FSC Wood Arrives! FSC Wood Installed!

One of Earthcraft's requirements to certify a house as green, is that more than 50% of the wood used in the house must be sustainable/green. One program that promotes sustainable practices for wood products and certifies wood as sustainable is the Forest Stewardship Council. The wood we purchased from T.W. Perry's branch in Gaithersburg, MD is FSC certified. Also, our first floor deck (not outside deck, but actual subfloor on the inside of the house) is AdvanTech, a green engineered wood product. Here's our stack of wood products just after delivery: And here's the framing crew, headed up by Hector, working away early on a Saturday morning to install the floor joists and first floor deck:

CEB Demonstration

We will be demonstrating the manufacture of Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) on Saturday, March 21st from 11:00am - 2:00pm. If you would like the details for this demonstration, please email me at flybymike at gmail dot com.

Mike

Character Is Like the Foundation of a House - It Is Below the Surface

I'm not sure who that quote is from, but I like it. Don't worry; this isn't a philosophical post, it's an update on our house foundation!

Today, Bartley removed the forms for the walls and the foundation looks great!

The lumber package has been ordered and our primary contractor, Aaron Holmes with Cornerstone Building Services, will be on site over the next couple of days with a crew to install the first floor decking. We're actually building a house and I can finally prove it!!!

The Children Were Nestled All Snug in Their Beds

Another pleasant surprise. The folks at Bartley Corporation showed up on an extremely cold Tuesday morning and hustled, completing the forms for the foundation. They then poured the concrete. They wrapped the forms in blankets at the end of the day, and our new basement walls were snuggled up in their beds for a long winter's nap.

Thank you

It stopped snowing in downtown DC today at approximately 2:30pm. After work, I picked Andreas up at the Dulles Jet Center, where he was waiting after the last leg of a charter flight today. We rushed to our lot in Falls Church with a broom and shovel to clear the sidewalk and we found it already had been shoveled by one of the neighbors.

Whoever you are, thank you very much for shoveling our sidewalk. We're looking forward to the house being finished so we can enjoy the company of the fine people who live nearby. The City of Falls Church boasts of the benefits of a small town atmosphere and our experiences so far certainly have proven there is truth in their advertising!

---

And a quick update on construction: Bartley Corporation did not complete their work with the foundation forms on Friday, and they didn't show up to work on Saturday as we were led to believe that they would. Obviously they didn't pour the foundation walls yet. Of course with the big snow storm in the DC area yesterday, it is understandable that they could not work today. So if all goes well, they'll finish the forms on Tuesday, pour the concrete on Thursday, and we'll be able to set the first floor trusses/decking the week of March 9th.

Footer Fetish

A good bit has happened this week. And today, if all goes as planned, it may actually start to look like a house is being constructed! On Monday, Bartley Corporation had to re-do some mud excavating work they did not properly do in the area way. They admitted their mistake and corrected that, at their expense, and finished placing the #57 crushed stone. The good folks at CIS had caught Bartley's mistakes and after they were fixed, CIS signed off on the soil stabilization. That cleared Bartley to set the forms and pour the footers for the foundation. On Thursday, Huntley Nyce Associates came to do the brick pointing. Today Bartley is scheduled to set the foundation forms and pour the foundation. See the progress:


This is the area way that clearly had not been properly cared for per the engineer's instructions; mother earth eventually would have won this water battle if this hadn't been fixed before the footers were poured:
Brick points:

Brick point close-up:

No River Too Deep

On Thursday, Bartley's team was back on the lot to start scraping the 6" of mud. They finished the mud scraping and removal on Friday then laid the geotextile material. Truck after truck backed into our driveway to dump the first deliveries of #57 crushed stone from the Loudoun Quarry of Chantilly Crushed Stone. Using a Bobcat, they moved the stone from the construction entrance into the excavated pit, covering the entire area with approximately 4" of stone. On Monday, the crew will return, and more trucks will deliver much more stone, and they'll sling the stone from the trucks into the excavated pit for a total of 18" of stone to mitigate mother nature's high water table in this area.

