The Pretty Good House
prettygoodhouse.org
prettygoodhouse.org
The bulk of the work is wrapping the building in 25cm of rigid foam exterior insulation, replacing windows and making sure that they are fairly air tight. They aren't adding mechanical ventilation, as installation would cause too much disruption to residents who are living there. Heating systems are being upgraded to newer units if they are old and inefficient (still powered by gas or district heating, no heat pumps).
The main issue with older buildings is often you want to maintain the 'character' so wrapping the building in external insulation and replacing the facade isn't always an option. However if you have a building made of masonry this is the best way to insulate it, as the masonry then acts as a thermal mass to keep temperatures inside more stable (in both hot and cold weather). These apartment blocks were ugly concrete that nobody wants to ever see again though, so it's not an issue here :-)
Article in Polish, but worth translating or just looking at the photos: https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/w-tym-miescie-nie-martwia-si...
Shortly: insulation, new windows, solar panels, heat pumps (heating + warm water).
They do not show "before" photos, but I found some similar building before renovation on the same street: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3586963,21.5793371,3a,75y,16...
They mention 90% savings in heating costs, which apparently pays off the debt they had to take to make the upgrades.
Hmmm, like the worst possible idea (air tight + not adequate ventilation), the early (10-15 years ago) "Class A" or "Class B" new buldings made here without appropriate ventilation have given lots of problems (humidity/mould).
The only possible remedy being daily manual ventilation, i.e. open windows for 10/15 minutes every single day (but many people won't or cannot do it).
Love the book by the way; it's what I wish I'd had when I was looking to buy my first home. I'm going to be gifting it to a few people in my family over the next few years.
I'm halfway down that road, having completed a high performance remodel in the Bay Area, and contemplated a career shift into some adjacent field.
High performance building is not as organized a movement here, but instead a patchwork of architects, contractors and consultants that I had to assemble for my project. Assembling a team that was willing to work in a high performance modality was probably the hardest part. It's still unfamiliar to many customers and professionals.
I also did a good amount of the high performance work on my house, so I got to know the principles and practicals pretty well. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed the process and the learnings (and living in the result).
What you want is a third party.
Someone who understands the trade and the codes and will check in on the building site daily and will make sure everything is being done correctly. And if it’s not, will stop work and put everyone in their place.
I frankly have no idea what the term for that is in America, but we call them freelance foremen where I’m from. Current going rate per month is roughly 1.5x minimum wage in my country.
May sound like a lot of money for someone just doing checking, but that’s only until you find out how expensive lack of oversight can be.
Ask around, many building companies offer these services, so company a builds the house, and an inspector from unrelated company b does the daily inspection. But ideally you’d find a one man band man, who’s really gonna be on your side.
That’s why you need a construction supervisor, a third party that’s on your side (if you don’t have the skills, knowledge, or time, to be the supe).
And like for renovations, lots will bid the easy project and do it as fast as they can vs ensuring that anything that comes up is addressed well.
Shadow builder.
In a nutshell, they are manufactured into standard components and assembled onsite. The number of defects is small.
The level of quality is incredibly better than what most builders can produce.
They are not cheap, though. There are several alternative manufacturers. They are a great option for a bungalow.
The company that makes the plans is http://www.firstdaycottage.com/
I'm not familiar with the American market, but I'm willing to bet there are some similar options.
If I recall correctly, Huf Haus is around since forever, before WW1, and they continuously evolved, their solutions are more than well tested, as "perfect" as they can be.
The great advantage of the "fully integrated pre-fab" (such as Huf House and similar) is that IF/WHEN the project is done, the result will be exactly what has been designed, the great disadvantage is that once the project has been approved, NO changes are possible (and again from experience it is a rare case that the customer/owner is capable of fully understand the project in all its details).
Back to the OP question the issue (generally speaking and in my experience) is about coordination of the various figures involved, typically here (EU, Italy) you will have several people:
1) land surveyor
2) architect (here the architect is more about design than building)
3) engineer (structural)
4) engineer (hydraulics)
5) engineer (electric)
6) general contractor or builder
7) various sub-contractors (electrician, plumber, etc.)
The common issue is that each of them (usually) have a somewhat "narrow" view, limited to their particular field, and often (please read as "always") they don't communicate properly among them and with the customer/owner.
The exception (as well usually) is, or should be, the general contractor, but an experienced enough one is unlikely to be available for a single house building or will dedicate to it too little time.
Mind you each of the figures I mentioned are in most cases very good at what they do, but, in the absence of someone who coordinates the project and execution, it is common that the result is not as good as it could be.
