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Last Updated 8/1/2008
BUILDING GREEN ON
A BUDGET: A recording of our experiences by Tom Eggert*
INTRODUCTION Can
we build a green and healthy home addition (and remodel some of our
existing house) in Madison for no more than it would cost to do a
traditional addition and remodel? That is the challenge that the
Eggert family tackled this spring.
THE DESIGN
A
two story addition with standard 8 foot ceilings requires less
energy to heat and cool than a one story addition that is spread
over a larger area. A two story addition is also cheaper to build.
By building an absolutely square addition, we have minimized the
ratio of wall area to floor area, which should result in the lowest
amount of energy needed to adequately heat and cool the structure.
The
addition will be oriented so that the end of the addition faces due
west and the majority of the windows will face due south. The
stairs will be located on the north wall, and only one small
non-operable window is planned on the north wall. All south and
west facing windows will be operable, so as to take advantage of the
prevailing south-westerly breezes in Madison. This is designed to
reduce cooling costs.
GREEN BUILDING GUIDELINES When
we decided to build a green addition, we looked at what was
available to help us in making appropriate decisions. There is a
new
LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-H standard (H
standing for Home),
but it was developed for new construction, and was still just being
piloted. In addition, there just wasn’t as much detail in the LEED-H
standard as we were looking for. We also considered the
American Lung Association’s Health House guidelines,
but again, the guidelines were more appropriate for a new
construction. Energy Star also offers an
Energy Star Home designation
(the home needs to be 30% more energy efficient than a 1993 home),
but without major changes to the existing furnace, air conditioner
and kitchen appliances, it did not look like we would qualify. We
settled on the Green Built Home program, a program of the
Wisconsin Environmental Initiative
(and implemented in partnership with the
Madison Area Builders Association).
The
comprehensive checklists
for an addition/remodel were exactly what we were looking for! Out
of a total of roughly 300 points, an addition needed at least 60
points to be certified as a Green Built Home. We found out from
Nathan Engstrom, Green Built Home’s Program Director, that the
highest scoring house had scored 174 points, and the highest scoring
addition had scored 97 points. Our initial goal was to get at
least 50% more than the minimum that we needed.
FINANCING We
sought financing in the traditional way – by calling banks, credit
unions, savings and loans, etc. We found that lenders interested in
keeping our loan in-house were more flexible and offered us better
rates. We were set to take out a loan with Johnson Bank, when Tom
heard about Home Savings Bank’s support for green building. He
worked with Jim Bradley, president of the bank, who created a new
class of loans that would be held at the bank. Jim also shaved a
quarter point off the interest rate of the loan, virtually
eliminated the closing costs, and provided the home registration fee
for the Green Built Home program. In addition, Jim was interested
in the progress of the house.
BUILDERS The
Green Built Home checklists were also extremely valuable because of
the relative absence of experience among the contractors that did
home additions and remodels. Once we had our design in hand, we
used the Green Built Home list of builders (http://www.greenbuilthome.org
Roger Schink was the only builder to send a team of people over to
gather the information needed to prepare an adequate bid. I met
with Roger and Karl, a young protégé of Roger’s, at the house in
late March. In addition to the two of them, they brought along Jory
(their main carpenter- and the person that we saw and got to know
the best during the project), Mark Geller from Flooring Design,
their electrician, the heating and air conditioning sub-contractor,
the excavation sub-contractor, and probably some others. Jory even
went up into the attic to determine how they would connect the
addition to the existing house. Not
surprisingly, Roger Schink came back with a very comprehensive bid.
We were over budget by less than 20%, and we were optimistic that we
could find a way to narrow that difference. More importantly, we
felt very, very comfortable with Roger. We felt that we could trust
him to do high quality work and that he shared our vision for what
we wanted to do with the house. This was an important point to us.
We liked Roger; we felt his commitment to building a home that we
would like was important. We had heard many stories about people
fighting with their builders over little details, and we did not
want to do that. We wanted someone that we could work with, that we
could trust. Roger was not only open to that, he welcomed the help
on questions around what are the green options we should be
considering.
THE CONTRACT He
presented us with a very detailed and comprehensive contract for the
addition. We worked on the language of this contract for less than
two weeks, and settled on a document that was comprehensive, yet
also flexible and based on trust. Roger assured us that he would
build us a house that we would love, and that we could trust him to
work through issues that would arise. We started out the contract
with the joint commitment to score as many points as possible on the
Green Built Home checklist. (I had originally asked them to commit
to scoring at least 90 points – which would have been 50% more than
the minimum needed to qualify as a Green Built Addition – but Roger
preferred to leave this open, and because we were convinced that
they shared our commitment to building green and healthy, we did not
include a specific score in the contract.) We
did include some other things in the contract that we felt were
important. I tried to address how we would handle rain (the
language that was included was inadequate and not helpful. Rather,
when we did encounter rain, Roger asked us when we were comfortable
proceeding again) (More on this later). We did lay out things like
the radiant heating system that we wanted, the type of air
conditioner, the type of fireplace, etc. We also recognized that
there were some potential expenses that were outside the parameters
of the contract. This included such things as replacing the
existing patio door, adding French doors in the old living room, and
turning the old living room into a library. We also agreed to put
all change orders down in writing, so that we all knew where we were
as we moved forward. As
part of Roger’s bid, he agreed to take the design drawings prepared
by Crescendo Design and produce detailed drawings that would be
needed to get a building permit. These drawings also showed how the
house would be framed and provided more precise measurements as
would be needed for construction.
BEGINNING CONSTRUCTION We
were to break ground on April 10th. In order to prepare
for ground-breaking, Diggers Hotline was called to map out where
existing electrical lines were run and gas piping was done. They
provided some very bad news the week before we were to break
ground. Running directly across the area where the foundation for
the addition was to go were our electrical lines. For just over
$1500 they were willing to move the lines, but it would be a month
before they would be able to free up a crew to do this. We
looked for options, and discovered that if the electrician installed
a 200 amp panel (we were planning on upgrading our 100 amp panel in
the garage) in the basement on the side of the house closest to the
electrical feed, we would be able to abandon the line across the
back yard. The electrician was available the day we were to have
broken ground to do the necessary internal rewiring and to install a
temporary power pole on the outside of the house. However, this was
an unanticipated expense and added an additional $1200 on to our
contract.
