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Building a Light Green LEED House in Houston, TX
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May 2011

 

Housewrap and windows are going in for our LEED house in Houston

The house continues to make great progress - we now have a dried-in roof, most windows installed, and passed our HVAC inspection. Over the past week we have also completed plumbing--rough in. Here are some photos of the update. 

The windows look nice - this was one of the areas we decided to spend some money, as we wanted functional, attractive and high-performance windows. See here for more info on the Pella Impervia windows we chose and why: http://leedhouse.info/picked-windows-for-our-greenbuilding-in-houst

(download)

Filed under  //  progress  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

It looks like a house! Walls and decking on our LEED house in Houston.

Great progress on the house this week, with only a little rain. The walls are nearly complete as is the roof decking, which continues and should complete in another week. In the meantime, plumbing and HVAC

 work is going on inside. In addition mechanicals, housewrap and windows are going to get started next week. The transformation from frame to house is well under way. 

(download)

Filed under  //  progress  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

Fourth month budget and the cupola on our LEED house in Houston

As framing completes, we have the April budget to report. We had a second noticeable overage this month, related to framing materials. We had been warned abou this by our builder - the prices for framing materials are of course largely determined by the cost of wood, which is a commodity with significant fluctuations. The Houston construction market is warming up noticeably, at least in some neighborhoods and in custom homes - can't speak to the more high-volume end of the market. In any case, our budget quote had become quite outdated, and we were expecting an overage - we have about half of it in this month, with another half expected to hit in May.

You will also notice that the projected cost per sq ft is creeping up, as the overages accumulate. We started around $165 and are now more at $170, still very affordable for a custo m home. We will continue to go higher, no doubt. Not least because some of the LEED regulations, related to Energy Star and HERS ratings, have recently changed, forcing us to adjust our plan somewhat, on the fly. Not sure what the budget impact will be, but we may have to invest some more to ensure we end up where want to be - Silver LEED at least. 

2011-05-02_17-20-58_152

Budget_actuals_blog

Filed under  //  budget   progress  
Posted by Oliver Bogler