It's Not Easy Being Green

We're at the finish line!

2009-06-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

Whew, it has been a frantic month for us. We decided last month to lock in a great interest rate. Good thing, because rates have skyrocketed lately.

Anyway, we passed our final inspections today and got our certificate of occupancy. We close on the house on Wednesday. We won't move in for a couple of weeks b/c there is still plenty of painting and cleaning up to do.

I can definitely say that I will be having a cold beer tonight. It's been eight months of hard work, late nights and early mornings. Now I can finally get back to my wife and kids.

God bless!

We'll blog more later. We have a lot to share about what "green" things we added to the house.

I really like our neighborhood

2009-05-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

Here's a friend I caught on a nearby lightpole. I guess he wasn't too impressed with me because he left soon afterwards.

A month without updates!

2009-05-05T04:05:00.000-07:00

So it's been an entire month since we updated our progress on our Green Home. It's been quite hectic, so I barely have time to add anything to this blog.

Here's a few pics of what we've been working on.

Our 5-1/4" heart pine flooring is going in.

The fireplace mantle is starting to take shape. We put the granite surround and hearth in. Now the painters will have to paint the mantle the same color as the trim.

Painters continue to work on the front porch railing.

Finally, we got the metal roof put on over the breakfast nook. It looks good, but we probably could have gotten away with shingles here.

Currently, they are finishing up tiling, hardwood flooring, and kitchen cabinets. I've slowly begun to lay the cork flooring upstairs. It's not real hard. I just don't have the time to devote to it. There really should be more hours in the day.

Tallahassee Parade of Homes is this weekend, so we may take some time off to go visit some houses and get ideas.

Now that the rain has passed...

2009-04-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

Some Rivers in North Florida Nearing Record Flood Levels

The recent rains were not good for our Tallahassee home building adventure. The last few days of rain brought perhaps as much damage as Tropical Storm Fay last year. Sometimes no amount of silt fence and hay bales can stop Mother Nature. Fortunately our property got by relatively unhurt.
I owe all of our good fortune to one reason: we minimized the amount of clearing done on the lot. We basically cleared only enough for the building footprint and to grade the driveway. We have kept the rest of the lot as natural as possible including letting the grass grow up. As my wife tells me, a silt fence isn't supposed to be your main line of defense from erosion. It's meant as a backup.
Here's a clip from way back in November (it seems so long ago) when we first cleared the lot.

Unfortunately, more rain is forecast for tomorrow.

Cheap Money

2009-03-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

I realize this blog is supposed to be about building green, but I can't help but post about the interest rates nowadays. If you are in the market for a home, now is the time to lock in a good interest rate.
Or maybe you want to purchase those solar panels, tankless water heaters, or energy efficient windows for your house. Well... a home equity loan isn't quite as good. Those rates have been creeping up for some time now, which is a shame.
Still, there are a lot of federal and state tax credits out there for energy efficient upgrades. I have no idea if there are low interest lines of credit for energy efficient upgrades. I have to think there are.
Check out this site to see what you might qualify for:
http://www.dsireusa.org/

The Marshmallow house

2009-03-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since we updated our Florida Green Home blog.

The sprayfoam insulation started today. Here's a picture of the upstairs. I'm using sprayfoam on the ceiling and walls. No fiberglass batts. The stuff looks gooey like marshmallow but it's got more stiffness than that. Imagine how thick a styrofoam cup is. Now imagine a much thicker foam and that is what's insulating our home. I'm really hoping for low utility bills with this stuff.

Here's another picture above the rear porch. It's a good picture of the sprayfoam and you can also see the Hardie pre-painted frieze board, as well as the beginning of the 1x6 tongue and groove porch ceiling.

Finally, the roof is finishing up. The "weathered wood" color really goes great with the Hardie Colorplus siding.

Did I mention that I like our brick choice?

2009-02-22T14:37:00.001-08:00

The siding has begun on the front. It's a light green but can definitely pass for a gray color too.

Last bit about HVAC

2009-02-13T18:09:00.000-08:00

Tallahassee green home construction update number 1,056.

Who would have thought that I could talk this much about our heating and air?!

To the right is a picture of the ductwork. My sub used round metal ducting wrapped in insulation for the main trunk lines. Hopefully you can notice that he also applied mastic to the connections. This is much better than just applying tape to the joints. Eventually the tape will degrade and air will leak between the joints. No so with the mastic applied.