There are (were) people (shameless plug I am or was one of them) that while not specialists in anything have the experience and capability to coordinate these people and - also important - "translate" and "interpret" the desires of the customer/owner, the "project manager" and/or "site manager" that could be either paid by the general contractor or by the customer/owner.
Sometimes (not often) the architect (or the builder) has these capabilities, or is part of a largish firm that can provide such a resource for the project.
Since this has a cost, and building is generally a cost competitive field, this added cost is one of those that in recent years has been (generally speaking) either cut or reduced to the minimum (like giving - say - five or six building sites to the same person, which won't have the needed time to follow in detail each of them).
So, in a nutshell (and as always) it all depends on the people, you might be able to find a builder (usually small firms, almost familiar ones) that can do this or you might be able to find an architect studio (as well a smallish, but not too small one) that can provide you with this service, or maybe you can find and hire yourself such a manager/coordinator.
Regarding Huf Haus alternatives, there are a few German brands that are quite similar. Baufritz for instance is also old, and manufactures outstanding houses: https://www.baufritz.com/uk. The problem is that, unlike Huf Haus, they are not willing to do cheap (<€800k) projects. Huf can do smaller bungalows, which will be expensive per sqm but still less than a half out what Baufritz would be willing to consider.
For smaller stuff, in the UK there is https://wudl.co.uk, which builds pretty nice things. I also love https://www.echoliving.co.uk, although this is just a high-end cabin builder. Very different.
It varies. Mine's a designer, though she's also a licensed architect.
That's the experience / knowledge I'd want to hire for oversight.
I don't see how a designer is the best person for that but then maybe my idea about architects mostly being desk-bound designers focused on estatics is totally wrong?
There was an exception though, like 10 years ago where the doctor was removing a patient's appendix and damaged major artheries. The poor patient lost the leg and the other one is not functioning well. They've sued privately (and had top lawyers) and after a very long process they've kind of won some meagre settlement. What was actually interesting was the fact that the major regional hospital never had a "doctor's error" in the last 20 years, only so called "complications" (which was "nobody's fault").
Doctors (and similar) don't get insurance against damages at all. Why would they?
More sarcasm, I assume?
Yep, it’s totally wrong. No doubt there are some architects/engineers who focus strictly on design. An architect/engineer is generally “in charge” of a construction project in the US, at least for commercial construction, which is the segment where most of the architects work.
I’m just a lowly subcontractor PM but the GC generally works for the architect/engineer.
Edit: New building projects will have multiple drawing sets: architectural, structural, civil, landscape, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, low voltage systems, fire protection, as well as others depending on the project specifics, but all of these engineers are coordinated by the architect.
Depends on the architect. Someone like Steve Baczek knows quite a bit about technical details, and actually puts them in his blueprints.
Around here they aren’t interested in projects under $5M.
They take on some personal responsibility for the way the construction project is handled (at least for the things that fall within their purview).
Pre-fab houses/ components do require more rigor for foundation etc.
But doing a really nice small space is a great strategy for saving money. You can use nice materials since you dont have a lot. Doing a lot of quality built-ins (cabinetry and the like) also will make a huge difference -- and is a necessity when going small.
To me 1000 sq feet for 2 bedrooms sounds fantastic. So many ways you can use that space creatively. So many different layout options and shapes.
My recommendation would be to start with an architect. Given a good budget and defined parameters you should get something really good. And (at least here, don't know about there) architects like to be project manager as well to make sure their baby is executed well.
[1] starter apartments here can be under 200 sq feet. Not sure who wants that (they are typically quite expensive) but someone is buying them.
Home costs do not scale proportionately with their square footage. For example you still have one refrigerator in most homes regardless of size, one front door, pay base flat fees for services and trades just to show up, permitting fees, etc.
The only marginal financial cost will be energy required to heat and cool the space. Seeing as the original commenter is in the SeaTac area, with a temperate climate, one would think total energy costs tend to be low (I do not live there so I could be wrong).
Building form scratch with an architect in America is also very, very expensive. I know folks that have gone down that route and it easily doubled the final cost of their home. What could have been a 250k property cost over 500k when all was said and done. It's just not common to see done unless you are wealthy.
It’s not that there aren’t any options that size, I happily spend the first decade of my adult life in residences that size, but dwellings that size are almost exclusively condos/apartments in the US. Others have noted some good reasons for that.
Our conclusion was that you absolutely must be on top of things or you'll end up disappointed.
Find a good architect that knows the building codes and is at least educated in structural engineering.
Second, you can hire someone to manage the quality of the work. This can cost between 8-12% of the project bid. They make sure work is being done to a proper standard and will can deal with the contractor if something is lacking.
