...is on everyone's mind right now, and I'll mention two areas where it intersects strongly with matters of home.
First, the urge to conserve fuel will lead many homeowners to look into insulation upgrades, air sealing, and replacement of aged (20 years old and up) heating plants-all of which will pay themselves back in dollars and comfort. I was happy to see experts recently cited by the Boston Globe strongly advise against window replacement (a pet peeve of mine, as readers of previous newsletters may recall). Payback for such a move occurs about 30+ years out, after the new windows may very well have failed. (Did you know that 30% of the windows being replaced these days are less than 10 years old?) Boston.com offers an interactive site as well as the full article, worth reading.
Second, for those fortunate enough to have money available for renovation work, now is an exceptionally good time to be in the market. Architects and builders are available, attentive, and many are cutting their fees. The only risk is that in their eagerness, certain ones can overpromise and may be tempted to recoup some on the margins later in the project. That's where knowing people's reputations comes into play and why having, say, a renovation consultant on board would be a good idea.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Green Day
October 4 was a glorious and appropriately sunny day for the Green Buildings Open House, a national event whose Massachusetts segment was hosted by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA). I visited several houses outfitted with sustainable energy sources, two of which deserve special mention.
The first was owned by a delightful guy named Bob Gagnon, who is a plumber by day and a do-it-yourself engineer by nights and weekends. He has outfitted his little Colonial with an immense amount of radiant tubing-in floors, walls, and ceilings--through which he pumps water warmed by two different types of solar collectors, the old-school homemade box kind, really just a bunch of black-painted copper tubes in a black-painted box, and an array of up-to-the-minute vacuum tubes. With huge water tanks in his basement to serve as banks for the heat he harvests, he now heats his home and gets his domestic hot water completely free of his boiler. The lesson he's learned is that solar-derived hot water matches perfectly with the lower water temperatures required by radiant heat. He explains his commonsensical approach at: www.bobgagnon.com/SolarRadiationPage.htm
While I was there, another visitor told his own sustainable energy story. He'd just installed a photovoltaic array on his roof that takes care of all his electrical needs and then some, which he sells back to the electrical utility. It cost about $30,000 to install, but he got $15,000 worth of rebates and tax credits (Massachusetts has a clean-energy fund homeowners can draw on and, as you may know, the federal solar tax credit was given an 8-year extension in the recent $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.) He estimated he'd be making money off his roof in about 7 years.
The other house caught my attention for a couple of reasons. Not only was it a killer brick-end Federal from the 1800s, it was heated and cooled by a ground-source heat pump, aka a geothermal system, powered by solar electricity. While deeply cutting a home's use of fossil fuels, one flaw in geothermal systems (aside from the costs of drilling deep holes in the ground) is that their pumps use quite a bit of electricity, which partly negates the greenness of the application. Solar electricity closes that loop, and it was wonderful to see an antique building with a state-of-the-art heart ticking away inside.
An aside: this particular house was perched on a hill in the countryside, with its solar array laid out in the back yard. I'm a member of the Cambridge (Mass.) Historical Commission, and we're seeing more and more cases of people seeking permission to mount solar power equipment on their (often historic) roofs; most if not all get approved. I think there's a strong sense that a certain energy future has arrived and accommodations should be made for it.
Final note: NESEA puts out a very good magazine called Northeast Sun; the fall 2008 issue features a fairly exhaustive "sustainable green pages" of 35 green building specialties-from Alternative Technologies to Windows. Click here for more information.
The first was owned by a delightful guy named Bob Gagnon, who is a plumber by day and a do-it-yourself engineer by nights and weekends. He has outfitted his little Colonial with an immense amount of radiant tubing-in floors, walls, and ceilings--through which he pumps water warmed by two different types of solar collectors, the old-school homemade box kind, really just a bunch of black-painted copper tubes in a black-painted box, and an array of up-to-the-minute vacuum tubes. With huge water tanks in his basement to serve as banks for the heat he harvests, he now heats his home and gets his domestic hot water completely free of his boiler. The lesson he's learned is that solar-derived hot water matches perfectly with the lower water temperatures required by radiant heat. He explains his commonsensical approach at: www.bobgagnon.com/SolarRadiationPage.htm
While I was there, another visitor told his own sustainable energy story. He'd just installed a photovoltaic array on his roof that takes care of all his electrical needs and then some, which he sells back to the electrical utility. It cost about $30,000 to install, but he got $15,000 worth of rebates and tax credits (Massachusetts has a clean-energy fund homeowners can draw on and, as you may know, the federal solar tax credit was given an 8-year extension in the recent $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.) He estimated he'd be making money off his roof in about 7 years.