Ok switching gears, we have most of the foundation veneered in brick. I am super happy with our choice of brick and mortar. I decided to pull the brick out under the columns to break up the front wall. I think it will work well. Which leads me to my plea. Let me know what you think. I'm tired of being the only one talking here. Whether I know you or not, I would love to hear from you on here. Give me suggestions. Tell me where I've stated something wrong. Tell me how I can make this house more green. Thanks and God bless.

More on HVAC

2009-02-11T17:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a little item I forgot to mention about our Tallahassee Green Home construction.
We fired our Heat and Air subcontractor. He was about as crooked as a dog's hind leg. Let me explain.

Every new home construction in Florida requires an energy form be completed. I also had a Manual J form done. This basically models your home, including orientation to the sun, amount of shading, window area, insulation type, etc. and then spits out numbers that basically tell the tonnage of air conditioning that you need. My original contractor showed me the report that said I needed two units totaling 6 tons. Who was I to question his professional judgment? Later on, he said I also needed another small system for the room over the garage. The final straw came when he wanted to charge me a crazy amount for that small system. I told him to hit the road, jack (his name's not jack).
So I was suspicious of his work and contact my green home certifying agent, Alex Mordas. He confirmed what I suspected so I decided to throw down the extra $150 for another Manual J calculation. Good thing I did this b/c my new numbers came out to 4.5 tons of A/C. The $150 spent saved me triple that in the unit costs.
Oh well, moving on.
Since we are using Icynene sprayfoam insulation for the walls and ceiling, there is a real concern with not getting enough fresh air into the house. So we need some way of introducing fresh air into the ducting system. The best way is to install an expensive Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) or a Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV). I don't understand the difference between the two, but I know that both are too expensive for us right now. They work great because they condition the air before bringing it into the house.

The next best thing, and what we are installing, is a Honeywell fresh air damper. It works automatically to open and close at the appropriate time to bring in just the right amount of fresh air for the house. When we win the lottery we will buy an ERV, but for now the damper will work.

We're still here

2009-02-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

We haven't given up on building our green home in wonderful Tallahassee. Things slowed down a little bit, but I've got another full time job that has been quite hectic lately.
Heat and Air
This week they are installing the HVAC ductwork and roughing-in the two heat pumps. Our heating and cooling system isn't all that much different that most new construction. We aren't using geothermal or radiant heating (too expensive). But we do have some nice efficient heat pumps. If you don't already know, a heat pump is both an air conditioner and a heater within the same setup. You can get away with one down here in the South, but they just aren't as popular up North. That's because the outside condenser unit runs for both the A/C and the heat. It can get pretty cold up there and the heat pumps aren't as efficient when it gets really, really cold.

Anyway, the efficiency of air conditioners is rated by their seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER). As of January 2006, all residential air conditioners sold in the United States must have a SEER of at least 13. ENERGY STAR qualified Central Air Conditioners must have a SEER of at least 14. We chose to go with two units, each 15 SEER. For reference, our townhome in Northern Virginia had a unit with a SEER of about 10. It was on it's last leg and it ate up the electicity. If you have a unit that's not too old, don't fall into the trap of thinking that you have to upgrade your existing unit. You would actually be better off properly maintaining your existing one until its useful life is over.

We also are getting a separate small unit to heat and cool the rec room over the garage. We are using a ductless mini split heat pump. It's a 17 SEER unit made by Mitsubishi called Mr. Slim. Not to be confused with this 80s character.

I've heard a lot of good things about these models. But don't take my word for it. Here, watch this amazing 8 minute video.

What makes this video amazing is that it takes 8 minutes for them to convince you to buy one of these models. Sheesh!

I'll continue tomorrow on our home's air system.

Enjoy our Tallahassee Green Home framing in 10 seconds or less

2009-01-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

1. Click on the picture.
2. Click on the four arrows in the bottom right corner.
3. Click the play button in the bottom left corner.
4. Enjoy.

End of framing....pretty much.

2009-01-22T16:16:00.000-08:00

Newest Tallahassee Green Home Update

We installed the windows and doors. They look good.
We went with double pane vinyl windows with low-E.

From the all knowing Wikipedia:
Low-emissivity (Low-E) coatings are microscopically thin, virtually invisible, metal or metallic oxide layers deposited on a window or skylight glazing surface primarily to reduce the U-factor by suppressing radiative heat flow.