It is just going to take time. You can't build until you have permits. You can't get permits without a structural engineer drawings. You can't get a structural engineer until you have architect drawings. It all just takes time. Not to mention Our contractor was a year out.
Also, availability is still difficult on a lot of items. The windows we wanted were 26 weeks out. Our tile unavailable. If you like off the shelf junk from Home Depot, then you can avoid some of that waiting, but otherwise you have to simply wait.
Good luck!
Getting educated so you can ask questions and observe that they properly seal the house for air and moisture is a good idea. PGH is a good resource and so is Matt Risingers channel (Build Show).
Consider tapping networks. If you find an architect you like they may know a good builder and vice versa.
Scott is the builder, and Nate, his son, the videographer and editor. The subject matter is clearly and honestly explained, and the video, sound, and editing is generally professional quality. From survey and site prep all the through to finish and completion, I would recommend it to anyone in the US considering a bespoke or custom home.
1) interview 5-6 contractors/builders; then, go look at 2-3 houses that they finished - you pick them, don't let them pick. Try to observe bad issues - here's a funny video about "snagging" [0].
2) pick one. Ask a lawyer to draw a contract and have them sign it. The lawyer should be experienced in construction contracts. A good contractor/builder will be comfortable signing a fair contract.
3) find a friend (architect, civil engineer) who will, for a modest amount, be your sounding board, and help you through the various phases of the project.
Does this work in practice? How can you "pick them" without the builder telling you which houses they built? Do you expect people living in the houses to let you wander around their homes looking for contractor flaws?
Although, note, the final time to turnkey may not always be much faster, depending on the market conditions.
The traditional builders told us about 24 months at current lead times.
The modular builders told us 15-20 months, but two separate modular builders told us that anyone claiming less than 18 months is probably lying and reality is closer to 24 months even for modular.
And, to respect an 18 months timeline, you need a supervisor and accurate site and construction planning and a bit of luck, if any of these lack, it is going to take 24 months +.
The most important (and often stressful) decisions you will have to make are ones that the contractor can't make for you.
Like: do you want an airtight house? do you want a 30 year or 100 year roof? do you want high indoor air quality?
These are as much about personal priorities as they are about money.
You can just pay more and get probably more quality materials, but not necessarily get better workmanship. Saving time by taking shortcuts is just going to happen unless you call them on it a lot.
One thing to keep in mind though, it's good to know what you want, but also be flexible, for example, if you can adjust a bit and get a standard size window instead of your specific window, it will reduce the cost now and probably in the future (unless standards change), doorways are similar... if you get a standard sized door, it makes life much easier.
Isn't this partially what you pay your architect for? If you're willing to pay top dollar you should be able to find one that's very hands on and coordinates the whole building process as your representative.
> Isn't this partially what you pay your architect for?
There simply isn't a way to eliminate the principal-agent problem.
It might be possible to materially minimize the probability of error to have 2 agents, one that checks the others’ work. But that also will get costly.
Architects are about end results and "vision". General contractors, while imperfect, should be about getting it built.
So an architect you should roughly expect getting something built at any cost. A GC should be how to do it pragmatically or even if it's possible.
In between is the end result.
I think it’s wrong to think that all architects are like celebrity architects. If you’re designing a house there may be room for weird designs (if that’s what the client wants) but I think there’s also just a lot of technical or boring details that are handled by architects too.
Plenty of architects care about getting the details right. Check out Steve Baczek, who is online a lot, and is very interested in building science details.
I can't understand how people can spend $$$ on building a new house but try to go cheap on the Architect... All you get is a McMansion.
The extension is, in my view, quite nice. We tried to get away with some crazy newfangled ideas like "eaves" and "bug screens" but Ireland shot us down there. People think we're insane not building it out of cinderblocks already.
Speaking of that tight-knit rural community, mostly I know that people can break the law with no consequences and won't talk to anyone their family hasn't known for at least 3 generations. And walking is bizarre and dangerous; the councillor thought I was joking when I asked about getting a footpath to the village 700 meters away.
Of course, if Ireland weren't kicking and screaming about building apartments in the middle of cities neat jobs, schools, transport, and amenities, it would be in a much better position.
Would be happy to compare notes! Email is in my bio.
But, if you've hired the architect to supervise construction, you've still got to supervise the architect. Maybe you only have to hound the architect to get issues fixed and let them figure out who fixes it, though; and they'll likely get a lot of things fixed without you, but you'll still get better results with regular supervision than hands off.
Of course, paying more money could certainly help, but now you're paying 2,500 sq. ft. prices for a 1,000 sq. ft. house.