Since we did not have any other option, unless we wanted to wait a
month, we jumped at this chance. MG&E would still come in a month
(it was closer to two months before they finally showed up) to
convert the temporary above ground wiring to underground wiring, but
we could proceed with groundbreaking. (They charged us plenty for
burying the six feet of line that was left, but we could not get
around that.)
Thus, April 17th marked the official start of work on the
house. The electrician showed up unexpectedly at 7:30am. He
installed the new panel, put in a temporary power pole and prepared
the new panel for the additional demands of the addition. One
other, unexpected, complication arose before groundbreaking. A
Ponderosa Pine that was growing on the side of the house needed to
be removed. The excavator felt that he would not be able to get his
equipment into the backyard if the tree stayed. So, we had the tree
cut down, but replaced the tree with a beautiful Korean Maple Tree
which we planted in the backyard.
COMPLETING THE PROJECT TEAM
Official groundbreaking was now scheduled for Monday, April 24th.
Prior to that time, we met with, and engaged the services of Robin
Pharro of Healthy Homes Reports. I had been given Robin’s card by
one of the builders we talked to. He had run in to Robin at a
training he had attended. Finding Robin was a real coop for us.
Here, in one person, was someone who either knew the answers to our
questions about indoor air quality or had the necessary background
and connections to find out. We
met with Robin, and agreed to engage her services. She would review
information about anything that could off-gas in the house and
provide recommendations to us on how to proceed. She was very
knowledgeable and a delight to work with. Our team was now set. At
about this same time, Roger and Karl met with Tom and advised him
that Karl Fels would be overseeing our project. We were a bit
concerned – but only because we felt so comfortable with Roger.
Roger did commit to staying involved, and if we ever needed his
advise or involvement, he would be available. This in fact worked
quite well. Our main contact with Holley Schink was Karl, but Roger
was still involved in most meetings, and we drew extensively on his
experience in the industry as we made many day-to-day decisions. In
fact, Joan’s most common question when a decision was expected from
us was “what would Roger recommend?”. We
broke ground during a very dry time in the late spring. We had
anticipated clay below about a foot, and clay would make an
excellent substrate for the foundation. When the excavator was
there, he found clay as far down as he dug. In one day, we went
from a normal backyard, to one with a very square large hole and two
big piles of dirt.
Within that first week, the foundation was laid, foundation walls
were erected and the foundation was damp-proofed and insulated. We
specified that we wanted a minimum of 15% flyash mixed with the
concrete, both because it slows curing, (thereby making the concrete
stronger) and because using flyash in concrete keeps a waste product
from the production of electricity out of the landfill. In addition,
water pressure on the foundation walls was controlled by installing
tubes under the walls so that water would be brought into the crawl
space, and managed through a sump. We
were very pleasantly surprised when one of Holley Schink’s crew came
over the evening that they broke ground. Joe brought a hose and
before we knew what he was doing, he was washing off the sidewalk
and washing off the driveway. He came back several times to
continue trying to keep the site picked up and neat. This was a
very nice touch that pleasantly surprised us.
MATERIALS SELECTION As
this was going on, we needed to make a decision about using FSC (Forest
Stewardship Council)
certified lumber. The advantage to using FSC lumber was that we
would be making a very visible statement about the importance of not
only green building, but supporting others that are committed to the
broader principles of sustainability. The disadvantage was that
Home Depot, Menards and Brunsell did not handle FSC certified
dimensional lumber or plywood. We
met with Roger Schink and Karls Fels from Holley Schink. They too
were interested in making a statement with our house, and agreed to
split the additional cost of using FSC certified lumber (which would
have to be brought in from the twin cities). The cost was a bit
higher than they estimated, just over $2200 for all of the wood
needed for the addition. We decided to proceed with FSC certified
lumber, both as a statement about what is important, and also to
start to create demand in Madison for FSC lumber. We
also wanted to use recycled denim insulation in the walls. As was
true with the lumber, it is not locally available, but is easy to
ship in. Unfortunately, for our addition, it would have added an
additional $1000 to the cost. Though it would have been perfect
from an indoor air quality perspective, we could, for much less
money, use formaldehyde free fiberglass insulation – which was
locally available. We
went round and round on this but ultimately decided to use the
formaldehyde free fiberglass insulation. We insulated the walls to
R-19 and the crawlspace, 1st floor ceiling and 2nd
floor ceiling to R38. In our conversations with Roger, we felt that
additional insulation in the first floor would be desirable, since
we were using a radiant heating system. We wanted to make sure that
the heat moved up, and not down into the crawl space. In
the original plans, Crescendo Design had envisioned windows on the
south, west and north sides of the addition. We wanted to maximize
not only the light, but the heat gain during the cooler months from
the south and west windows. While doing a bit of research, I
discovered that north facing windows are of little use for solar
heat gain during the winter, and serve to lose more energy than they
bring in. We thus modified the design to eliminate two windows on
the north side, replace one of the windows with a door, and make the
one window that did remain on the north side a decorative,
non-functioning, octagon shaped window at the top of the stairs. A
second story window in the bathroom was eliminated and two new
clerestory windows were added on the east wall. This window looks
out over the top of the existing roof line, but is operable so as to
encourage air movement through the second floor. We
worked with Kelly at the Window Design Center, and she was wonderful
to work with. We wanted windows that had no vinyl in them, were
Energy Star certified, were at least double paned with low E
coatings, argon gas filled in between the panes, and did not allow
“bridging” of cold across the frame. She recommended Integrity
casement windows by Marvin, which are fiberglass on the outside and
wood on the inside. They are affordable, functional and met all of
the above criteria. As an after-thought, we decided to replace our
existing patio door with the Marvin Integrity patio door, both
because we really liked the windows and wanted the door to match,
but also because we knew we lose a lot of heat in the winter through
our existing patio door. We
chose casement windows instead of double hung windows because they
are much more energy efficient. They seal tighter than double hung
windows and have fewer seams or separations that would allow heat to
escape.
After the windows were installed, we decided to add one more window
to the upstairs bedroom. Again, Kelly was very easy to work with
and very helpful in asking the questions that we needed to think
about (such as which way would the window open). We did need to
talk with Kelly one more time on the project when we discovered that
the hinges on the patio door were not the same color as the handle
that we had picked out. Kelly admitted that we could have ordered
hinges that would match the handle, and because she did not offer us
this option, she would, at her cost, provide the matching hinges.
