Monday, July 25, 2011

Some final house pictures

It will be cleaner, but it might not be neater in the future so I thought I should post these photos of the house. We are still waiting for the kitchen counters (stainless steel) and bathroom mirror in the guest bath. All lights, interior and exterior, with the exception of those in the family/guest room and dining room, are CFL or T8/T5 florescent fixtures. All recessed lights are CREE-6 LED retrofits.

Landscaping will come, but for now the area of the site that was disturbed will be seeded to prevent erosion. Of course, it has barely rained in the last two months. We don't expect to plant anything until the fall, when the temperatures are lower, and hopefully, the rain returns. There's no sense wasting water and stressing plants to get things to look greener. We also want time to mull over the landscape plan that we expect to receive by summer's end.

View from the east, road side, gravel drive. Remember the cottage that was to the left?
Northwest side, with new porch. This still needs glass panels and additional trellis rails.

South side with new retaining wall. 
Master bath. There's a 36" base, neo-angle shower. Not a lot of space but we don't hang out here.
View of master bedroom from bath. Windows at right are on the north exposure,  so smaller.
At the top of the 3rd floor staircase, looking down hall to bath and downstairs to main level. Sconces have LED lamps.
Kid's room 1: looking out West window. 
Looking out west windows end from the end of the hall on third floor.
Kids bath sink area, with laundry spot in background. 
Kids toilet and shower room, adjacent to above space. We installed an occupancy sensor on the light since they tend to forget to shut it off.
Kids bedroom 2, looking East.
View from north wall of dining room looking along west (porch) wall, main floor.
My office nook, on the east side of living room area overlooks the entry porch.
View from my office out west windows, living room.
Stainless steel countertops in kitchen manufactured locally. Should withstand every abuse, and can be recycled when the next occupant decides they're not what's current. Yes, they will scratch, but if we get enough scratches, we won't notice! Or we can buff them out with an abrasive pad.  The vent hood is made by Whirlpool, and other than an Air King, is the only chimney hood that is Energy Star certified.

Looking down to the lower, walk-out level from the west wall of main level.
Looking up the same staircase to main floor, and out lower level slider on west side.
We still need the mirror and the tile backsplash on the counter, but this is the guest bath. We put an occupancy sensor on these lights too. No loitering!
Open play/work out room on west side lower level. Slider is at right.

Hard to photograph, our guest/family room overlooks the south lawn (under the eyebrow). 
The unfinished entry porch. We'll add to the pavers and will landscape this. But for now, we can get in!

Finishes, and finish lines

This last month has been a blur. Issues with sewer and water easements, late delivery of flooring and counters, and insane heat and humidity that impacted the painters were just a few of the annoying factors. Basically, it felt as if we were sliding into home, and then we missed our closing deadline! Now that we have our Certificate of Occupancy from the town and just some minor finishing touches, we should be able to move into the house in early August as long as our inspection with the bank goes smoothly (new construction mortgages require independent appraisals--a full inspection--now).

I wanted to share a few of our decisions regarding countertops since they're a pretty big ticket item and they have a real environmental impact.

When considering surfaces we looked for durable products that required minimal (if any) maintenance other than regular cleaning, while also investigating products that required "greener" raw material, less processing, and transportation. As discussed earlier, some products have a "life-cycle cost analysis" associated with them.  Embodied energy is another term used to describe the energy required to extract and process the raw materials of a product, as well as the energy used to transport the finished product to the job site and install it.

For instance, granite countertops have a high embodied energy, unless you happen to find a piece of granite lying relatively close to your home. The stone needs to be extracted from a mountain (hence it isn't renewable), it is normally transported to Europe for finishing (really, this is true even for most "local" stone) before being shipped back to the continent where various distributors for cutting and finishing will prepare it for installation. It is heavy and fragile, so transportation costs can be high too. Like any igneous rock, it can emit radon, which is why some homes have tested for higher than acceptable radon levels. But it is durable, lasting forever, and if you aren't particular about stains and blemishes you won't need to seal it as is recommended, on an annual basis (sealants can be a source of VOCs). And it is beautiful.