There's not really a replacement for doing daily or at least twice-weekly inspections yourself. The architect may catch some things but miss a completely botched plumbing job. And just for fun, every issue you catch will become a fight with the sub-contractor.
It is amazing how separate most architects are from the actual implementation. I sort of wish architects were required to apprentice as builders before doing design.
I recently built a custom house with a long time friend as the architect and have a family member I could talk to who is an architect. Additionally there was a structural engineer involved in the project for things like truss design and sheer calculations I could talk. That's a lot of talent and experience in residential and commercial design!
On the other hand my father is a general contractor and I have some construction experience and grew up around roofers, framers, etc.
All the architects I talked to frequently had very low visibility into the difficulty and cost factors of their design proposals.
For example: flush baseboards make the wall super clean and don't get dinged up. But no indie contractors in our area can install them.
Curves on drywall interior walls will match the curves in the plastered exterior walls - but while wetted 1/4 inch drywall will bend a pretty tight inside curve it can't be attached to an outside curve because it pulls through the fasteners - I ended up kerf cutting plywood to make the bend, priming it for adhesion and plastering the curves with help from a high end plaster specialist.
High windows downstairs go all the way to the ceiling inside which looks more balanced on the outside... but would require a small "vault" in the otherwise flat ceiling... Which would have affected the framing of the wall, required at least one custom floor truss instead of a standard TJI, made for super complicated trim in the affected rooms, required a very non-standard window size, and an expensive plaster detail at each such window. On my investigation it was going to be at least $25K to make 4 windows 8" taller!
In my experience custom home building architects generally were not very construction aware. Talking about installation practices or costs usually resulted in advice to "get a bid"! Despite being very pleased with my architectural collaboration I don't think hands-on supervision of actual building practice is likely a realistic expectation from a typical architect.
In the toilets, the painter dutifully painted shut the plumbing and valves access panel ("you must open the panel before painting everything. And please don't paint the valves"). The electrician was about to pierce a hole between floors 1 foot away from the walls to pass cables through as I stopped him. Etc.
When having an house built, you (or the architect, or some other responsible person with a working brain) must be there looking at everything all the time. And even with that, they will fuck up. They'll lay alternating tiles in the wrong pattern. They'll build stairs of uneven height. They'll put a window in the kitchen that won't open because it hits the faucet. They'll set up doors that open on the wrong side (all of these happened to my in-laws when getting their home built, and they were there watching every day). They'll fuck up every time you don't watch, every single time.
Shit
That might result in much more than the 60 to 70% premium they are willing to pay! ;-)
Having all aspects of a bespoke residential build go well takes a lot of effort, planning, attention, money and luck. I wish you well!
You want them always watching their back and being dissatisfied, but not enough to walk off the job. Happy contractors are usually trouble.
Ah yes, don't let the proles be happy. You sound horrible to work for. Of course, if your boss did this to you at work, there would be endless complaints.
For construction work, you're paying with your hard earned money, and you can't Undo, Delete, or Git Revert.
Yes you can. It requires two things:
1) you need to hire a builder who has experience with commercial and/or industrial construction. Hire the same type of builder that you wanted to build a small dental clinic. Tell them explicitly that you want everything to build built with the same standards as their commercial clients. Even if they are well intentioned, you don't want to be the beta tester for a builder trying to expand in a new type of construction. Most of the work will also be done by subcontractors, so you want to hire someone with a list of contacts filled with companies who typically do high quality work for highly demanding client.
2) Hire a structural engineer and architect to check their work. If you can only hire one, the engineer is more important, a shitty finish material or bad interior lightning is easier to fix than a cracked foundation. The engineer needs to be on site to check the work at the critical moments to make sure it's done right (eg. before pouring concrete). He needs to have the authority to stop work if it's bad and/or force them to redo it. they also need to approve the plans and the product that will be installed. It is common practice in government contracts that the builder has to submit for approval the spec sheet for most of the products that they want to install.
Basically, you want to follow the same procedure a large city would use but skip some of the red tape that don't apply to you.
The contract is very important, I would recommend copying it from whatever is the most used one in your region for public work. It's probably gonna be a >200 page monster but it will cover every single situation you could possibly imagine and provide a fair way to resolve the situation.
I think this advice isn't just throwing money at the problem, your suggestion sinks time into creating a mini-bureaucracy to ensure quality decision making. That mini-bureaucracy may in itself may make it hard to source/retain the various contractors you're suggesting.
For example I imagine it would be quite hard to source a small dental clinic builder who does high quality work and is also willing to sign a 200-page city level government procurement contracts without significant negotiation or persuasion.