This was an example of the great customer service that we received
throughout the project. A
week after ground was broken, the excavator was back to backfill
around the foundation. In a week, we went from having an
unblemished backyard, to having one with a big hole and piles of
dirt, to one where the hole was gone, as were the piles of dirt, and
all we had left was the foundation for a new space.
ERECTING THE SHELL Just
after the backfilling had taken place, it started to rain. It
rained on and off for the next ten days. This was the rain that was
missing earlier in the spring. I was concerned about doing too much
building in the rain. Our youngest son started kindergarten the
first year that Madison’s Chavez School was opened. Less than two
months after they opened the school, they closed the school because
of mold found in the walls, ceiling and floor. The school was on a
tight schedule, and the builders of the school did not let rain slow
them down. Not only did they pay for this oversight, but hundreds
of children were exposed to mold and other allergens that made them
sick. I did not want to worry about this in our addition. They
did lay the floor for the addition in the rain. I was concerned
about mold growth in the crawl space, since the floor now did not
allow for air to circulate and dry out everything that had been
rained on. Roger and Karl agreed that they would provide an
industrial strength dehumidifier to dry this area once the roof was
on. The
next week, (the first week in May), construction started on the new
space. It had rained over the weekend, so the subfloor that had
been put in on Friday was not only wet, but was soon very muddy.
None-the-less, in one day we had a first story all framed in.
Then
the next day, we added a second story, and the roof on our existing
home was being rebuilt to better tie into the addition (we had a day
in between rain showers). Karl
asked us to provide a sun tube if we were committed to having one in
the kitchen. I ran out to Menards one evening, brought back a sun
tube which was installed in the roof the next day. We were making
tremendous progress. Changes were taking place before our eyes.
The next day – in the rain - the trusses were brought up over the
front of the house and put on top of the second story. We now had
the structure pretty much defined! What once had only existed on
paper, and in our minds, was now standing before us! It was huge!
It was beautiful. It was everything we had hoped for and so much
more.
Before the week ended, we had a roof and tar paper on the new roof,
and the roof of our existing house was rebuilt and re-shingled. At
this point, we raised some uncomfortable issues with our builder. I
had met with an old friend who was a commercial roof inspector. He
asked if the roof was being covered each night and I told him that
the roof had only been up a day. However, he pointed out that it
was to rain again that Friday, and all weekend, and prudent practice
would have the roof covered. So, I called Karl and asked that the
roof be covered. This led to a quick meeting at the house with
Karl, Roger and I. Apparently, Roger did not have any tarps that
could be used to cover the house, and buying enough plastic to do it
would cost upwards of $100. In addition, he did not think there was
anything to be gained by covering the roof. He
thought that the tar paper would keep the wood dry and offered to
tear the tar paper off and replace it with new tar paper if it did
get rained on. In this way, the tar paper would act as the tarp or
plastic. We agreed that this would be a good way to proceed and no
irreparable damage was done to the relationship we were developing
with Roger and Karl.
Following the completion of the roof, Roger and Karl were as good as
their word. They brought a big dehumidifier and put it in the
crawlspace along with a fan. It ran for 5 days and dried the space
out quite nicely.
Similarly, when it stopped raining, the tar paper (which was
slightly curled from being rained on and drying out a couple of
times) was removed and new tar paper was put on. The wood was dry
and we had good air circulation still within the structure. Any
remaining water issues would be worked out as time when on, and I
stopped worrying about mold. We
chose shingles for the addition and the rebuilt roof that would
match the existing shingles that we had. Included in the contract
were 30 year architectural shingles. We were free to choose the
color. Seven years ago, we had replaced the roof on the existing
house. At that time, we had chosen white shingles to reflect more
of the summer heat. The new shingles matched so well, that you
could not tell that they were from different companies.
ROUGHING IN Soon
after the roof was done, the heating and air conditioning guy (from
ASAP Heating and Air Conditioning) came to rough in the ductless
split air conditioner for the second floor. What is a ductless
split air conditioner? Ductless means just that. We have no ducts
in the addition because we opted to use radiant heat. Radiant heat
involves running plastic tubes just below the floor on first and
second floor, and heating the house with hot water that runs through
these tubes. (More on this later). Since we have no ducts, we have
no way to air condition the new space. A ductless air conditioning
system addresses this problem. It
is a split air conditioner, because the main air conditioning unit
is split from where the air conditioning is delivered to the house.
The opposite is a window air conditioner which cools the air and
delivers the air all at the same location. In our case, the main
unit is located outside on the ground, next to the chimney. However
the unit that actually delivers the air conditioned air is high on
the wall on second floor. The two are connected through a series of
pipes, which moves cooled refrigerant from the main unit to the
second floor unit and back. We
decided not to air condition the first floor for two reasons. The
first is that we have central air conditioning for the existing
house, and that by installing a ceiling fan on first floor that can
run backwards, we hope to pull cool air up off the floor and push it
up against the ceiling to “fall” again around the room. The second
reason was cost. We could have installed a second ductless split
air conditioner on first floor, but this would have cost almost an
additional thousand dollars, and we were worried about our budget.
Holley Schink had a history of working with ASAP, out of Winchester,
WI. They ran all of the piping that would be needed through the
chimney cavity, which seemed logical, since the odds were good that
we would never be starting a fire in the fireplace at the same time
as we were running the air conditioner. We decided to upgrade (for
an additional $400) to a higher efficiency Energy Star Mitsubishi
unit that hopefully will pay for itself through lower energy bills
through time. The
electrician was next. We had met Jason from Oimoen Electric in Blue
Mound originally when he installed the new panel in the basement.
Prior to his arrival, we revisited the lighting plan that Karl had
drawn up for us. On this plan, we had identified where all the
outlets would go, where the switches would be, where the lights
would be, what lights would be run through which switches, etc. As
we walked through the plan with Jason, he wrote on the studs what
would be connected where. In a couple of days, he had the wiring
run for everything we were hoping to do. It was amazing!
