Landscaping

Our yard is a mud flat right now. We have some plans to change this, but the thing about building a house on a budget is that the budget runs out at some point. I would love to work with a landscape designer for our property, but it's not in the cards.

Back in December we toyed with getting a few trees in the ground before the heavy winter weather hit so I drew up a landscaping plan then. We didn't get the trees in the ground (seriously, we have nothing but mud right now), but we have spent the winter thinking about spring, warm weather, and a landscaped yard. Here is that plan:


The notations are plant varieties, hopes and dreams I have for various zones of the yard. We're trying to limit our green grass varieties and water-hungry plants -- that's as much a financial decision as a sustainable one. I'm not interested in spending money to water my yard with culinary water!

We've visited the Conservation Garden Park in West Jordan a couple of times, checked out several water-wise gardening books from local libraries, attended a couple of landscaping classes at the library (trees! edible yards!), and done a lot of thinking about what we'd like in a yard and how we imagine we'll use it, both now and in coming years.

So, a couple of conclusions:

• We do want some grass.

Looking around at options for Utah's climate, it's become clear to me that if you want a lawn to look like a lawn, you have to expend some water on it. Sure, there are several different varieties for lawn grass that claim to use significantly less water, but looking at the actual water required compared to the standard Kentucky Bluegrass lawn, it's all more or less the same. A couple of other options might be a dwarf tall fescue mix or a bonsai dwarf tall fescue mix. From what we saw at the conservation garden, these have a similar look and feel to a traditional bluegrass lawn but with slightly less water usage. I don't know how easy they will be to find in sod here, though (we don't think we want to do a lawn from seed).

• I'd love to do rain-water catchment.

Our "flat" roof is slightly sloped to drain at three points on the north side of our house. Right now that drainage goes straight into a buried pipe system that eventually goes to a drain sink in our backyard. Every time I hear that dripping -- or on recent days with this heavy, wet, spring snow -- I think about capturing that water, storing it over the winter, and then using it for a garden and to "make up" for some of the higher-water plants that we will inevitably have. But...it's currently illegal in Utah. Not a huge deal at the moment because there does seem to be some momentum to change this law (at least for residents doing temporary catchment and then re-using the water on their own property), but I'm looking down the road.

• It turns out that I really love a lot of low- and zero-water plants and Utah natives.

The varieties of creeping thyme, native oak, native maple and native high-desert flowers have a stark beauty about them that I'm really loving at the moment. We're already planning on several varieties of creeping thyme for around our south-side patio and kitchen garden, and I think we'll end up with more than a few native flowers for the front yard.

• We may have an inter-family fight brewing over the front-yard trees.

I want to plant gambel oaks in a stand of 5 in our front yard, toward the north. Tai is a bit leery of them (and their more common name -- scrub oak). We've heard they send out runners that will undo a lot of careful landscaping work. But they're native! And I grew up with them in my grandparents' yard! And if you give them a little water (instead of zero supplemental water) they behave more like trees and less like shrubs! This is a sample of our stimulating evening conversations of late.

So, we welcome your suggestions. We're doing some preliminary planning — we got an irrigation system designed for us by a local sprinkling company. Next stop will be trenching for that system, then Tai is bound and determined to lay his own sprinklers! We're also collaborating with our neighbor to the south on fence plans (some designs that caught my eye are here, here, here, here, here, and here), and thinking about what we would put in the garden boxes we have planned.

Green

We've been all-house-design-all-the-time here for a while that I haven't mentioned anything specifically about the "green" elements we're incorporating into this place.

Here's a quick run down of what is planned at the moment (i.e. this will probably change) and how each element could be considered sustainable, energy efficient or just plain cool:

• Radiant heating: We'll run tubing through our concrete slab on the first floor, then run heated fluid through the tubing. The heat generated is highly energy efficient (and comfortable!) because you heat the concrete, and its substantial thermal mass warms the objects in the house instead of the air. Radiant heating responds much more quickly to heating needs than heated air and maintains a constant temperature better. The fewer "warm-up" periods (equivalent to when our current furnace kicks on) save on energy costs. We'll also run radiant on our second floor — attached to the underside of the floor — for the same effect. Radiant is also a healthier option because it does not blow contaminants and particulates around the house. Plus, Tai can't wait to help lay tubing like this:

(Knock yourself out, honey)

• Insulation: Framing the exterior walls with 6-inch studs will provide two additional inches of depth for wall insulation over traditional construction (the type of insulation is something we haven't decided yet, but we'd really like to do blown-in to fill all the nooks and crannies). Super insulation is a concept central to Passivhaus construction — we'll probably fall a notch or so below those European standards, but still be a great deal more than the average existing home (and even more than typical new home construction). 6-inch framing should allow us to achieve R-19 in the walls. The roof should be able to achieve R-30 just by insulating in-between the roof joists and with the foam for the membrane roofing material the final product should be around R-45 to R-50.