Translation: They do a great job of cutting down heat transfer and will lower your utility bills. There is absolutely no reason to get new or replacement windows without low-e. It doesn't cost that much more and the payback is almost instantly.

We also installed the fireplace. This is a tough decision, but we decided to have a unvented propane fireplace. The positive is that 100% of the heat will stay in the house. Normal fireplaces that are vented actually lose most of their heat up through the chimney. The tradeoff is that air quality goes down a little bit due to the absence of venting. Carbon monoxide is released into the air from the burning. However we have plenty of carbon monoxide detectors, so I'm not worried about us taking a permanent nap with the fireplace on.
I'm really happy with the firebox. It is a "full view" fireplace where the pit is level with the floor. It looks much more like the old fireplaces used to. What do you think?

Windows and doors ready for installation

2009-01-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

This week we will be installing the windows and doors. After that, we should be nice and dried-in. I'm particularly concerned with the way the windows and doors will be installed. If not done properly, water or air will surely find a way in. It's the most vulnerable part of the wall.

Basically, you have to make sure the housewrap, window seal tape, caulk, etc. are all applied in the proper order. I could take an hour to type it out here, but instead you can just go to a manufacturer's website and have them explain it better...with illustrations. The pertinent instructions are on page 4-7 for windows.

As you can see, there's a real method to the madness.

Although I'm using the Tyvek housewrap, I actually found another article in the NAHB Research Center that recommended 15# asphalt felt paper instead. This paper provides a high resistance to water driven into the wall from rain but allows little water vapor to escape from the inside. I'm a little concerned with this approach. If my air conditioner doesn't remove enough of the humidity in the house, I could be faced with a soggy exterior wall. At least that's my theory, so I'm sticking with the housewrap.

I realize this is the most boring blog entry to date, but an important one nonetheless. A green home is also a low maintenance home and ripping out the siding and windows to fix the problem a few years from now isn't good for anybody.

Speaking of low maintenance, I'm installing prepainted Hardie lap siding. It offers a 15 year warranty on the paint finish. It costs about twice as much but I'll save some money by not having to pay a painter to do the entire exterior of the house. Suprisingly, it still isn't being used a lot around here. Most people just use the primed Hardie siding and paint it to their specific color. I'll take a "factory finish" over a "sprayed-in-the-field" finish anyday.

Here's a sample of the "Soft Green" color that we will be using. They actually don't sell it here in the southeast for some reason so we had to go to the Hardie Rep and ask for some assistance getting it here.

(By the way, that's "Crazy Harry" in the picture above and, yes, it's my second reference in this blog to my favorite childhood show, The Muppets)

The other kind of green

2009-01-10T03:46:00.001-08:00

Completely unrelated to our green Tallahassee Home, but the 30 year mortgage rate has been in sort of a freefall lately. Not that I'm complaining. In fact, I should probably shut up about it!
You can see that it's one of the best times ever to buy or refinance. Now I'm starting to sound like a real estate agent.

Shading-better than any Air conditioner

2009-01-06T18:48:00.001-08:00

Here's a quick post of the front of the house.
We tried to save as many of the big trees around the house as possible. Hopefully this will cut down on the blazing Florida sun. It's winter time now so some of the oaks have shed their leaves while the live oaks still have theirs. I'll try to take a better picture to show how the trees will eventually shade our house from the late afternoon sun. Otherwise those front dormers face dead west and will quickly heat up during summer.

Here's a great pic of the house from the road. These live oaks are just awesome. Tallahassee is blessed with these majestic trees all over the city.

The most important piece of furniture in your house

2009-01-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

Continuing our green home building in Tallahassee
Here's something you may not know...toilets account for most of your indoor water use. It can consume up to 40% of a home's indoor water. Now, I haven't done any experiments to back up this claim, but I just take the Florida Green Building Coalition's word on this.

So we've been looking for low flow or dual flush toilets. Low flow are pretty self explanatory. The dual flush allow you to push one button if you go #1 and the other button for #2.

You'll never guess where I just bought three of these bad boys...Sam's Club. They have an awesome deal right now on a dual flush toilet for just over $100. Is it the best quality? Maybe...maybe not. But it does come with a 5 year parts warranty and 20 year ceramic warranty. That's good enough for me!

By the way, you get two points on the green home checklist for having all dual flush or low flow toilets. Cha-ching!

Third week of framing ends

2009-01-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

Another slightly shortened week due to the holidays, but we certainly can't complain about the weather for the beginning of winter.