The other house caught my attention for a couple of reasons. Not only was it a killer brick-end Federal from the 1800s, it was heated and cooled by a ground-source heat pump, aka a geothermal system, powered by solar electricity. While deeply cutting a home's use of fossil fuels, one flaw in geothermal systems (aside from the costs of drilling deep holes in the ground) is that their pumps use quite a bit of electricity, which partly negates the greenness of the application. Solar electricity closes that loop, and it was wonderful to see an antique building with a state-of-the-art heart ticking away inside.
An aside: this particular house was perched on a hill in the countryside, with its solar array laid out in the back yard. I'm a member of the Cambridge (Mass.) Historical Commission, and we're seeing more and more cases of people seeking permission to mount solar power equipment on their (often historic) roofs; most if not all get approved. I think there's a strong sense that a certain energy future has arrived and accommodations should be made for it.
Final note: NESEA puts out a very good magazine called Northeast Sun; the fall 2008 issue features a fairly exhaustive "sustainable green pages" of 35 green building specialties-from Alternative Technologies to Windows. Click here for more information.
Three Good Things on the Market
1. It's not often you buy a floor, but the best engineered floor on the market, in my opinion, is made by Listone Giordano, out of Perugia, Italy. Engineered floors are essentially high-end plywood, which makes them very stable and thus a great choice over radiant heat and/or concrete (as well as bathrooms and kitchens). The top layer is the wood you see, and since it goes down to the tongue just like any solid tongue-and-groove flooring, it will stand many sandings. Fact is, however, that such sandings will be few and far between: the factory-applied finishes offered with these floors are longer-lasting than those done in the field. Listone Giordano, for example, uses an 8-coat UV-cured finish that comes with a 25-year wear-through warrantee.
One rap against prefinished flooring is the annoying "microbevel," or eased edge, that sits between the planks. Micro or not, they make the floor look, well, manufactured. Listone Giordano does away with that by cutting the plank edges square after the finish is applied; installed, the square edges butt up against each other dead smooth, like a traditional sanded-in-place floor. The wood species and the finishes, including a very sexy one of natural oil, are gorgeous.
I recently visited the Boston-area showroom (there are about a dozen around the country) and was impressed by the floors and the know-how of the Moss brothers, who run the place. Tucked away in a mini mall in Danvers (not a bad destination, actually, for those on the house furnishings hunt, as InnuWindow, California Closets, Heartwood Kitchens, Eastern Butcher Block, and Circle Furniture also have stores there), the showroom features floors you don't usually see. Planks 5 1/2" wide, tropical woods like afzelia, morado, and sirari, straight-grained French maple, reclaimed heart-pine. The stuff ain't cheap, nor should it be-prices range from about $6/square foot for single-length French white oak to $18 for some of the wider and more exotic products. No wonder a couple of our beloved Red Sox have these floors in their homes. www.europeanwoodfloors.com
2. One of the best field trips we ever took on This Old House was to the Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper factory out in Benicia, California. Sensuous, silk-screened, and handmade on 90-foot tables, Bradbury papers are considered the gold standard for period appropriate walls, from Arts and Crafts to their new "Mod Generation" line from the 1960s (take a detour on the website to check these latter babies out).
The latest thing to come out of the studio is fabric, in three William Morris-inspired motifs of sunflowers, willow fronds, and acanthus leaves. Having never done much on the fabric front, I don't know how often one might change drapes, pillows and table runners, but these may spur you to do so sooner rather than later.
