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Building a Light Green LEED House in Houston, TX
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windows

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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.

You can also see our budget numbers for this month. We have had a few good weeks in this regard, with most things coming in as expected, which is great. We have now reached the point where we have many of the major items locked in, so the scope for additional overages is slowly shrinking. We will have some expected additional costs, though, such as some of the more decorative lights, which were not part of the original budget - but these can hardly be considered overages.

We are getting very close to insulation and dry wall, which should be accomplished in the next two weeks or so. 

Img_3577

Budget_actuals_blog

Filed under  //  budget   windows  
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. 
Framinga

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!

Budget_actuals_blog

 

Filed under  //  budget   progress   windows  
Posted by Oliver Bogler 
 

Concrete for foundation poured, and roof choice for our LEED house in Houston

We had a big week with tremendous progress at the house for the foundation. The beams, which connect the vertical piers that were poured last week, prepared at the end of last week and at the beginning of this week. The last blog entry shows the rebar in the beams. Now you can see the finished product after the concrete pour. Rebar sticks out, ready to receive the base of the house – the sill I guess its called. You an also see the front steps and now this gives a very clear impression of where the ground floor will be. It's nice and high, well out of regular flooding danger. In the center of the house you can see cardboard cylinders with the extension of the piers to the base of the floor. Then on the side, there are segments of the driveway, and an alcove that will house the back steps to the back door into the mudroom and kitchen. 

In the meantime we have had the second draw, on which I will report more at the end of the month. It was mainly for deposits for the things needed next – framing materials – and things that will take a while to get made and so need to be ordered ahead – our windows. 

We have also made our final choice for the metal roof. You can see the options here at the site of Architectural Building Components (http://www.archmetalroof.com/color-and-substrate.html). We chose the Silver Metallic, having ruled out either of the white options, which while excellent performers were not what we wanted. We did like some of the other colors, but a key goal is to have a good radiant barrier, and the Solar Reflective Index of Silver Metallic (66) was good with a good look too. We were considering copper, but felt that this color would dominate the look of the house. Sandstone we felt was too warehouse like. 

(download)

Filed under  //  progress   roof   windows  
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