Offical HERS Score came back...

Just got a call from our contractor about the official HERS score for our house. The preliminary score - based on the actual readings - was 41, but after all calculations were done the house actually came in 3% better.

Therefore, both Charis Homes and de Jong family are proud to present a HERS score of... 38!!

Our contractor was just as happy as it is their first house in the 30's. Keep in mind that the average new house is between 100 and 75 (with 0 being a net-zero house).

Note that this HERS score of 38 was achieved without the use of any renewable engery sources (geothermal, solar, wind). By adding solar in the future we can reduce this even further. As a comparison, it's the same score as the HGTV Green Home from last year but that house is using solar for a large part of their electricity need.

Having a HERS score in the 30s with just smart building and a properly constructed tight building envelop reduces the need of using energy. This is the first and - in our opinion - the most important step. After that it is time to see if or when you want to generate (a portion of) the remaining energy needs from renewable resources.

Thank you, Charis Homes for building us the engery-efficient house we wanted!

HERS Score and Energy Star level

We just got our HERS score and Energy Star levels back and they are better than what we had anticipated. Our home engery rater (George Trappe of Residential Energy Services) just emailed us the prelimenary result of the tests they conducted last Friday.

Conducting the blower door test.

Our house already exceeds the new July 2012 Energy Star 3.0 standard (current EnergyStar standard is the 2.5) and the HERS score came back as a 41, which means our house is almost 60% more efficient than a minimum code house leading to a projected energy cost savings of almost $2300/yr as compared to a minimum code house.

HERS Score chart

What's even more remarkable is that this score was achieved without using geothermal heating or solar assistance, both of which had to be eliminated due to budget constraints. It shows that with putting some extra money in quality construction (in this case the ICF walls by an experienced ICF crew) can generate significant energy savings.

If later on we want to switch to geothermal or add solar power we can still do that and reduce our energy cost even further, while it is virtually impossible (read: expensive) to redo the building envelop at at a later stage...

In about two weeks we should get our official certifications but we wanted to share the prelim results as a testimony to the quality construction of our house.

Thank you, Charis Homes!

Open House (not ours)

One of the (many) reasons we chose Charis as our builder is that we were able to see many, many of the homes they built during open houses they hold before the owners move in. They are a small custom builder so they build about 20 houses a year, maybe less. They don't have a big showroom, so often the "office" is a home they've built for a home owner, which they might rent as a model while the owners' house sells. Everybody wins.

As fun as it is to see the completed homes, because everyone can see and appreciate fixtures and finishes, Charis also hosts "dusty shoe" open houses, which take place before the drywall stage. These were really informative for us as we were more concerned about the structural bones of our house then the finishes that can easily be changed or upgraded later.

Last night we visited Charis' newest completed home. A few highlights:

This is the niche design our house had originally. Very nice, but I love the functionality of our bench. Future home owners will be able to choose either, or something else. That's the beauty of a custom builder. 

This floor plan is called the Cooper. My mom says it's the perfect floor plan, and the one she would get if she was building with Charis. Builders can design their own plan--like we did--or customize plans that Charis has already built. These open stairs are so pretty with the stone.

More pretty stone on the kitchen bar. 

This is the current model of the Jenn Air floor model  oven we bought. 

I really like the way their tile is finished with this nickel band.

We chose to use fiberglass inserts for our showers, but if we ever upgrade to til, I would love a design like this.

The entry would work well for a wheelchair.

This is the standard style of closet shelving. I like that it's solid shelves, not wire.  Our closets will be going be going in this coming week. Ours will have pull out baskets instead of shelves on the bottom half of the tower. 

It's interesting to us that as we look at different homes, we focus on whatever decision we're making. Since we are deciding on our mudroom hooks, their cubbies caught our eye.

We're putting an ironing board drawer in our laundry room upstairs, and putting a regular ironing board  in the in-law suite. But, we might add something like this in the in-law closet at some point.

