Egress Window Woes

Five months after we've moved into our new house, one of the things we are most grateful for is the fact that we chose a builder who promises to make things right. Every house is different. Every plot of land is different. And without a doubt, there will be things that come up after you move in. Fortunately, there are very few things that have needed to be tweaked or fixed after we moved in. The only real issue we've had has been with out egress window. 

For some odd reason, I didn't get a good picture of the window after the landscaping was finished, but here's a close up of it while the stone wall was being set. It looked great and poured a lot of natural light into the basement.

The downside of our egress window is that it didn't do a good job of keeping water out when it rained.

The first fix was to dig out the rocks, clean out the drain, dig under the window a little further and replace everything again. It didn't work.

The second fix was to dig out the rocks, clean out the drain, add three more drains, and replace everything again. That also didn't work. 

The final fix was to put in a window well. Todd from Charis said that Mike would be over soon to get started. I looked outside a few minutes later and saw this. 

We weren't crazy about the look of a window well, but we knew Mike would make it look great.

Setting in the window well. 

Top view of the window well. You can see the top step.

Filling in around the window well with fresh soil. You can see the old drain by the gutter.

Adding soil to the back of the window well.

No more walk out.

Filling up the steps with rocks. We kept all four drains by the window.

Mike did a GREAT job hiding the window well by using re-using our stones to build another wall, plus stairs up to our spigot.

Ready for the mulch.

And done! The rock wall goes right along our property line. At this point, we don't have a neighbor on this side of the house.

Better view of the stairs.

Inside the window well.

Mike did a great job of covering up all the plastic.

Here's a peek from inside, before:

And after:

The best part is that it is currently POURING out and our basement is perfectly dry. Thank you, Charis, for making it right!

Utilities Report: January 2012

As we move closer to our move-in date, Niels and I have been thinking about new post ideas that relate to our earth-friendly, energy-efficient, universally-designed home. Our hope with this blog, in addition to reminding us how we came to the decisions and selections we did, is that our posts provide valuable information to others who are considering their own home building project.

This week we received our utility bills, and we are quite pleased. One of several advantages of insulated concrete form (ICF) walls is that they have a high R-value, which means that the temperature stays more consistent than in a stick-built house.

To provide some practical evidence, we will share our monthly utilities on the blog.

As a bit of background, our previous house was a two-story colonial built with traditional stick construction in 2003. With the finished basement, it was 2,582 square feet. We had an energy audit last summer and the report showed that we had a very tight house, which means we didn't have a lot of heat loss because our windows were well sealed. In fact, we were told not to do anything else because then we'd need mechanical ventilation. We were already using all CFL bulbs, so the only changes we made were to add aerators to the faucets. So, in summary, we had an above-average energy efficient house according the the expert.

Our new house has 2,885 square feet of  (almost) finished living area (first and second floor). The unfinished basement is 1,700 square foot, for a total of 4,585 square feet. We have four heating and cooling zones, which gives us the ability to keep unused area cooler (or warmer, depending on the season). Of course, our house is still under construction, so we aren't using any appliances, and only a few of our lights are hooked up. Also, our house isn't completely sealed yet so we still have a few holes were cold air is getting in, the zones are not set up yet, and our front door and garage doors are open quite a bit as the crews are going in and out.

That said, here's the first month's comparison.

In January of 2010, our Dominion (gas) bill was $168.65 for 17. 6 MCF (old house).
In January of 2011, our Dominion (gas) bill was $90.93 for 12. 1 MCF (new house).

Since the vast majority of our gas bill is for heating and cooling, we were very happy with this initial look at savings due to the ICF construction.

In January of 2010, our Ohio Edison (electric) bill was $135.27 (old house).
In January of 2011, our Ohio Edison (electric) bill was $20.81 for 135 kilowatts (new house).

Unfortunately, since we moved, we can't get the kilowatt usage for last year. Obviously, we expect our bill to go up once we get lights, appliances, etc., but I highly doubt it will be anywhere near $135.

January Totals:
Old house: $168.65 + $135.27 = $303.92
New house: $90.93 + $20.69 = $111.62
total savings: $192.30!

Granted, this is not an apples to apples comparison since the old house was smaller and the new house isn't complete, but in terms of our utility budget, this is a huge difference! And hopefully, gives those curious about the impact of full ICF construction some real-world information.

Build - Day 8 - July 19, 2011 - Part II

A couple of hours makes a big difference. Even with what the National Weather Center has now confirmed as a 1000yr storm we managed, with only a 3hr delay, to have all the water out by 1pm, have the foam again resting on the foundation and the walls have been realigned. Also, all of the holes for the inside/outside connections (think spigots, gas lines, vent openings, etc...) are in and the cement trucks have arrived.