Third week of framing begins

2008-12-29T16:06:00.000-08:00

We were able to set the trusses and ridge beam on Friday. The framers voted to go with a crane and I don't blame them. The ridge beam alone weighs nearly 700 pounds and is 42 feet in length. Plus it's hoisted about 16 feet above the second floor of the house.

They were also able to set the roof trusses over the master bath/closet, and the large attic trusses over the garage. I'm really pleased with the amount of room we have over the garage. It provides about 15 feet across with 8 foot ceilings and four dormers (two on each side).

One more photo gives a good sense of the finished height of the roof. You can see the ridge beam in its final place being temporarily supported by a lot of lumber. If you look closely, you can see a dilemma I have. The ridge beam support at the right of the picture falls right in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. I'm looking at using a steel post here instead of a lot of 2x4s. That may allow me to get by with a sufficiently sized door.

Finally, it wasn't all work this holiday season. My parents spent Christmas with us and, I think, we all had a great time.

We are Movin' Right Along

2008-12-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

Say!

I always loved that movie. It's the first movie I remember seeing in the theater.

Framing is coming along. Today the second floor trusses were installed. The roof will start to take shape around Monday. I am amazed at how warm it is here this week. It's perfect weather to be outside framing a house. The weather is more like summer than autumn here. All this time, the rest of the country is under a deep freeze. Unbelievable. I don't think I've ever experienced a Christmas Day in shorts. This could be a first.

Your daily mortgage update. This graph looks a lot like the stock market recently.

Ways to help insulate during framing

2008-12-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

The framers have pretty much finished the first floor walls and will start sheathing the outside walls with OSB tomorrow. Here's a good place to mention a few easy jobs that can be done during framing that will reduce drafts and air leakage. Insulation alone won't solve these problems later on.

Starting at the bottom, or sill plate, where the wood meets the concrete foundation. There is a gap between the wood and concrete which needs to be filled with either caulk or sill sealer. This eliminates any draft from penetrating. The gap is too small for insulation to work. Too many times I see this low cost step omitted in the framing process.

Then there is what I call the T-wall intersection, where an inside wall butts up against an exterior wall. Left alone, this 4" cavity will get sheathed over on the outside and then there is no way to put insulation in this area. So I decided to buy some "Great Stuff" in a can and foam it up before the sheathing goes on.

Finally, my headers are double 2x10s. Typically a 1/2" OSB is sandwiched in between the two boards. This has no added structural value but instead is just used to bring the inside and outside of the header in line with the 2x4 walls. Here's the math: a 2x10 is actually 1-1/2 inches thick. Times two is only 3 inches. That's a half inch shy of a 2x4 wall which is actually 3-1/2 inches thick. Hence the need for the 1/2 OSB spacer. The problem is that this header become a conduit for cold air to migrate through the wall. In other words, there is a cold spot on the wall wherever the headers are used on the outside wall. To make an extremely long story short, you should use 1/2 inch rigid foam insulation in place of the 1/2 OSB material. Minor additional cost.

Floor trusses are delivered tomorrow. These will be open web trusses. They are green in that they use less wood. Short scraps of 2x lumber are used to build the trusses. Plus, my air conditioning ducts, plumbing and electrical can easily be run through them.

Another quick update

2008-12-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

We started framing today. In my next post, we'll talk about ways that the framing can be more insulation-friendly. For now, let's just be happy that the 2x4's are going up.

Here's the Master closet and bathroom. The spaces always look so small during framing. Or maybe we just have a small bathroom.

I am looking forward to the 10' ceilings. More to come...

Update

2008-12-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

We are officially on the road to green certification.

Here's a video I took this weekend. Take a look at it and do a little imagining. Imagine that there is wood decking instead of concrete, that there is railing, a porch roof with hanging ferns and that there is a lawn with green grass. Now overlook the silt fence, the construction fencing, lumber pile and port-o-potty. That should paint a pretty good picture of our future front porch view.

Framing starts this week!

Still following the mortgage rates? We are.

This, that and the Other

2008-12-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

Ok we had our first schedule slip. Mother Nature is not cooperating particularly well. It feels like we have gotten more rain this last month than we did in July, August and September combined. Oh well, we won't be deterred.
The rough-in under slab plumbing is in place. Here's a truly fascinating and amazing shot of the foundation.

Sarcasm doesn't come across quite right when it's in a blog.