When looking at the pictures, you can see the grey markings around the side of the excavated area. I stopped at the lot today on my way to the gym, to check on Bartley's progress, and Tim Gary - the Vice President of CIS Engineering - our soils consultant, happened to stop by at the same time I was there. He explained to me that the grey markings show there was a river that went through our lot and that's the sediment that was deposited at the bottom of the river. He was a super nice guy and extremely knowledgeable. You don't think about how water moves underground, but it clearly does. It's not confined to streams, rivers, lakes and the ocean, but Mother Earth is moving water all the time, right under our feet.

There's still a little bit of water showing in some areas, but there's no stone in those areas yet either. I'm guessing that Bartley noticed water seeping from the side walls of the excavated area and they decided to let it collect in spots order to pump the water out on Monday, scrape some more mud, then add the stone to ensure stability. The good news is that water level was below the 4" of stone that surrounded it and when there's another 14" of stone, we're confident that the water will remain well below the footers and foundation of the house. That's the goal!

Yes, Virginia, There is Such a Thing as Green Power in Virginia

Today I received an email from Dominion Power telling me that my latest power bill was on-line for viewing (I switched from paper statements a long time ago). The first sentences of the email said, "Your Dominion online statement is now available. You have the power to choose renewable energy! Click here to sign up or learn about your Green Power options." Very cool - I had to check it out.

This is a voluntary program from Dominion Virginia Power that allows customers to support renewable energy. While it the power provided to my condo won't necessarily be renewable energy, it does mean that the 1.5 cent per kilowatt-hour extra charge allows the power company to purchase renewable energy certificates.

I did some calculations and it would cost just over $5 per month more for this green option -- it's a no-brainer! I'm signing up.

According to the charts on their website, this is what my choosing renewable energy translates to, based on our 4,368 kWh usage in the past 12 months:

• 82,241 Pounds of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Avoided
• 37.35 Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Avoided
• 6.88 is the Equivalent Number of Automobiles Removed from the Road (In terms of greenhouse gas emissions avoided)
  
• 81,565 Equivalent Miles of Automobile Emissions Avoided (In terms of greenhouse gas emissions avoided)

Does your state have a similar program? If you're in Virginia, check out these links for more details:

http://www.dom.com/customer/efficiency/vares_greenpower.jsp
http://www.dom.com/customer/efficiency/pdf/greenpower_cost_chart.pdf

Swamped, Scraped, Crushed, Ouch

Swamped:

In the past week, we watched that little bit of ground water that you saw in last week's pictures start to rise throughout the entire excavated lot. See for yourself:




The ground along the sides of the lot have settled into the excavated area in some areas, which will require re-pouring of some deck pier footers. We were frustrated by this since Bartley - the excavator and concrete company - plans to charge us again to re-do this work. But they were the ones who took the risk of digging the deck piers before excavating for the house. We're not the excavation experts, they are. So when there was a problem based on their decision, why should we have to pay the cost for it?

Scraped:

As reported last week, we had to hire a soils consultant to look at the lot and make a recommendation that will allow us to proceed with the construction. The best option was to pump the ground water out, scape 6" of mud out, haul that mud away, and then put down a geotextile matting and then 18" of stone on top. 12" for water avoidance & stability + the 6" of depth for the scraped-away mud = 18" of stone.

Crushed:

18" of #57 crushed stone across the size of our excavated area translates to 205 tons. That's more than the empty weight of a Boeing 747 aircraft. The stone will go into our scraped, excavated pit. It then will be compacted. As I understand it, this stone serves two purposes: 1) along with the geotextile, it will create the necessary stability for the footers of the house; 2) it will provide a drain plane for the ground water, allowing the water to stay away from our foundation. That's a great thing.

Ouch:

We expected to run into some challenges and additional expenses while constructing this house, and this sure is an expensive one. We're trying to find ways to save money on this, but the extra $12,000 hit on our budget is not very welcome. Maybe we can do without a roof on the house to cover this extra cost?

