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Building a Light Green LEED House in Houston, TX
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August 2009

 

Preliminary #LEED assessment of our #greenbuilding in #houston - points mean prizes

LEED is all about points. There are categories, each with a certain number of available points, and thresholds you need to meet to qualify. This is all overseen by accredited examiners.

Our architects, RD Architecture LLC (www.rdarc.com), sent over the preliminary assessment for us a few days ago, and it makes for interesting reading. We are going to go over it more next week with them, so I just want to give the big picture today.

The exact boundaries of the LEED categories (Certified, Silver, Gold) are set by the size of the house. We are planning on 3,000 to 3,200 sq ft, so we need 49 points to get Certified (64 for Silver).
Bruce_forsyth

So we need points - and as everyone knows, points mean prizes. 

Points are available in the following categories:

ID Innovation and Design Process     
Max 11 points 
Efforts for planning, team coordination, and innovative design/build solutions are rewarded in this category

LL Location and Linkages
Max 10 points 
Points are earned here for location of site in reference to community resources and public transportation as well as existing infrastructure. Many of these points are at “no cost” to the homeowner.

SS Sustainable Sites      
Max of 22 points 
Many credits here are related to surface water management and landscaping. Most of the site is covered with impermeable material. Consider replacing hardscapes with permeable materials to minimize water runoff and heat island effect.

WE Water Efficiency    
Max of 15 points (3 points minimum) 
Water efficiency credits are determined largely by high efficiency fixtures, rainwater catchments and gray water reuse.  Active water reuse systems will add expense to the project: water storage tanks and additional plumbing might be beyond the scope of the budget. 

EA Energy and Atmosphere   
Max of 38 points 
A preliminary HERS rating will be needed. This involves inputting information into a computer model for analysis. At least 8 points are anticipated for wood frame construction, 18 SEER system, and cellulose insulation with energy star windows.

MR Material and Resources         
Max of 16 points (2 credits minimum) 
Eight points of this category can be earned by using environmentally preferable products, and with care this is achievable.  Three points for reducing waste can be earned but has proven to be very difficult. Up to three points can also be earned for advanced framing techniques.

EQ Indoor Environmental Quality   
Max of 21 points (6 point minimum) 
Points range from indoor purification systems to walk off mats at every entry. Indoor air quality will be a focus for this project.

AE Awareness and Education   
Max 3 points 
Two credits are available for homeowner education and public awareness. 

Right now we are are estimated to be in the high 50s, so well above the threshold for Certified. And perhaps within shouting distance of Silver...? We'll see.

By the way, thanks for reading this - you are helping us with "AE Awareness and Education". Publishing this website gives us something towards one of those three points!

( If you are mystified by the picture check here, under catch phrases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Forsyth )

Filed under  //  LEED   planning  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

Picked windows for our #greenbuilding in #houston - Pella Impervia

We have picked windows for our house. Several things led us to this choice:

 1) Our builder recommended Pella as a good deal, and mentioned that he was very familiar with their quality and installation

 2) A good friend gave us a reference, saying she had had Pellas for over 30 years, and was always content with their quality

 3) We experienced new Pella's in the vacation rental house we staid in for 10 days, and liked their quality and hardware

 4) We checked them out at the local showroom, and liked the hardware

 5) Pella has a line of windows made from fiberglass and with good environmental ratings (see below)

 6) We had decided to make a decision in a timely manner to help expedite design and planning by the architects

 We chose the Impervia line (http://web.pella.com/products/productlines/impervia/Pages/impervia.aspx) which can achieve very good SHGC or solar heat gain coefficients, a measure of how much of the sun's energy is allowed in.

 Although not obvious yet on the Pella website, these are now available in casements, which is our preferred style. We like the idea of being able to open windows when the weather is nice. In addition you can get them in some fixed funky shapes!

 The exact specs of the windows are not yet determined - there are variations in the glass and coatings and the frames insulation, which affect the exact performance and of course the cost. Remember, we are doing "light green" here, so it is not obvious that we'd get the top of the line. In addition, the $1,500 tax credit, while nice, may not be enough to push us to a higher cost just for its own sake.

 Oh, and we chose the white finish.

Filed under  //  planning   windows  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

Can anyone recommend a place to get windows for our #greenbuilding in #houston ?

As I mentioned in the last post, two ways in which we are keeping our design costs controlled are:

1) being proactive in choosing things that go into the house
2) choosing early, so that our architects can incorporate these things into the design from the beginning

So, we are thinking about windows! In Houston a primary characteristic is how much solar energy they can exclude, measured by the SHGC, the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (read more about it here http://www.efficientwindows.org/shgc.cfm). 

Shgc
Image courtesy of College of Design · University of Minnesota (http://www.commercialwindows.umn.edu/materials_glazing3.php).

To get the currently available tax benefit, the SHGC has to be below 0.31. So we have looked around the internet, and found the following specs:

Triple-glazed with Low-Solar-Gain Low-E, Argon/Krypton Gas

Insulated Fiberglass

U = .18

SHGC = .26

VT = .43

For the framing we settled on fiberglass, because of its durability and lower expansion-contraction with temperature fluctuations.

There is a list of providers on the page from EfficientWindows.org too, but none of them seem to be within the 500 mile radius required for LEED certification. Soo... we are looking for a good provider. Anyone know of one in the Houston area? Just to complicate things, we are keen on casements primarily, and not double hung, and would like the option to do a couple of funky windows - perhaps a circle or triangle. 

