Green Remodelling

In the course of researching and working on remodeling our house, I've tried to keep things as green as possible. Green these days can mean different things to different people, and in my case it has meant focusing on health (particularly in-door air quality), efficiency (using less energy and water) and using renewable resources wherever possible.

Here are some specifics:

• Low-VOC paints (the Kelly Moore Enviro-Cote line). Our painter also did a bit of research and is using a high volume, low pressure (HVLP) spray gun to reduce overspray, which means less paint particles floating around in the air and more paint on the wall.
• More/better insulation - not only will insulation help reduce heating costs, but we're using UltraTouch insulation, which is both good for the environment (uses recycled denim) and better for your health (no VOC, no chemical irritants).
• New energy efficient windows.
• Energy Star compliant appliances:
  • New, high efficiency furnace.
  • New, high efficiency water heater.
  • New refrigerator.
  • New dishwasher.
  • New washer and dryer (there's no such thing as an Energy Star compliant dryer, but it's still possible to find a more efficient one).
• Using fluorescent lighting as much as possible.
• High efficiency dual flush toilets - replaced our old ones with Caroma Sidneys.
• Installed a hot water recirculation system. We used to have to run the water for several minutes before we got hot water in the master bathroom and it was a tremendous waste of water. I didn't want the hot water recirculation system running all the time either, since that would waste both the energy it takes to run the pump as well as the energy to reheat the cool return water, so I opted for a pump that runs on a programmable timer.

Note that our house is roughly 40 years old, and most of the appliances that came with it have probably been there from the very beginning.

At some point in the near future, I'm also hoping to install a PV system, and a smarter water sprinkler system.

Things I've considered but did not do:

• A gray water system - the issues surrounding this are still too murky (no pun intended), and Santa Clara township is actively warning people against any such systems
• An intelligent sprinkler system, one that'll check existing conditions before watering

Construction Day 78

Most of the painting is done. We were looking for a low or no VOC paint that we could color match, and ended up with Kelly-Moore's Enviro-Cote line. We're pretty happy with it so far, and there's no new-paint smell.

The maple flooring is also down now and it looks gorgeous! I'd been thinking about staining it to something a little darker, but now I think I'm going to try to keep it as close to its natural color as possible.

Our contractor estimates that it will take another two weeks of work to finish things up (the cabinets, the lighting, the trims, the tiles...). Unfortunately, it'll probably take a bit longer than that to actually finish everything since one of the tiles that we want for the master bathroom won't be available for another month! We're contemplating our alternatives, but since we are not in any rush to move back in, we'll probably just wait.

For now though, I think I'll hold off posting any new pictures until everything is complete so that the final results will be a surprise.

Construction Day 67

The walls are up! The walls are up! Well, the gypboard is up anyway. It only has one coat of mud on at the moment, with two more on the way. On the outside, the scratch coat is up. Both the stucco and drywall guys should be finishing things up next week if the weather holds (everything needs to dry properly). At that point, the painters will be coming in and doing their thing. Imagine that... Color!!! And then the cabinets, tiling and flooring. I can't wait.

In other news, Grohe's announcing that they'll be releasing low-flow versions of many of their faucets. This is great news, except for the fact that I've just bought their standard-flow faucets. *grrrr*

On the brighter side, it looks like the UltraTouch insulation is working wonders for sound insulation.

Construction Day 55

With all the in-wall work pretty much complete, the house has been taken over by the insulation people as they pack the walls with UltraTouch natural fiber insulation.

We picked this over standard fiberglass insulation because of it's green properties. It's made out of 85% post-industrial cotton fiber (i.e. denim scraps from manufacturers) and is 100% recyclable. Even better for me is that it's VOC-free and formaldehyde-free, which should help the indoor air quality. As a side benefit, they should also work pretty well as a sound barrier.

With all the walls filled in, the rooms are really starting to take shape as you can no longer see from one end of the house to the other. The drywalls go up next and will probably take a couple weeks to complete.

Construction Day 44

It doesn't look like much has changed since my last update 19 days ago, but that's because most of the work's been happening either in the walls, the attic, or the crawl space as the electrician, plumber and heating guys has been doing their thing. The only major visible change is the patio doors and the new landing in the garage:

The good news is that we've finally got all the approvals we need from the city. In the process, we've had to (a) add two strong-walls in the living room, (b) convert the wall between the patio doors into the family room into a shear wall, and (c) convert two walls in the master bedroom into shear walls. While the first two were relatively straightforward, the last one required us to re-do some work.

Construction Day 25

All the windows but one are in now, and the patio doors will be arriving next week. They've also started to finish the shear walls.

Construction Day 21

Everything's still going pretty well despite the trouble we're having finalizing our plans. We've had to switch structural engineers because the ones we had been working with are asking for an arm and a leg to do the new calculations. We've also been told that we do not have enough shear wall in the master bedroom due to all the new windows we've added, so we're waiting to see if we have to get rid of a window to add that support or if there are any other alternatives.

Construction-wise, things are pretty much set in the front of the house. We decided to shorten the coat closet by the main entry last week once we saw how narrow the entry into the living room would be, and it's looking much better now. The electrician's starting to position all the recessed lighting and the first window is in!

Construction Day 16

The framing is still going on, but the major internal walls are all there now and things are really starting to take shape. The plumber and electrician have also started doing their thing, and the next major step is to get the windows in.

As for the plans, they're still not completely nailed down yet. We'd gone back to the city with an updated set of plans, but they want further revisions. *sigh*

Construction Day 6

End of day six, and pretty much the end of the demolition phase. The front half of the house is completely opened up, and you can see clear to the ceiling. The framing phase starts tomorrow.

Unfortunately I still don't have the final plans yet, so things may slow down if I can't get it asap. We've been making some last minute tweaks and getting it all into an official AutoCAD drawing is taking a bit longer than anticipated. In principal, this is the kind of thing that should have been completed before we started construction, but our designer gave us such amazing ideas that we had to incorporate them.