A little after 1.20pm the concrete started pouring so we will NEVER have those 'interesting' floating walls again. At 3:30pm all was done and we now have solid concrete from the footers all the way up the walls. Tomorrow the main item is the highly interesting ... curing of the concrete... ;-)

Maybe the masons make it tomorrow for stacking the porch walls but otherwise tomorrow will be a nice low-key day. Thursday the frenzy will continue again.

1pm view, all the water is gone... Yes!

Our Charis Homes GC (General Contractor) found some mud... Hard to miss today ;-)

Good shot of who much water was pumped out.

The main goal of today is still being accomplished... pouring the concrete!

3 cement trucks waiting, I passed the 4th on the way home... Gonna be a solid house!!

Concrete is in... 4 trucks full...

Rebar in on top for the next floor, pins in on the inside to hold the floor I-joists and  the floor supports on the outside for the garage floor and porches.

Why ICF - part 2

One of the reasons we are building our dream house with ICF - besides quiet and comfortable - is the energy efficiency it provides. When it comes to rating energy efficiency, the most well-known measurement is the resistence to heat value of the product; the R-value.

So why do certain people (mostly builders) keep saying that an ICF wall R-value might be R25 but it performs as an R40-60 wall?

If you only look at that R-value you are missing a couple of other key factors that factor into the overall energy efficiency of ICFs and building envelop it creates;

• inertia / thermal mass
• amplitude suppression
• phase displacement

Thermal mass and Amplitude supression
The first two kind of go together and I'll try to explain this without requiring a deep dive back into your math books.

Because ICF is dense, the concrete takes a long time to respond to temperature changes, so from morning to night on a hot Summer day the outside temperature may fluctuate by 30 degrees, while indoors there is hardly any change in an ICF home.

This density is an area where ICF walls perform better than SIPs and other walls. Not only do ICF walls offer the traditional insulative resistance of the EPS foam that covers it on each side, also the thermal inertia of concrete very nicely smoothes out those outside temperature fluctuations throughout the day, keeping the home comfortable and thus requiring less energy to keep the temperature level.

Lightweight insulation alone, which has a shorter (aka worse) thermal inertia but still a good resistance or R-value, means a highly insulated lightweight building built of such materials would conceivably still be subject to overheating on a hot summer day or cool down significantly on a cold winter night, whereas an ICF building would be far less affected (with the same R-value...).

For example, in a study done by the TNO University in my native Holland in Summer ’97, two identical houses in Delft, Holland were insulated to the same rated R-27 value, but with a different density of insulating materials.

One house used fiberglass insulation (1.25 lb/ft3 density) and the other house had cellulose insulation (4.37 lb/ft3 density). As the outdoor temperature fluctuated by 30 degrees during testing, TNO's measurements showed the house with fiberglass insulation had its indoor temperature fluctuate by an average of 13 degrees, the house insulated with cellulose insulation fluctuated by only 3 degrees during the testing period.

low supression - high(er) temperature fluctuation indoors

high supression - almost no temperature fluctuation indoors

This illustrates the benefit of using heat resistance insulation that also has 'thermal mass', i.e. the ability to moderate daily temperature fluctuations, also known as the 'Amplitude suppression'.

You can simply calculate the suppression factor by dividing the temperature swing outside by the resulting swing inside to get the AS factor. You want a product with a factor of 10 or higher.

The product that combines that high R-value with a high amplitude supression will perform far better in real-life than a similar high R-value product with a lower amplitude suppression.

Phase displacement
The other item that factors into the effectiveness of a building structure is to bridge the time span between the highest external temperature and the highest interior temperature. 12 hours is about ideal (between 2:00pm and 2:00am). And so 12 hours in this case is the Phase Displacement. This means that the 2pm heat will 'arrive' inside the house around 2am when the outside temperature is much lower so you simply ventilate it back out either using ventilation methods or the walls allowing the build-up heat to flow back out (thermal dynamics).

Wrap-up
ICFs is one of the products that posesses an excellent mix of thermal resistance (foam), thermal inertia leading to amplitude supression (concrete) and phase displacement. Thus combining the high R-value with a high AS factor and phase displacement you can argue that an ICF wall performs as a much higher R-value if you only (want to / able to) compare on resistance.