• Solar orientation and passive solar heating: This is a big, big reason that we were interested in an architect-designed home in the first place. Our home will take into account all the benefits and disadvantages of our site, with its strong southern orientation (not necessarily true with a stock plan bought from a builder or other outlet). We've already spent a fair bit of time talking about this in our meetings with Kenner and Matt — it's on everybody's radar.

• Low-e windows: Multiple panes, with an insulated, tight envelope construction and a low-e coating allow visible light to enter but reflect infrared radiation. In the summer this will keep much of the heat from the sun out, making it easier to maintain a comfortable temperature at lower energy consumption. In the winter, enough heat can get in to help warm the objects in the house, reducing the energy consumption required for heating.

• Ikea kitchen: We've said it before, but we'll say it again — Ikea products are among the most sustainable mass-produced stuff out there. They build their cabinets (and the million other MDF products they have) to stricter standards — no formaldahyde with lots of recycled and sustainably harvested content, such as wheatboard. The company's philosophy on product quality and safety touch on life cycle and efficiency, among other topics. Buying standard sizes of a flat-pack kitchen also means that more kitchen components can be shipped at once, lowering the per-item environmental impact. We're using easily accessible materials — not creating a custom solution that would require more waste to pull off.

• Climate-appropriate landscaping: Our initial budget will not have room for extensive landscaping, but we will have — eventually — front, side and backyards that make sense for Utah's hot, dry summers and cold winters by using native plants, drought-tolerant plants, grasses, etc.

• Energy-star appliances.

• Solar hot water heating: Budget permitting, this is something that we both really want to create. We'd run a hyper-efficient solar hot water system on the roof to take care of the bulk of our hot water needs. The sun's there, so why not use it?

• Use of renewable materials: We've had multiple love affairs with bamboo at this point (which grows very quickly), and we're interested in cork flooring as well for the second floor. Plus, I think it's gorgeous:

(Too lazy to edit their caption off...so at least now you know about the diversity of cork flooring options...)

• Low- or no-VOC paints.

• Designing in a way that makes good sense. This is harder to quantify, but it involves things like not over-sizing rooms, not over-sizing the house, etc. It also means adding a mud room for backyard entry from the detached garage and an entry vestibule for the front that will let us take off our shoes before coming inside so that we don't track outside muck/particulates all over the house, etc.

What don't you see on this list? A lot of gadgets and things like solar panels. Solar panels are still just too expensive for us. They require a substantial investment up front, which then takes a long time to recoup in saved energy costs, and this isn't the house we plan on living in for the rest of our lives. We hope that the price of solar systems will keep dropping and the technology will keep improving. Also, you won't hear us crowing about our righteous use of ceiling fans and swamp coolers — because we're getting an air conditioner. It will be a small and efficient one, but getting an efficient AC unit is sort of like getting an efficient dryer — you're sunk just by definition. (And we're owning up to it.)

We are trying to make logical building decisions that are efficient and sustainable, and we aren't interested in "green-washing" the project. We just don't have the budget to make it super outwardly "green" or "eco." But it is going to be a smart, responsible and efficient house.

Washer and Dryer

It finally happened. After countless rolls of quarters and relying our relatives' generosity with their appliances, we finally, finally have our own washer and dryer:

That's a stackable (duh) Asko set. We had never dreamed of getting this high-end Swedish brand, but we have a designer friend who got us a hook up with a deal. We paid less than one-third of this set's retail price. The washer and dryer actually cost us about the same as a much, much lower end set would have, so we are pleased as punch.

One of the things that we absolutely love about this set is that they are super water- and energy-efficient. The washer spins clothes up to 2000 rpm at the end of the wash cycle (roughly the same rpm that you car's engine will have on a mellow road), and things come out nearly dry. That means much shorter dryer cycles. The washer uses about one-quarter of the water that a traditional top-loading washer would use, even with optional extra rinse cycles. It requires very little detergent and still comes in as an energy star appliance!

So, laundry is our new hobby for the new year. Happy New Year to everyone out there, and all the best in your 2009 endeavors!

NY Times: Bragging rights for LEED

I'm doing that irritating thing where a blogger doesn't come up with original content but just refers you to something really obvious on the internet. So, here you go.