There is one stone product that we considered up to the end: Cambria quartz surfaces. Their products are often mined, and all are manufactured in the U.S. It is nonporous and nonabsorbent, so unlike granite, it eliminates the risk of bacterial growth and staining and doesn't need any sealer or polish to keep its finish. It is Greenguard certified. 


PaperStone is another cool product that is made in Washington state. It is certified to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards. It is made from post-consumer waste, recycled paper and petroleum-free phenolic resins derived from organic materials (hence, VOC free). It is heavy like stone, and has the patina of soapstone, and comes in a number of earth-tone colors. However, the price is greater than granite! This could change as more manufactures delve into this product area. 


For two of our bathroom counters (there are three full baths with toilet and shower), we went with products that were readily available through the builder's supplier, Roma Tile, in Syracuse, NY. The first product is a quartz stone from the DuPont Zodiaq Terra collection. It has a 10-year product warranty, and is also available through Lowe's. The product looks like any other quartz composite, but the Terra collection (eight in all) contain a minimum of 25% post consumer recycled content. Like other quartz products, it is non-porous, and resists scratches and is heat resistant (not an issue for our baths obviously), while also being maintenance free. The adhesives used in the product meet or exceed VOC standards, meeting GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Standards. While fabricated locally, I've no idea where this product is made and am still awaiting that information. DuPont makes Corian, which is another popular solid surface counter top choice. Depending on the composite selected, it can cost as much as "basic" granite.


DuPont Zodiaq Terra in Calm Springs used in the master bath



The second bathroom counter will have a composite quartz product called ECO by Cosentino. It too is highly resilient, resisting scratching, staining, and scorching (although our supplier was worried that the corn-based resin would be more susceptible to heat), and depending on the product selected, will contain at least 75% post-consumer or pre-consumer recycled content. Post-consumer products have completed the end of their life-cycle, and include such items as mirrors, porcelain (ceramics, including toilets!), glass and stone scraps. Since ECO uses a corn-based resin to bind the materials together, it meets strict indoor air quality guidelines. Like the DuPont product, it doesn't need to be sealed, so we avoid using substances that can introduce harmful fumes into the house. The company claims to recycle 94% of the water they use in manufacturing. As to where our stone was made, nobody can tell me, since they have locations around the world where they source and manufacture products. If I ever get an answer to this inquiry, I'll post it. It is listed at Lowe's for as much as $75 a sf, but my builder got it for roughly $40 a sf.


Our kitchen counters will be stainless steel. We are still awaiting the final details on where our steel came from (sheet steel is more often made in China today than in North America), but our local fabricator is Frigo Designs in Brewerton, NY. They worked with us to create counters with integrated sinks and a backsplash in the kitchen. The great thing about the product, is that it is easily recycled, maintained, won't emit any VOCs


A peak at the stainless steel counter in our guest bath...


Another sustainable counter choice is to search for stone in your local fabricators "scrap" yard. Often, you can find good "remnants" if people changed their mind after their counter was cut, or if the piece of stone got damaged--cracking, or losing a corner. Stone pieces can be re-fabricated to fit smaller spaces, so as long as you don't have an enormous swath of counter, you might get lucky. Or you can combine different stones in smaller spaces. Finally, concrete counters can be manufactured locally, using local materials. It can include all sorts of ingredients to give it a range of different looks, although they require regular sealing to maintain their appearance. One made to order concrete product that I looked at include Sonoma Stone's Earthcrete. Their prices started at $55 a sf, before shipping and handling. Finding a local fabricator who can pour on-site is probably the best way to go to minimize the impact of this type of counter.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Bathroom fixtures

Ok, after a long hiatus, I'm going to try and catch up a bit since we should be done with the house next week! And I know, if anyone is still reading this in the month of July, you're thinking "toilets!?"

Selecting plumbing fixtures was actually one of the easiest tasks for me, as there are many manufacturers making fixtures that have water saving characteristics. And while our region of the country has no serious water shortages (we are in the Finger Lakes region of Central NY after all, where rainfall is quite plentiful), there are still some important issues to consider: 1. Using fresh water treated for drinking for tasks that hardly require such a level of treatment (toilets); 2. The expense associated with the treatment and disposal of water that ultimately turn up in our sewer and water bills; and 3. It takes energy to treat water to acceptable drinking and disposal levels, so the less we can use, the lower our energy footprint for this important resource. I'm not going to talk about the merits of "graywater" systems (those that recycle water from showers, clothes washers, or faucets for use in toilets), or rainwater systems that capture water from the roof to use in the house, because there are places to find the technical information pertaining to these systems and their benefits/challenges.

