Posts Tagged ‘Design Build’

Remodeling – The Home Plan

Truth be told, when homeowners start off with remodeling their home; they have no idea as to what they actually want the home to look like, unless they know something about construction and architecture. Normally, they will wait till the contractor draws up certain plans, and then will generally approve or disapprove with little conviction in either case. So, when your contractor approaches you with the plans, this is what you should be noticing, and asking:

1. First and most important identify how family members use the rooms. The space requirement and positioning of rooms should be made accordingly in the plans. For example, does your wife take the kids’ lessons while cooking? If so, then the kitchen must be large enough to accommodate the wife’s requirements and sit the kids comfortably while they study. Similarly, if you work from home in the study, then you need to have the bathrooms close by. Or if you like entertaining guests every weekend, the living room needs to be large enough.
2. Keeping the family’s requirements in mind, is the house plan as eco-friendly as it could be? Ask your contractor to explain how much energy the new house will save as compared to the old house and if changes in the plan could make it better or worse. Don’t worry; contractors are more than happy answering questions.
3. How easy will it be to maintain the house, keeping in mind the time you have, and the environmental conditions?

Remodeling itself can be done in two different ways: The design-bid-build process, in which case you hire one designer to draw up the plans for the house, and then hire a builder to remodel the house according to those plans or the design-build process, in which one architect or contractor handles the designing and the remodeling together. Ideally, you want to select a contractor who works on the design-build basis. Why? Find that out on our post about design-build.

Other than that, you can use tried an trusted methods, like speaking to people who have remodeled their house before and also checking with local remodeling contractors. An important point to know here is that a remodeling contractor is different from a builder who also does remodeling. You want to ensure that you take the services of a remodeling contractor – since building is a completely different ball game.

You can take the help of associations like NARI (National Association of The Remodeling Industry) or the USGBC (US Green Building Corporation). Their websites will inform you on how to locate a certified remodeling contractor in your area. When you look for green remodeling contractors, you also want to make sure that they understand green building well. You can judge by their suggestions about the project.

Finally, what matters most of all is whether your contractor really thinks green building is important and if he really is into saving the environment. Green building is not so much about skills as it is about ethics. A contractor who looks at green building as just a competitive edge, is not such a good bet.

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.

The passive house standard for the best energy efficiency your home could have.

The Passive House standard (passivhaus in German) is a very strict and rigorous standard for energy efficiency in homes and other closed structures. Passive House standards lay down guidelines for creating houses that have ultra low energy requirements for their cooling and heating creating highly energy efficient structures. Passive House standard is often confused with Passive solar building design. Although both look at same ends – creating energy efficient buildings – passive solar building design is one of the techniques involved in creating a house that meets the Passive House standards. As such, Passive House can be said to be a broader building concept when it comes to green building.

The unique feature of houses created using the Passive House standard is that they save up to 90% heating costs, largely by employing passive solar techniques and excellent insulation and ventilation systems, AND it is possible to create such a house even in regions with relatively little sunlight at costs that can equal those of regular homes. In fact, passive houses are largely found in European, specifically Scandinavian countries, where sunlight is much less than what may be thought desirable to induce solar heating. Thus, it is easily possible to execute such a system in the kind of weather we have and more importantly, to make it sustainable.

Also, because of the kind of ‘air-tightness’ and insulation these houses provide, the indoor air quality of a passive house is much better than what is found in other houses (That’s one more credit on the LEED rating system in your pocket)