This caught my eye for several reasons. The first is that LEED Platinum would be insanely difficult to reach on any reasonable budget, so I'm a bit jealous of their $2.5 million selling price.

The second is that the article really gets into some of the biggest complaints with LEED, some of which I've aired here in the past. As you go up the LEED ladder (certified to bronze to silver to gold, etc.) certification quickly becomes cost prohibitive to most people and a huge pain in the neck to all people. It's also become the evaluation tool of choice in the industry, inaugurated as such because there simply aren't any others: "Frances Anderton, a KCRW radio host and Los Angeles editor of Dwell magazine, longs for the day when LEED recognition is irrelevant. 'Architects should be offering a green building service,' Ms. Anderton said, 'without needing a badge of pride.'"

The third is this line from the article: "Today, dinner-party bragging rights are likely to include: 'Let me tell you about my tankless hot water heater.' Or 'what’s the R value of your insulation?'" I attended such a dinner party last night where the topic of discussion organically came to both tankless water heaters and rooftop solar arrays!

Oy

“Imagine having it all, while preserving the environment.”


Uh-huh...

Here's a little more information about size and LEED certification from the 100k House gentlemen, as well as a pretty decent explanation about why that quote up there isn't much of a mantra.

Update: Apparently the Internet reads the NYTimes. ReNest tackles the same topic.

Hey big talker

I've been doing some reading about home LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. (Link is here — scroll down to "LEED for homes pilot version 1.11a and download the .pdf if you've got the stamina for 184 pages.)

Quick recap: LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and is a qualification system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council as a way to encourage energy-efficient, responsible development. Requirements for the certification run through everything from site selection for your project (is it near transit? is it near a grocery store?) to energy star heating systems to climate-appropriate landscaping to grey water recycling, and so on. For our dear Utah readers, the majority of LEED projects — if not all — in the state have been commercial, governmental or multi-family dwellings. Single-family LEED homes in Utah seem to be rare, if not entirely nonexistent.

From what I can tell, the USGBC has made no provisions for individual home owners/builders to obtain their own LEED certification. Their requirements seem to point to a system of builders in a few states and regions who have jumped through USGBC hoops in order to qualify as LEED builders. I saw no opportunity in their documents for people like us (lowly potential owner-builders) to take ourselves through the LEED process. This is how they put it: "Currently, the pilot LEED for Homes initiative is open to participation by builders in locations served by our 12 pilot LEED for Homes Providers. Home builders outside of these 12 service areas may contact their nearest LEED for Homes Provider to discuss participation in LEED for Homes. In the short-term, not every home builder will have local access to a Provider. However, in the coming year, USGBC plans to establish 10-20 new Providers in new markets."

That's a crying shame.

Innovation generally comes from a few individuals who decide to do something different. If the USGBC is truly concerned about spreading LEED certification (and it seems the council is – one of the components for becoming LEED certified is education about the process) then it needs to open up the process drastically. Why would the council allow only certain builders in certain areas to apply for LEED certification? Additionally, why would this system discriminate against owners-builders (cough, cough: us, *we hope*) who aren't going to look to an established builder for help with a home. We hope to use a family member as our general contractor, not Ivory Homes (shudder) or like ilk.

I like just about everything else I read about LEED home certification. But really, USGBC, really?!? I'm disappointed in you, and this is my disappointed face:

Huh

Our friend Todd pointed us the direction of the 100khouse project (it's now on our links bar). One of the posts on that site lead me to this article.

I guess that my first take on that article would be, well, we're not that stupid. Which is both true and false. False: we are stupid enough to think that we will be able to build a modern home on an urban(ish) infill lot near downtown Salt Lake City, possibly in the city's oldest neighborhood. Also false: we are stupid enough to think that this will be moderately easy — sure, we're expecting the usual hang-ups, but we're also expecting that this won't take 10 years and a million bucks.

But, true that we're not that stupid in that we are learning from experiences such as these. In talks with people who built a modern house in a Salt Lake neighborhood last year, the owner suggested that we be in an owned home while trying to build — he said the financing for building would be easier. We definitely took that into account this fall as we waited on building until we had bought and renovated the current place.

We also have learned and heard again and again that it's important to keep the house design as standard as possible. That usually means 4'x8' construction in order to capitalize on standard size materials that everyone needs — drywall, plywood, door openings, etc. That doesn't mean we want to build a box, though. The creative part of this process will be making something relatively standard seem exceptional. That may mean taking ordinary materials and using them in unusual ways (for example, the use of commercial glass in residential application). It will almost certainly mean getting creative with the design of the house since it will probably be on an oddly shaped, tiny lot because that's what infill lots usually are.

