nevver:

The Boat House

Love this.

Recently, in addition to working with Joe on HVAC and insulation options I have spent time considering various lighting options.  Ultimately we want to get the Lambertville house, and others that SquallCo creates, to be very energy efficient.  There are two main motivations for this: ongoing operating cost and carbon emission reduction.

The options for light bulbs have gotten more complicated over the past several years, but that is a good thing.  The traditional 100 watt incandescent bulb is being phased out by CFL and LED bulbs that can save around 75% in energy use and costs compared to traditional bulbs.  There are also halogen incandescent bulbs that are about 25% more efficient than other traditional bulbs.  

It is clear that using the newer technology in bulbs is an obvious choice.   Though they are more expensive, the operating expense is considerably less.   They last longer, cost less to use, need less energy, and have significant environmental benefits.  

There are, however, some negatives.  CFL’s are essentially fluorescent light.  While there are options on the market that are less harsh than others, and shades, etc., can help mute the bright light, they don’t create the greatest quality of light for some applications.  Most of them won’t dim, either.   LED’s are considerably more expensive than either halogen or CFL’s for both the housing and the bulbs.  They do last longer, emit nicer light, and can dim; but the upfront cost (while expected to come down over time) may be prohibitive for many homeowners or builders.

To better make the choice, I started thinking about how much energy lighting uses in a house.  There are varying opinions on this, but the general consensus seems to be around 10-12% of total energy consumption in a “typical” home is used for lighting.  I am sure that this can and does vary significantly by region, home design (daylighting can basically eliminate the need during the day in many areas), and personal usage.  However, in terms of rank-order, lighting seems to clearly lag behind heating and cooling (combine for a whopping 46% of total energy usage / cost), water heaters (14%), and appliances (13%).  In fact, if you look at the government data on this, you could reasonably determine that lighting isn’t all that significant in the overall effort to reduce energy use and expense.  

Given that the average US home spends around $3,500 a year on energy (again, this obviously varies greatly), the typical portion of someone annual bill for lighting is around $350.  Optimally, if you used all LED or CFL lights and saved 75% you would reduce your lighting cost to +/- $87.50 annually and save around $262 per year.  Over 10 years that’s $2,625.  For many people already living in a home, switching out light bulbs is probably the easiest way to reduce their CO2 footprint and reduce their costs.  If you’re building a new home or gut-rehabbing an existing house, lighting probably isn’t as large of a concern, relative to other improvements that can be made.  At the same time, it’s relatively low hanging fruit to reduce costs and consumption, and well worth the time to get it right.

My research in this is not-yet-complete.  But the synopsis is that CFL’s with some exceptions that I need to better understand, don’t offer the quality of light that I want and that LED’s can be very expensive - perhaps too expensive to do in mass.  This post has already gotten too long, and I have more research to do anyway.  On my next post on this, I’ll breakdown the costs of CFLs and LEDs and try and articulate my philosophy and which to use where.  

Increasingly my thinking is that the right approach may be to combine halogen (-25%) with CFLs and LEDs (-75%) in the home based upon areas of usage.  I am not sure that the “bang for your buck” is good enough financially (LEDs) or aesthetically (CFLs) to only use either.  I’ll post again later this week as my thinking on this evolves. 

More shots from the finished home.

Some shots from the finished home.  Quite a transformation.

A few shots from the demo portion of the project.

These are a few photographs from the start of the Montalto home renovation project.  It was disgusting to the point that I would literally come home and shower after being in the house for 10 minutes.  The stench was awful.

The Lambertville house needs literally everything.  One of those needs is insulation.  With demo done, we have a house down to the studs that is, more-or-less, an open slate.  Putting it back together is an interesting and challenging exercise in design, both functional and aesthetic.  Behind our old plaster and drywall walls were old balloon framing and some old-school insulation:  bricks, straw, some fiberglass batt insulation from a previous owner’s partial renovation, a baseball card and a bra.  

Now that the bricks are stacked outside for a currently unknown future use (any ideas?), the baseball card (Ed Charles’ rookie) valued at $3.25, and first estimates gathered for insulation options, the evaluation of insulation options can begin.  Among those options are:  closed cell soy-based spray foam, open cell soy-based spray foam, and eco-touch (or similar non-toxic batt insulation.  For budget reasons we could do a combination of two options, too (closed cell on the ceiling / open cell on the walls, closed cell on the ceiling, batt on the walls; etc.).