This is another upgrade take away. Maybe when D is older, we'll put a tub base in his shower and tile the top.

We put off finishing the basement for now (sigh), but seeing their finished basement led us to an inspired hour in our basement today talking about how we might lay it out.

The multi-zone HVAC controller. We have 4 zones, one for each floor with a separate zone for the main-level in-law suite.

We LOVE this idea for our mudroom closet! The little ledge is perfect for putting Niels' laptop bag, D's school bag, our shopping bags, etc. Hopefully it won't be too hard to add this to our closet plan.

Seeing their front step reminded us that we need to put a step in our back porch.

They had the same bath fixtures we'll have from the Moen Eva line.

It was really excited for us to see this house because they were always just a step ahead of us in the process. Which means...we're next!

Closet Layouts

As part of our busy morning at the new house yesterday, we did our closet walk-through with Les from Top Shelf Closets. I felt a little unprepared for this round of decisions. Even though I try to be organized,  usually I'm working with existing shelving, so trying to think through how to place the shelves was a bit daunting to me.

We have several rooms to discuss:

• Master bedroom 
• Our son's bedroom
• In-law bedroom
• Guest bedroom
• Linen Closet
• Upstairs Laundry Room
• Downstairs Laundry Room
• Entry Closet
• Foyer Closet
• Pantry

The entry, foyer, guest closets, and downstairs laundry were easy. We did Charis' standard rod and shelf, like this:

We didn't put any shelving in the upstairs laundry room or pantry. I have my eye on a metal shelf from Ikea for the laundry room, and we'll be repurposing  some shelves in the pantry for now.

Most of the discussion centered on our son's closet, the in-law closet and our closet. Les didn't have any pictures for us to look at, but we have seen the type of closet system he used in other homes built by Charis homes. They are white melamine systems with cool brackets, like this:

For our three-year-old's closet, we talked about how to best use the space for the next 15 years. I was thinking of three rows of shelves and rods, but realized that would likely result in us needing to redo in a few years. Besides, he has a dresser, too, and not a lot of clothes. We did put in shelving for toys and extra books.

another Charis closet

For the in-law closet, we discussed how to best use the space for the possibility of long-term guests (several weeks or more), short-term guests (who may be working out of their suitcase rather than fully unpacking) and future use as a master if Niels or I have mobility issues and don't want to be upstairs. I think we came up with a good solution with a combination of double rows, single rows and a shelf. Pictures to come.

In our closet, which is long and narrow, we had to work around a full length mirror we're putting up across from the entry. We chose not to put a door on our closet because, realistically, it'd would almost always be open, either out of laziness or to let in the natural light. We decided to go with it, and take advantage of the wall to have a full length closet, which we wouldn't have space for in the bathroom itself.

Les was really helpful in guiding us through our thought process. We liked that he was helpful without being pushy and we're quite happy with what we decided. We'll have mostly two rows of rows and shelves, and we're saving ourselves from buying an Ikea dresser by installing wire baskets, similar to this for our drawers.

We'll each have four 24" wire drawers, which should be plenty. There will be shelving above those that we can use, as well. Les also made the suggestion of using the extra bookcase that doesn't fit in our pantry along an open wall, which will be perfect for more storage. I'm really excited to see how it all turns out.

Build - Day ### - October 15, 2011

We haven't posted a lot recently mainly due to a lack of time in decision making processes, travel and health issues, but the progress on the house has not slowed down.

Since our last post the walls have been dry-walled and primed, the ceilings have been finished and all the electrical and plumbing is in as well. Next week we'll have regular power in the house as well and can say goodbye to the temporary pole in the front yard. Oh yeah, the drive way has also been poured, the furnace installed and with the installation of the glass block windows in the basement the building envelop is now sealed.