I've Always Wanted Waterfront Property

We can't say we weren't warned. Our neighbors had warned us that the City of Falls Church has a high water table, so we planned accordingly with our home design - no expense spared on waterproofing, sump pumps, etc. The one major concern we still had with construction was the fear of the unknown when they start digging - the high water table being at the forefront of our minds. As you can see from these photos, and as determined by the city inspector, there is too much ground water on our lot to simply pour the footers for the house. Also, the soil was too soft in that area. Bartley's crew already had set up the forms for the footers, so that all had to be undone. The good folks at Bartley had a soils engineer on our lot within an hour and he recommended two possible solutions, with one being a far superior one. Needless to say, that's the option we're going with. A geotextile will be installed to provide stability to the soil, then 12 inches of stone will be poured on top of that. This will provide a strong enough base to pour the footers and provide an excellent drainage field for water underneath our entire basement. Yes, it's adding several thousand dollars to the budget, but it raises our confidence that the house will be nice and dry in the basement, which is worth the investment. Hopefully they'll be able to continue work in the next day or so, so the footers can be poured and inspected, then on to the foundation!

The Big Dig

Bartley Corporation, who is doing a lot of the early work for us including excavation and pouring the footers and foundation, started the Big Dig this week! The construction project finally is starting to seem real! See for yourself:




A special thanks to Mrs. Brown who owns the house & lot on the north side of our property (the old house that's for sale) since she gave us permission to use her backyard to store the dirt that's excavated. We'll repay that favor by removing the branches/debris from the trees that have accumulated at the back of her lot over the years, which will improve the appearance of her property.

We're just hopeful that our Big Dig isn't as expensive or fraught with problems like the city of Boston's Big Dig!!!

A Sign of the Times

The professionals who have helped us through this project so far have been absolutely wonderful, amazing, patient, and helpful. This is definitely a team project - we couldn't do it without them. Several have marketing signs in our front yard, which we're proud to display:

Earthcraft - the green program our house will be certified under.
Mike Terpak with Access National Bank - our lender.
Aaron Holmes with Cornerstone Building Services - our general contractor.

If you are building, we recommend EarthCraft and Cornerstone. If you need financing, we recommend that you call Mike.

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile

On Tuesday morning, during an ice and snow storm, we woke up before the crack of dawn and headed to JMB Fabricators in Annapolis, MD to purchase 45' of root protection matting and 100 landscaping nails to install the matting. We had no idea what to expect, but it's a good thing we took my Ranger instead of Andreas's Volkswagen Golf. The 13' long roll was thick and orange. The nice folks at JMB helped us load the roll onto my truck and fasten it down (thanks, Dad, for the ratchet tie-down straps you gave me a while back!). Some people likened the end result to a modern-day Oscar Mayer Wienermobile driving from Annapolis to downtown DC. See for yourself - Andreas jumped out of the truck to snap this photo at the red light at the intersection of Rhode Island & Connecticut Avenues, NW.


Versus












After work, we went back to the lot to install the Root Protection Matting. It still was sleeting and freezing rain, mixed with some snow, but we had to get it installed so the City's urban forester could inspect our tree protection measures. The landscape nails were no competition for the frozen ground and compacted gravel driveway, where we were installing the matting. The gravel won. We could only get about 1/2 of the landscape nails in; the rest bent wildly as we attempted the install. The next morning, Andreas and I each visited Home Depot to get progressively more aggressive in our approach to install this matting. Ultimately, the galvanized spikes saved the day and the matting was installed per the tree protection plan. Yay!

Here's the lot with the matting installed:

We passed the tree preservation inspection with flying colors. And now the construction entrance has been installed by Bartley Corporation. I have not seen the gravel construction entrance but will drive by the lot tomorrow!

I'm Plastered

OK, not really, but I got your attention, didn't I?

A couple weeks ago, I took a class on American Earth Clay Plaster application. The class was offered at Amicus Green Building Supply in Kensington, MD (http://www.amicusgreen.com). This a really cool, environmentally-friendly product that we've admired for some time. This is a finishing product for walls, ceiling, etc. that can be used in lieu of paint. Finishing the Compressed Earth Block interior of the house with American Clay Earth Plaster made a lot of sense; it was just a question of cost. I took the class to see if this is something I could do myself, or if it's best left to a professional.

