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Committing to solar electricity for our #leed house in Houston & August budget

I had a budget meeting with our builder this morning, at which we reviewed the figures for the house. We are beyond the 75% mark of the work, budget and close to the 100% for accurate cost-forecasting. In other words, there are very few major trades not yet in sub-contracts. Looking at these numbers it shows that we are in very good shape - and likely to get very close to our budget numbers. There are a few minor overages still to be worked out, but we also have some savings to offset these. 

So given this positive financial picture, we have been looking at the possibility of adding the solar panels we had considered, and rejected a year ago. If you recall, Kathleen, our architect, had planned a space on the south facing roof for panels, and we had already placed a circuit under the roof right there, to allow panels to be added easily later. We were figuring that we'd wait a few years until the price came down alot more. Well, things have been moving, and we have a proposal from a solar provider that would put the final cost (after tax refund) at around $11-12k for a 2.3 KW DC/1.8 KW AC array that fits our space. While it will take several years to recoup the cost, it should pay for itself over about 15 years. It is also going to add value to the house. There is a significant offset in carbon - the proposal estimated that "Your Solar Electric System Will Save an Estimated 103,363 Pounds Of CO2 Emissions over 30 years."

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committing-to-solar-electricity-for-our-leed-house-in-houston-lsAljcCnbcInyvsdgkzo.zip (228 KB)

Another advantage of the solar panels is that they will add significant LEED points. As it turns out from our last LEED meeting we have a very good shot at getting LEED Gold even without the solar, but of course it will help. Our builders have done a very good job at diverting waste from the landfill - over 88% of the waste from our site has gone to recycling, which is worth, I think 3 points. We also tweaked the landscaping to make it more environmentally friendly. More on the LEED outcome when we get the final tally, but it is looking good.

So, we are going to do solar - stay tuned for pics and progress! 

Posted by Oliver Bogler 

Video Tour and July budget of our LEED house in Houston

A quick video update of our house - great progress made in July, and I didnt have much chance to take photos and post. So here, to make up for it, is a brief video tour. Includes a look at the shutters and insulation.

Also - July budget, with two draws to reflect the activity, and no overages this month. All on track.

Posted by Oliver Bogler 

End of June budget update on our LEED house in Houston

It has been another busy month at the house, with tremendous progress - dry wall is up and finished, cabinets have been ordered, we are ordering trim and tile. I will try and get some more photos over the weekend, but for now, the budget update. We had somesignificant overage this month - some anticipated, some not so much. The anticipated part was the second half (more or less) of the expected framing material overage. We knew this was going to be over budget, because of the fluctuation in the price of lumber, and were waiting for the final numbers to come in, as framing completed. The not so anticipated overage was for millwork - turns out there was an error in the budget itself, which led to an underestimate on the costs for this line item - we did have a similar error, but in our favor before - these things happen. Anyway, we are still within the limits of the expected, and with many major items behind us, and several more looking on target, we are feeling confident that we can get to the finish line in good shape. 

Since we have reached the anticipated half-way point, it is worth commenting on the rate of spending on the budget. It has been pretty steady, and more or less linear, in the sense that with half the time gone, about half the budget has been used. This was one of the major questions we had at the beginning, as we were doing our financial planning - trying to get an idea of how high the loan payments would climb, and how quickly. See for yourself!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Posted by Oliver Bogler 

Shutters are up & May budget numbers of our Leed House in Houston

Just a quick update - May was a busy month, with most of the internal wiring and plumbing being done, and the windows and shutters being installed. We also started housewrap. Here is a picture from the front, showing the shutters down. The sills on the upper windows aren't in yet, so the shutters are going lower than they ultimately will, but you can see that they do a great job of protecting the windows from storm or sun.

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.

Posted by Oliver Bogler 

Framing starts on hour LEED house and third monthly budget

March was an active month at the house, with the foundations being poured and the framing beginning.  You can really get a feel for the dimensions of the house, and the height of the floors, relative to the street. 

The photos shows the stem walls being built – the top of these wooden walls is where the floor support will be placed. This is view is from the back yard to the street, and you are looking at where the back porch will be. The concrete wall behind the man in the white clothes is about where the windows to the porch will be. 

