Posts Tagged ‘Contractors’

If you’ve been to a house that was recently done up (in a rather fashionable manner) – you might have found a lot of small whitish lights used in places where the conventional bulbs and CFLs used to be. These tiny things are LED (Light Emitting Diodes) a new entrant in the field of home lighting.
LED is a certain type of lighting device which is being increasing used in homes for many reasons. Largely, they are used more for decorative purposes, but their efficiency and long-life as compared to other fluorescent and incandescent lamps have led to LED using lamps to be used as the main source of light in a house.
The main factor working in LED’s favour is its efficiency. Unlike regular bulbs and fluorescent lights, which waste almost 90% of the energy they consume in the form of heat, LED release very little heat, using up most of the energy to produce light. Thus, its input/output ratio is quite high, and typically LED’s last about 20,000 to 35,000 light hours (compared to CFLs which last 15,000-20,000 hours and incandescent bulbs which last about 1000-2000 hours). This makes them an extremely cost-effective option, when compared to other forms of lighting.
To add to this, LED is available in a variety of colours and can be used very effectively for home decor. Also, LED is a point source of light. Which means if LED lighting is recessed into a wall, all the light it emits will go straight ahead into the room? When incandescent bulbs are recessed, only a fraction of the light will actually make it into the room.

Many times we come across home owners who plan the remodeling extensively and are very scrupulous about what changes they want and what kind of a contractor they’re looking for. However, the important part that most overlook is the actual ‘remodeling’ process. Remodeling can become quite inconvenient, because you’re still living in the house, while it is being torn down and built up simultaneously. A lot of families, especially the large ones, feel like they’ve been hit by a hurricane and eventually get very tired and irritated with the entire process. Here’s what you can do to make things easier:

1. With your contractor, chalk out areas of the house that the family can use and ones that will be worked on, phase by phase. Explain these areas to the family.
2. Keep essential items that your family will need in these areas, and move all other items, including furniture out – in your basement or garage.
3. A few days, or weeks before the remodeling begins, ask friends and relatives if you could use their basement or garage to store all the furniture that you will need to move out. Arrange for packers and movers or some neighborhood help.
4. Make sure the contractor explains to his workers which areas are off limits. Also make sure that the workers know if you want them not to smoke, drink, blare music or swear when they’re working in your house.
5. Try and get someone to watch toddlers full-time, if you cannot. If you have a dog, leash train them, so that they won’t disturb the workers and harm themselves.

When you finally meet a few green remodeling contractors who fit your bill, you need to discuss certain things with them in order to know which one of them you would want to trust your house to. This is a crucial junction, at which you can do a lot to ensure that the remodeling project goes off smoothly, and you get exactly the house you want. Asking the right kind of questions will help you make this possible.

1. Can he provide References: Always check a contractor’s past clients. If possible, check out the homes he has remodeled. This will give you an idea about his style and also directly get to meet with the clients. It is also important that this past project happened in the near past.
2. Is he a member of any trade association: This will ensure that your contractor has a verifiable and authentic background.
3. Why he is in this business: Green building requires a certain type of contractor. He’s got to have some environmentalist streak in him, in order to be a genuine green builder. From his answer you will be able to judge if he seems to be the genuine type.
4. Will he also get permits if required: Almost always remodeling projects require permits from local authorities. If your contractor can offer this, then it’s a huge task taken off your shoulders.
The NARI website also provides a good list of questions that you could ask contractors before selecting one.

The ORO coating complete

August 13 2009

“When you start looking and keep your mind open – you’ll be amazed at the number of options you really have.”

This is something we learned on one of our custom homes projects. With green building, one really finds many viable and better alternatives if one looks long and hard enough. Take the case of this current project. One of the issues builders always face while building or remodeling is how to ensure stability of the house in a seismic zone like the one in Olympia. Using quality building material is, of course, a must — but not enough. Conventionally we’ve been using cement-based stucco to go apply an exterior finish to ICFs, (insulated concrete forms) but since it is cement-based, it normally tends to crack in the event of movement which happens to all houses here in all the Northwest. We found the answer in Oro coating.

Oro coatings is a synthetic stucco system, that can be used in place of traditional stucco to provide great coating, finishing, stability, adhesiveness and pliability which makes it the perfect stucco system for homes that are prone to damages during settling, due to seismic shocks and due to thermal expansion. However, most of all, 48% of this system is made from recycled or reclaimed materials and is 100% acrylic resin-based with no cement. One of the four components of Oro coatings is reclaimed rubber which contributes to its pliability. The entire system consists of a base, prime and top coat in 24 different colors, three textures and custom colors. We realized later that using Oro coatings also helps us gain credits for LEED certification. Our designer Tessa Smith had us router some clover details on the walls, which look absolutely fabulous with the Oro stucco. To know more about the Oro coatings, you can visit their website: http://www.orocoatings.com

The other great thing we learned on this project was related to insulation. Traditionally, attics are hardly ever heated. With this home, the attic was quite small with a shallow sloping roof. There were three things that needed to be taken care of. First, the heat recovery ventilator was to be installed inside of the attic, which meant additional insulation for its duct work. Secondly, because the attic was small, it would be impossible to have use blown in insulation due to  limited access. This meant we would have to use batt style insulation installed between the bottom cords of the trusses. No matter how good of a job your installers do, with this type of installation you always get air gaps, which allows heat to escape. Thirdly, if the framing members, ( 2 x 4 bottom cords) are not covered completely, (which is always the case when you use batts), a thermal bridge is created. In the absence of proper insulation, heat escapes easily through the wood member. We solved all three problems together using 2 lb foam spray insulation on the underside of the roof deck. This created a conditioned space within the entire attic. Thus, there is no need for insulating the duct work for the ventilator, since the entire ventilator now lives with in the conditioned space. Next, it takes care of the gaps that will result out of the batt style insulation, since the foam expands as it is applied and  penetrates into every gap in the framing members thus eliminating  all air gaps. Thirdly, since it is five inches thick, it covers all of the plywood roof sheeting and the top cord trusses member thus eliminating the possibility of thermal bridging. All in all, we have a very tight house that should be very inexpensive to heat.

In the next few weeks the drywall gets installed as well as the exterior hand rails and window sills.

The Red clovers really add to the look of the house

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Design-build is a method or system of managing and delivering a construction project, by which one single contractor will take care of both the designing and the building. The alternative to this system is the design-bid-build system by which the owner would have to contract separately for the design phase and then for the construction with two separate entities.

The design-build system holds one individual usually the architect or a contractor, as the central figure, responsible for overseeing the entire project. This has obvious advantages for the owner – he has to interact only with one individual, co-ordination is easier and time is better managed. The design-build contractor or firm will strive to streamline the entire process of designing (drawing up plans), construction planning, obtaining permits, etc. Because of this streamlining, activities can easily be overlapped – construction on parts can begin even while the designing is in process. At times, the main contractor may involve other organizations on the project with him, but in those cases too, the contractor will be the one dealing with them.

This overlapping offers flexibility to make changes to the design of the house, while construction is in process. With the popular design-bid-build system, this isn’t possible, since construction can begin only once the blue prints are finalized. Thus, for a home remodeling projects, wherein owners may want to try out different ideas the design-build system offers a lot of freedom.