I found the class to be a lot of fun and I walked away knowing that this would be a big project, a lot of work, but something I certainly could handle on my own if I plan accordingly and don't expect the entire house to be plastered in one weekend. I'm excited about this option and thrilled that we won't have to drywall the whole house, but may be able to use this plaster instead.

Here are some photos from my training class. The first photo is my sheet after the first coat; the second is my sheet after some decorative finishes we learned (many of which we won't use since we're seeking a relatively smooth, contemporary surface), and following these are photos of the board other students in the class worked on.

Enjoy.

Let Us Break Ground Together

On Martin Luther King Day, just before Andreas and I headed out of town for business trips, we met on our lot with our architect, John Spears; general contractor, Aaron Holmes; and EarthCraft technical advisor, Chris Conway. We gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony to recognize the milestones we achieved so far and commemorate the start of the construction project for our new home. Since it was in the teens and low 20 degrees (F) for several days prior to and during our groundbreaking, the topsoil was frozen and extremely hard, so we were able to break away only a few pieces of dirt. We enjoyed some champagne after the groundbreaking (non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider for Andreas, since he was flying that day). Here are some photos (note the beatiful super-silt and tree protection fencing Andreas installed in the background).

Mike (on left) and Andreas (on right).

Aaron (on left); Mike, Andreas, John (on right).

Chris (on left), Mike, Andreas.

Timber!!!

Sorry for not posting over the past couple of weeks. We've been out of town for work most of the time, and working on prepping the lot for construction between trips. We closed on the land on January 2nd and the next week the crew was there to take down the trees that needed to be removed. If you've read all the blog postings, you'll recall that we struggled with the decision on which trees to remove, especially the question of the large maple on the front of the lot. Here's a picture as the trees were being taken down.

In the front of the photo, you see the old, green sheds Andreas and I dismantled. The vast majority of the sheds have been taken to the Fairfax County solid waste center where they'll rot away. As Andreas posted earlier, the metal shed was taken for recycling.

For the most part, the tree branches were turned to mulch and are now being used as a root protection matting to save the three holly trees on the South side of the property. The black walnut tree trunks were hauled away by an artist/furniture designer/woodworker who will use the wood in crafts projects. He's also giving one of the black walnut logs to the Corcoran School for students to use in carving and woodworking projects. We feel that went to a wonderful home since we couldn't afford to have the wood milled and prepped for use in our house.

In addition, almost 1/2 of the tree protection fencing and silt fence for erosion control has been installed by Andreas. The rest should be installed tomorrow while I get caught up on paperwork/administrative items for our home construction project and spend the rest of the day on my real job.

After we get the geotextile material from the distributor this week, we can have the tree protection measures inspected and then the construction entrance can be built. Excavation will begin right after that construction entrance is inspected.

To sum it up, I think we're making good progress so far and we're looking forward to the big dig!

Recycling Pays

One of the old sheds that Mike wrote about in his earlier post went to Potomac Metals to be recycled today. We took all 195 pounds worth of steel there and got ... $2. Who says being environmentally responsible doesn't have a quick payoff!

Shed No Tears

Andreas and I spent much of the weekend taking down the three sheds that were on our new lot. One was metal and two were made of wood. All of them had a lot of junk on the inside we'll have to have hauled away. Per our real estate contact, the sheds were supposed to have been completely empty before closing. Most of the junk that the sheds contained was removed, but there was still a pile of stuff the sellers didn't take out of them. So that was the first order of business; demolition followed.

The metal one (steel, we think) was the easiest of the three to take down and that's now in the back of my truck to take for recycling. The wood ones were more challenging and, in fact, the biggest one is only 95% broken down. We made that much progress only because during a lunch break, Andreas suggested we rent a chain saw to assist with the project. That was a smart recommendation and one that saved us a lot of time and effort.

Also today, we put a letter introducing ourselves and our project at the front door of our neighbors surrounding the lot. We invited them to stop by and visit and we apologized, in advance, for any noise and dust we may make throughout construction. The highlights of the day were when several neighbors stopped by to introduce themselves and say hello. Everyone was exceptionally friendly and we're excited to (eventually) move into the neighborhood.