The items that haven't progressed much have been around cabinets and flooring. The quotes we've gotten were close to double the allowances so some soul searching and cost cutting methods had to be applied. We are very close in finalizing all of those items now though. We'll meet one last time with our kitchen cabinet supplier on Monday so he can get started and we'll meet with the supplier of the rest of the cabinets early next week.
Next Thursday morning we'll also meet with our 'trim guy', the master carpenter who will put the finishing touches on  the walls, windows and door openings.

So, here are a couple of pictures of the build as it stands this week.

Back-porch with the stone columns

Basement window, our manor stone and the back-filled electrical connector.

The walk way to the front door is elevated to one step only. A simple, removable one-step high ramp will be created  later to give us wheelchair access.

Good shot of the front of the house with more of the manor stone and the driveway.

Back-porch with the beautiful fall colors in the background.

Rainy day, but good shot of the house.

Close-up of our manor stone selection.

From the kitchen into the great room. More indoor pics to follow.

Color Selection

This is a bit of slow season in our build as the electrical/plumbing/HVAC finishes up. There's been a little bit of insulation blown in and then we're see the drywall going up. At the point, our house will really start to look like a home.

We've handed off our flooring selections, and the folks from Charis will do a little research so see if we can get the costs in line with our allowance. 

The other big batch of decisions we made this week was selecting the colors for our soon-to-be walls. Sue, from Charis, came over with her big book of Sherwin Williams color swatches and we got to work. Our allowance is for six colors, though we could always pay more for additional colors if we wanted them. Our current house has five colors (mostly one outside the bedrooms), so we figured six was plenty.

In our current house, our base color is what I call "chocolate milkshake." When we put in on almost 5 years ago, it really reminded me of a Wendy's Frosty. But as we've been looking at models and watching HGTV, we've been won over by gray as the new neutral. It works with our modern bent and our steel appliances and fixtures, so we think it will look nice. 

Thanks to the Sherwin Williams Color Visualizer, we're able to get a large scale sense of how the colors will look.

We'll use the darker gray as the base on the first floor for the kitchen, great room, dinette (maybe, see below), foyer, mudroom, office and maybe in-law bath (if we don't go with the room color). We'll  use the lighter gray upstairs in the guest bedroom, hallway and our bath, with a transitional treatment using both hues on the stairway. 

SW Classic French Gray

SW Light French Gray

The next decision was the in-law suite. We knew that it would be the same (or Sherwin Williams equivalent) or our current master bedroom colors, which is sage green and chocolate. I was happy to keep those colors (since we have all the accent decor) for our new master until my awesome hubby said we could use plum: my most favorite color! So here's the color for the in-law suite (and laundry room)

SW Dried Thyme

So, our room will be this pretty plum color! Our wedding colors were platinum and plum, so of course, I love that subtle reminder in our bedroom. What can I say, my husband is the greatest!

SW Expressive Plum

Just for giggles, I did this rendering for the dining room. It looks a lot richer/deeper than the rendering of our bedroom. Interesting. Our dinette will be very bright because it has windows on all three sides (and open on the fourth), so I think we could play with a darker color if we wanted to be crazy with it.

SW Expressive Plum

Our 2.5-year-old son's favorite color, for quite some time has been yellow. When we asked him what color he wanted his new room to be, he has quite consistently requested yellow. However, yellow is not really the calm nap/deep sleeping-inducing color we have in mind, so we're sticking with blue like he has in his nursery, but more of a "big boy blue. We saw this particular color in another Charis home and we feel in love with it.

SW Bracing Blue

So that leaves one last color. We had to decide between the vibrant orange Dutch bathroom I put off in our current house because we needed to be neutral or yellow for our amber-obsessed son. After looking at pictures of my Dutch decor, we decided that the yellow would work, so this is the yellow for our powder room and D's bath. The power room will have orange tulips for accents, and D's room will have blue accents.

SW Bee's Wax.

We made all these selections in our home, at night, under warm lights. Sue, our interior designer, is ordering larger samples that we'll bring to the new house to view with natural light. If needed we can adjust the tones.