I know a little about this stuff, but to better understand the options I am working with a mechanical engineer, Joe (I met Joe through the @digsau softball team a few years ago). To better evaluate HVAC options, insulation, and windows, Joe modeled energy performance with a variety of combinations of insulation, windows, and HVAC systems. 

While there is a good deal to evaluate - everything from R-values to cost to toxicity - the following chart from Joe’s report summarizes the various r-value qualities of some of the options:

Because r-value is measured by inch of insulation, the depth of a wall or rafter has a large impact on the overall r-value of the section.  In our house, filling the roof rafters with closed cell would result in a total r-value of around 48.  Compared to the r-19 gained by using typical batt insulation, that is a significant difference.  In the walls, using closed cell will result in R-19, where open cell would lead to R-11 and batt insulation R-7.5.  From a sheer r-value perspective, closed cell is the best option. It also is inhabitable to mold and bacteria and adds structural strength to the house.

On the surface, this is a great solution.  Digging a little deeper though, how much does it matter?  Joe further quantified the differences here:

The thing that jumps out at me, and that I’m following up with Joe on, is that I am surprised that the roof insulation upgrade does not result in a more tangible improvement.  I am not yet sure why this is.  Obviously heat rises, and my assumption has always been that improvements to the ceiling r-values have a big bang for your buck.  In this case, that does not seem to be so clear.  There is significantly more wall volume than roof, so my thinking is that must be what drives it, but I’m just not sure yet.   Overall, spending the additional money on all options would result in operating costs of +/-$1,200 / yr. compared to about $2,000 annually with the base case assumptions, according to the model.  While I don’t know yet how much we’re talking about, there is also an environmental benefit in reduced carbon emissions from lower loads in the heating and cooling system.

So, what is the true cost/benefit of the upgrades?  At this point I have incomplete estimates for various aspects of the base case vs. the upgrade options that were modeled.  In reality I may never know exactly, and I am okay with that.  The goal isn’t to split every hair, but to make a good decision based on tangible evidence, and not just what salesmen suggest or whatever is in sale at the supplier.

That said, I know enough from previous projects and from the estimates I do have for various upgrade options to have a sense.  Assuming you were to do every option detailed,  and that you did, in fact, save $800 per year, what is that actually worth?

Using some rough numbers and admittedly incomplete analysis, if you wanted a 5% per year return on your capital improvement investment, the improvements would need to cost $16,000 more than a base case scenario (you have to spend something - the house needs all new systems).  The systems in question are insulation, HVAC, and windows.  I do think the upgrades would cost around $16,000 more than the base scenario, and that the return, roughly speaking, is 5%.  If you were to invest $16,000 and get a 5% return that would commonly be pretty acceptable, especially now, but what about in this case?  When the time comes to sell the home, can we get that money back?  Would someone pay more for the savings compared to other homes that they could buy?  Some people will, for sure; but many will never care.  

Though this exercise isn’t just about money (I knew coming in that closed cell insulation and better windows would cost more), it is, obviously, a factor.  As with everything in this process, there is a constant give-and-take between function, budget, and aesthetics.  The answers aren’t always obvious, but I am committed to making decisions, and not just following the crowd in development.

I have been a little negligent in my blog posts lately.  I hope to change that.  While things may have seemed to die down a bit, the reality is they’ve actually been going in the other direction.  Between managing a gut-rehab for a client in Philadelphia, to starting work on a gut-rehab development project and sub-division in Lambertville, NJ, to working to develop clients in LBI, I just haven’t stopped to blog about any of it lately.  

In a lot of ways the Lambertville project feels like it deserves its own blog, separate from the SquallCo one you are reading.  I’m toying with that idea.  One of the house-specific blogs that I like include chezerbey.com.  It’s a good blog and a great renovation.  I have toyed with aiming in that direction for the Lambertville project.  In the short term, I may just keep it here, and potentially migrate to another dedicated site sometime soon.  TBD.

Later this week we will finish up the consulting / project management project in Philly that I’ve been working on since the Spring.  The before-and-after photos are pretty dramatic, and I’ll post them soon, too.

I’ll be back, sooner than later.

Sweet house being built on Holgate.

Here is one of their planters. It reduces overflow into local rivers while greening the neighborhood. Win/win.

Just down the street from our 13th street project the city created a series of stormwater planters. We are doing the same at the house.