We passed the slab inspection today and plan on pouring bright and early Monday morning. We will start framing a few days after that so the slab should have plenty of time to cure.
It will be exciting to finally start seeing vertical construction. It's amazing how much steel and concrete we've sunk into the ground. Not to mention the sand! We hauled in 18 truckloads of sand for the slab fill. That's nearly 300 cubic yards for those who are interested.

Here's a miscellaneous pic from earlier in the month. I'm pretty sure this violates all kinds of OSHA and child labor laws.

On a completely different note, have you seen what the 30 year mortgage rate has been doing? This trend bodes well for us when we lock in a rate next year.

2008-11-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

We are still preparing to pour the slab sometime next week after the holidays. Since there is a lull in the building update, I'll take a minute to explain our green home designation.

We have decide to get our home certified green in accordance with the Florida Green Building Coalition. There are more than 70 other certifications out there, mostly state and local. A couple of national programs include:
Energystar -this designation really only deals with the energy efficiency of a home. It doesn't take into account the landscaping, recycled materials, indoor air quality, etc.

LEED.-this is a nationwide rating system. Taken from their website, "LEED for Homes, which launched in February 2008, measures green homebuilding
performance based on eight categories: site selection, water efficiency, materials &
resources, energy & atmosphere, indoor environmental quality, location & linkages,
awareness & education, and innovation. Within each of these areas, projects earn
points toward certification. LEED has four levels of certification: Certified, Silver, Gold
and Platinum, with Platinum representing the highest level of achievement."

Why did we go with FGBC?? Honestly, I don't know. I guess it makes sense to obtain a certification through a checklist that is developed especially for Florida homes.

All of these programs require a third party certifying agent. We have chosen to use Alex Mordas, an FGBC certifying agent who is affiliated with EARTHSTEPS, a local green consulting company.
Here's his blog site, which we are featured on :) He's been great to work with so far!

Foundation wall is up

2008-11-21T04:42:00.000-08:00

No green news today, just an update on the house.
The crew started bright and early yesterday. I was pretty amazed at how quickly they knocked it out.
They were done by 3 pm. That's about 1200 block laid in that timeframe.

Here's a view from the rear with the garage in the foreground. It's always funny how small the house looks when just the foundation is up.

Here's a picture of our attack dog, aka "Honey".

Hopefully we can get the slab poured next week.

Rain, Rain go away!

2008-11-16T14:33:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update today.

Thank goodness we poured the footers on Thursday. It rained extremely hard Friday and Saturday. If we hadn't poured, the footer trenches would have surely filled up with silt. Who knew that Tallahassee would see summer thunderstorms this late in the year??? There was actually tornado warnings this weekend.

We didn't escape completely without some damage. The driveway culvert had some washout areas. I spent the weekend restoring the driveway entrance and building a temporary retaining wall at the culvert ends. Let's hope the rain is done for the year.

Block is being laid this week. We aren't too far from pouring the slab!

The Rain held off

2008-11-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 6 am this morning and turned on the Weather Channel to see a nice green blob hovering over Tallahassee. It looked like the heavy stuff wouldn't hit us so I decided to go ahead with the pour for the footers. Then I said a quick prayer for some assurance.
God heard me. There was a few light sprinkles but that was it.

The pump truck arrived and set up for the pour.

The crew did a great job. I am really impressed with the work that these guys are doing on the foundation. I was sweating there for a while wondering if the last truck would be enough.Turns out that we ordered three trucks (30 cubic yards) and we were just right. We used all the concrete and had none to spare. So that's green...right??

Plus I had the trucks washout near the driveway. Usually that leaves a large chunk of watered down concrete but I broke it up with a shovel and spread it over the driveway. So that's green..right??

Finally, we were able to keep all the trucks on the driveway and avoid compacting any dirt under the tree canopies. So that's green ...right?

Footers are ready to pour

2008-11-12T16:24:00.001-08:00

Well we passed our first inspection today for the building footers. These are the 12"X20" trenches that have 6 steel reinforcing bars in them. They are beefed up for our house because we have less than perfect soil on the property. There's pipe clay about 6 feet down which is pretty common in this area. The expansive clay can crack a foundation quickly so it's worth the extra money. Unfortunately that assurance adds thousands of dollars to what would otherwise be a simple foundation.

You can see my supervisor in the foreground inspecting the work. She approves...I think.

