squallco blog.

nevver: The Boat House Love this.

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:03:20 -0500

The Boat House

Love this.

Lighting Options and Energy Savings

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:47:53 -0500

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.

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:28:00 -0500

Classic white subway tile

Bamboo hanging vanity

Mosaic penny tile

MR-16 LED recessed lights

Slate in the foyer

Cork floor in the kitchen

Stairway to heaven (deck)

The view from deck

More shots from the finished home.

Some shots from the finished home. Quite a transformation.

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:23:03 -0500

Living and dining rooms

Foyer

Translucent floor panel

Skylight with exposed joist

Translucent floor panels

Original hardwood

Exposed brick

Travertine

Some shots from the finished home. Quite a transformation.

A few shots from the demo portion of the project.

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:16:19 -0500

A few shots from the demo portion of the project.

These are a few photographs from the start of the Montalto home...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:11:59 -0500

Living Room, Before

Stair, Before

Bedroom, Before

Hallway, Before

Bedroom, Before

Pipes, Before

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.

Photo

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:35:40 -0500

Insulation Cost/Benefits

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:02:11 -0500

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.

There Seem to be Weeds in this Blog ...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:28:52 -0400

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.

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:09:14 -0400

““Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.””

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

(via)

Sweet house being built on Holgate.

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:45:01 -0400

Sweet house being built on Holgate.

Here is one of their planters. It reduces overflow into local...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:22:43 -0400

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...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:21:17 -0400

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.

Demo is Nearly Done

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 11:47:00 -0400

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.

Beach Houses We Love

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:05:04 -0400

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.

The Start Of a Rehab Project

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:09:36 -0400

Several years ago a guy and his wife walked through an open house I held for a property we’d developed and were working on selling. The house was an open loft-like home with a green roof. It was really cool, and they liked it. At the time it wasn’t right for them, but we exchanged numbers and stayed in touch.

About a year after that Franco asked me to work with one of his classes at Drexel, where he teaches. I was happy to do so, and enjoyed the process very much. In the class, we worked with students to identify various “green” measures (everything from insulation to flooring) and evaluate and model what mattered. It was a daunting task in many ways - most of the experts in the field aren’t really very good at this yet.

During that class, where I probably learned more than anyone, Franco and I started thinking and talking more-and-more about doing a house for he and his wife Sharon and their two kids. I had never worked with a client before, having done more speculative development projects where I called all the shots (for better and, at times, way worse). The idea of a design-build project appealed to me, especially for clients as cool and receptive to sustainable design ideas as Franco and Sharon. The timing wasn’t quite right, but we both agreed that when the time was appropriate, we would work on this together.

Fast-forward to about 6 months ago, and we re-initiated the talks again, but this time more seriously. We discussed everything from new construction to “container houses” to rehabs. We discussed areas of the city, costs, how to get construction financing, contractors, real estate agents … you-name-it, we discussed it. And all for good reason. Though not doing it speculatively, we were undertaking a development project. To do a project right, there are many, many variables that have to be considered. We considered them.

After a false start or two (an initial offer on a rehab house fell through), they made an offer on a home on S. 13th street, in Philadelphia, near Passyunk. It’s a great, tree-lined street with lots of parks nearby, close to the subway on Broad Street, and with lots of hip new restaurants opening up in the area.

The house is a 3-story home in need of fairly serious rehab. Over the course of the past 60 days or so, I have worked with Franco and Sharon to first imagine the completed home, and then price its development (both labor and specs), and then re-imagine and re-price it a time or four as we worked through a very laborious construction loan process, called a 203k loan. The 203k aspect of this project probably requires a post or 7 all to itself, but let’s just say that it was a challenge for all involved. Ultimately though, they closed on the home yesterday.

The design plan isn’t quite as grand as once imagined and our nerves are a bit more frayed than we’d like, but I just received a text message from our contractor that he has a demo permit in hand. Work will, at last, begin in the morning to first deconstruct, and then reconstruct, this home from its current state into something we all can be proud of.

For the next several months I will continue working with Franco and Sharon and Paul (the contractor) to manage this project and various design elements (with significant assistance from an architect). Developing a property is a constant juggling act of finances, design, sustainability, timelines, and other restraints. The end product must touch on each of these (and several other things, too) to be successful. A great-looking house that is too expensive: failure. A bad looking house that is affordable: failure. For it to work, all of these various parts must be the best they can be within the context of the overall limitations (budget, scale, etc.). That’s not easy to do, but getting the most you can out of whatever limitations you face is the challenge, whether a project be a rehab of a home or a new office building.

Enjoy the weekend!

Fri, 27 May 2011 09:17:48 -0400

Enjoy the weekend!

I think I think this is actually good. I think.

Wed, 11 May 2011 09:03:40 -0400

I think I think this is actually good. I think.:

If it does, in fact, get more expensive for people to borrow for expensive homes because the government stops insuring these borrowers, I think it will ultimately be a good thing. There will be a fair amount of pain in the short-term, and it really stinks for people that currently own homes that were federally insured. It stinks because the value of their homes has been, in essence, propped up.

Take that financial support away, and a $600,000 loan goes from costing $3,221 a month to $3,597 per month (jumping from 5% - 6%, as the article suggests). Think of it another way, and it may seem even more significant.

To keep the same payment (around $3,220 a month) with the higher rate of 6% the mortgage amount would need to drop from $600k to $540,000 - a drop of $60,000 or so. Now, assume that the buyer had put 5% down in both cases. At a $600,000 value the value of the home was around $630,000. In the new scenario, for a person with the same monthly budget, the corresponding value of the home would drop to around $567,000 - that’s over $60,000 - and a 10% drop in home values for people selling their home.

So how could I say this is a good thing? Well, in the sort-term it is certainly not, at least for the sellers, Realtors, and others whose take is tied to value. However, over the longer term, once the value of the homes stabilizes, I do think that this approach serves to make homes more affordable and removes the government from at least one tier of mortgages. Without the endless array of regulations regarding government-backed loans, the cost to borrow would increase, but (presumably) some of the mindless regulations currently in place may be reduced.

Of course, thinking a step or two out, one might rightly wonder if this will lead to lenders on big ticket loans - without as many restrictions placed on them by the government - taking larger and larger risks and creating another toxic lending environment. Sadly, that may well be the case, but we’ll have to see.

Short of that, I think that I think that this makes some sense. How about you?

Saw this little gem in Hermosa Beach. I was a little surprised,...

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:06:56 -0400

Saw this little gem in Hermosa Beach. I was a little surprised, upon closer inspection, to realize that the cladding was wood. From a distance I thought it was something else.

Recently I was in California. These photos are of a renovated...

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:51:07 -0400

Recently I was in California. These photos are of a renovated warehouse that is now a bar and restaurant. I thought it was very well done.