Combine that with a near absence of air leakage leads to your much-coveted lower overall energy consumption and ICFs providing a safe (4hr fire rated), quiet (sound rating of 48), and comfortable environment year-round make it our building material of choice..

(Thanks to icf-dev.com and TNO Delft)

Status Update - June 5, 2011

We are starting the week of June 6, 2011 and here is the current status of our dreamhouse:
- Awaiting final plans so we can file for the permits
- Still no buyer for our current house (link to our realtor's page)
- Finding ourselves in the new street almost every day...

Regardless, the plan is to start digging as soon as the permits are obtained so if we can get the plans this week, the first spade could be in the ground two weeks from now.

Daniel often asks to go see "the new house," and he loves to visit and play with our new neighbors. Well, actually, it's more likely that he loves all their fun toys. He very much wants a bike/trike/crazy coupe, but, with our driveway thisclose to a major road, it ain't happening. So, whenever we talk about the new house, Daniel reminds us that we've promised him a bike. He doesn't care about anything else in the new house. Just a bike.

Jen's Side of the Story

Niels did a good job of starting this blog. I thought I’d add a post about how we came to decide to build in the first place.

One of Niels’ criterion for our current house was that it was on a big lot. Land is hard to come by in the Netherlands--where he's from--so he was quite keen to have some of his own. (Our house is on 1.36 acres). Of course, all that land is less appealing now that he understands how much time a 37-mile commute, a brain-injured wife and an active toddler takes!

The other thing Niels (and the rest of the world) really wanted was hardwood floors. What I didn’t realize before I moved in was how LOUD hardwood is on a daily basis. As someone who lives with a nearly-constant headache, it didn’t take long to realize that hardwoods are not brain-injury friendly.

These two realizations started us thinking about building a dream house…someday. It was a little something we’d talk about as we noticed things in other houses we liked. “That would be great in our dream house…”

Many of our friends and all of our family live hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from us. If they visit, it’s not a quick stop for dinner. They stay for up to a month at a time. Our house accommodates guests quite well, although the layout is not ideal.

Shortly after their first visit to see us, Niels’ dad called to say that he found (online, of course) a lot of land near us that was for sale. He thought maybe it would be a nice place to build a guest house for them. Niels checked out the lot in person, and quickly decided that it would NOT be a good place to build (plus we really didn’t want two properties to care for six months a year). That led to a discussion of building a guest house on our land. We quickly ruled that out due to the lay of our land. Another conversation involved adding on to our current house. Again, the nature of our lot ruled out that idea. We started to think maybe building our dream house would happen sooner rather than later...like before my in-laws retired in three years.

During their next visit to Ohio, we visited several models. One of them belonged to Charis Homes. We also visited models by all the other major builders in the area, including one three-month old model that already had a large crack across the ceiling. YIKES! We saw some beautiful homes, and had great discussions about what would work for us, and what would work for them. They realized it was our house, ultimately, but we wanted it to be a place that they would feel comfortable and welcome, too. Plus, we (I!) had a lot to learn about international ideas of housing.

American and Dutch housing trends are very different. In general, because land is at such a premium, houses have a smaller footprint, and are built up, not out. Three stories is quite common. Trends tend to be more practical and less fickle than here in the States. In fact, Niels’ parents renovated their kitchen 15 years ago…with a style that is just now showing up in the States!

But the most important difference between building in America and building in Holland is the type of construction used. Here in the US, most houses are wood framed. In Holland, you will see a lot of concrete and brick frame. The latter makes for more study houses, as well as greater energy efficiency.

When we walked into that Charis Home, Niels and his dad got all excited about the insulated concrete form (ICF) construction. To be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed with the house because I didn't understand why that was important. I have a hard time visualizing things, and this house was a ranch. I definitely wanted a two story. (I have gotten much better at looking at all kinds of houses for ideas).

It didn’t take long for me to embrace ICF. In addition to reducing energy bills (the house conserves energy much better than wood framed houses), ICF homes block most allergens from seeping into the house, and are mold and termite resistant. SOLD!

Being married to a non-American can open your eyes to things you wouldn’t otherwise see. In particular, our family has a more global approach to our everyday life. It is sobering to think how wasteful Americans can be. Granted, building a new home doesn’t really help against that statement, but we do hope that our home will be the kind of more energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly house the future needs.

Over the last four years, we have spent many hours touring models and talking to builders. Once we settled on a neighborhood (with sidewalks!), we started taking walks there and meeting the neighbors. We asked them about their houses: who built them, what they loved, what they would do differently. In those three years, we never once heard a single bad word about Charis Homes. When we saw how excited they are about green building, and energy-efficiency, and universal design, and building right, not just trendy, we knew we had found our builder.