We'll be pouring tomorrow morning. Unfortunately there's a chance of rain in the forecast. My luck...it hasn't rained here for a few weeks it seems like.
Let's talk about the green aspect of this pour:
I'm renting a boom pump truck because the concrete trucks won't be able to maneuver around the lot and get close enough to place the material. Plus this will keep the trucks far away from the trees that we have fenced off around the lot.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we'll be using concrete that has 20% fly ash. This is a byproduct of coal plants and takes the volumetric place of typical cement.

Who are you?? I'm Batman!!

2008-11-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

So our soon-to-be neighbor informed us that the community has bats living nearby.
My wife, the ecologist, knew all about bats, but I didn't. So I did a google search for the birds...I mean mammals.

According to the Fish & Wildlife Service...

All southeastern bats found in the United States feed exclusively on insects (the Jamaican fruit-eating bat eats insects and fruit). A bat feasting on moths, mosquitos, beetles and other insects can eat one half of its body weight in one night! Backyard bats will help reduce insect pests that bother you and your garden plants. A typical summer colony of 100 bats feeding 200 days will consume more than 2200 pounds of insects or approximately 600,000,000 bugs!

That's a lot of dead bugs and probably a lot of guano too! I'm all for getting rid of those bugs around our house. Plus I still feel guilty for knocking down some of their trees.

So we've decided to use some of the building scrap material to construct a few bat houses. We have room at the back of the property for a couple of them and maybe we can convince the Community to place a few more in the common areas. They are actually pretty simple to construct.

They can be made with scrap CDX plywood, screws and some tar paper. Bats like it warm, so it needs to be caulked tight and painted dark to gain solar heat.
Interested in building?
Here's the plans.

Land Clearing is complete

2008-11-06T17:46:00.000-08:00

Well we got all the trees cleared out. It's a bittersweet moment.

Ronny (see last post) took all the debris off site. It would have been nice to bring a portable milling machine to the property. We could have gotten quite a few board feet of oak, pine and cherry. Alas, there just isn't a big business for portable millers and it's just not worth the hit to our budget. This is just another one of those trade-offs that we are making.
We walked the property many, many times before deciding on the final building layout. I'm confident that we could not have saved any more trees with a different house location. So we got that going for our conscience.
He "root raked" only the area that would be under the building foundation. Also, we've got the foreboding orange construction fencing, which actually could be knocked over by a squirrel, but I'm still expecting it to stop any construction equipment from driving under the tree drip lines.

Here's a high definition shot of the cleared lot.

Ok, I didn't have my digital camera so I used my camera phone. Seriously, we can put a man on the moon but we can't make a decent camera phone.

Anywho, the shot is taken from the backside of the house looking toward the street. It's late in the day, but you can see that the house really will have quite a bit of shading from the blazing afternoon sun.

Foundation work should begin next week.

Let the madness begin!!

2008-11-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

I picked up the building permit on Thursday and we wasted no time.

I had the land clearing guy come out on Friday and he quickly started knocking down trees.
I must say there is a sense of sadness. These 100' tall trees that took 50 years to grow are knocked over with a quick push of the tractor. If we didn't live in a hurricane prone area, we maybe could have saved one or two trees. But I don't really want a 25" oak tree crashing down in the family room. It would make a great conversation piece but it would probably ruin the rugs.

Shameless plug here: If you need someone to clear your land near Tallahassee, I gotta recommend Ronny Walker with Walker's Tractor Service. He's a one-man operation, reasonably priced, and he knows what he's doing. I maybe could have saved a couple hundred dollars with a larger named site clearing company, but I guarantee they would not have avoided disturbing the drip line of the trees we are saving. As an assurance, we still put up construction fencing around the nearby trees. It's a deterrent now and throughout construction for any vehicles getting too close and compacting the soil around the tree roots.
If you thought I was sad seeing the trees come down, then you can imagine my treehugger wife. Good grief, Charlie Brown.

Nate's a big fan of Ronnie's tractor.

Final pic: Clara enjoying visiting the property. You can see our neighbor's house in the background. It's a great looking house. Of course we are a little partial b/c it is also a William Poole designed house. We're obviously partial to these Lowcountry/Tidewater style houses.

Recycling everything but the kitchen sink...and probably that too!

2008-10-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about all the ways to used recycled material in a new home....
Ok that topic is way too broad for my little blog, so I'll just share the materials that we are using.

