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.

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. 

Deconstruction: Final Day

Well, it isn't pretty, but what remains of the cottage is very little. C-CAP spent the last few days taking apart the roof and wall sections that were on the ground before carting most all of the materials off site using a U-Haul truck. The photo here shows the last, and smallest, load of materials. While there are two valuable beams in the truck, most of the wood in here is destined to be chipped once it is de-nailed. SUNY-ESF has offered to provide this service, allowing the wood to be re-used on the site of the "hoop" house that C-CAP is building in the southside neighborhood in order to provide fresh veggies to a population that has little access to healthy food.

The dumpster is filled with asphalt shingles, fiberglass insulation, plastic materials, and some wood (most painted) that couldn't be recycled or re-used. The material in the cellar isn't that deep, and is mainly torn wood scrap and the soft particleboard that was used before plywood came along. It will be covered with the stone blocks that surround the foundation, and the pile of soil and stone that is adjacent to the hole. Then we'll just need a giant magnet to find all those nails.....:)

Once C-CAP has time to store all the material, they'll have a final tally for us on the deconstruction waste stream.

This is the third U-Haul truck, with the previous two loads being near full. Imagine if all of that material needed a dumpster....

Foreground: an old cistern that was used to collect rainwater from a spout running off the roof until the late 1970's. Background: The remaining foundation that will be knocked in, and then covered with the adjacent soil pile.

It was a long day, of dull work, but Mike, Brad and Izzy are still able to give me a smile! 

More Deconstruction Photos

The first set of shots were taken on Friday, with the last few taken earlier today. It's evident the guys worked over the weekend! They experimented with different strategies for removing the roof, and settled on the technique of cutting sections out at a time. That way, they could lower the sections to the ground where it is safer to do the work. Similarly, some of the exterior wall framing was knocked off the foundation intact where it will be taken apart. The final layer to be removed is the flooring, which requires the guys to work more carefully as they have to pry the boards from each other so they don't split the dry wood. While some workers remove the remaining material from the foundation, there are others on the ground sorting the wood and other debris so that it can be carted off-site for re-use, refurbishing (in the case of the floor), and recycling. A very small percentage of the material will require disposal.

The remaining porch and structure Friday a.m.

Taking off a roof section

The remaining structure looking toward the road, Friday afternoon.

No treasure found, but there were a lot of fruit boxes stored at one time under the porch that became enclosed

The view from the south, with the last wall coming down.
 In foreground, exterior wall framing still needs to be pulled apart

Pulling out the pine floorboards.

Just some of the sorted wood!

360 Degree Exterior photos

I realized when looking over my posts, that I didn't actually publish the finished exterior photos. The site work will commence after the cottage is gone, so the current elevations look a bit funny. I've started in what will be the driveway, on the southeast side of the lot....

The existing cottage is to the left of this photo. A 2-car garage. East view.  Entry in middle.

Walking west, downslope. There will be a retaining wall at this corner.

South side. Lots of windows, with solar shades below, to maximize solar gain in winter, minimize it in summer. Third floor will use shades to control sun.

West side. Will have porch on middle floor to provide sun control to lower level. Porch will have trellis to control sun. Upper level will use shades. Our main view is to the west, as our lot is long in this direction. 

North side. few windows. Small rectangular ones will be under cabinet in kitchen to provide natural counter light. Entry room north windows at left.

North side of garage.

Street view of east side of garage. The upper portion is unfinished, but the window was added to provide balance.

Deconstruction of Existing Cottage Underway!

A good deal of the former porch, north siding, and all of the windows, doors, and flooring are gone

Last week, Paul Fowler (a.k.a the builder) entered into an agreement with the Concerned Citizens Action Program (C-CAP) based in Syracuse's Southside to undertake the deconstruction of the 700 square foot cottage that is on the site (see earlier post). The workers are members of C-CAPs Green Collar Job Training Program, and for many, this project is their chance to hone skills that they can use to begin a new career in the nascent deconstruction market.

Deconstruction is important, because it reduces the amount of waste that ends up in a landfill. According to the United States Green Building Council, construction and demolition waste account for about 40% of the total solid waste stream in this country. The process can be slow, and challenging, as removal of materials needs to be done carefully in order to minimize damage to items that can be reused. Sorting of materials for recycling takes time too. On this job, the focus is on saving as many of the 2x4" and 2x6" boards, pine flooring, cedar siding and windows and doors as possible. Once they are done, the bulldozer doing the final site work will knock the block foundation into the cellar to fill the hole that will become part of the driveway.

The upper level, as seen through the former back door. 

It is C-CAPs first solo project, having worked previously with the Ithaca-based not for profit Finger Lakes Re-Use in order to gain experience. Like many re-use groups, C-CAP is currently setting up a warehouse where they will store materials, either for use in additional job training, or for sale to the general public. They hope to use this project as a launch pad for securing deconstruction work from the City of Syracuse.

I really want to thank Paul for giving work to this group, as it would have been much easier for him to hire a bulldozer and get two dumpsters to fill. It also would have been done in a day, rather than many. It was definitely a leap of faith (like the reclaimed flooring!) and I appreciate his willingness to try new methods with our project. I also want to thank Erich Kruger, a deconstruction consultant, for providing guidance on the project.

He's not putting the nails in, he's straightening one to pull it out. A tedious job....

A "sawsall" is a critical tool for the workers, seen here cutting a brace on the porch roof

Reclaimed Wood Flooring

We knew we wanted wood flooring in the house, in all the living areas but for the entry room, and bathrooms. It’s very resistant to wear and tear (if finished correctly), easily cleaned, and altogether offers a long life. By coincidence I learned of Habitat for Humanity’s stash of reclaimed hardwood in a warehouse in downtown Syracuse.