I have.
>your suggestion sinks time into creating a mini-bureaucracy to ensure quality decision making
My main suggestion is to hire an engineer/architect, they will manage all of this crap. They will work FOR you and not for the contractor and money doesn't come out of their pocket when they reject something.
>For example I imagine it would be quite hard to source a small dental clinic builder who does high quality work
It's not, they don't need to know how to design it, they just need to have done commercial work before and be used to work on a project that has architects/engineers watching them. Dental clinic was just a random example. Government buildings might have been a better one.
>and is also willing to sign a 200-page city level government procurement contracts without significant negotiation or persuasion.
In every region, there should be one contract that everyone is used to work with and that is fairly balanced. You should not write a new one or try to negotiate clauses. They are long because they have a clause for almost every possible type of conflict that could happen. No one actually reads them cover-to-cover because it's mostly just common sense or things that don't apply but someone has to put it in writing to make it official. If the project goes well, you will never open it.
It provides instructions on things like how to approve an extra and payment schedules, how to fire them, how to reject work, how to contest a decisions from the expert, maximum delays for important things, etc. If you want a hands-off approach, it will protect you. The more involved you want to be, the less you need it.
Do you think that would work with paying someone to write some code for you? Do you think that the highest paid consultants write the best code? Of course not. There's a high probability that you'll just pay more for a badly written app. You need someone who you know cares about the product, who comes recommended by people you trust, and ultimately someone who you can check on and verify that they're actually doing a good job.
Builders are the same.
Don't hire friends or family.
Make sure the builder is registered and isn't a director of other companies that have defaulted.
Have a signed contract or agreement in place.
If doing payment in stages make sure that what you are paying for has been completed and has been signed off by your engineer.
Take as many photos and videos as you can as often as you can, use a drone to get to awkward unsafe areas and record video. Include all major structural and sealing work. Even good builders/window installers etc make genuine mistakes, photos of what was done make inside a wall make it easier to attribute liability if there is an issue.
These are some key points from two terrible cases, don't let them scare you and enjoy it.
I was effectively the PM for our renovation, and it turns out I suck at enough of this to never want to do it again, and this was on a pretty small place. If you've got additional cash to spend, I'd invest in having a good plan (architect) and management (ideally not you/partner or the architect).
It's like a big software project, right? You can have the best coders in the world, but if they're poorly managed and just making it up as they go along, then you're not going to get it done as fast and well as otherwise.
Ask your architect to show you visuals of what the house will be like, I guarantee you you can’t read plans like we can. They don’t need to be hyper expensive realtime ray traced renderings, if your architect works in 3D you can sit with them a look at the computer model we work with day to day, that’s enough to understand what it will be like.
Designing a house with an absolutely fixed budget is only possible if you are building a new build house on a flat serviced site and you give a minimal brief and don’t change it after the outline design and you allow a contingency. This practically never happens. After giving you a lowball hard limit on how much they have to spend I draw them a small house and pretty much all clients like to make their houses bigger as the project progresses. I always warn clients that they are going over budget because of extra floor area and I warn them not to get bamboozled into choosing insanely expensive kitchens and finishes by salespeople, but it still happens on most projects. Don’t make last minute design changes, someone will make a mistake and it will cause a cascade of changes that will cost you more or compromise the design. Don’t base your idea of what a decent budget in $/sqft is on what your neighbour self built 15 years ago, or what someone on a TV program about building houses said; the neighbour typically omits lots of costs when telling them how much their build cost e.g. groundworks, services connections, etc. Likewise the budgets people say on TV are usually absolute bullshit. Also remember that your architect doesn’t have total control over the price; what you get quoted by the contractor is what they think the market will bear and this can change considerably over the course of the 6-12 months it will take to get your permissions and finalise the detailed design.
If I was gonna do it again, I would:
1) hire a separate, independent architect
2) spend more money on lawyers to review contracts up front
It’s not about haggling over pennies. It’s about catching the big fuckups while they’re little fuck ups. Also double-checking everyone’s math and putting eyes on the work every single day.
And you call that a bungalow!?
When I first did projects I got caught repeatedly with items that were not on the spec sheets or costings - but were 100% required. This is one of the ways that builders manage price competition with the inexperienced. They 100% know what the rate that is likely to get quoted will be, if they want the work they will quote lower than that and will use overruns to make back to the market or somewhat above (because by then you are stuck).
An experienced project manager will catch 95% of these issues some will sneak through but they will also have the contacts to get these sorted if the builders are unreasonable. You will pay out a chunk to employ this person - sure - but this will pay you back just with the cost overrun issue (in my experience) and at the same time you will have much less day to day work on your plate. So, it's basically a "free" assistant.