My sister and brother-in-law own a company in Minnesota called Accessible Homes. We talked to them quite a bit about building a house that makes my life easier as a (high functioning) brain-injury survivor now, but can also accommodate my needs as I get older, and as friends and family of all abilities visit us. We made a goal to use as much universal design principles as possible on the first floor. We’re using levers on our doors instead of knobs, a touch sink in our kitchen, drawers instead of lower cabinets, dimmers instead of switches, wider doors and entries to accommodate a wheelchair, etc.

For me, a brain-injury friendly house includes attention to sound-proofing and décor. Cork floors are quiet AND green. In the kitchen, which is MY room, we’ll use more solid colors for the counters and backsplash and away from patterns tend to exasperate my headaches and vertigo.

I love to cook. Planning and making healthy meals makes me feel like I am contributing to my family. My brain injury prevents me from working, but cooking gives me a sense of accomplishment each day. My big splurge is a walk-in pantry to house all my bulk goods, upright freezer and smaller appliances. We have a lowered counter for my baking center so I will no longer have to stand on my tippy toes to knead dough! I am SO excited for my new kitchen.

As much as possible, as we make choices for our new home, we want to consider the most energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly choice. It won’t happen for everything—we do have a budget!—but where we can, we will.

Niels will make most of the posts on this blog. He understands the process much better than I do, and can better explain the important choices that often go unnoticed. I’ll chime in on the things that are important to me, and help with the basic design of the site.

While we started this blog really just for my own memory of the process (so ten years from now when I saw, “Why did we pick this ______?!,” I’ll know. But since I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading through blogs showing the progress of other dream homes, I hope our decisions help others considering their own home building project.

Why We Chose Charis Homes As Our Builder

Posted by Niels - no matter what Blogger will make you believe ;-) Jen's recollection is posted here

One of the major decisions is the choice of which builder / general contractor to use to build your house. There are large national builders (think of Ryan Homes and Drees Homes), local builders and everything in between. Then there are specialty builders, those who build according to specific standards.

We started by looking at houses when my parents were here in the States about 6 months after we were married. We looked at a couple of Ryan home models and were impressed by the initial looks and price. We quickly noted some serious construction issues - even in the models - with considerable cracking, cheap products and overall shoddy craftsmanship. A quick Google search at home after touring the models confirmed those visual findings and we quickly eliminated Ryan Homes from our list.

The next house we went into was a ranch (not our style, but we went in anyway) that looked a lot sturdier. After talking with the builder he explained he uses poured, reinforced concrete with insulation instead of cement blocks and 2x4s. With my parents and I coming from Europe that was a very appealing option since European houses are rarely, if ever, wood framed. But since it was a ranch we left and didn't think too much about it for a while.

The next builder on our list was Drees Homes. It is a Dutch/German name so naturally -with me being Dutch - that was a nice ice-breaker. We were very impressed with their models and saw none of the issues we saw at the Ryan Home models. We even had our basic model / floor plan already picked out and had some generic pricing drawn up.

Then God intervened...

Driving around one afternoon we saw a sign for Charis Homes and with 'Charis' being Greek for 'Grace' which is Jen's favorite word we toured the house. The builder immediately recognized us and at that point we realized it was the same builder as the ranch we toured a year or so before. We looked at the solid construction of the house and were impressed by the knowledge of the builder on 'green' topics and energy efficiency as a whole. In our minds we kind of decided that maybe Charis was the better fit for us.

Over the course of the next three years we toured (almost) every home they built, talked with all the home owners and some subcontractors and haven't heard a single complaint. They all love the work Charis did for them and/or how they got treated in the process. That basically closed the deal.

One other thing that sold us was their 'dusty shoe' open houses where they allow the public in to houses in various stages of the building process. You see the framing, you see the piping, you see the drywalling, you basically see the whole process. This in turn means there is pretty much no 'hiding' or 'covering up' potential issues since you'd see them. Furthermore, the fact they are solid Christians is only reinforcing our belief that good builders are still available and you really don't have to settle for anything less than what you want a builder to do for you.

I'm sorry if the last couple of paragraphs kind of sound like a Charis infomercial, but we truly feel we have found the right builder for us and will highly recommend them to any of our friends and family.

They may not be the cheapest builder on the block, but their product is a couple cuts above the national builder level. Plus, with their houses being HERS rated around 50 or lower, you know that the low energy costs will more than off-set any higher construction costs and will leave you with a quality house for years to come.