Bill has two upcoming presentations on greening your home.
Basics of sustainable design and specific methods of increasing energy efficiencies
while improving your home will be covered.  Valuable information for those considering
minor retrofits, major renovations, or new homes.

Saturday, February 26, 11am – noon
Browse the best green design center in Massachusetts and stay for the
Fabulous February FoodFest immediately after!
g Green Design Center, Mashpee
details

Saturday, March 26, 10am – 12:30pm
Workshop format – bring questions, ideas, plans.
Register in advance.
Boston Building Materials Co-op, Boston
details

easy energy consumption reduction (basic weatherization): 30%

minimum energy consumption reduction to meet DER threshold: 50%

available incentive per house for DER approved projects: $42k

Boehm Architecture has just been approved as a design consultant for National Grid’s Deep Energy Retrofit pilot program. This pilot program offers substantial financial incentives for super-insulation of residential buildings – projects resulting in energy savings of 50% or more.

There are a lot of smaller rebate programs that help with more modest efforts (air sealing, insulation, windows…), but the DER program is targeting a much more thorough approach to reducing home energy usage.  The program provides up to $42,000 toward the cost of this comprehensive type of project.  The reimbursements are intended to cover the net incremental costs of achieving high standards of efficiency.

The depth of integrated design, building science and construction quality necessary to qualify for this program is best achieved in the course of a complete home renovation.  A deep energy retrofit generally involves adding a lot of insulation (resulting in thicker exterior walls and roof); new windows; a new heating system; and full house ventilation. more background…

We are excited to be a consultant for this program and would be happy to discuss your project as a candidate for a deep energy retrofit.

A previous post offered the home/body analogy as a way of understanding the complex and interconnected system of parts that is your house.  The matrix above organizes this analogy into six categories.

First up: the frame.

A fundamental, but oft-ignored aspect of sustainability is durability.  If it doesn’t last, it isn’t green.  Around these parts, a wood frame supports and protects houses the same way the skeleton supports our bodies.  There is no point in any home greening until you are sure that the frame is in good shape.

Most common threat to frames: water.  Occasional flooding or constant dampness will eventually rot the framing, and/or cause mold growth.  You don’t want either.  There are many ways to prevent or manage water problems.  Start by keeping it away from the perimeter of your foundation outside the house with good gutters and downspouts.  If that doesn’t do it, Pioneer Basement has a good website which outlines the various ways of stopping water infiltration.   Lousy construction or time-worn details can also allow water penetration above the ground, via wind-driven rain or snow/ice melt.  A clue to this situation is blistering paint or stains on your exterior siding or interior wall/ceiling surfaces.

Second most common frame threat: termites.  Less visible than water problems, but sneakier.  And hungry.  See Terminix for more info on this one, and then see your basement for clues.

If there is a home expansion in your future, you have the opportunity to use better, and less framing than most older homes.  Using bigger (2×6) framing, or double-stud walls rather than conventional (2×4) framing allows the requisite space for good insulation.  Through careful design and engineering, it is possible to use less framing – by aligning and eliminating redundant framing members (aka Advanced Framing).  That’s a good thing, because wood is a lousy insulator, and by reducing the amount of it, there is more room for real insulation.

Once you’ve got your frame in shape, move on to the envelope…(coming soon).

Taunton Press has just published Green Remodeling, Down to Earth Solutions for Everyday Homes by fellow green architect Barry Katz. It features images and lessons from our Holworthy Place renovation.

From Taunton’s introduction:

Going green at home can seem like an all-or-nothing proposition. Do you sell everything (including the house) and start over, building and buying only eco-friendly, renewable goods? Or do you take the advice offered up in this smart and sensible book — and remodel instead? Green building expert Barry Katz makes a compelling argument for remodeling, as he guides readers through what can be a perplexing and daunting process. Too many decisions? No worries. Katz explains how different choices impact a home’s overall green quotient, as well as its bottom line. Emphasizing off-the-shelf materials, the book shows how homeowners of ordinary means can “green up” a remodel, resulting in less waste, more energy-efficient homes, lower maintenance costs, and more comfortable, healthful environments. This is an essential guide for anyone who has ever wanted to go green but wasn’t exactly sure where to begin.