3. You'll recall the hoopla around compact fluorescent lights-major savings, if everyone used them greenhouse gases would drop significantly, etc. Then we found out that the light quality wasn't so great and there was this nasty problem about throwing them away, what with the mercury they contain. The light quality and dimmability have greatly improved, but the mercury remains.
Now comes what a Department of Energy official predicts will save Americans $280 billion in energy costs over the next 20 years and will, by the end of that period, account for 70% of the lighting market. Enter LEDs, light-emitting diodes. They use 85% less electricity and last 30 times as long as incandescent bulbs...but they cost about 5 times more. That's to be expected for something at the beginning of its manufacturing history, but with prices falling about 25% every year, lumen output (brightness) per watt rising, and increasing product quality and diversity, it's pretty clear LEDs will be in your home soon.
To learn more, I went Wolfers Lighting in Allston, Massachusetts, to see their new "Green Zone," which shows various lighting sources, their relative merits, and gives tips about energy savings. Lighting designer Susan Arnold admits she's still learning the LED ropes. "Keeping heat away from the diode is key to longevity," she says, "so all the products have large heat sinks, usually metal fins, incorporated into them." That makes them bulky; though some can be screwed into standard sockets like a regular lamp, many are full-on lighting systems with an AC/DC power converter and heat sink separated from the light source. But since they won't be burning out for at least 8 to 10 years, replacing them won't a big part of living with them.
My experience with LEDs is that while some are simply not ready for prime time-weak light for a silly price-others are legit. The color is good and the lumens are there. Give the market another year or so, and I'll bet compact fluorescents will no longer be the future.
In the meantime, here's something I learned at the Green Zone and am imposing on my family: dimming a light, any light, by 25% saves 20% on the electric bill and quadruples the lamp's life. Which, by translating into money saved, brings this newsletter to its full-circle close. Almost.
One rap against prefinished flooring is the annoying "microbevel," or eased edge, that sits between the planks. Micro or not, they make the floor look, well, manufactured. Listone Giordano does away with that by cutting the plank edges square after the finish is applied; installed, the square edges butt up against each other dead smooth, like a traditional sanded-in-place floor. The wood species and the finishes, including a very sexy one of natural oil, are gorgeous.
I recently visited the Boston-area showroom (there are about a dozen around the country) and was impressed by the floors and the know-how of the Moss brothers, who run the place. Tucked away in a mini mall in Danvers (not a bad destination, actually, for those on the house furnishings hunt, as InnuWindow, California Closets, Heartwood Kitchens, Eastern Butcher Block, and Circle Furniture also have stores there), the showroom features floors you don't usually see. Planks 5 1/2" wide, tropical woods like afzelia, morado, and sirari, straight-grained French maple, reclaimed heart-pine. The stuff ain't cheap, nor should it be-prices range from about $6/square foot for single-length French white oak to $18 for some of the wider and more exotic products. No wonder a couple of our beloved Red Sox have these floors in their homes. www.europeanwoodfloors.com
2. One of the best field trips we ever took on This Old House was to the Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper factory out in Benicia, California. Sensuous, silk-screened, and handmade on 90-foot tables, Bradbury papers are considered the gold standard for period appropriate walls, from Arts and Crafts to their new "Mod Generation" line from the 1960s (take a detour on the website to check these latter babies out).
The latest thing to come out of the studio is fabric, in three William Morris-inspired motifs of sunflowers, willow fronds, and acanthus leaves. Having never done much on the fabric front, I don't know how often one might change drapes, pillows and table runners, but these may spur you to do so sooner rather than later.
3. You'll recall the hoopla around compact fluorescent lights-major savings, if everyone used them greenhouse gases would drop significantly, etc. Then we found out that the light quality wasn't so great and there was this nasty problem about throwing them away, what with the mercury they contain. The light quality and dimmability have greatly improved, but the mercury remains.
Now comes what a Department of Energy official predicts will save Americans $280 billion in energy costs over the next 20 years and will, by the end of that period, account for 70% of the lighting market. Enter LEDs, light-emitting diodes. They use 85% less electricity and last 30 times as long as incandescent bulbs...but they cost about 5 times more. That's to be expected for something at the beginning of its manufacturing history, but with prices falling about 25% every year, lumen output (brightness) per watt rising, and increasing product quality and diversity, it's pretty clear LEDs will be in your home soon.