RADIANT FLOORING The
next group to come in were the radiant flooring guys. This was the
first set of contractors that we were a bit uncomfortable with. Our
builder originally chose this plumber because they had done a number
of projects together. We also were told that they had experience
putting in radiant systems. Though I had done a lot of work in
identifying what kind of system that I wanted, Roger had confidence
in the plumber’s ability to accommodate my requests. We
knew we wanted a radiant system in the house for comfort and energy
efficiency reasons. I had done quite a lot of research on radiant
systems and had decided upon a
Baxi
Luna combined boiler
to heat the water for the system. The Baxi system was made in
Canada and had only recently been introduced to the upper Midwest.
However, the reviews of early adaptors were very encouraging. The
system was one of the few systems available that was very energy
efficient (98% energy efficient) and able to provide both domestic
hot water for the upstairs bathroom and hot water for the radiant
system. The
plumber originally quoted the Quietside boiler, but it was much less
energy efficient and one that I could not find much written about.
So, we agreed at the time of the original signing of the contract to
pay the extra $1500 for the Baxi system. I believed that the
greater cost up front would result in saving money in the future as
energy prices continued to go up. I
also wanted to install a
Warmboard
system. With a Warmboard system, the subfloor has tracks for the
radiant tubes to be laid in, and before the tubes are laid, the
entire subfloor is covered in aluminum (including the tracks).
Thus, there is a continuous layer of aluminum below the tubes to
reflect the heat up. In addition, since the tracks are cut in the
subfloor (allowing the radiant tubes to be laid in the tracks), the
flooring can be installed directly above the piping. With this
arrangement, the heat merely needs to move through whatever flooring
is chosen and then into the living space. However, the plumber
originally quoted us a price that would have cost an additional
$1000 for using this system, since it would have to be brought in
from the Pacific northwest. We opted not to spend the additional
money.
However, as I came to understand the design plans for the house, the
plumber proposed installing the radiant tubes under the subfloor,
and then putting aluminum under the tubing (again, to reflect the
heat up). With
this design, heat would have to move through the subfloor, and then
our choice of flooring before entering the living space. This
seemed very inefficient to me, and also posed the dilemma of the
heat moving through the glues and binders used in the oriented
strand board (OSB ) subfloor. One
of the challenges that we were seeking to address was to eliminate
the movement of any volatile organic compounds into the living
space. We were seeking to make the house as “healthy” as possible.
One reason was that Joan frequently got migraines when exposed to
new furniture and other sources of benzene and formaldehyde.
Another reason was that we wanted to create a very healthy living
environment for our kids. Thus, designing a heating system that
moved heat through the glues and binders used in the subfloor seemed
counter intuitive. I
thus went back to Roger with a request to put Warmboard in the
house. However, when he talked to the plumber, they came back with
a budget of almost $3000 to switch to warmboard. As much as we
would have loved to use this system, it just was out of the
question. Our
next interaction with the plumber was when they submitted a price
increase to Karl for an additional $4000 for the Baxi system.
According to the plumber, the system that they designed now needed a
buffer tank and an expansion tank. As they described their need,
our system was over-designed, and had far more capacity than we
would be using. Thus, in order to avoid the continuous cycling of
the boiler (on and off), we should essentially install a storage
tank that would keep hot water in it. Even
separating out the increased cost, I was totally against creating a
system with a hot water tank. I had deliberately chosen a tankless
system, both for energy efficiency reasons and for ease of use. We
currently have a tankless hot water heater for our hot water needs,
and it has been dependable, efficient and maintenance free. Thus,
we wanted to maintain our commitment to tankless technologies. I
called the Midwest regional installation trainer for the Baxi
system. I talked to him about the need for a buffer tank and an
expansion tank. He told me, and ultimately told the plumber, that
the system comes with an internal expansion tank and for a system of
our size, no buffer tank is needed because the system will not
continuously cycle on and off. We
told Karl that we wanted to stay with the Baxi system, but without
all the additions that were being proposed. I have since heard from
others that our plumber probably underbid the system and was trying
to recover some of the money that they underbid. I don’t know that
this is true, but it certainly seems to be. At the very least, they
did not have the necessary information before they submitted a price
increase to us, since this price increase was ultimately withdrawn.
Also, during the installation of the radiant system tubing, I was
not impressed with the quality of work that was done. I pointed out
to Karl that there was no consistency in how the tubing was
terminated between each rafter, and also that the aluminum plates
(used to reflect heat up) were in some places 1 inch apart, and in
other places, 4 or 5 inches apart. Karl
checked with the plumber and got a commitment from them that all
future aluminum plates would be put no more than 1 inch a part.
However, nothing was done to correct the larger spaces that existed
in the already installed areas. We
were assured that the heat would be fine – which I believe – and
that was the bottom line. However, the bottom line for me was a
contractor that took pride in what they were doing, and did a
quality job. I still am not convinced that our plumber embraced the
idea of quality as we had come to expect with the other
subcontractors that Holly Schink used. They did enough to perform,
but seemed in “over their head” with the system that we had
requested.
BALANCING PERFECT AND GOOD ENOUGH We
frequently have faced this issue of how far should we go with the
addition. We are, after all, adding on to a leaky,
energy-inefficient, old ranch house. As much as we would like to
make the addition perfect, it would be easy to go too far. For
instance, it simply wasn’t worth it to get triple-paned
Thermotech windows
out of Canada which can be “tuned” to the side of the house that
they were on. We also decided not to insulate to an R-50 level in
the second floor ceiling, because as energy smart as that might be,
we will continue to lose a lot of heat out of the rest of the
house.
FLOORING We
tried to take an intelligent, yet practical, approach to the entire
flooring selection process. One of the nicest people that we met
during the construction process was Mark Geller of Flooring
Designs. We met Mark early on when Roger brought him along to bid
the house. At that time, we were thinking that we would include
cork flooring throughout. Mark included an initial estimate of a
bit more than $10,000 for flooring. Roger described this as a fair
offer that we should be able to work within. On a square foot
basis, we were working with a budget of $10/square foot, which was
generous. Two
things though confounded this estimate. One was a very generous
offer on Roger’s part to make the house two feet bigger than we
originally envisioned. Instead of a house which was 20 feet x 22
feet, Roger suggested making it square. He offered to add on this
additional 88 square feet (44 feet on each floor) for only an extra
$1000. He asked for this additional space to allow the stairs to
fit and fit in a door on the north wall. We
gladly accepted this offer, but did not figure in how this
additional 88 square feet would complicate the flooring budget. The
second confounding issue was our desire to redo the flooring from
the front door to the kitchen area. This area was not included in
the original budget, although it became clear from the extensiveness
of the work done in this area that a new floor would be very
desirable. (A third challenge, that I added very late in the
process, was our addition of a new floor in the existing bathroom.