Architects love nothing more than the challenge of designing the ultimate house-in-a-box, unless it’s solving the world’s environmental problems.  If you can kill these two birds with one stone, even better!  We bit off this simple task when we entered the IAAC’s (Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) competition called Self-fab House.  The idea of the competition was to solicit research and proposals for “self-sufficient housing”, in which individuals re-gain control over their own dwellings and communities while using cutting-edge and/or local technologies to reduce environmental impacts.

Our proposal, called “deBox”, took on the emerging environmental, social and cultural problem of big box retailing, or more specifically abandoned big boxes.  If you haven’t noticed, there are more than a few of these boxes gracing our contemporary landscape. The Real Estate Advisor blog quantifies the issue and defines the big box as “a freestanding building occupied by a single retail tenant that contains between 20,000 to 200,000 square feet of space and is surrounded by a large parking area”.

So what happens to these “ghostboxes” when the retailer pulls up stakes and leaves town, or just moves across the street to a bigger box?   Julia Christensen has published a book on this topic – Big Box Reuse (MIT press, 2008).  Her website gives examples: a mega-church, a Spam museum, an indoor race track, a day-care center…but all are cursed by the bland-ness of the box, and the vast-ness of the parking lot.

For this competition, we asked ourselves: Could these decaying carcasses become the framework for a self-empowered, energetic alternative to typical suburban environments? We think so, see what you think.

The IECC selected our proposal for publication in the competition catalog. Beth Weinstein reviewed he competition and our proposal, recently on the Design Observer website. She is justly critical of the competition as “cultivating a romantic myth of the lone survivalist pioneer and the existence of vast expanses of virgin land”, but has these kind words for our proposal: “…many of the projects are admirable, either for formal elegance …or for conceptual or procedural propositions, i.e., “deBox,” by Boehm Architecture, which transforms abandoned big-box stores into communal settlements…”

Next time you’re traversing the ragged edges of anytown, consider the possibilities for that decaying super-store.  Because as Julia Christensen says, “There is not a landfill on earth able to handle all the big boxes that we have sitting empty”.

The volume of information on green homes is overwhelming.  For those of us who live in older homes, the situation can be daunting.  A useful analogy is to think of the home as a body.  The home’s overall health (particularly as it ages) must be attended to in a holistic manner.  To focus on only one ailment, such as an inefficient boiler while ignoring leaky windows, is akin to trying to cure your chronic cough while continuing to chain-smoke.

Furthering the home/body analogy, new diagnostic techniques have been developed to identify the sources of heat loss, verify proper construction techniques and check overall efficiency.  Infrared photography (to identify heat loss areas), blower-door testing (to find air leaks) and computer modeling (to properly design and size components) are among the tools of energy auditors.

Step 1: Get your home a check-up!

Utility companies have offered energy audits for many years, but the quality and effectiveness of home energy audits has increased greatly with sophisticated diagnostic tools.  Currently, Massachusetts residents are eligible for free energy audits through Mass Save, a coalition of utility providers.  This audit will result in a report and scope-of-work for qualified contractors, along with a list of available financial incentives and rebates for energy upgrades.  The insulation rebate alone will pay for 75% of the cost, up to $2,000, which buys a lot of insulation.  DSIRE offers the most comprehensive list of all financial incentives available in the state.

We always recommend an energy audit to our clients, and factor the results into our design work.  Our energy auditors go on to prepare energy models of the proposed design to help us consider options and make decisions.   During construction, the auditor stays involved to inspect construction detailing and insulation to qualify the home for rebates and incentives.

While it is easier to achieve green goals when building a new home, renovating or retrofitting a home offers the opportunity to radically improve efficiencies while increasing comfort, utility and beauty.

Further posts will explore specific aspects of the home/body analogy.