Falls Church City Green Home Award Program

The City of Falls Church has created a "Green Home Award Program" to highlight residential construction projects that have been monitored by a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Certified Rater and have shown to conform to one of several approved residential green building certification programs. The EarthCraft Virginia program, which we've selected for our house certification, is an approved program.

Rather than re-inventing the green wheel, the City staff smartly decided it would be more effective and efficient to point to other rigorous programs and recognizes those as qualifying for the City's program. Homeowners and developers who choose to participate in the Falls Church City Green Home Award Program will be awarded for doing something positive to improve the sustainability of the environment and the community. We were the first house to submit an application for this program and we hope our construction pace picks up so we're the first house to be awarded under the program!

The City hasn't yet announced what the award will be. We'd love it if it were exemption from real estate taxes, but that's highly unlikely! From our perspective, we're not doing this for any recognition or award; green construction simply is the right thing to do.

Here's a picture of the City's sign in our front yard.

At long last!

Today is the day we thought would never arrive. We just got back from a wonderful meeting at Lighthouse Title in Arlington, VA where Tina guided us through the closing process. At looonnnngggg last - we now own the lot! Or, more accurately, our lender does (Access National Bank in Reston, VA.) Tina and her colleagues at Lighthouse Title and Terri and her colleagues at Access National Bank worked their tails off the last few days - during the holiday season - to wrap up the details for the loan so we could close today. We greatly appreciate their hard work on our behalf and we were extremely impressed with the professionalism and high level of customer service that everyone provided throughout the process.

To make the day even more perfect, our wonderful realtor, Suzanne Fauber with Buck & Associates in Arlington, VA, gave us a bottle of Pride Mountain Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. I can't wait to open that to celebrate!

I'm glad the weather forecast for this weekend calls for sun. We will spend tomorrow and Sunday working to clear away the three large garden sheds that currently are on our new property. Andreas has already talked to the tree removal expert and on Monday a crew will be on-site to remove certain trees, including the large maple I wrote about in the beginning of this blog.

We will be able to start construction after a couple more details are worked through with the general contractor and our fantastic lender.

What a Surprise!

I opened my email to grab and then post the scanned image of the building permit, and received a delightful surprise. Our house designer, John Spears with Sustainable Design Group, emailed me some artistic renderings of the house. Computer imaging is truly amazing. I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I did.

Building Permit

Three Steps Forward....

So many things came together this week and we're very thankful for that. First, as Andreas posted, the CBIRT meeting went well on Wednesday. Second, on Wednesday evening, we received the completed appraisal, and the value of our project was better than we had hoped for, which should allow us to obtain the financing we want. Third, on Friday morning, the City issued the building permit to us.

The 30 day appeal process (whereby City residents can appeal the issuance of the building permit) is counting down - it ends on November 16th. We scheduled closing for the land for November 17th (tentative date which will be changed only if there's a valid appeal of the building permit, which we don't expect since we didn't ask for any variances and everything is in line with the city code).

We're now working on the co-ownership agreement with our lawyers, developing the detailed project plan, and awaiting the final confirmation on the financing (the loan underwriter will be going through the appraisal with a fine-tooth comb in the next few days). Also, I'm working on a public relations/marketing plan for this project to give visibility to environmentally friendly design and construction principles, and to recognize our partners who are collaborating with us on this project.

Not Much Action

Not much new to report. We're still shopping and pulling together the list of fixtures, etc. for the detailed budget. We had a conference call on Friday with Chad Hackmann from UBuildIt to touch base on the bids he has been receiving for the hard core house structure(framing, foundation, etc.).

While on the Eastern Shore for my cousin's wedding, we reviewed the list of licensed tree companies in the City of Falls Church and paid Dan (my sister's fiancee) $20 to call all of them for their email addresses and fax numbers. We sent the tree preservation plan to several of the companies and we're awaiting bids on pricing to cut down the trees that need to be removed. We've also asked them to suggest a sawyer or mill that could cut then kiln dry some of the trees to our specs so that we can re-use the wood in the house.

While we've been staying on top of these details, there's no major progress to report.

Shopping Mania, Learning from Those Who Go Before Us

While the application for building permit is under review by the City, we are now searching for everything that will go in the house, from bathroom tiles, to toilets and wash basins, to cabinets, to windows and doors. There's so much to consider, we've developed a 33 page Word file to capture ideas of what we like, including descriptions, photos, and (importantly) prices. There's so much that we like that's simply out of our price range. For example, we really love Paperstone countertops as an option. They're environmentally-friendly, using up to 100% of post-consumer waste paper. Paperstone is made from cellulose fiber (paper) and a non-petroleum phenolic resin derived in part from a natural phenolic oil in the shells of cashews. I love cashews! But at $3,000, one wonders if the less environmentally-friendly formic option might make more sense given our budget constraints.