To learn more, I went Wolfers Lighting in Allston, Massachusetts, to see their new "Green Zone," which shows various lighting sources, their relative merits, and gives tips about energy savings. Lighting designer Susan Arnold admits she's still learning the LED ropes. "Keeping heat away from the diode is key to longevity," she says, "so all the products have large heat sinks, usually metal fins, incorporated into them." That makes them bulky; though some can be screwed into standard sockets like a regular lamp, many are full-on lighting systems with an AC/DC power converter and heat sink separated from the light source. But since they won't be burning out for at least 8 to 10 years, replacing them won't a big part of living with them.
My experience with LEDs is that while some are simply not ready for prime time-weak light for a silly price-others are legit. The color is good and the lumens are there. Give the market another year or so, and I'll bet compact fluorescents will no longer be the future.
In the meantime, here's something I learned at the Green Zone and am imposing on my family: dimming a light, any light, by 25% saves 20% on the electric bill and quadruples the lamp's life. Which, by translating into money saved, brings this newsletter to its full-circle close. Almost.
But Not before the Shameless Self-Promotion Bit
I was recently on Nate Berkus's Oprah & Friends XM radio show. He is indeed one of Oprah's friends, and her favorite interior design guy, and we had a great chat about setting expectations, cost control, and other renovation-related things. Here's a link to the show-you can read a summary or hit "listen" to hear part of the interview.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Happy spring
I will abjure lame jokes about greenness and the new season and instead move right into an admission that will probably not ingratiate me to some of you.
Truth is, I’ve been a skeptic about many aspects of the green building movement. My eyebrow arches when, for example, someone uses bamboo flooring (which is held together with lots and lots of glue, often containing formaldehyde, and is shipped to the US on bunker-oil-burning ships) to floor a new “green” 11,000 sq. ft. house. Tough too to get on board when magazines feature low-VOC paints on one page and walk-in showers with multiple heads and bodywashers on another. Greenwashing, marketing whatever’s hot, and just trying to make ourselves feel better as we change almost nothing about our consumption habits—the suspicion of these plus the thought that a year’s worth of green living is negated by 2 minutes’ operation of a coal-powered electricity plant….you get the picture.
But after my time in the desert of cynicism, I’ve been reminded that every little bit helps, and just because larger forces are at work doesn’t mean we do nothing as individuals—as long as we keep lobbying against the big stuff, like coal-powered electricity plants. To this point, “Why Bother?”, Michael Pollan’s excellent piece in The New York Times Magazine of April 20, is worth a read.
Truth is, I’ve been a skeptic about many aspects of the green building movement. My eyebrow arches when, for example, someone uses bamboo flooring (which is held together with lots and lots of glue, often containing formaldehyde, and is shipped to the US on bunker-oil-burning ships) to floor a new “green” 11,000 sq. ft. house. Tough too to get on board when magazines feature low-VOC paints on one page and walk-in showers with multiple heads and bodywashers on another. Greenwashing, marketing whatever’s hot, and just trying to make ourselves feel better as we change almost nothing about our consumption habits—the suspicion of these plus the thought that a year’s worth of green living is negated by 2 minutes’ operation of a coal-powered electricity plant….you get the picture.
But after my time in the desert of cynicism, I’ve been reminded that every little bit helps, and just because larger forces are at work doesn’t mean we do nothing as individuals—as long as we keep lobbying against the big stuff, like coal-powered electricity plants. To this point, “Why Bother?”, Michael Pollan’s excellent piece in The New York Times Magazine of April 20, is worth a read.
Three Good Sources for Green Building Products
- For folks in the Boston area, F.D. Sterritt Lumber in Watertown, Mass., was the first retail lumberyard in New England to receive FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) chain of custody certification, and after a slow start, business has grown 200% since 2005. Jack Mackin, third-generation operator, and his partner Clayton Schuller stock FSC-certified hardwoods and plywood, a full line of low-VOC adhesives and caulking. Their lastest green product is a heavy-metal-free pressure-treated lumber called Wolmanized L3 Outdoor Wood.