Please Comment, or tweet me @ oliverbogler

Filed under  //  planning   windows  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

#greenbuilding in #houston - how sweat equity & simple design can #LEED in the right direction

Tomorrow we officially start the process of building our house!! Very exciting. We feel very good about our strategy, arrived at over the last week in close collaboration with our architects and our builder. I wanted to share some of the things we learned.

Pick a team you can work with
W
e picked a team that we feel very comfortable with and confident in - architects Kathleen Reardon and John Dazey of RD Architects (www.rdarc.com), and Michael Strong of Green Haus Builders (www.greenhausbuilders.com). Not only do we like their work, but we know that they are very knowledgeable on all things green. They have worked together before (for example on Houston's first LEED certified home) and so we can benefit from their knowledge of what works and what doesn't. You only do this once, so it is hard to do the "control experiment" as we scientists say, but if past performance is any indication of future performance... But seriously, in the course of the negotiations over the past week, we gained confidence that we all shared a common goal - to build the best house we could, within our budget. You can learn a lot about people in how they negotiate.

I have to emphasize, that in all the below, both Kathleen and John, and Michael, were very forthcoming with creative ideas on how to make things fit our resources.

LEED or not LEED?
First of all, what is LEED? It stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, and you can learn about it in this video from the US Green Building Council (http://www.usgbc.org):

As you saw in this video, to get LEED certification requires, alongside resource saving technology and building practices, time. There are mandated meetings to hone the design, and closer oversight. For example there is a required Charrette (yes, I had to look it up too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charrette) - "an intense period of design activity". And of course, this increases the cost of the design phase. So, one of the debates we had was whether LEED was worth having. 

What made us decide to include the basic LEED certification was market positioning down the road. We learned from Michael that soon LEED certification would be a searchable characteristic in the Houston MLS that you use to search for a house to buy. In markets that have had this for several years, statistics are beginning to show that houses that have proven green status, such as LEED confers, sell faster and at higher returns: in Seattle 18% faster, and 28-37% higher value (http://www.greenhomeguide.org/features/northwest_green_homes.html). 

So, for us, this is the only way to go. We are likely to live in this house for many years, but we may well move again, after the kids are grown. So, how to compensate for the cost increase? Two things: simplicity and sweat-equity.

Simple, simple, simple

Design is pretty much all time - the architects time, and as these are highly skilled and creative people, their time is valuable. But when it comes to building, about half your costs are also time - the time of the people actually putting the house up. In both phases simplicity can save time, and so money. As we walk through recently-built open houses we are often mazed (not so much amazed, though) - by the time we are in the fourth bedroom, we often wish we had brought the breadcrumbs to find our way out again... This suggests that simple design is actually hard - 

A good example: one of the things we are very interested in, is a white metal roof - good radiant barrier, and durable. The main cost here is the time of the skilled workers who can put these up. And a simple roof line might cut the time it takes to install the roof in half. So, we are aiming, right from the beginning, for a simple outer shell, that will accelerate the design process and the building process.

Sweat Equity

A familiar concept from the world of start-ups, it also exists here. One way we were able to bring the design phase into our budget, was by taking on some of the work ourselves. No, I am not going to night school to get my architect's license :-) But of course there are many decisions to be made, and by getting involved, and learning as much as we can, we can accelerate the work of our architects. 

As I posted a week or so ago, we came up with a basic first floor arrangement - this will serve as a jumping off point, eliminating the first phase which typically consists of offering three quite different floor plans. Then, we will do much of the legwork on choosing appliances, fixtures, finishes etc, and get as far as we can without help. What fine tuning we need, we will add to our design package "a la carte". Also, by doing these things in a timely manner, we can allow the architects to design these things into the first draft, so to speak. Then, we have also pledged, to ourselves and our team, that we won't change our mind a lot during.

Back to the team

Another item we constrained in arriving at the budget, is the number of highly detailed builders drawings that will be produced. With less detail, the builder will have less specific instructions - this will mean that more of the parts of the house will be standard - for example the kitchen cabinets might not be very custom. We have no experience here, but having a builder and architect who have worked together before is probably a pre-requisite for this. Of course, we can always add some additional drawings if they are needed, again, a la carte.

Anyway, tomorrow we are having a kick-off meeting here at our house to get the ball rolling!

Filed under  //  LEED   architect   builder   planning  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

"The Not So Big House" - a great read for building our #green house in Houston

When we met with Kathleen Reardon, a green architect in Houston, last week, she lent us a book called "The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live" by Sarah Susanka. It is a great read, with beautiful pictures and some first rate ideas.

The first thing you can do to make a house green, is make it not too big. Having toured some of the new houses in our neighborhood, we already realized that we didn't need the spa-sized tub, wet bar and formal this, and formal that. Susanka makes the point well - many houses are built to impress and have large formal spaces that are never used. A smaller house, well designed and built, can have the same effective, used floor area and at the same time provide comfort and security. That is exactly what we wanted.

If you look at the mock up plan we made (see previous post) we had put a formal dining room - not that we need one, or intended to use it as such. We plan to use this as one "away room", to borrow Susanka's term. An away room is a place where people can get a little space and time to themselves - something we are very hungry for, as in our current house you can't even get a nap at the weekend, as one or other child is bound to wake you, even inadvertently just by walking around. We had planned this faux dining room for resale value - a future owner may want such a formal dining room. 

There are also good thoughts on designing for kids, and adding some fun into the layouts. At the same time, Susanka considers how the house might grow old with you and how room use might change. 

If you are considering going down this road, it is well worth checking out - there is also a primer on green building that will help you a little in speaking the lingo of building a house. 

 

Filed under  //  architect   planning  
Posted by Oliver Bogler