Also, that article is more than five years old. I'm not foolish enough to think that America has undergone a sea change in opinion about modern building since 2002, but I do suspect there has been some incremental easing of the pitchfork-and-torch mentality toward this style since then. Perhaps I should say that I hope that easing is a reality.

Given that we don't have a lot yet and are still unpacking in this place, it's fairly easy for me to predict what we will or won't be able to accomplish with this hypothetical house. But it's sure great to plan on being awesome...

The Home Show

Figuring that we ought to take advantage of the resources in our area, and also figuring that we needed an entertaining way to kill a few hours, Saturday we went to the home show in Sandy. The vast majority of the exhibits were entertaining in the way I think a renaissance fair might be entertaining — kind of a hoot once in a blue moon but really not my thing. For instance, this tile arrangement:


There were many more alarming examples of wildlife in home decor, such as this lamp base:


We also noticed a few too many exhibitors of coffins (I wish I had a picture of the white lacquer box with hot pink lining — nothing better to carry you into the afterlife). And etched granite designs featuring more wildlife.


I was a little snippy with one exhibitor who was displaying a binder of home plans for sale. I started flipping through the binder, looking at the different plans (ick and more ick, I'd say), and the exhibitor asked whether we were looking to build. I said yes, but we'll probably use an architect. He immediately said, do you have one already? Well, no, but we know of a few we'd like to talk to. Then he asked whether we were in the industry. Well, no, but we do have a few connections and are fairly optimistic. The undertone of his remarks felt a little like he was trying to convince us that it would be too difficult to retain an architect if we weren't in the industry. Eh, maybe. But we're still not purchasing one of these. Now, if he were talking about plumbers I might believe him... His house plans were full of gables and peaked roofs and extraneous columns and massive garages and turrets and windows in odd places and, and, and.

This particular home show was billing itself as an eco-expo; as far as I could tell, there were about 10-12 exhibitors who were advertising green products or services, a few Toyota hybrids on display and a speaker talking about compact fluorescent bulbs. Green washing, anyone?

Enough griping. We did run across a few gems, including a very interesting booth about insulated concrete forms. This particular brand of the product uses styrofoam blocks that look a lot like hollow Duplos. You stack the blocks in the dimensions of your house, reinforce with a little rebar and few joists for flooring/ceiling/etc. and pour concrete into the middle of the styrofoam. The mass of the concrete makes for a sky-high R value, major sound deadening capabilities and a nearly indestructible house. You save on drywall inside the house because normal construction requires drywall sheets to meet on a stud in order to secure them; that method can make for a lot of waste if you have to trim the drywall. ICF don't require the use of studs at all — they're built into the styrofoam and concrete. (If you read any of our sidebar links, check out the archives of Modern in Minnesota — they used ICF in that very cold climate.) ICF does have its downsides, notably that it makes for thicker walls, which decrease living space on a small lot. Concrete is also pricey, but the overall construction would be only slightly more than traditional building because of comparable rises in cost of lumber, siding, etc. Obviously, it piqued our interest.

We ran across a booth about solar electric and thermal panels (thermal for heating systems as opposed to electric for running, say, your vacuum cleaner). There we learned that the "starter" solar array system costs around $8,500 to $10,000, including installation and all energy company rebates. That same system provides an average of about 35 percent of a house's electricity; more if you are conscientious and conserve. Wow, that's a lot of money.

We learned about blown-in fiberglass insulation that fills nooks and crannies better than sheet insulation (without formaldehyde or similar chemicals). We also learned that it is made of recycled glass and sand, so it's fire-proof without chemical treatment (can't say the same for blown-in insulation made of recycled paper). And we met a very nice man who promised to help us out with radiant heat should we decide to go that route — and we would love to.

In all it was great to hit up a place that offered so much under one roof — the leaping wolves I need for my next table lamp as well as the solar panel contractor I wasn't sure existed in Utah. It was nice to see that all these wonderful things we read about happening in California or the northeast can also happen in Utah. With some work. And some cash.

Braggadocio

Buddy Doug is off doing great things in Washington, D.C. Among them he's making good on his threats to green up all our beltways. He wrote and launched The Green Home Guide, brought to you by (him and) the Green Building Council.

I've already read his beautifully crafted prose about green renovation, and, I'm proud to say that we were planning to do all of those things, minus the exterior plantings.