Driveway
Typically driveways use rock often called #57 stone as the supporting base material. Believe it or not, it's just not as easy and cheap to get good stone these days. In fact, we are importing alot of the stuff all the way from Nova Scotia. Yeah, Canadian Rock. I'm sure there is a joke here, but I can't come up with one.
So I've decided to use a recycled base for our driveway. We'll either be using crushed concrete, which is just concrete that's been run through a crusher (as the name implies). Or we may use roadway millings. You may not know it, but a lot of times when Interstates and other roads are resurfaced, they actually take off a couple of inches of asphalt before they put on the new pavement. Well, those millings have to go somewhere.

Concrete
While we will be having an asphalt driveway, we will still need concrete for our foundation. I estimate around 60 cubic yards of concrete for our footers and slab floor. That's at least 5 regular concrete trucks.
Here's another quick tidbit. Concrete uses a substantial amount of cement. Cement is a hot commodity and it takes a lot of energy to produce. So I'll be requesting that the concrete plant supply me a mix that includes fly ash to take the place of about 25% of the cement. What is fly ash you ask?

Fly ash is one of the residues generated in the combustion of coal. Fly ash is generally captured from the chimneys of coal-fired power plants, whereas bottom ash is removed from the bottom of the furnace. In the past, fly ash was generally released into the atmosphere, but pollution control equipment mandated in recent decades now require that it be captured prior to release.
Thank you Wikipedia, knower of all thing.

Water
Yes, we will be recycling water. Although it probably won't be toilet water. We will be doing some sort of rainwater harvesting. I'll save this topic for another posting, but basically we will be capturing all the rain that collects on the roof for irrigation use.

Wood
I'll be using wooden I-joists for my main roof rafters. How is this recycled? Well technically it isn't but it does make better use of resources than conventional solid lumber. These I-joists are made up of small wood chips, often reclaimed from another manufacturing process. They are straighter stronger and can span greater distances with less sagging.

No idea who this person is but I like the pic.

Air conditioner Pad
From the "little things add up" department, I'll be using an air condenser pad made up of recycled PET plastic, instead of concrete.

Composting
We picked up a "Yard Machine" at the last Earth Day event sponsored by the City of Tallahassee. They say that a typical household generates 2000 lbs. of waste each year and nearly half of that could be composted. So instead of throwing it away, why not compost and get some super rich soil for your garden and house plants?! It's super easy to do and, despite what you may think, it doesn't smell bad. (Just don't add meat to the pile)

You're probably bored by now, so I'll end with one more bonus when building in Tallahassee.
Marpan Recycling http://marpanrecycling.com/ just opened up a new facility in town this year. Basically it's cheaper than the landfill and they sort all of your construction debris. This means you can take a single load of debris from your home construction and they will sort the wood, siding, roofing materials, nails, concrete or just about anything that comes off of a construction site. Pretty cool!

Still no permit

2008-10-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

I continue to patiently wait for my building permit. I've heard nothing negative yet from the county so I can only assume the process is going ok. They said 7-10 business days which will put me around the middle of this week. Cross your fingers.

In the meantime, let's look at the layout of the house. Here's a plat of the property with the building footprint. Click on it for a larger view.

Based on the lot we chose, we have no choice but to face the house westward.
If you look closely, you'll see that we have a lot of nice size pine trees in the rear. Since the sun will be rising in the east (I hope), that should provide plenty of morning sun on the house. I consider that a good thing, regardless of the season. No matter what climate you live in, there is nothing better than a cup of coffee and the morning sunbeam. The backyard should also give us enough sun in the rear for a garden and more than a few blueberry bushes. Apparently they grow well here.
The main problem will be the setting sun in the west. It will be beating down on the front of the house. Luckily that's also where our huge oaks are located. This should provide ample shade for the front 3 dormers and the front porch and windows.

I guess the best location for the house might be much closer to the road than the 100 or so feet as proposed. That would leave the most amount of land un-fragmented. But the association's architectural control board would never go for that and we wouldn't be happy with it either. When you're building green, there's always going to be trade offs. This is just another one of those decisions.

Let's review. According the the Florida Green Building Coalition, a green home:

Has shading on the east and west sides
Has deciduous trees on the south side
Has some roof area facing south for solar use
Has roofed porches with 3 sides open for ventilation
Provides passive solar space heating (we'll cover this another time)

The bones of the house

2008-10-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

Since it's nearly Halloween, let's talk about exterior wall construction or the house's skeleton.

