We have never thought so much about theair we breathe as we do now. After a year of working remotely, I returned to the office this week, sharing space with four other businesses. I also had a few people drop-in, from delivery drivers to clients to friends that I had not seen in a year. This was a huge change after a year of almost never leaving my house. Of course, after this past year of a virus that spreads through airborne particles, this is a huge change. The air we breathe has a direct impact on our health and therefore the design of our buildings matters.
Indoor air can be very unhealthy, even outside of virus spread. Smoke, mold, and chemicals along with other people contribute to what is in your air. All of these things in your air can be harmful to human health. When you think of air pollution you often think about smokestacks on industrial building sites or car exhaust. However, that is just a small part of the picture.
The air in your home comes in and gets trapped inside. It comes in when you open doors and windows of course, but it also comes in through your walls, crawl space, and attic. When the wind blows on one side of your home that exterior wall becomes positive pressure and the opposite wall becomes negative pressure. This pulls and pushes air through every gap and cracks in your house. This makes your insulation, carpet, drywall gaps, window edges your air filter – air filters that never get changed or cleaned.
Air is lazy, it looks for the easy path to escape. Easy gaps like electrical outlets, light switches, attic access all become paths for air to come into the house, bringing with it humidity, spiders, pollen, dust, and dirt. Your ductwork run in unconditioned spaces also becomes a conduit for dirty air bypassing the filter intended to clean your air.
Chemicals in your building products are released into your air and you breathe them in. NO-VOC paints have become really popular, but not the only option. Off-gassing from glues, furniture, clothing, cabinets, paints, cleaning supplies, detergents, and even food are released into the air of your home causing a chemical cocktail that has impacts on your health.
When we design a custom home I always encourage our clients to allow us to write a project manual setting the performance standards for the HVAC system, airtightness of the thermal envelope and protects the inhabitants of the home. This performance standard is a critical element to protect the homeowner and to set the standards for the builder to complete. Without this document, you are leaving these performance standards to the builder and his subcontractors. While they may also be very concerned about indoor air quality, their priority is to make sure you are comfortable which is the source of most client’s perception of quality. We need to raise the bar and also talk about the air we breathe and the importance of setting high standards for indoor environmental quality.
Most wish lists for a new dream home have some very similar elements: lots of light, an open plan, and a nice kitchen. If I am involved there is also some discussion about efficiency, durability, and comfort. However, I have not heard from many clients that they want a resilient home. As we move forward I do think this may be a driving factor in the design of custom homes. So is your home resilient?
Resilient design is the intentional design of buildings in order to respond to natural and manmade disasters and disturbances as well as long-term changes resulting from climate change.
A resilient home is energy-efficient and has a focus on durability, comfort, adaptability, and indoor environmental quality. It will incorporate aging-in-place design elements to help a home adapt to life changes. We ask questions about the future life our clients want to live in their dream home, for instance, what if the world shuts down and you have to do your job from home? What if school happens in your living room? What should we include in the home design to clean the air you breathe? How can we design beyond code, affordably, to manage power outages, extreme temperature changes, increased moisture in the air, and create healthy spaces to live work, and play.
This concept ofresilient design is building on our focus on sustainable design but expanding the conversation to adaptability. How can a home adapt easily over time to changing conditions, goals, wants, needs, and impacts from outside forces? What products are being created to address these concerns? I have seen major advances in heating and cooling technology, automated systems for managing a house, and for localized power generation – but I wonder what is next.
What advances in technology are you excited about? What new building products are coming to market that will make your life easier? What standards for design are shaping how we build a more resilient future?
Never in my career has it been so clear that the design of things, spaces, rooms, and buildings matter. The joy that can be facilitated because of a place is needed more now than ever before. A well designed place can help build memories. The places that shape our lives directly impact health and happiness. The design of air systems protect the indoor environmental quality and spread or lack of spread of a virus in our community. Spaces that enhance access to light, views, other people protects mental health. Adaptability allows a space to change as needs change. Access to warmth, shelter, shade, protection from wind, places to connect, celebrate, see art, hear music all are created through good design. Design matters.
We need things, spaces, rooms, and buildings that are well designed. We need better solutions than have existing in the past. We are facing challenges today because of a lack of focus on quality, healthy, efficient design. Design shapes our cities, businesses, homes, places which impacts our quality of life. Design creates the fabric that allows us to live a happy and healthy life.
Ask for better solutions, celebrate beauty, and demand more quality. Design Matters.
Here are some energy-efficiency blog posts I have written over the years. I hope these will help you narrow down those vampire loads, cold room mysteries, high energy bill conundrums, and generally help you save money, live more comfortably, and improve your indoor environmental quality.
I purchased an existing house this past year and of course got a home inspection by Benjamin Meredith of Building Knowledge prior to closing. He identified a list of things that needed to be adjusted, replaced, fixed, and monitored. As with any older home, it has issues and I certainly understood it would need some maintenance. On the top of the list Ben created for me was the heating and cooling system. The existing system was functioning, but not optimally. It was more than 15 years old (probably more than 20 years old) and nearing the end of its life. The system was using more energy than it should to barely keep up with comfort on moderate days.
We added a WiFi enabled control system that links to my phone allowing tracking and comfort adjustments easily from anywhere. The UV light kills biological contaminants in the air and keeps the house odor free. I am certainly happy to have invested in this heating / cooling system a few months ago that not only keeps my electric bills low and my house comfortable, but now provides knowledge I am doing everything I can to keep everyone as healthy as possible. Clean fresh air inside our homes is a must and this is a way to help achieve that goal.
This system also met Pearl Certification for the HVAC system which could improve resale value of the home. Pearl Certification is a national firm that provides third-party certification of high-performing homes: homes with “performance assets” that make them healthy, safe, comfortable, energy and water efficient.
If you are thinking through upgrades on your home right now, it might be time to consider upgrading your heating / cooling system to one that is efficient, keeps you comfortable, and cleans the air.
There are simple energy fixes for your home that you can do while staying at home for a few days. I do lots of energy audits and the most common challenge I find in almost every house is air leakage around and thru While each of these is a small hole in your thermal envelope, there are a lot of these small holes. Here is a thermal image of a typical outlet. In this image, white is warm and dark is cold air. This is an outlet in an exterior wall, but I also find this on interior walls.
You can see cold air coming around the decorative cover plate and through the outlets themselves.
It is easy to take the decorative plate off. Don’t touch the wires inside. You will want to use a silicone caulk to fix the gap. There is a plastic box that holds the outlet in place. The gap between the plastic box and the drywall / plaster is the leak. Simply fill the gap with caulk.
So this reduces the air flow but does not stop it completely. If you have any child protection plugs you can insert them into the outlets after reattaching the decorative plate. You can also order a pack of pre-cut insulation that is designed to go behind the decorative plate.
Once sealed, this hole in your drywall is no longer a source of air leaking into and out of your home. This will improve your indoor air quality and potentially reduce your monthly energy bills.