The lineage of our flooring is a little sketchy: from which of the 18 homes in Syracuse it came out of can’t be confirmed. Two years ago, SUNY Environmental School of Forestry was looking to construct a new dormitory, and the homes were to be removed to create the necessary space.  SUNY investigated the idea of de-constructing the dorms with the intent to salvage or recycle as much as possible. Unfortunately, their construction timeline and budget hadn’t factored in deconstruction.  So Habitat was given roughly two days per house to go in and take out as much as they could before the remaining structures were demolished. The age of the houses were 1850s-1950’s, and Habitat focused their efforts on the older homes with more period details.

Initial quantity, as delivered!

We missed getting the maple pile, but Greg Wright of Habitat let us take as much of the white oak as we could. We really liked the fact that the boards were weathered and included some long stock (up to 16ft) that’s no longer common today. We requested 1800 square foot of the material, and Paul Fowler (our builder) picked it up to bring it to the site. We paid $1.50 a square foot, with a promise of more if we needed some to finish the job. Our goal was to cover both the main (living, dining, kitchen) and upper (bedrooms, hallway) floors with this wood.

Putting the puzzle together took some time

Our initial impression of the pile was “that’s a lot of wood!” But by the time the flooring guys sorted through it, taking out the pieces with the broken tongues and grooves or pieces that were too ripped to use, we ended up with barely enough to do 700+ sf of the main level. We went back for more.  The next load containing a greater mixture of wood: white and red oak, with some maple mixed in.  This wood was also a more damaged, and after a few hours, the flooring guys announced they were uncomfortable working with it.  

Thankfully, Justin (as a belated mother’s day present, he joked) went in and sorted this pile, cutting out the bad pieces of wood to create shorter more usable lengths. He also came up with the solution for using the cut pieces that would no longer have the tongues on the end: screw and fill these ends so that they wouldn’t pop and creak (this avoided gluing the floor, which I was against because of the smell).  So in the end, we cobbled together enough flooring to finish the main floor and the upstairs kids bedrooms and hallway. We needed to resort to some new red oak flooring to do the master bedroom, because Habitat was out of flooring for us to use. In contrast to their work with the reclaimed material, the flooring installers had this room done in no time. I must admit, I have no idea where Paul rushed out to get it, but would guess that it was chosen for it’s price point rather than sustainable features given our overrun on this item.

Justin with Gorilla "wood" Glue adds oak plugs
to fill screw holes. At right, note the "X" marked
by installers to indicate where screws were needed.

The final phase will entail sanding and refinishing the floors with a water-based polyurethane tinted to help bring all the various wood types together.

Lessons Learned from Using Reclaimed Flooring

You save some trees….

Many of today’s woods are shipped from around the world and can come from unsustainable forestry practices. Purchasing FSC (Forest Stewardship Council certified wood) wood was an option, but it was more than three times as expensive as the reclaimed wood (albeit that’s without factoring in the extra installation costs we will incur with the reclaimed flooring).

You preserve a little bit of history…..

Aesthetically, it gives a patina and richness to our floor that you won’t get in a new floor. Additionally, historic flooring is likely to offer greater board length and width. Our 16-foot lengths are a unique feature.

You support local business/organizations…..

Most of the reclaimed material you will find is processed by a local business or organization (Habitat in our case).

You reduce transportation costs associated with the product…

And more importantly, the carbon footprint associated with the transportation and manufacturing of the product.

You will not get perfect pieces…..

Deconstruction is an evolving practice. The quality of your wood is dependant upon the skill of the people removing the pieces. Some of the deconstruction groups are now removing flooring in sheets.  Later, without the pressure of time, they separate the boards, which helps preserve the tongues and grooves that are essential to the integrity of the floor. 

The lifespan of your floors might be shorter than that of a new board…..

Because these boards have been sanded already at least once in their history, the amount of usable floor surface can be diminished.  Of course if you start with a 1” thick piece of barn board or some other such stock, you could get more wood than current flooring provides. In our view, it’s infinitely better to have the real hardwood that’s left in the used boards than to install laminated wood floors whose surface is less than ¼ inch and have one life (no sanding and refinishing).

You will not have a perfect surface…..

History has marked used wood flooring, with scratches, holes, stains and other blemishes. While sanding and refinishing will minimize many of these imperfections, you will never have the new floor look that is achieved with an out of the box product. We choose to view the imperfections as “character” and like the fact that no two of our floors will look alike.

Increased time and Labor…..

This is the biggie. Our installers would have finished installation in less than two days with new wood flooring, and another day (or two ½ days) would have been needed for sanding and finishing this flooring. Our project went over budget after the second day, because the labor necessary to sort the good floor pieces from the unusable ones, in addition to prepping boards that required cleaning (of the tongues) or cutting (of bad pieces), and then figuring out how to best fit them together, was much higher than anticipated. In fact, if it weren’t for the intervention of Justin, we might still be in a standoff over labor expectations and the related cost of such labor.

In the future, I will be able to post on the total cost of the floor, since we are still waiting to learn what the sanding and finishing price will be. 

Finished installation, ready for sanding and refinishing with low VOC polyurethane.

New red oak flooring in master bedroom, ready for sanding and finishing.

After the Memorial Day weekend, the sanding commenced. Above left, the contrast between the "new" wood and the old. Above right, the "first pass" results in a fairly uniform floor.