When we first decided to build, I really wanted to go with some unconventional framing for the walls. Typical framing is 2X4 studs maybe 16" or 24" on center, with fiberglass batt insulation. That just doesn't cut it for me. The fiberglass batts don't do a good job of sealing and blocking air infiltration. When you take that into account, the fiberglass batts really aren't that energy efficient. But hey, they are the cheapest alternative.

So then i decided to look into structural insulated panels.

This is basically large panels pre-cut in a shop and delivered to the homesite. The panels are made of rigid foam glued between two 7/16" oriented strand boards. In layman's terms, it's a styrofoam sandwich between two pieces of wood.

You might not think it's sturdy, but in fact these things hold up better than stick built in hurricanes. The walls down here are typically 6 1/2" thick and the roof would be about 9 1/4". What are the advantages? Well there's a good bit of time savings in framing the house if you have a contractor that can set the panels quickly. There's also no need to insulate with fiberglass or blown or spray insulation.

So I had my mind set on using this stuff. I called and got quotes from about 4 different suppliers. Additionally, I searched under every rock to locate someone here in Tallahassee who could frame with it. Let me tell you, most framers don't want to try it out. They actually put a premium on using this stuff, even though they can get the job done in nearly half the time. I guess some people are just slow to try new things.

The materials definitely cost more than conventional 2X4 framing and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. In the end, the combined labor and material costs were just too much to overcome. If we knew we were going to live in this house for more than a few year, then we'd consider it.

Long story short, we are going with conventional framing and using the sprayfoam insulation. It's not cheap either, but at least it gives us an airtight home that needs no attic venting. All of our storage space in the roof will be conditioned space.

If you want to find out more about SIPs, I recommend a good book:

Also check out http://www.sipa.org/

For anyone looking to build with SIPs near Tallahassee, I highly recommend you first go to http://www.sipsteamusa.com/ . Ron Harrigan and his folks were quite helpful. They gave me a tour of their facility at the Bainbridge airport and they provided me the most reasonable quote of everyone I contacted.

2008-10-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

You know what would be great???

Recovered Heart Pine Flooring

You know what else would be great??

A golden toilet

Neither will be in our new home.

Reclaimed heart pine flooring is running around $10/sq. ft.
It's a great green product in that most of the wood is saved from old building timbers instead of cutting down more pine trees. Also some companies are bringing up old logs that have been submerged in rivers for decades. These logs were floated down the rivers of the U.S. in the 1800s for delivery to the sawmills. Apparently all this salvage work is doubling the price compared to newer "virgin" heart pine.

Still, we like the concept of using locally harvested wood for our flooring. Here's a few sites to check out for nearby heart pine flooring.

Red Hills Lumber Company-Thomasville, GA
http://www.redhillslumber.com/home

Goodwin Heart Pine Company-Micanopy, FL
http://www.heartpine.com/index2.shtml

Wiregrass Furniture and Lumber-Beachton, GA
http://www.wire-grass.com/

Saving plants

2008-10-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

Erika met a few "master gardeners" from the local Florida Yards and Neighbors.
It's a great, free service where they will come out and walk the property with you and provide a report afterwards.
They made some great proposals, including saving some beautyberry and wax myrtles that are growing on the property.
They made some great recommendations on the landscape plan, including planting some dogwoods, blueberry patches, camelias, and azaleas.

I'll post the report here soon. The service is superb. Did I mention it was free?

We took some direct actions from their report.

We started a brush pile in the back of the property that critters should enjoy. We've already seen two Sherman's fox squirrels on the property. They are a threatened species in Florida so we'll gladly share our property with them.

We decided to save a 24" red oak tree directly in front of the front porch. It's a beautiful tree and we can adjust the house backward a few feet to miss it. We are still taking out about 7 good sized trees but there's just no way of avoiding cutting them down. The property is full of mature trees!

We also transplanted some wax myrtles to the side property line.

Let's start with the community

2008-10-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Tallahassee in March on our househunting trip. That's when we really fell in love with Centerville Conservation Community. The majestic oak trees are everywhere. Wildlife is all around and the the peacefulness is amazing. Two great lakes to fish, kayak or just sit back and look at. It's just the place we are looking for to forget about the DC suburbs.

www.centerville-florida.com

Follow Along

2008-10-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

Well this kicks off our blog documenting our home construction. W'll share photos as we progress along. We'll also point out various green construction techniques and products that will be incorporated.

When it's all said and done, the home will be certified green by the Florida Green Building Coalition standards.

Green Building is not just a fad...it's the right thing to do.

Hope you enjoy the ride as much as we will.

God Bless