As I posted previously, we recently began demo on the renovation of a row-home in Philadelphia.  Demo is largely complete, and some framing has begun.  Demo is in many ways the most interesting part of a project.  Plan as you will before-hand, you never really know what you have until demolition is complete.  As you peel away layer after layer of a home, you reveal a home’s history.  

It is a history complete with various generations’ worth of ideals and ideas.  Aesthetics that seem awful to us now once were popular.  The high ceilings that are so in vogue now were commonly lowered (presumably to reduce heating costs).  In the case of this home, they were dropped not just once, but twice.  Once the two false ceilings were removed we added nearly 4’ of height to the ceiling.  In this picture you only see the removal of the first false ceiling - the plaster you see is now down, exposing some cool beams:

It’s a different room in nearly every way now.  In the kitchen, we found the same.  When my client purchased the home there was a fake wood vinyl pattern on the floor.  Not that cool.  We assumed there was hardwood underneath, and we were right.  What we hadn’t realized was that there were a total of four layers of other flooring choices between the actual hardwood and the vinyl.  To save money many people just add what it is they want rather than removing that which they don’t.  In some cases I totally understand this approach.  Over the course of 80-100 years though, the cumulative effect is pretty humorous in many ways (and a pain in the a** to remove).

In addition to removing the false ceilings, faux floors, and other issues, the crew also demo’d the entire 3rd floor.  If you had smelt it before they started, you’d know why.  In addition to the layout changes desired, it was pretty necessary just for cleanliness and livability.  When we did this we unveiled some very cool hardwood floors, exposed a brick wall, and got a look at some very cool looking joists.  We’ll need to cover those joists back up with drywall and insulation, which is a shame in some ways, but we’ll be able to add some great lighting and other nice touches.  The 3rd floor is small, but we’re fitting a bedroom, full bath, and office up there.  It will also have the stairs leading to a very cool roof-deck.

Out in back we faced an obstacle of cracked concrete, failing cinder-block fences, and general blight.  Most of that concrete is being removed (with careful attention not to ruin the lady next door’s planter that was attached to the wall).

That’s quite a pile of rubble, but it won’t all end up in the landfill.  We are going to chop it up into smaller pieces and use it as filler for a rain-water capture planter.   Rain water will flow from the roof into an outdoor planter with much of this in it (which, along with other materials, will filter it), and then be stored in a cistern in the basement.  We’ll then use that water to flush toilets (not potable, but certainly usable!).

While we had a good sense of the design before we started demo, many things have revealed themselves through the demo process that were not clear earlier.  Now we can start to re-imagine the home as it will be.  Hopefully we aren’t adding layers of finishes that a future generation will demolish, but rather completing the home in a timeless, attractive, sustainable way that will endure.

The June issue of Dwell magazine featured an article on”Beach Houses We Love.”  I like many of them, love one or two, and don’t like a couple at all.  You can judge for yourself here.

Around a year ago we started marketing our beach homes as an alternative to the typical LBI house.  Where others build to the maximum allowable foot, we imagine a smaller, more sensible scale.  This isn’t a statement on large houses - some people need or want them, and that’s fine - as much as it is a statement on smaller ones.  Many people need and want smaller homes.  The fit their lifestyles better in many ways.  Everything from the amount of time you spend cleaning to the cost of smaller home is less.  At the same time, we feel strongly that there is a market for modern-ish, cool, green houses that look and feel great.  When you look around the Island, you mostly see one of three things: old homes that haven’t been renovated in 50 years, new homes made of vinyl and without any design quality, and very expensive, custom, architect-led homes.  For SquallCo, our goal is to develop comfortably modern homes at reasonable price points and sizes.  They are architect designed, but they aren’t entirely custom nor are they $2m.  They are, in many ways, similar to the sensibilities of the homes commonly covered by Dwell Magazine.  

Here are a few images of one the homes they reported on: 

I like this house.  It is warm.  It is modern.  It feels like a beach house, but not everyones’ beach house.  How about you?  What do you love in a beach house? 

Have photos or ideas?  Post them. I’d love to start a conversation.  

Here are a few basics for me:  real wood, lots of natural light, great and creative lighting, outdoor spaces that make you want to sit there all day or night, a year-round livability, color, crisp but natural lines.  I could go on. 

Over the course of the summer I will post photos of other beach homes I love.  You can do the same.  Reach out to me if you’d like to talk about how to take these ideas and them into reality as either a new home or a renovation.