We felt that as long as we were redoing all of the other floors that
needed redoing, we should replace this old vinyl floor also.) As
we considered flooring options, it became obvious that cork was the
best choice. It would absorb sound, it was more comfortable to
stand on, it was thin, allowing heat to pass through easily, and
environmentally, it was the best choice. Unfortunately, I was the
only one in the family that liked the way cork looked. I heard from
many family members that it looked like a bulletin board laid on the
floor. Thus, as good a choice as cork was, I could not sell it with
my family. We
opted for a hardwood floor, using ¾ inch hardwood. I was concerned
with how it would stand up to a radiant system, but Mark informed us
that he had put hardwood floors over radiant systems many times. He
did alert us to the fact that the seams between the boards may
expand and contract a bit during the first few years, but this was
to be expected, and we shouldn’t worry about it. We
chose a dark maple (called Century Maple) by
Kersten Lumber
for the first floor and Red Birch from
Green River Lumber
for the second floor. In addition, we put tile in the front
hallway, and tiled the second floor bath because it was no more
expensive than a linoleum type product. By essentially creating a
foyer inside the front door, we addressed a problem of how to work
with the existing hardwood floor, which we found underneath the
existing carpeting.
Kersten Lumber
is a locally owned lumber mill near Shawno, Wi. All of their wood
comes from an area that is no more than 150 miles from our house.
Green River Lumber
is further away, but is a company that specializes in FSC wood
floors. Both companies embrace the sustainability tenants that were
so much apart of what we were trying to demonstrate with the house. Our
other flooring choices included a wool carpet for the stairs and the
upstairs walk-in closet upstairs and
marmoleum
(a naturally created linoleum type floor) for the downstairs
bathroom. Finally, I did get the rest of the family to agree that
cork would be okay to put in the library (our old front room).
After we had identified all of the areas that we needed new flooring
for, Mark gave us a budget proposal that was 60% above what was
included in the contract. We were terribly disappointed, and I
started calling other wood flooring places to see what options we
might have. I then met with Mark, and told him that we simply could
not exceed our budget by such a large amount, and that we were
looking at other companies to do the installation. At that time,
Mark assured me that he wanted our business, and that he would find
a way to bring the costs down. Mark was as good as his word, and
our final budget proposal for flooring still exceeded the original
budget, but he had significantly decreased the additional amount
that we would have to pay. We were very satisfied that Mark was
really working with us, both because he wanted our business, but
also because he wanted to support what we were trying to do with the
house. At
the same time as the plumbers were putting in the radiant floor,
Jory was putting up the siding. We choose
Hardi-plank
for the siding, which is a cement and fiber board. It is very
sustainable in that it re-uses wood scraps in its construction, and
also adds R value to our insulation. It also looked like the siding
we had on the rest of the house. We could order it pre-painted, but
they could not match the paint that we had earlier used on the rest
of the house. So, we ordered something close, and the kids will
paint the rest of the house to match. Jory
also built overhangs over the south and west first floor windows
which do a wonderful job of keeping sunlight out of the windows
during the summer. We actually asked our architects to model the
angle of the sun during the summer so that our overhangs would be
wide enough to provide mid-day protection for the entire height of
the window. We found that 30 inch overhangs will shield the entire
windows at noon during the summer, thereby decreasing solar heating
of the house.
While all of this was going on, I started looking at what rebates we
would qualify for, and found that in addition to federal rebates, we
would qualify for state Focus on Energy rebates, if we first had a
home energy audit done. I contacted John Viner of Building Services
and Consultant (out of Mount Horeb) to come inspect the existing
home, do a blower door test, and provide recommendations for what
changes needed to be made to address the worst of our energy
problems in the old house. John came and took thermal images of the
house (using an infra-red camera), walked us (Karl and Robin came
for this also) through the house and did a blower door test. In
order to do the blower door test, we put up a curtain of plastic
that separated out the entire addition. This plastic did hold very
well, and could be played like a drum during the test.
During the blower door test, we discovered that air rushed down
around an old chimney that we had abandoned (it previously was used
for the furnace and hot water heater). The air rushed so quickly
down this area that it blew insulation from the attic down into the
basement. This was the major air leakage area, and Karl agreed that
Jory would air seal this when he was up in the attic addressing the
problem with venting the fan from the old bathroom.
Following the test, we were sent a report that contained a number of
recommendations. Getting the bathroom fan appropriately vented was
a major recommendation in the report. Addressing the leak around
the fireplace was another major recommendation. Karl agreed to
address these two major areas. By undertaking these changes, we
qualified for a number of rebates from the Focus on Energy program.
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS One
of the nice things to come out of this project is that we are
sensitizing many new people to the benefits of building green and
healthy. Roger incorporated many of the ideas from Robin into his
parade home (and gave her space to set up her display in the garage
of his parade home), and has committed to incorporate even more in
the future. Robin is working with Mark Geller at Flooring Design to
green his options also. Mark
now stocks a bamboo floor as one of his flooring options that he
never stocked before, and is committed to finding out more
background information about the companies that he works with.
Crescendo Design also is continuing to work with Holley Schink on
additional projects, and green building is an important component to
this additional work. Jory
was the rough carpenter that was the lead on our house. We saw Jory
nearly every day for the better part of two months. In
addition to framing, roofing and siding, he worked on developing two
arches in the kitchen that dramatically framed the pantry entrance
and a nook for shelves. He also built a small porch outside the new
backdoor and he moved a duct that terminated on what used to be the
outside wall of our house. When we changed our mind on the tub and
shower that we had picked out for the upstairs bathroom (we had not
originally chosen a whirlpool tub), Jory was the one that rebuilt a
half wall so that we could move a new whirlpool tub into place.
