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Building a Light Green LEED House in Houston, TX
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What will it cost? Almost there on the budget for our green house in Houston

I wrote back in October that we were entering the "quiet" phase of getting our house priced by our builder, Michael Strong of Green Haus Builders (
www.greenhausbuilders.com). Although not much has happened on the blog here, we have been quite busy in the background - selections, decisions, budgets.

One way of measuring our progress, is the building budget - the diagram shows the ups, and thankfully also downs, of the overall budget. 

Numbers_budget

Our original goal had been $450,000 - admittedly unrealistic, not least because we are at about 3,200 sq ft up from the 3,000 sq ft initially considered. On the other hand, when we went above the $600,000 mark that caused us to consider some priorities. Although we are not yet done, it is clear that the curve will head up again before we are done, to accommodate some foundation number and a couple of other things.

So what's gone? We lost the metal siding and chose Hardi Plank, a durable concrete product that can be painted. We still kept the metal roof! The landscaping has gotten simple. We lost some high-end electronics. We reduced the stone to focus on the front of the house. We kept the great windows and the roll shutters. So we managed to hang onto alot of what we wanted. So we are beginning to feel happy. I will post the final budget numbers once we have them.

We are near the end of the architecture phase - we had a long meeting with our architects, RD Architecture (www.rdarc.com) to go over final details - electrician plan, cabinetry, millwork etc. We saw lots of lovely elevations of what is planned, and that really makes the house come alive as a habitat. Exciting! Soon it will be time to get the financing, and then its off to the races...!

Filed under  //  architect   builder   plans  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

What will it cost? Pricing underway for our green house in Houston

We are now in the "quiet" phase of getting our house priced by our builder, Michael Strong of Green Haus Builders (
www.greenhausbuilders.com). We just received the pricing drawings, which contain enough information for Michael to make his estimate. Then we will talk about what needs to come out or what we can add in. And this will trigger our application for the financing, too.

These plans show our very much final layout. Take a look:



A few things have shifted, but the broad plans have staid the same for a while now. 

The next step for us is to work on the selection list - Michael will send us a spread sheet of all the things we need to buy to put into the house - from lamps, to fixtures, sinks etc etc. Of course, this will also feed into the pricing. 

It promises to be a busy and exciting second half of October!

(P.S. Sorry if you have received this multiple times as a tweet or posterous update - had some trouble with the attached pdf which was too large - now put the plans in as jpgs.)

(download)

Filed under  //  architect   builder   plans  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

Cool video of 3-D model of our green house in Houston

We had our last pre-pricing meeting today, going over the schematics and to see our model!! So the plans are essentially complete - I will post more when we have pdfs of the final versions, after final tweaks. In the meantime, we got to see the 3-D model of the house, which really brings the shape home - we like it alot - very compact, efficient and (we think) pleasing.

Take a look:

Now, the plans are on the way to our builder, for pricing. We will turn our attention to selecting things - hardware, fixtures etc - to participate in this process.

In a month or so, we'll have the numbers, and it will be time to work on financing.

Filed under  //  architect   plans  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

Version 2.0 of the schematics for our #LEED house - #greenbuilding in #Houston

Tomorrow we are meeting with Kathleen Reardon and John Dazey of RD Architect - www.rdarc.com - to go over the second version of the plans. As I wrote a couple of days ago, the focus of the last few days has been fitting the plans into the sq ft target of about 3,200. This evening we got the proposes to discuss tomorrow. My first impression - these are beginning to look pretty great.

 The first floor is largely unchanged - the family room has contracted somewhat, reducing the footprint of the house, and gaining us more yard. At the same time, some of that has been absorbed by a smaller library - one huge advantage has been increasing the flow into the family room. The library is now smaller, but isolated from the flow a little - not all bad. The optical connection to the family room is also improved, with the switch of the windows and TV wall in there. Some small changes on the utility side too.

Bogler_level_1_20090914

On the second floor, the main change has been the splitting of the kids bathroom into separate rooms. Not what we had originally planned - and a cost increase in terms of extra plumbing and fixtures etc. However, one can see the advantage for peace in the house... particularly as the kids get older. I like the master better too - particularly the day bed niche is now somewhat out of the flow, and the double door area no longer is using so much space. With the roofs now shown, it also gives you a clear idea of where it all fits together. (I do wonder whether this roof line still qualifies as simple enough for an affordable metal roof...)