Sorry we didn't take any pictures today. We were hoping to get the sheds completely torn down, to show the lot without them, but we worked until the sun went down. Andreas will be back on the lot first thing tomorrow morning to meet our arborist who will be starting the tree removal project.

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.

For Larry M.

Our friend Larry M. has asked me several times to post an image with the floor plan/layout to this blog. He has seen the drawings on paper and asked why they're not posted to this blog. Well, here they are. The first image shows the main level/first floor. That includes two bedrooms located on opposite ends of the house. The master bedroom is on the East side (the right side of the image) and the guest room/office is on the West side (obviously on the left side of the image). The heart of the house contains the kitchen, dining and living rooms all open in one big great room (okay, not so big, but it will feel much more open than if we walled off each room). The entrance to the house will be on the North side (at the top of the picture) just across from the stairs into the basement. In the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs, when one walks in, the ceiling will be lower and as one turns to the great room, with the roof slanting/rising up, the eyes will be drawn to the expanse of windows on the Southern side.

The lower level (aka the basement) will have a third bedroom and rough-in plumbing for a third bathroom. The washer/dryer will go into the basement as well. Eventually we will divide the basement a bit more to add a media room with my wine collection, and there will be a workshop (future airplane building area).

Solar, Solar Everywhere

Yes, I know it's been a long time since we posted anything. The state of the financial markets left us scrambling to find financing after the lender the mortgage broker found for us decided they were no longer going to do construction loans. So we had to start over with finding a bank. More on that later.

Solar, Solar Everywhere - in Bavaria that is. Andreas and I just returned from a Christmas trip to Germany to spend the holidays with his family. One of the things that struck us on this trip was how much solar energy is being captured in Germany. Old barns, old farm houses, new houses, and commercial buildings of all sizes had solar PV panels capturing energy and/or solar water heaters. It was amazing and refreshing. Hopefully that's something we'll see in our country in the not too distant future. Hopefully Obama's commitment to green collar jobs and potential tax incentives for renewable energy options will lead to more affordable solar power in the U.S. Cost certainly is an issue for us, which is why our house will be solar ready instead of solar powered.

It's Easy Being Green

We've posted earlier blogs about the EarthCraft Virginia certification program. On Tuesday, we met with Chris Conway, our EarthCraft technical advisor; John Spears, our architect; and Aaron Holmes, our construction manager, to review the EarthCraft certification standard and to determine if we met the requirements and could achieve enough points for the house to be EarthCraft certified.

EarthCraft has three levels of certification: regular EarthCraft House, Tier 2 (known as EarthCraft Select), and Tier 3 (known as EarthCraft Premium). As you might guess, the required standards are even more stringent for tiers 2 and 3 and more points are required for each higher tier. (150 for regular, 200 for tier 2, and 230 for tier 3)

It took over three hours to review the certification technical standards worksheet line-by-line and compare that with our house plans. Since we set out for this to be a green house, we expected to easily achieve the regular EarthCraft House certification. After the careful review, it became clear that we had met all of the requirements for EarthCraft Premium certification AND we earned 462 total points as we calculated them. The certification restricts the total number of points that can be earned for certain categories (e.g., Durability, Energy Efficiency) and when we capped our points for these categories, we were still left with 331 points. Since Tiers 2 and 3 are new categories as of April this year and, to the best of our knowledge, no one else has built an EarthCraft Premium certified house, we have a chance at being the first EarthCraft Premium House in Virginia. That would be wonderfully amazing if we can make it a reality.

Kermit the Frog says it's not easy being green. I beg to differ. It is easy - you just need the right architect!

GreenFest

GreenFest is starting in DC and it ends on Sunday. I'll arrive home from California on Sunday morning and plan to go on Sunday to sit in some educational sessions and walk the exhibit floor. Check out their site: http://www.greenfestivals.org/.

Certifiably Crazy

While some people think we're certifiably crazy for embarking on this project (instead of just buying an existing house), we think it would be crazy to buy a traditional (energy inefficient) house in the DC area that we don't really like and then have to put a lot more money into updates and upgrades. This way, we get what we want in terms of style of house, sustainability in construction and living, etc.