When we decided to add an additional window on the south wall of the
upstairs bedroom, Jory was the one that framed the new window and
then installed it. In short, Jory was the heart and hands of most
of the construction. One
Friday, he and two guys that he was working with had just started to
put up the siding on the south side of the first floor. After they
had left, we were out admiring their work. Unfortunately, the lines
on the siding weren’t straight. I called Karl and left a message
that got Jory in a bit of hot water. Jory was so apologetic when we
saw him again on Monday. He told us that he knew it wasn’t right,
but just thought he would fix it on Monday. This made us feel bad
because we were just concerned that it appeared that they were going
to leave it as it was. From that point on, as we saw things that we
had questions about, we talked to Jory and he was always willing to
help. The
final time that we saw Jory was when he built a new front step for
us. Roger had offered to have Jory build up this step since the
landing had settled and it was really a big step to get in the front
door. This was not part of the contract, but rather a thoughtful
and welcome addition that Roger and Karl included. This was in
addition to other small, but significant additions that Roger and
Karl had included. The most significant one from our perspective
was to have Jory go up in the attic to appropriately vent the bath
fan and to flash and insulate around an old chimney. These small
touches were such an important part of the overall relationship that
we remain deeply grateful to both Jory and Roger.
THE FINAL STRETCH July
arrived, and the final electrical walk through took place before the
drywall went up. We made sure that we had sufficient outlets (can
you ever have too many?), that the switches for the lights were in
places that we would expect them and that we had integrated the new
outlets and switches with the existing ones in the kitchen. Prior
to installing the insulation, we had asked Karl and Jory to make
sure all cracks, openings, etc were caulked and sealed. By
minimizing opportunities for air to move in from the outside or out
from the inside, we hoped to address temperature, moisture and
energy efficiency issues. Though it was tedious work, we trust that
it was time well spent.
Insulation was next and we installed formaldehyde free fiberglass.
We
had hoped to blow insulation into the ceiling cavity on 2nd
floor, but it just wasn’t possible with a tray ceiling. We did
insulate up to R38 in the ceiling with bats of fiberglass. A
vapor barrier went over the insulation and we were ready to put up
the walls. We learned that in a Wisconsin climate, the vapor
barrier goes on the warm side of the insulation, so for a day we
could see the insulation through a sheet of plastic. The
drywall went up quickly and we reached the crisis point with living
in the house. The
dust associated with cutting the drywall and sanding the drywall mud
was overwhelming. We had dust in every corner, in every cabinet, in
every draw and in every closet. We couldn’t eat or get a drink
without first washing the dishes. We couldn’t stay in the kitchen
because of the dust. We thus lived in the bedrooms for the next
couple of days.
Immediately after finishing the drywall, painting started. We had
asked that the swirl pattern on our existing ceiling be matched on
the new ceiling downstairs. In order to match the swirl, sand was
added to the paint and a large brush was used to create the swirls.
However, there was a marked difference between the existing ceiling
and the pattern on the new one. We asked Karl to have the painters
do it again, and I suspect that they complained about this. One
of the amazing things about building a house is that decisions that
would take days or weeks normally are made within hours or days.
For instance, once the priming was done, we needed to choose colors
for the various rooms. We had picked up paint chips but really
hadn’t made much progress on figuring out which colors we wanted
where. We knew we wanted light colors throughout, but whether we
would use a light brown, a light gray, or other light earth colors,
we hadn’t figured out. We certainly had not given any thought about
where transitions in colors would occur. Karl
was over one afternoon and told us we needed to have our colors
decided upon by the next day. We tried our best to imagine which
color would work where, but ultimately went with our best guesses.
If we would have been repainting a room in the house, we would have
agonized over this choice of colors for days or perhaps even weeks.
Another example of this distorted kind of decision-making arose with
our choice of lights. We knew where we needed lights, but we needed
to pick out which light fixtures we wanted where. We bought lights
at Menards, Home Depot, Lowes and Madison Lighting. We tried to
keep with a theme of using brushed nickel for all of the metal that
is in the house, but other than that, we picked out lights without
really knowing how they were going to look with each other. What
made it worse is that we had no lights up in the house to compare
the new lights too. So we were forced to imagine how the lights
would look when they were up, and how new lights would work with the
ones that we had already picked out. We
also agonized over the choice for a counter-top. Actually, the
whole counter-top issue was another source of small disagreement
with our builder. We knew we were adding a breakfast bar at the end
of the kitchen, so we would need a new counter-top for that. We
thought that in our original contract Roger had included replacing
the existing countertops, because we would not be able to match what
we had. We even asked Roger and Karl for countertop samples so that
we could start thinking about what would work, given that we were
not replacing our cabinets, but would be replacing the floor. As
the time grew close for ordering the countertops, Karl presented us
with a change order for additional costs for the materials, and for
additional costs for labor for replacing our existing countertop.
We had no objection for the additional cost of the materials, since
the contract contained an allowance for $700 for countertop
material, and we exceeded that amount. But, we were also being
asked to pay more than $400 for labor for installation of the
countertop. We objected to this, since we felt that it was covered
in the original contract. This issue went unresolved for a long
period of time, but ultimately Roger and Karl agreed to cover the
cost of the installation. In the end, after working with samples
for weeks, we were down to 4 choices, and finally just had to make a
choice. The
choice of a vanity for the upstairs bathroom was also a problem for
us. Included in the contract was a standard vanity from a standard
supply store. However, in talking with Robin from Healthy Homes
reports, the greatest threat to indoor air quality inevitably was
the finishes used on cabinets, vanities and other finished wood
products. Joan had experienced the off-gassing of new finishes many
times, and almost always developed migraines in response to the VOCs
(volatile organic compounds) associated with common finishes. We
thus needed to be very conscious of what was put into our house. We
talked about the possibility of sealing a vanity before it was
installed with
AFM
Safecoat Safe Seal,
which we used for all the plywood and OSB, but Robin felt that
sealing an already finished vanity would not work. We considered
looking for an old vanity, in the hopes that it would be done
off-gassing, but we didn’t really want an old vanity in our new
house. We looked at
Neil
Kelly
cabinets, which are made from sustainably harvested woods,
formaldehyde-free wheatboard, and are finished in low VOC finishes,
but we couldn’t justify the cost. Then, we stumbled upon
Marshalltown Millwork, a cabinet maker in Marshall, Wisconsin that
was experimenting with using wheatboard, and assembling cabinets
without glues, using only screws. Tom visited with Kyle Hans and
described what they were looking for. Within a day, he had a
proposal from Marshalltown for an unfinished vanity. Unfortunately,
the proposal would cost almost $1000 for a 48 inch vanity. After
further conversations, Marshalltown reduced the cost by half because
of the opportunity to include one of their new vanities in what they
hoped would be one of the greenest additions being built in the Dane
County area. The vanity arrived on-time and was finished on-site
with the
AFM
Safecoat stain
that was used for all of the woodwork, shelves, doors and windows.