You can see the progress in the budget too, with the first larger draws coming in for foundations, and the start of the framing (materials downpayment) as well as down payments for some of the trades. Also coming in are the windows – Pella Impervia. These have increased in price since we made the budget, and this has led to an overage to cover the difference – just under $5,000. These windows are expensive, lets face it. But they will also be great performers in terms of keeping unwanted heat out, and letting light in. They will also last a long time, and not need painting. Having lived the past 10 years in houses where half the windows can't be opened because they have been painted in, and the other half have cracks in the frames and let the hot/cold air in, we are very happy with this decision!

Posted by Oliver Bogler 

Second Month Budget Report and Demolition Complete

As February draws to a close we can say that we are on the road, but about a month behind our original schedule. Mostly this is due to the unfortunate timing of the large drainage project that came through our neighborhood in the past few weeks. We lost an entire week because the city poured a lovely new driveway for us, and it had to set before the heavy demolition vehicles could drive on it. These things happen… And we do have a very nice new road, driveway and soon sidewalks, and the neighborhood will drain much better when the next major rain comes. 

I have started tracking overages in the budget – if you see my last post, we learned that overages relative to budget are paid as you go, rather than towards the end of the process, even if they are not due to changes that we requested. So far it is not much – just a small red sliver that you can't even spot on top of the budget stack. No real change versus last month then on the budget, because of this.

Good news is that the several of the next major budget items are coming at or very close to budget. We have heard on concrete, which is up next and under budget and also the metal roof which is a little over. By next month there will no doubt be more activity.

In the meantime, here are some photos of progress in getting the lot ready. The slate is clean. Let the building begin!

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Posted by Oliver Bogler 

First month budget report

It has been almost a month since we closed on the loan, and while not all that much has happened at the house, we are moving forward. (Hurray!)

I have been focusing on the financing, and now everything is in place. One of the new things for me is that during the building phase we have an interest-only loan that is, therefore, of course variable. As the house progresses, our builder draws on the loan, with us and the bank's involvement, and so the loan grows. I tried to guesstimate this as we were making plants, to understand what the costs would be each month. I was told that several large draws would come early – concrete for the foundation, framing, roof and we intend to pre-order windows too. 

I will post our experience in monthly budget reports here. In January we had one small draw to allow our builders to get the material needed to prepare the site and enter into the demolition subcontract. 

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Posted by Oliver Bogler 

We closed on a building loan for our LEED house in Houston today with Northern Trust!!

Posted by Oliver Bogler 

Building a LEED Silver house in Houston for $165/sq ft

As I mentioned in my last post we have continued to work on the budget, and in the most recent revision (I won't say final any more, because it seems like a never ending process) we have gotten a few more very competitive bids that have taken our budget down further. At present we are near $538,500 for our 3,200 sq ft plan, or around $165 / sq ft!

Take a moment to think about that number. High volume production is below $100/sq ft, and there are some rare, LEED projects in this space - developments with many dozens of smaller units. As I learned from Michael Strong, the smaller the house, the easier it is to get LEED points, because small is by definition environmental. Then of course your high end custom home, where it is relatively easy to do LEED, is above $200 /sq ft.
What we are doing is quite unusual - we are trying to build a custom, LEED house in the middle there. We are not in the market for a luxury, 4-5,000 sq ft home with marble, jacuzzi, wet bar and wine cellar, where a few $ extra for insulation, solar panels and other green technology is not an issue. But we want to save money on energy, and have a smaller carbon foot print. In this market segment it is very tough, at least at the moment, to get banks to see the value of LEED. I would argue that the value is clear - reducing energy costs by half, is today a selling point. Project a decade or two down the road, this is going to be significant.
But the other point I want to make, is that we are proving it can be done - and if we can do it, anyone can. Just think if every house going up in our middle-class neighborhoods reduced its energy costs by half! And of course, until LEED-type construction reaches the majority, not just the very well-to-do, it won't be able to make a significant impact on the environment. If we succeed, we will have demonstrated the ability to do LEED very affordably - and perhaps others will take heart.
Now if we could only get financed... though I am currently optimistic. We have found a good bank, who are engaged in green building and are taking a creative, individual approach to us, and I hope that we will have a plan in place that will get us started early in 2011.

Posted by Oliver Bogler