Speaking of certifying, we attended a green building class in Roanoke this past week for the EarthCraft Virginia certification program. This training was geared for construction companies, architects, etc., but they allowed us to attend as owner-builders. The EarthCraft certification is like LEED for homes, but it's a much less expensive certification process. The program started in the Atlanta area and, to date, more than 4,500 homes have been certified by EarthCraft. The program expanded into Virginia just a few years ago and they are hoping to certify several hundred homes annually in the Commonwealth.

The seminar focused on how the certification program works. There are minimum requirements that must be met in order to receive EarthCraft certification, then there are other points a builder has to earn in addition to the minumum requirements. Many of these requirements are tied to energy efficiency. For some homebuilders, this will take some significant change to their construction practices in order to achieve certification. For us, since we have intended the house to be environmentally-friendly from the start, this is a validation to ensure we are actually building green.

We've been assigned an EarthCraft technical advisor who will oversee our construction and conduct some on-site inspections to ensure we meet the required standards. We're very hopeful that we'll achieve this certification.

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.

Sea Birds

The City of Falls Church has a public review process for the approval of grading plans - the Chesapeake Bay Interdisciplinary Review Team (CBIRT). Each grading plan gets discussed at the CBIRT meeting; neighbors within 150 feet of the property are invited, and a public notice appears in the Falls Church News-Press.
Today was our turn.
Normally, people show up to complain about one aspect or another of the proposed construction (even though, strictly speaking, the meeting is only about grading, zoning, and tree preservation compliance). I had a bet with the City's Zoning Administrator that someone would turn up to complain that the house was too small.
Well, nobody showed up to complain - and within a half hour the meeting was over. Our grading plan now has a big "APPROVED" stamp on it; and with the grading plan approved, we can now go and collect the remaining signatures on our building permit. The hope is that within the next day or two, we'll have our building permit issued as well.
And then, we waits.
Our contract for the land is structured so that we close 30 days (to allow for appeals) after issuance of the building permit - we wanted to avoid owning an unbuildable lot. So our next challenge is to find financing. As Mike wrote in an earlier post, Debbie Perper is working hard for us on that aspect. Tentatively, we've scheduled closing for the middle of November, more than a year since we first started this process.
I should say that everyone at the City has been wonderful, especially in working around the fact that we don't technically own the lot yet - all plan and permit approvals are typically issued to the property owner, and only after tree protection and sediment control has been put in place. But with a few quickly drawn-up letters of agreement (we agree to put tree preservation and sediment control measures in place within 7 days after closing on the lot) we were able to work around this. I'm sure not every municipality is this helpful.
It feels like we're on the home stretch.
At least until we start with the building portion!

Appraisal Coming Soon

One aspect of obtaining a construction loan is getting an appraisal for the project (land value + building value). Given the volatility of the financial markets this past week, we were understandably a bit concerned about how the appraiser would view our project. Tonight we received an email from our mortgage broker stating the following:

Just an FYI that the appraiser loves the plans. Here is some of what he has told me:

We are working on Falls Church property. It is an inspiration what they are doing.

The subject property is extremely close to West Falls Church Metro, where there is to be a large new town to be built this Spring.

They are so smart and got a great price on the lot too. Brilliant! Appraised value will indicate an entrepreneurial profit after all costs (acquisition & construction). $X-$X at the end of the day.

Again it is such a blessing/inspiration to be a part of this process. I repeatedly communicate to people of how great open floor plans/contemporary architecture is. My favorite modern edifices are Dulles Airport, the East Gallery and Falling Water.”

We should see a report early next week I hope.

The appraisal is the key ingredient for our financing. Without financing, there's no Falls Church Erdhaus. Needless to say, this email made our day. Sorry for X-ing out the numbers in the quote above, but you understand.