The counter that was put on top was from Home Depot with a Kohler
brushed nickel faucet. The
entire family would be gone during the end of July and beginning of
August, so all decisions needed to be made before the family left.
The biggest issue that remained was converting the front living room
to a library/office. Tom had wanted floor to ceiling bookshelves in
this room from the time that he started thinking about the addition,
and our hope was that Adam, the finish carpenter that worked for
Roger and Karl would take this on as an additional project.
Unfortunately, he was tied up with another project, so we were
forced to scramble at seemingly the last minute. Karl made some
inquiries and found a cabinet maker out of Martinsdale that could
build the library. However, when we raised the issue of material
selection – seeking wheatboard and a construction technique that
avoided glues and used No-VOC finishes, we were looking at almost
$7000 for the work. At this point, Tom talked to Jon Brouchard of
Crescendo Design. We wrote earlier about the importance of the
relationships that had been established over the course of this
project. This was another instance where those relationships saved
the day. Jon recommended a cabinet maker from Suring, WI that used
all green building approaches and was comfortable with building from
a healthy homes perspective. Tom called
Paul
Yaeger
and explained that we were under the gun but we didn’t want to cut
any corners from an indoor air quality perspective. Paul agreed to
come down to take a look at the room, and prepare a bid. We
talked with Paul about our vision for the library. We showed him
the rest of the house and talked about the green building approaches
that we were using. He was excited about our committed to Green
Building and loved the idea of a library. We immediately liked Paul
and told him that so much of our project was based on finding the
right people for the project. We felt he was the right person. We
told him our budget was roughly $5000, and he promised to get back
to us with a bid. He was back within the week with some rough
drawings and a budget estimate of $5700. We exchanged ideas on the
drawings and approved them. The final piece was now in place. At
this point, Tom and Brittany left town and were gone for the next
three weeks. Joan and the rest of the kids stuck around an
additional 5 days, then she too left for two weeks. During this
final two weeks, a lot of work was to be done. A week after Tom and
Joan returned home, Tom’s parents were going to be visiting from
Arkansas and Joan’s parents would be in town to see the house. So,
there was a sense of urgency to complete the house.
During those two weeks, the painting was to be finished, the floors
would be put in, the fireplace was to be finished, the lights would
be put up, counters and shelves would be installed and the final
touches would be done. Both Tom and Joan were largely out of
contact for the time that they were gone. Upon
returning, it was clear that a lot had been done, but a lot still
needed to be done. A cleaning crew was originally scheduled to
clean on the Monday that we returned. They failed to show up, so
cleaning was largely left to us, until a cleaning service could be
lined up for Friday. Paul showed up on Tuesday with the library in
pieces and needed only two days to get the entire library
installed. The sink, which was not installed when we returned, was
installed on Tuesday, but the plumber discovered that a piece had
been broken when it was placed in the garage, so we were without a
kitchen sink for an additional two days. Given all that was going
on, being without a sink during this time was almost the last
straw. Also during this week, the plumber worked through the final
issues with the radiant heating system and shelves were installed in
the closets. We
discovered that several of the flooring tiles in the front foyer
were loose, and called Mark Geller of Flooring Design about these.
He talked to his installation guy who insisted that while we were
gone, someone must have moved the refrigerator over the tiles and
broken the seal on these tiles. When the tile installer came out to
fix them, he didn’t have enough tiles to replace all of the loose
ones, and could not adequately fix the ones that he could replace.
These flooring issues were the main recurring issues that stretched
out the end of the construction project. In
retrospect, we were incredibly lucky to have found such great people
as Jon and Kandy Brouchard, Roger Schink and Karl Fels, Jim Bradley,
Jory Jasper, Mark Geller, Paul Yeager, Robin Pharo, the Marshalltown
Millwork folks and Nathan Engstrom. We set out on a journey to
build a house that we would love, out of materials that would leave
a small footprint on the earth. At the same time, we wanted a house
that would not give Joan headaches and that could be built for no
more than a home built using traditional construction approaches.
We think we succeeded.
MANAGING A BUDGET. We worked hard to manage the budget for this
project. We shopped at home improvement stores for most of the
things we needed, but we still found ourselves participating in
increasing the budget. We started out with a budget increase of
$1200 because of the location of the underground wiring and the need
to move it. We increased the flooring budget by almost $3000 when
we decided to redo more of the flooring on the first floor. Another
big change that we made was in adding a whirlpool tub instead of a
regular bathtub. This added approximately $1500 to the budget. We
also added an extra window on second floor for an additional $400
once we saw how the room was laid out. We increased the efficiency
of the ductless air conditioner for $400. There were many other
changes, some anticipated and others that we didn’t anticipate.
However, overall, we ended up ten percent over budget – which is
where we had heard from a number of people we would end up.
However, without an exception, the changes that we made ensured the
quality, and were consistent with the vision that we started with.
So, take heed. Develop your budget. Fight like crazy to stay
within that budget. But, acknowledge that despite your best
efforts, you will spend roughly ten percent more than what you had
anticipated. This arises because you just can’t think of everything
when you are negotiating the initial contract. It’s not your fault,
and it’s not the fault of your contractor. They can’t see into the
future any better than what you can. Acknowledge that you can’t be
perfect, and if you want your project done right, you’ll need ten
percent more than was originally budgeted.
Starting into this project, the common estimate for an addition was
to multiply $150 times the number of square feet that were being
added. We added 968 square feet. Thus, our budget should have been
$145,000. However, in addition to the square footage that we added,
we also extensively remodeled an additional 800 square feet. When
figuring that the total house area impacted by the construction was
between 1700 and 1800 square feet, we found our total budget ended
up around $75/square foot, proving that you can build green and
healthy and spend no more than if you would have hired a quality
contractor using traditional approaches.
STAYING ON SCHEDULE Karl was a wonderful liaison to work
through on this project. However, there were times when we were a
bit frustrated with the progress and we inserted ourselves into the
mix to move things along. In retrospect, I now realize that Karl
was doing a ton of work behind the scenes, but often, we found
ourselves scheduling meetings with Karl, or identifying work that
should be done, or identifying contractors that should be here. In
short, we kept pushing our project to stay close to being on
schedule.