I can't wait to see it all come together!

Dusty Shoe Open House

When we first started dreaming about building, we spend many hours touring houses: the Parade of Homes, open houses and model homes. If it was anywhere near us, we were there. As we started to picture what kind of home we'd like to build, we started looking behind all the typical bells and whistles, upgrades and fancy finishes. We starting thinking about what elements would really make our house a dream.

The American housing market is overrun with McMansions that aren't selling because home owners are now looking for quality over quantity, and efficiency over extravagance. Even if a buyer finds a big house bargain, can they afford the taxes and utilities of such a home???

Don't get us wrong, Niels and I both appreciate the nice things in life just as much as the next person, but for us, the question always comes down to practicality. Are we going to spend more on cork floors? Yes, because they are sound insulating, which decreases the frequency and/or severity of my headaches, which gives me a greater quality of life. Easy. Are we going to spend more for a high-end custom tile shower? Nope, because we can get just as clean in a fiberglass insert shower and don't have to worry about cleaning all that grout!

When it came time to choose a builder, the structure of our new home was as important as the finished product. Anything can look high-end for a few months waiting for a sale. We wanted to know that the home we built would be a solid home for years to come. We actually walked into one model, maybe 6 months old, and there was already a HUGE crack along the ceiling. Didn't take long to cross them off our list. Realizing each house 'settles' we thought, if this is how they treat their models, what does the house without all the scrutiny look like?

One of many reasons we chose Charis Homes is that they have "dusty shoe" open houses. It's an opportunity to see the bones of a building before all the sheet rocking goes up and it looks like any other house. It was at a Charis dusty shoe that I saw my first ICF form and finally understood why Niels was so adamant that we needed to use it for our home.

We've been to maybe ten dusty shoes with Charis and we continue to be impressed with the quality of construction. We think it says a lot of a builder if they invite potential home owners to visit their work "behind the scenes." Of course, we also appreciate that we are welcome, as the home owner now, on the job site at any time. Our builder assures us that he rather hears about our concerns or mid-course changes sooner rather than later (since no matter how final you think your plans are, they really aren't. Some things can really only be seen in real life).

So tomorrow, we get to pay it forward to any local potential home owners. We're have a dusty shoe open house for our new house, tomorrow, September 1. (If you're local, and want to check it out, send us an email and we'll give you the address).

I put on my old marketing pants and we came up with this description:

Nestled in the back of the quiet and kid friendly KR development in G..., this four bedroom, 3.5 bath home has ample adjacent green space and stunning sky views. The design of this house was a result of diligent home-owner research combined with Charis Homes’ expertise in energy efficiency.

The two story, full ICF home has upper and lower master bedrooms, two additional bedrooms, a large dual-island kitchen designed for baking, entertaining and easy green living. The entire first floor was built with universal design principles including wide hallways, easy-to-use pulls and rockers, lowered baking center and kitchen drawers to make this house a forever home. Thoughtful consideration was given to practical living and ample storage with features like mudroom lockers, first (and second) floor laundry, and a generous 9’ x9’10” walk-in pantry. The beautiful 13′x28′ covered outdoor living space features fans and wheelchair access.

In a future post, we'll make a full laundry list of all the energy efficient and universal design elements we've incorporated, but here are a few to get started:

• HERS (Home Energy Rating) Score (est.): 42, or 58% more efficient than standard home construction. Projected annual gas bill: $300.
• High efficiency heat pump
• High efficiency furnace
• Extremely tight thermal envelope
• Low-e 366 Jeld-wen Energy Star windows
• ICF basement, unfinished
• ICF walls on the 1st and 2nd floor
• Shingles with reflective technology
• All Energy Star appliances
• Cork and recycled carpet fiber floors
• No VOC paint and cabinets
• Heat Recovery Ventilator for fresh air
• WaterSense low-flow faucets
• WaterSense low-flow and/or dual-flush toilets
• Compact yard for low maintenance