Canadian Center for Architecture

I'm in Montreal, Canada for work this week for meetings at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The U.S. Delegation met for dinner this evening and since we all share an interest in architecture, visited the Canadian Center for Architecture. The CCA had an exhibit called, "Some Ideas on Living in London and Tokyo by Stephen Taylor and Ryue Nishizawa". It was quite an enjoyable exhibit; the contemporary design of the Tokyo architecture was quite appealing to me and both architects were effective in their use of very small lots. Here's how the CCA describes this exhibit:

"The exhibition marks the first North American presentation of residential projects by Taylor and Nishizawa and reveals their ideas addressing the challenges of building homes in existing city environments. Due to their scale, extensive built environment, and existing efforts to grow the city from within, London and Tokyo face similar urban development issues but occupy cultural contexts in which themes of proximity, privacy, community, and public space take on different meanings and require distinct solutions."

Financing in Today's Market

In an earlier post, I discussed the house design and noted we were planning 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. That's in-line with the concepts put forth by Sarah Susanka and other followers of the "Not So Big House" philosophy. However, the banks probably don't subscribe to that philosophy and we've been advised by our mortgage broker to finish the 3rd bedroom on the lower level so the house will be a 3 bedroom/2 bath house. That's a little extra money and more work for us up front, but should help significantly in the valuation of the house so we can get the necessary bank financing to make this project a reality!

Are We There Yet?

Whenever folks ask when we'll be in the new house, my standard response is, "hopefully this time next year." I've been saying that for about 6 months now. This process reminds me of the many family vacations where I sat in the back of the car asking, "are we there yet?" for hundreds of miles, driving my parents crazy. The patience that was required on my part was always worth the reward of the vacation destination. I'm sure the same will be true of the house construction project. (Of course another benefit of the house project, unlike the vacation, is there's no tortuous drive home - once the house is built, we'll already be home!)

And there are signs we might be getting closer to the construction phase. The fine folks in the City of Falls Church had some questions about the tree preservation plan and the grading plan. The companies that developed those plans finished their work in response to the City's questions/concerns at the end of last week, so the revised plans can be submitted to the City at the start of this week. Hopefully our vendors did their work properly and the City will soon issue the building permit. Once we have that, we'll schedule the closing for the land and line up the tree removal company, excavator, and concrete company for the footers and foundation prep. Hopefully, we'll be able to break ground by early November before it gets too cold and the ground freezes!

Amicus Green Building

After I published the last blog, I thought of something else I wanted to mention - that is a store in Kensington, MD that specializes in environmentally-friendly products. The store is called Amicus Green Building supply. We got a quote for our kitchen cabinets from them and we're planning to buy our soy-based stain for the concrete floor there. We're also intrigued with a product called American Earth Clay plaster. I received an email from Amicus promoting a seminar on applying this plaster yourself and called within two days of getting the email. But by the time I called the class was filled. So I'm now on their waiting list.

Check out American Clay at http://www.americanclay.com/ and Amicus at http://www.amicusgreen.com/.

Bad Blogger

I was reminded yesterday and today that I haven't been a good blogger. Unfortunately, not a lot has been going on with the house. The City of Falls Church had some comments on the building permit application, so the architect turned his changes around rapidly. It has taken longer than I expected for The Care of Trees to finish the tree preservation plan changes and for Huntley Nyce & Associates to finish the grading plan changes. But we hope that those changes will be complete soon and the City can then finish its review of the building permit. If no more changes are required, we could have a permit soon. Or not.

Once we have the permit, we will schedule the closing on the land (we haven't purchased the land yet, but will do so approximately one month after we get the building permit).

We've been working with the mortgage broker on the financing package details (we'll now finish the third bedroom on the lower level to have a 3BR/2BA house -- with rough-in plumbing for a third bath -- which will help increase the appraisal for the loan). The quotes for some of the work came in higher than we were originally led to believe they would by our construction manager, Chad, with UBuildIt, but we've been working to get those bids down to much more reasonable quotes for today's (slow) construction market. We want the subcontractors to make enough of a profit that they can afford to eat, but we don't want to pay them so much money that we won't be able to afford to eat once we're in the house!

I've traded messages with my insurance agent about the necessary coverages for a construction project, since we'll be the general contractors, and I hope we'll be able to talk in real time soon.