Through Karl’s hard work, we did stay close to on schedule. As
described above, we lost almost two weeks when we discovered that
the buried electrical line ran right through the area we were set to
excavate. We lost at least another week when the rains came, and we
requested that the framing be allowed to dry out before closing
everything in. We lost bits of time here and there when contractors
that were next in line failed to show up. But, all in all, probably
between 80 and 90% of the days when there was work to do, someone
was there doing it. This is the fabulous behind-the-scenes work
that Karl (and Roger) did. A
week after we returned from vacation, Tom’s parents were due to
visit to see the house. This became the driving drop dead date for
getting everything done. We did in fact make this date (with some
very minor work that was put off for after they left). The key to
staying as close to the initial schedule as we did was in continuing
to work together, staying in touch virtually every day and asking
about what happens when. Staying on schedule, can be done!
GREEN BUILT HOME CHECKLISTS – POINTS When the original contract
was drawn up, Tom had asked for Holley Schink to commit to building
a house that would score at least 90 points on the Green Built Home
checklist for additions and remodeling. This represented 50% more
than the minimum needed to qualify as a Green Built Home addition.
Roger avoided committing to a particular number, but did agree to
work toward maximizing our final score. Tom was a bit concerned by
this, but we had confidence in Roger and believed that they really
would work with us to maximize our score.
Throughout the process, we talked about “points” at many different
turns, and it became kind of a joke with our children that dad was
only doing something because he could get points for it. About
halfway through the project, Karl did a preliminary calculation, and
it looked like we would be just over the 90 points that we
established as our initial goal. Once
we were close to 90, we thought, why not try for 100 points. 100
sounded like a nice number, and we found that the highest scoring
addition at that point had scored 97 points. We could have the
“greenest” addition ever scored under the Green Built Home
criteria!
Given all that was happening with the house during the last month,
we didn’t return to the scoring, and we were hoping that we could
find a way to get over 100 points. It wasn’t until after we were
all done, and Tom’s parents had left, that Karl and Tom sat down
again to total the points. On a
Friday afternoon in early September, Tom and Karl sat down and
worked through the scoresheets. They found points that they had
missed initially, and it felt like we would exceed the old record.
When we finally finished and went back to add the totals from each
of the sections, it was time to start getting excited. We had not
only scored more than the greenest addition that had previously
existed, we had scored more than 100 points. More than 110 points.
More even than 120 points. And we kept adding. We passed 130
points, and then – amazingly 140 points. When we parted that
afternoon, we were at 142 points, with several areas where more
points were possible, once Karl checked on such things as the
recycled content of our drywall. A couple of days later, Karl came
back with an additional 7 points, for a total of 149 points. The
one area that was left to get some additional points was to have a
post-construction evaluation of the amount of air that leaked into
the whole house. If we would have improved by 20% we would receive
an additional 2 points. Unfortunately, our air leakage rate stayed
pretty much the same, and we did not get the additional 2 points.
However, we had shattered the record of the previous greenest
addition, and we were close to the record for the greenest house
that had ever been built under the green built home scoring system.
We fell only 25 points below this. We
would heartily recommend using the checklists as they really kept us
focused on energy efficiency, building a healthy home and sourcing
building material from responsible companies committed to
sustainability. Hopefully, others in the future will be building
greener additions and taking what we have done and extending it ever
further. Good
luck to all of you who tackle the project of building a green house
or addition in the future. It was an amazing experience, filled
with highs and lows, tough decisions, and awe at what is being
created before your eyes. It was a privilege to work with an
amazing team of people, and we hope to stay in contact with many of
these folks. We
wish you luck and patience and a sense of wonder for what you are
creating.
Sustainably yours, Tom and Joan Eggert *
Tom Eggert teaches classes on sustainable development, corporate
social responsibility and the changing relationship between
businesses and society through the Business School at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. He also works with the Department of Natural
Resource’s Bureau of Cooperative Environmental Assistance as the
Eastern Wisconsin Environmental Assistance Coordinator. In this
position, he meets with businesses, trade associations, local
governments and other institutions, promoting the Green Tier program
and other environmental innovation type approaches. Tom has written
and spoken on issues related to Green Building, and this addition
was the opportunity that he was looking for to learn first hand
about what is possible and what it costs. He can be contacted at
tleggert@wisc.edu.
With
four children and two dogs in a 1960 ranch house on the southwest
side of Madison, it had become evident that it was time to add more
space. Our paramount need was an additional bathroom. Continuing
to survive with one bathroom was becoming more and more difficult.
In addition, the boys (ages 10 and 12) continue to share a bedroom
that was too small to have both beds on the floor. They each needed
their own bedroom and space to spread out in. In addition, Tom and
Joan needed an additional closet for Tom’s clothes, so he didn’t
need to go into the boys’ room every morning to get clothes out of
their closet.
The
solution was to add a family room and a master bedroom/bath suite.
Many configurations for this addition were developed by the award
winning design firm
Crescendo Design.
Crescendo Design, with offices near Manitowoc, and in Madison,
specializes in energy efficient, green residential design. They
established their green credentials by entering William McDonough’s
Cradle to Cradle home design competition
and having their design chosen as one of those that would be built.
Crescendo Design developed several ideas for us. The design that we
liked the most, and which ultimately met all of the design criteria
that we set, was a two story addition, with the family room on the
first floor and the master bedroom suite on the second floor. This
addition will extend a 200 ft2 addition that was put on
20 years ago and additional 22 feet out into our back yard. The
addition will essentially make the ranch house into a “T”. From the
cul de sac that we live on, you will see the front of the ranch,
then rising up over the ridge of the roof will be the second story
of the addition.
The
addition will add 484 square feet on each floor (the addition will
be 22 x 22), for a total addition of 968 ft2. The total
size of the house at completion will be a bit over 2400 ft2.
By
building a two story box (22 feet by 22 feet) we simplified the
construction and minimized the construction costs. The result is
open, bright rooms in the house. In addition to adding space, we
also remodeled a good share of our existing space. The kitchen now
looks out into the family room, and part of the kitchen was
converted to a pantry. The existing living room was converted into
an office/library, creating a quiet space for family members to go
to study, work on the computer, read, etc. The entrance hallway was
converted into a foyer, and one existing closet was expanded and a
new closet was added. In essence, we changed the look of the house
from the moment someone walks in.