Bogler_level_2_20090914

The front elevation - looking good! Rear elevation looking very nice! Check out the solar panels.

Bogler_front_and_back_elevatio

Then there is this nice side view - looking at the car port - gives you a good idea of the rooflines.

Bogler_west_elevations_2009091

Comments welcome!

Filed under  //  architect   planning   plans  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

Squeezing the sq ft, Elevation Certificate, Engineer, HERS - our #LEED house - #greenbuilding in #Houston

It has been a busy house week, and the pace is beginning to pick up now! Here is a quick summary:

We saw a first draft of the plans for the second floor. Here is a schematic, with some suggested edits by us (can you guess which one will be our daughter's room?). This part sits over the first floor leaving the rear sections (part of the kitchen and the family room) without a second floor. So we are getting very close!

However, the total sq ft is a little higher than our target. We discussed the connection between sq ft and cost with our builder, Michael Strong - www.greenhausbuilders.com - he explained that different areas of the house have different costs, depending on plumbing, built ins, materials. Kitchen and bathrooms are expensive. Bedrooms are relatively cheap. In any case, our architects - Kathleen Reardon and John Dazey - www.rdarc.com - are looking at squeezing some sq ft out. One possibility is combining the library and family rooms. 
Top-floor-v1-option-1

We had a meeting with Michael Strong about a variety of things - which we are getting busy on: 

1) First up is an Elevation Certificate, to see how high we need to build to get us well positioned for future floods. We have ordered the survey for this for next week. 

2) Then we learned that we need to hire an engineer, who will primarily focus on the foundation. Apparently in our situation we have a choice between pier and beam and slab, with no strong factors tilting us either way. Of course, a solid foundation is going to be critical. We do have a significant amount of ground movement here, and although we have not had any catastrophic foundation damage, you can see our concrete behind the house cracking pretty nicely. 

3) We discussed HERS as well - Home Energy Rating System - which is a measurement of how energy efficient the house is. It takes into consideration everything from insulation to the kinds of systems you have, such as air conditioning. It is calibrated so that the average house is 100, and one that is off the grid is 0. You need to get to 85 or below to be an energy star house. While not directly connected to LEED, there is clearly an overlap in factors that are considered. We are going to find a HERS professional to help us make the assessment, once the plans are complete.

Sample_hers_report_page_1_of_2

4) We are beginning to talk to trades too - the many subcontractors in the business. I met with Aveon this week - www.aveon.com - they do home system integration for security, control, entertainment. I learned that pre-wiring, especially for the ground floor, is a very good idea. If you think you may need it, it is better to put it in during construction, rather than try to do it after. On our current house the brought the cable into the front room by drilling through the outside wall...  Anyway, Aveon sell the Control 4 system - this is all new to me - but it is pretty amazing. Killer: you can control your a/c and tv from your iPhone. Seriously, I'd love a system where we can listen to music in various places, have good control of the temperature and good security too.

We are also going to talk to a A/C contractor. This is Houston, after all, so that is a top priority.

5) Selection List - the big piece of homework heading our way is the selection list. This is a multi-tab spreadsheet of all the things that go into the house, and we will be heavily involved in making these decisions. And of course, budget is always part of the picture. 

We also touched on the timeline of the whole project with Michael - we still hope to break ground by January and complete the building next year! So we are probably 14 months out, from moving in.

Filed under  //  HERS   architect   builder   planning   plans   trades  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

More thoughts on the first draft plans of our #LEED house - #greenbuilding in #Houston

Last night we sat down with the plans, a pencil and some time. We really thought about the basic premise of the first floor - the flow around the communal area. Then I shot this vid to sum up our thoughts. A few other details are also included, that occurred along the way...

  

 As always, comments are welcome.

Filed under  //  architect   planning   plans  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

See a video of the first draft plans of our #LEED house - #greenbuilding in #houston

Earlier this week we met with our architects and builder to go over the first draft of the plans for the house. The plans focused on the first floor, and started to consider the outside.

 Here is a brief video, with some thoughts:

 

 Comments are welcome!

Filed under  //  architect   planning   plans  
Posted by Oliver Bogler