Yesterday, during our shopping excursion, we visited Amicus Green Building Center (http://www.amicusgreen.com) in Kensington, MD. I've wanted to go there for a year or so, but now had a real reason to visit their showroom. It was smaller than I expected, but they had a good variety of products suitable for our green home. The sales guy we talked with (Trevor) seemed excited when we told him our architect was John Spears with the Sustainable Design Group. Trevor showed us some kitchen cabinet options, called "EcoFriendly" (http://www.executivekitchens.com), soy based concrete stain for the floors, the Paperstone referenced above, and American Clay plaster, which we're considering for the walls.

After spending a couple of hours at Amicus, I drove Andreas to see the Hartnett House (see the link to the right for Mr. Hartnett's blog), which is under construction in Montgomery County, not too far from the Amicus store in Kensington. Andreas was impressed with the Compressed Earth Bricks (CEBs). But we both were concerned about the forms that were installed to hold the concrete as it's poured to form the vertical pillars, locking in the CEBs. In a few areas, the forms were not strong enough to hold the weight of the concrete. As a result, the plywood appeared to bow, pulling the nails out of the CEBs, creating a "potbelly" appearance in those the columns, and in some cases, shifting the CEBs, so there were gaps between the bricks.

We're counting our blessings having someone go through this process with the same team right before we do. All of these challenges seem manageable, especially if we know about them beforehand and can take appropriate precautions, since we're able to learn from the mistakes of the pioneers.

The Final (?) Word on Trees, for now

The decision has been made -- with many thanks to those who both posted comments and emailed your input privately. The maple tree will go. BUT, it will be replaced with another maple tree, and a multitude of other new trees on the lot. One friend, who always offers sage advice, suggested:

"if you cut it down, can you somehow take the seeds from it to plant elsewhere? That way, the tree wouldn't technically be "gone," just moved and given a second chance."

We'll give that a try and see how it works. We'll also work hard to ensure the tree is not turned into mulch, but cared for appropriately so it can be made into beautiful furniture that will live for many years to come in someone's home. Who said that you never get a second chance to make a first impression?!?!

In order to provide adequate canopy coverage in accordance with the City of Falls Church guidelines, we were informed today by Care of Trees (the consultants we hired for the tree preservation plan) that we needed to coverage on 900 sq.ft. of the lot, based on a 10 year sq.ft. coverage projection. We've selected the following trees:

Tree	Location	Points
Red Maple	Front yard/west side of lot (replaces maple to be cut down)	145
Red Bud	NorthEast side of courtyard wall	96
Paw Paw	In courtyard area - to the East of the Red Bud	75
Canada Service Berry	Back yard behind house - 1st tree at North side of lot	96
Tulip Poplar	Back yard behind house - 2nd tree at North side of lot - very NorthEast corner	202
Fringe Tree	Back yard behind house - Slightly SouthWest of Tulip Poplar	65
Yellow Wood	Back yard behind house - very SouthEast corner of lot	145
Sum		824

Including a diversity of trees, rather than repetition, should give us bonus points of 10%, which puts us just over 900 sq.ft. coverage -- the threshold we have to meet. We'll see if the tree experts agree that this is a good plan, or if it's a disaster waiting to happen. When building a house, I never imagined we'd spend this much time on "trees", but they're important and add so much value. The return on the investment will be immeasurable.

Tree Preservation, Part 2

I've been thinking more about that old maple tree and whether we should replace it or try to save it. For the required canopy coverage, we probably need that tree to have enough points. (Although replanting new trees will get us points too.) However, we will have to dig a trench from the front of the lot to the house in order to bring the utilities from the street to the house. Given the location of the electricity connection at the street, that means the trench must pass right through the maple tree. Trenching around the tree surely will harm its root system. And given the age of the tree, the roots certainly are across the entire 40' width of our lot. So anywhere we trench will damage the roots, right?

While the "greenest" option might be saving the tree, cutting the tree down and using the wood in some way on the property and planting a new tree in that spot also would be green. It's not an easy decision to take a life. Stay tuned.

Tree Preservation

Like us, the City of Falls Church is progressive and environmentally conscious. As part of the building permit process, we have to submit a tree preservation plan. Yesterday morning, I met with the city arborist, who is a great guy and extremely helpful, and the company that's developing the plan for us. All of the trees on the property have suffered from years of neglect. When building green, it's ideal to save as many mature trees as possible. We also want to ensure the trees are appropriate for our region and non-invasive. Some trees are so badly damaged that they'll need to be removed. We'll replant with appropriate new trees.

One of the biggest decisions, though, is what to do with an old, red maple tree that's at the very front of the lot. As you can see in this photo take late last Autumn, the tree has some storm damage and vines growing throughout the entire tree (English Ivy and poison ivy).


It will cost $$ and significant effort to protect the tree from construction activity and bring it back to a beautiful state. But there's always a chance the tree won't survive construction -- ours or the inevitable next-door construction after someone buys that old, dilapidated, white farmhouse and tears it down to build a new home.

We're fairly certain we're going to work to save this tree and clean it up, rather than cutting it down and planting a new one. Any and all thoughts are welcome, though.