Let me know if you have any questions....post a comment and tell me what you're thinking.

A Bit About Our House Design

Another of the good things about our future neighborhood in Falls Church is that there's no one prevailing architectural style. Glancing up and down the street, one sees old farm houses, craftsman style homes, colonials, cape cods, ranches, and even some contemporaries. So our little house will fit right in -- it's yet another style (green modern, in the absence of another name to describe the architectural genre of our house) to compliment the diversity of the neighborhood.

Our house is one level plus a full basement. 2 bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. Each bedroom suite is positioned on an end of the house, with the master suite at the back of the house (eastern exposure, quietest part of the lot). In the center of the house is an open floor plan great room, with kitchen, dining, and living rooms. There are five sliding glass doors on the south side and three on the north side, with a deck surrounding the house to allow for an indoor-outdoor flow during parties, etc.

As you see from the sketch, there's a "shed roof" rising towards the southern sun, bringing the ceiling from about 9 feet to about 15 feet. This helps prevent the small house from feeling too small while allowing more winter sun to warm the house.

We are going for a modern look, without the coldness that some modern homes project. Our friends and family are welcome in our home and we look forward to (some day) opening our doors to you.

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.

Please Disturb Responsibly

Just a small side note on our building permit application. The State of Virginia requires listing a "Responsible Land Disturber (RLD)" on the building permit application. The RLD is the person responsible for ensuring erosion and sediment control during the construction process. Well, since we don't have a general contractor (who would usually be the RLD), we have to do this ourselves.
The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation certifies you online (http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/soil_&_water/es_rld.shtml); you pay $90 and then take an open-book test. I am proud to say I got 100% correct and am now a Responsible Land Disturber. But that also means that I now have to be out on the lot all the time to check on mud fences, and all the other good stuff we'll have to put up to make sure our neighbors' gardens don't get flooded with our dirt.
As long as I get to wear my hard hat!

So You Wanna Build a House?

I'm not sure what led us to the point of wanting to build a house. I've always loved houses in general: architecture, design, and construction. When I was a kid, I used to bike through the city I grew up in to look at the different styles of houses. I've kept my eye on the real estate market, wandered through open houses on occasion, and drew house plans and elevations for houses I thought would be cool to live in.

As the DC real estate market started to cool off, it seemed to me that it might be a good time to look at what options might be available. We casually looked at several homes, all of which had a list of problems that would require extensive renovations. At the price point for these homes, renovating wouldn't be in the budget for years to come. Many of these houses were extremely energy inefficient. Others were simply out-dated with 1980's kitchen cabinets and linoleum flooring. None of them were modern design. And the vast majority of them were huge, with bedroom after bedroom that would go unused.

Several years ago, Mom and Bill had bought me a subscription to Dwell Magazine, which contained many homes that were really cool looking, and which seriously introduced me to the concept of a "green" house as a viable option. They keep renewing the subscription and I read each issue religiously, learning with each turn of the page. Then a lightbulb went off in my head (or maybe Andreas said it often enough that I finally heard it). Why not build what we want rather than move into someone else's house and modify that to meet our needs?

And that's the start of the journey. In future posts, I'll write some more about the path we went down, considering pre-fab (of different shapes and sizes) and detail some stumbles we had along the way. Many people have helped us significantly with our learning process, and we've put together a good team that have counseled us through the planning and implementation phases. I'll introduce you to some of those folks too. More to come...

Does This Phase You At All?

It's been almost a week since I've posted an entry to the blog. I was hoping to have some news of some sort to report, but that hasn't been the case. Chad with UBuildIt Bethesda (I'll blog about who Chad is and what UBuildIt is in a bit) has sent out out house plans for bids for the foundation and other early stage projects of the construction. But no word back on that as of yet.

Since I began this blog with the "Implementation Phase" (which I think of as the period after we applied for the building permit up until we break ground and start the "Construction Phase"), I thought it would be helpful to add some posts that discuss the "Planning Phase". For the next few weeks, I'll bounce back and forth between Planning and Implementation. So you will get a sense of what brought us to this point while I keep you current on where things are at as we move forward.

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.