Also, what's a good job? You have ideas... but experienced builders (and your manager) will know where it's really smart to spend your money.
The actual construction is what is crucial. All builders and their subcontractors will be in a hurry to get the job done so they can move on to the next job. I expect most are professionals and care about doing a good job, but there are plenty who are OK with a shoddy job. They'll be most likely gone when the problems in their workmanship is done.
Hang out in /r/HomeImprovement for a while and you'll see all sorts of contractor fuckups.
Getting a good builder and subcontractors is a crap shoot. My wealthy neighbors a few years ago wanted to build their dream/final home. The builder left halfway through. They found a new builder and eventually completed the project but way past the original date. They finally moved in and had to deal with so many issues that it was hurting their marriage. After about a year, they decided to sell the house. The new owners were still dealing with construction issues (for example, the crawlspace wasn't properly waterproofed and had significant water intrusion).
If you want to be hands off, buy an existing house and hire a really good inspector to tell you what kind of shape it's in. Some inspectors don't do a very good job either, so...
If they don't call your guy to sign off on it, he makes them redo that part. This is the only way to be sure they didn't just throw some garbage there or quickly covered up some shoddy work or usage of cheaper materials than agreed.
Note that you can't rely on the builder's supervisor for this, it has to be your guy. Some architects can come check the site and supervise a bit, however this is not enough and you still need an actual supervisor.
So you can kind of throw more money at it, but you still need to know what you're doing. Perhaps the closest to what you are saying is finding an architect that has reliable contractors in their rolodex. It won't save you from having to run the project properly, but there are going to be fewer issues.
Long answer: you need someone experienced you can trust. In my case it was a neighbor who owned a construction company that had built his own house. We just told him to build ours to the same spec.
Caveat one: it's more expensive. I don't own a construction company, so our spending budgets were different.
Caveat two: you will still find things you wish you had done differently. Either because you have different priorities or because your circumstances are different. In my case, he routed all the wiring through the walls with no convenient way to access or replace them. When you have electricians and drywall installers literally at your beck and call, it's not a problem: you finish up early one day, drive the guys home with some sheets of drywall in the bed, they rip up the wall, replace or add another cable, fix the drywall and go home. When you're a homeowner with a cordless drill and a hammer, you'll want everything done with maintenance in mind.
Even if you find a person you can trust to oversee the construction, you'll still want to learn enough to understand (!) and communicate your requirements to him.
Some of the things you pay for when you hire the most expensive builders may or may not have value for you. Expensive builders invest a lot in communication with clients. You'll have a point of contact and possibly even a web portal to help you follow the progress of construction and keep an eye on expenses, just like on a big commercial project. The amount of money you pay to get that might be better spent on better design or better materials.
If you just want the house to be built well, you don't necessarily need to go that high-end, but it's a good idea to work with somebody experienced who can help you pick the right contractor and be your representative in dealing with them through the build process.
Look for architects and builders that have certifications or at least interests in Passiv house (PH) designs.
You don't need to go all the way to that level (which may cost more), but the folks interested in it will be more atuned to building science and the little details needed to achieve results.
The Pretty Good House folks created the book and 'movement' because they felt that PH was "too much" for a lot of people (builders, owners), but wanted something better than 'just' code.
The PGH folks run a podcast called BS and Beer: BS = building science. They encourage folks to hold local gatherings of builders on the topic of BS, which is how their podcast started. You may wish to see if there are any folks that hold such meetings in your area.
But I don't know what's the name of the phenomenon when someone who uses some primitive technology comes out with all kinds of esoteric reasons why they would not like to use these. Can't use an electric car. Can't use fluorescent or led lights. Can't use a heat pump. Can't use induction stoves. Can't put insulation into walls. Can't use double or triple or quadruple pane windows.
"Does light really come through a multiple pane window". Yes it does.
In short, building contractors are a lot like software developers. There are some who keep up with the new materials and building systems and are excited to see new design techniques, and there are others who feel a sense of personal grievance that what they learned before they were thirty won't carry them all the way to retirement.
You do need cultural change too though. One way is to just demand visibility, not make any demands on actions. We have a published "energy class" for apartments and houses here. Our current apartment is class F or so - so we know our living cost is more sensitive to district heat prices than a class B apartment would be (those are newer and have in general higher purchase price).
However, it has its pitfalls and critics. Anyway, there the energy consumption is calculated from areas and insulation U values and so forth.
Don't know what would be the actual biggest problems against launching something similar elsewhere like in USA.