We have four floor-to-ceiling, single-pane windows that rattle and leak air like crazy (you could catch pneumonia from across the room), so we'll be caulking those. We're replacing the fridge and dishwasher with energy star versions and plan to purchase an energy star washer-dryer combo (ovens and dryers evidently can't be energy star by their very nature, but we air-dry at least half of all our laundry, so there's some more bragging for you!). We already have a programmable thermostat that is set to 51 degrees during the remodel. We need to replace the shower head and we don't have any sink faucets right now, so it should be pretty easy to buy low-flow faucets or make them that way during installation. We're already using low-VOC paint, and we won't be using any other industrial glues or products that will have lots of VOC(s). We're purchasing IKEA kitchen cabinets made of particleboard constructed to European standards, which means very low levels of formaldehyde and less off-gassing after installation. And we're using bamboo flooring and slate tile — both of which we have picked or will pick up from warehouses within 20 miles of our condo (granted, Utah doesn't have any native bamboo fields, but we haven't yet found flooring made of scrub oak).

Since we live in a condo building, we don't have a lot of control over landscaping. But I've long loved having plants inside — the sunroom in our last place always had three or four planters and a few potted plants. We also keep a plant in nearly every room (a small deed when you have only a few rooms, but I'm taking credit nonetheless). It's literal green for the figurative green title.

Childhood snack

One of the few green things that we've been able to do with this remodel — we're hoping it's a lot easier to build green rather than remodel green — is use low VOC paint. The low VOC paint — VOC is short for volatile organic compounds — puts fewer pollutants into the air, specifically into the air that we will be breathing once we move into this place.

You know that fresh paint smell? Low-VOC paint doesn't have one. Really, none at all.


It smells like pears and cottage cheese to me.

A modern home for a modern time

So what's so great about a modern house? Don't get us wrong — we find no offense with Tudors, Victorians, Cape Cods, cottages, bungalows or craftsman-style homes. In fact, many of the best examples of those styles are lovely homes. They're just not for us. (We do find offense with the mish-mash style so prevalent in the greater-Salt Lake area, but we'll save that rant for another day.)

We are not the type to write a modernist's manifesto — check out dwell.com or any number of architecture schools for better-articulated theories — but boyohboy are we ever opinionated folk. And we are very, very strongly of the opinion that modern design, building and living is the way to go.

For us, the core of modern living (that phrase sounds so 1950s! in a sputnik-era way! with new electronic kitchen implements! and gleaming teeth! and automatic coffee makers!), breaks down to the emphasis of function in the home. We love the emphasis on easy construction methods — simplify the construction, the thinking goes, and thus reduce your costs and thus increase your potential impact and audience. We love well-placed windows and the natural light they provide. We love open floor plans and their inherent love for entertaining and family gatherings. We love a site plan that just makes sense. We love efficient use of space. We love multi-purpose rooms. We love site-appropriate construction. We love the energy efficiency that comes with all of these things. We love climate-appropriate landscaping. And, we love the way it looks.

Just below Ensign Peak, Salt Lake City

Moreover, we believe in building for our time. I know no one who wants a 1920s kitchen. I don't want room dimensions or ceiling heights from 1906, either. I also think that the exterior of my house shouldn't look like it's stuck in a decade from another century. Show it for what it is, instead of disguising your contemporary interior in a faux-historical facade.

Top of F Street, Salt Lake City Avenues

So, yes, we want to build a modern house that we believe will be more comfortable, more energy efficient, and more fitting for its eventual (and currently hypothetical) location than any pre-approved plans from a builder or pseudo-historical new construction.

Any yays? Nays? Yawns?

Greenie

In a former life, I labored at a certain Salt Lake newspaper. While I did not, as a whole, enjoy my experience there, I did meet some pretty amazing people both in and out of the paper. In the year since I quit that job, my friends there have been trickling off to do bigger and better things (I'm looking at you, Ellie's cheeks). One of those, Doug, is now moving to Washington, D.C., to join the U.S. Green Building Council, the friendly folks who came up with LEED certification.


This is the man who trailed around the newsroom, scouting for notebooks in people's trash cans in a quixotic quest to be the 7th floor's collective environmental conscience. (He'd cut off the wire binding and recycled the otherwise-worthless pages.) I can't think of a better job for him than this new one, even if Salt Lake will miss him dearly.

I am looking forward to exploiting his future expertise, though, since he will allegedly be developing a residential component to USGBC's already substantial commercial and office repertoire of green-building tips. Dupont Circle, Doug!