermal envelope shall be durably sealed to limit infiltration.”  Unfortunately the visual inspection provision weakens this requirement to a point that it makes no impact on most homes being constructed. The blower door is the only effective way to determine total air leakage and verify the home is as air tight as required by the building code (the worst possible construction allowed by law).

A blower door test is used to determine total air leakage of a home’s thermal envelope. The powerful fan is installed in an exterior door and the house is depressurized. The result is a measure of the home’s air tightness. This test simulates the air leakage typical in a building that uses forced air heating and cooling  as well as those that result from weather conditions. Every home should have a blower door test in order to find the leaks and reduce the money wasted each month on an inefficient thermal envelope.

 

 

Green Term Defined: Embodied Energy

What is embodied energy and why should you care? Embodied energy is the total amount of energy required to produce a product. This concept is certainly hard to grasp and even harder to find real data on various products. As our buildings are becoming more efficient the importance of embodied energy is increasing when making decisions about buildings. It used to be that the energy used to operate a building outweighed any material’s embodied energy, but that is starting to shift, especially with the rise of zero energy buildings.

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Embodied Energy is useful in considering which “sustainable” product is the right solution for your project. Embodied energy is a method that aims to find the total energy necessary for the entire life-cycle of a given product. This includes the raw material extraction, transportation, manufacture, assembly, installation, disassembly, and demolition of that product. The lower the embodied energy the less harm done to the environment.

cellulose insulation

Calculating embodied energy varies depending on who you are getting data from and what bias they may hold. So here are some general rules that might help you as the industry is still trying to figure this out. Recycled building materials often have less embodied energy than a product created with virgin raw materials. Materials like wood are lower in embodied energy than materials that require a complicated manufacturing process. Materials manufactured close to your home have a lower embodied energy than materials extracted overseas or finished overseas.