Probably one could build a software product to estimate these things. Especially easy during construction if the drawing data can be used directly. If things are drawn with CAD that is. But it might be relatively easy to estimate even from photos of paper drawings...
Unfortunately, the drawings don't give you any assurance that the construction details are done correctly. Corner-cutting aside, a contractor may depart from the design with good intentions and accidentally create a thermal bridge that sucks heat in or out of your house.
I think it's something that contractors even do in good faith. They read drawings and think, "Oh, I know a lot of ways to speed this project up, they're going to be super happy with my bid." They can see it'll be easier if they use a different material, move a door twelve inches this way, move the electrical to another wall, replace a difficult detail with an easier one, etc. They've probably worked on projects where those details are chosen without much care, and the client is delighted if they can speed up the project a bit by changing them.
The large double glazed sliding glass door in one of my previous apartments had that issue, and it eventually became mold trapped inside the glass that was uncleanable.
For most residential home scenarios I guess that's unlikely; wouldn't it be more convenient long term to fix the broken glazed window and enjoy its benefits for the next 10-20 years [1]?
[1]: "IG units typically last from 10 to 25 years, with windows facing the equator often lasting less than 12 years. IGUs typically carry a warranty for 10 to 20 years depending upon the manufacturer.", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulated_glazing#Longevity
Some of the double panes added during the 90s remodel have busted seals and need to be replaced.
It’s a minimum $1500 to get a window replaced around here with a quality modern replacement. Assuming a generous 50 year life, that’s still $30/window/year for a replacement, plus the opportunity cost of not investing that money. Economically it almost certainly does not pencil out to replace the original windows.
There are quality of life benefits as you mention, but I can understand how someone who likes the aesthetics of old single-pane wood windows would choose not to replace them.
Depends on the cost of energy and the interior comfort level you want.
1500 is not much if you compare it with any tech device upgrade cycle.
The seal between the pane and the wood is usually glazing. If that’s failing, you need to replace it. You can buy glazing putty at a big box store, and see how to do it on YouTube. With a little practice, it’s about ten minutes/window. $15 in materials will do a dozen or so.
If it’s leaking between the wood, you need to caulk. That’s $3-$13 in materials/tools (depending on if you already have the gun) and a couple minutes labor.
You may also need some flashing over the top to direct the water away from the pane. This is slightly more complicated. Probably $30 and an hour or so.
If you don’t want to learn these skills, a handyman should be up to any of them.
Multi pane windows also need to be flashed and caulked, just like your single pane. The only piece that I mentioned that is different is the glazing. Glazing can be replaced, the interior seal on a multi-pane window cannot
... however, I do prefer the modern ones, myself. Energy loss through single-pane windows is no joke.
FYI, you can usually replace just the double-paned glass insert in those for a small fraction of that cost.
While the feeling may be similar to a draft (moving air), the actual phenomenon is radiant heat transfer. The warmth we feel is not just air temperature (which can be less than half), but also the surface temperatures:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_radiant_temperature
* http://www.healthyheating.com/Definitions/Mean%20Radiant.htm
If you sit near a heating radiator, fireplace, or campfire, you will feel warm because energy goes from high concentration (fire) to low/er concentration (your body).
But if you sit near a badly insulating window, your body has the higher amount of energy (heat) so energy goes from you to the window. You are the radiator for the window; the window is an 'anti-radiator' (it 'attracts' heat).
Heat tends towards dispersal (currently predicted, eventually, to evenly spread in all directions), so it seems wrong to say that the window "attracts" heat. Rather, it just provides lower resistance to heat transfer than the typical wall.
I don't know a term for that concept, but another term comes to mind that you might consider: empathy. More specifically, you should try understand the reasons someone might choose a more "primitive" technology a newer one. Your inability to understand why someone makes certain decisions is more a failing of yours than theirs.
IE - pseudo double panes via single panes.
Would it fog up like double pane glass with a broken seal? Could you put a desiccant in there? Is there a cheap way to be able to open it if you need to? Could it be worth it because it is more repairable than a broken double pane system -- even though it would cost more?
The outer window can acquire significant condensation, especially if it's fully sealed. This can drip down and rot the wood sill. The outer window is not supposed to be fully sealed. There's supposed to be an air gap at the bottom so that this doesn't happen, but some installers or homeowners are unaware of this and caulk all around.
New windows here in Norway are often triple or quadruple glazed, and they have a pretty good R-value; so they are not that much worse than average walls at least.
Supposedly, windows with an outer self cleaning layer get less condensation, but they're quite expensive.