- A spinoff of the traditional building supply company MarJam, Green Depot has been around since 2005 and has five showrooms with 15 distribution centers up and down the East Coast. They report a customer-push situation—with homeowners leading the charge into non-toxic cleaning products, paints, adhesives, carpets and other low-VOC products . Conservation of natural resources comes in second as a topic of concern, leading customers to choose plant-based (rather than petroleum-derived) products such as bamboo, cork and FSC-certified wood flooring, as well as natural linoleum. [As an aside, I’m a huge fan of linoleum, having seen it manufactured and knowing you could probably eat it for breakfast, it’s so natural. It also wears like iron. One brand worth checking out is Marmoleum.]
- And in Braintree, Massachusetts, is GreenSource Supply and Design, where founder/CEO Robert Botelho makes a point of vetting each and every product he sells, often to the point of visiting the plant. I met him at this year’s Building Energy trade show in Boston, and he impressed me with his intimate knowledge of green products and how they’re made.
A couple of hot sellers in the green retail space
- IceStone Pavers are manufactured in Brooklyn, New York from 100% post-industrial waste – for interior and exterior use in patios, walkways, bathroom floors, gardens, shower surrounds, and more. Essentially, IceStone Pavers are double-recycled, as they are constructed from the broken pieces and overruns from IceStone's 100% post-consumer recycled glass countertop manufacturing process. That said, remember that no material is perfect, and IceStone, despite its many accolades, still contains concrete, a very energy-intensive thing to make.
- Kährs QuietStride Underlayment is manufactured from 90% post-consumer recycled tires, which are ground up into scrap, bonded with latex, and adhered to a fiberglass/cellulose backing using a low-VOC adhesive. A typical discarded truck tire yields enough recycled rubber to produce about 40 square feet of underlayment. QuietStride is used as a soundproofing layer under hardwood or engineered flooring, with excellent acoustical abatement.
Going Whole Hog
If a brand-new green house is on your shopping list, a very interesting company is Zero Energy Design. Based out of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and working all over the world, it’s a company of architects, mechanical engineers, and financial analysts who bring a rigorous cost-benefit approach to the task of green design and building. I heard about them when I saw their design for a 7000-square-foot house being built on Cape Cod (which I will be writing about in an upcoming issue of Design New England). Not only is the building beautiful, but it will produce as much energy as it consumes over any given year.
A new service they offer is a $900 “renovation recommendation” tailored to your home—it includes product recommendations, analyses of various HVAC and photovoltaic installation scenarios, and prescriptions for improved indoor air quality and energy and water conservation.
A new service they offer is a $900 “renovation recommendation” tailored to your home—it includes product recommendations, analyses of various HVAC and photovoltaic installation scenarios, and prescriptions for improved indoor air quality and energy and water conservation.
Geothermal Made Clearer
I’ve helped several of my clients investigate geothermal heating and cooling systems over the past couple of years, and we’ve been amazed at how complex and diffuse the trail of information is. Apparently we aren’t the only ones, as a new company called HeatSpring Energy has sprung up to act as a clearinghouse for all matters geothermal. Based in Cambridge, they bring educational and training courses to professionals and homeowners around the country, as well as publishing a contractor “green pages.”
And Most Importantly….
Give your house good insulation, especially in the roof, and an efficient heating and cooling plant. Since 50-70% of a home’s energy goes to heating and cooling it, you will be well on your way to being green. And don’t forget: renovating is recycling at its best.
Meanwhile, on the Self-Promotion Front…
It seems like the idea of renovation consulting is gaining traction. The New York Times ran a story in March that profiled me and a few other likeminded, like-businessed souls across the country, New England Cable News interviewed me recently about my services, and the CBS Early Show is planning on following me around one of these days. In each case, the journalist has clued in on the value of having an objective observer participating in the process. The metaphors fly fast and thick (You’re like a wedding planner! You’re like a marriage counselor!), but the consensus is that every party at the table (husband, wife, architect, builder) has a better chance of being heard if there’s someone there to keep the communication flowing. It helps when that person has been through lots of projects, because perspective is very helpful in the thick of things.
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