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 mandated the use of water-conserving plumbing fixtures and fittings to reduce water use in residential, commercial and institutional settings. Since, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria, as well as local water control measures in dry regions like the southwest, have driven the industry even further.  To meet Energy Policy Act mandates, a standard toilet uses 1.6 gal/flush (gpf). The standard faucet will use 2.5 gal/minute (gpm), and the standard shower uses 2.2 gpm. For LEED, there are two levels of high efficiency fixtures that once can employ (in pursuit of points):

High Efficiency Fixtures: The average flow rate for all lavatory faucets must be less than or equal to 2.0 gpm; the average flow rate for all showers must be less than or equal to 2.0 gpm per stall; and the average flow rate for all toilets must be less than or equal to 1.3 gpf (or toilets must meet the U.S. EPA WaterSense specification and be certified and labeled accordingly).

Very High Efficiency Fixtures: These must meet an average flow rate for all lavatory faucets that is less than or equal to 1.5 gpm, or they must meet the U.S. EPA WaterSense specification; the average flow rate for all showers must be less than or equal to 1.75 gpm per stall; and the average flow rate for all toilets must be less than or equal to 1.10 gpf.

One of the sources I used to research low flow toilets (I was less concerned about faucets performing poorly) was the Maximum Performance (MaP) Testing protocol. According to the California Water Conservation Council,

The Maximum Performance (MaP) testing project was developed in 2003 in order to identify how well popular toilet models perform using a realistic test media. The MaP testing protocol, cooperatively developed by water-efficiency and plumbing fixture specialists in the U.S. and Canada, incorporated the use of soybean paste as a test media, closely replicating the "real world demand" upon fixtures. Performance testing of 80 different toilet fixture models was completed and summarized in the Final Report (1st Edition - December 2003). That report led to the further evolution of testing and reporting on toilet fixtures and their flush performance. 

Now 8 years old, the current MaP testing report provides performance information on over 1,800 different toilet fixture models (including both tank-type and commercial flushometer combinations) !!! Over 940 these models are WaterSense-certified high-efficiency toilets (HETs).


So, if you are researching a new toilet option, you definitely want to visit this site (they use paste in sausage casings!!!) where product information is updated every two months: http://www.map-testing.com/


And now, I know you are asking (at the edge of your seats....), so what did you choose? The following:


American Standard's Flowise, Dual Flush toilet that uses only .8 gpf for liquids, and the common 1.6 gpf for solids. Signage will be placed above all toilets to help educate users. The kids are REALLY excited about the dual button feature, so our water use might be a little high in the beginning. LEED provides a nifty equations for calculating water use in households based on the number of "full flush" and "partial flush" visits occupants will make to the toilet, and using this our toilets will comply with the 1.10 gpf standard. Toto also makes excellent and proven low flow toilets (their EcoDrake Toilet uses 1.28 gpf), and a company called Niagara Stealth offers single flush toilets that offer 1.0 and .8 gpf options. 


For our other fixtures, we selected Grohe Water Care products. Luckily, our builder has a relationship with the local plumbing supplier F.W. Webb in East Syracuse, so the pricing was reasonable. Grohe's reputation for high quality, long lasting fixtures is well established. The only exception is for our shower heads: for some reason, Grohe's standard shower head, offering three setting options, was nearly 50% more than a model with the same functions and 1.75 gpm flowrate from Moen. So all of our fixtures, including the kitchen faucet (which didn't need to comply with LEED standards because under LEED for Homes they're treated as utility faucets--e.g. your going to use as much water as you need to fill a pot to boil pasta) will meet the 1.50 gpm flow rate. 


Ok, the only final thing I'll mention about plumbing is that we designed our water distribution system to be very compact, minimizing branch run lengths (from the water heater) and using insulated PEX piping (R-4) to ensure that heated water doesn't lose temperature as it travels to the outlet.