I don't notice a difference now that I have two double glazed windows on top of each other (kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it), I'll include a picture here:
https://spesialvinduer.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Skaara_...
In the UK we'd call this secondary glazing if I'm understanding the image correctly.
Although I have seen in Alaska where they do double glazing windows on the outside as storm windows, then about six inches to a foot inside of that, they have another layer of double glazing. Yes, the walls are super thick.
How long is such a window rated for? Surely the gas will eventually leak out?
Still, leakages happen, you recognize that usually by water/steam between the two glass panes. If the windows aren't to old you can just switch out the glass leaving the plastic frames. If they're older (30 yrs) it's more economical to switch out glass and frames.
https://www.haustechnikdialog.de/Forum/t/65875/Haltbarkeit-A...
It’s worth it to manufacture windows like this, but unless you’re in the arctic circle I wouldn’t worry about the difference.
Here's an argument that heat capacity shouldn't affect thermal conductivity in a solid: imagine a block of material with a smooth temperature gradient through it and the temperature at any point remaining constant, so there is heat flowing through it. Now imagine you have some tiny beads of some other material with a super-high heat capacity. Distribute those beads throughout the block of material, preheating each bead to the correct local temperature before inserting it. Then intuitively it seems that neither any local temperature nor the rate of flow of heat through the block should change much. Yet the heat capacity of the new composite material is significantly higher than that of the original material. Does that argument make sense? I did physics at school but not since then!
But in a gas, heat transfer is mostly driven by convection. Gas near the hot surface heats up, rises, moves to the cold surface, falls, and repeats. So what matters is the specific heat capacity * the flow rate between hot and cold surfaces.
Conceptually, it's like a thermos bottle, and you'd think that you would want a vacuum, but apparently that's hard to keep intact on windows, so a noble gas between the layers works better.
(While every noble gas has roughly the same heat capacity by mole/volume. Perhaps some CFCs would have been even better for insulation, but bad for the ozone layer, of course, and rightly banned?)
For the nearly eight years that my wife and I lived in Brussels, Belgium, we lived in an old house (rented) that was built around 1910, and so we didn't have even double glazing, although we did have French Doors, and we had custom-made screens that had to be manually placed into the windows and then pinned in place with a nail instead of always attached to the outside. So, I don't have much knowledge of what current European building standards are in this space.
I do prefer the German-style double-opening windows that I saw in the house my sister-in-law was renting near Spangdalem AFB, along with the Rolladen that they had installed. But again, that was a rental in an older home.
I have been watching Laura Kampf and her "Haus Lise Lotte" project on YouTube, but again that's a 120 year old house, and they haven't gotten to replacing the windows yet.
Any suggestions for an English language channel where I could learn more about current European building standards, maybe something like Matt Risinger's "Build Show" for US building standards that I've been watching on YouTube?
My point was only that a vacuum gap is still not a perfect insulator, so it's an economic trade-off.
My experience is it's either too cold to open the windows, or you will want the windows open - in my part of Denmark.
*Some people enjoy having more hot days during the summer, of course.
Edit: one such product http://www.reflex.si/en/q-air
Not everyone is bothered by this though, but I think a house should have at least 21C in winter.
Discussion should focus on energy budgets or total energy use, but that may be hard to conceptualize for the average Sven.
Thankfully two or three years ago, we signed up for amber.com.au which will give you real time pricing and alerts so we can be thoughtful about usage in peak demand.
I've been tracking usage via their API for ~two years
https://flatgithub.com/dalanmiller/electricity?filename=3121...
However, getting that ventilation using trickle vents in windows is just a stupid way to do it. You're letting all the heat vent out, and letting the noise in. A better way is with a mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) system. That sucks air out of some rooms (the bathroom and kitchen are recommended), and passes it through a heat exchanger before pushing it outside, while simultaneously pulling in fresh air from outside, heating it up in the heat exchanger (for free) and blowing it into other rooms (such as bedrooms and the lounge). This is the proper way to do it.
A MVHR system only really makes sense if your house is otherwise fairly non-leaky. However, if you do install it, then it can take over the bathroom and kitchen extraction, and it allows you to plug all those leaks and insulate well, without causing stale air problems.
MVHR makes total sense and sounds superior. I’m sure the builders have successfully lobbied against such a sensible suggestion for decades and that’s why we have (I imagine) such stupid and basic solutions in our building regulations.
I feel like UK houses lack infrastructure that the likes of the US and Europe have. Even kitchen ventilation is such an afterthought
1) huge thickness thermal insulation on the exterior
2) double/triple gaze (airtight minus the small built-in ventilations) windows
3) NO added mechanical ventilation
The bets are on on how long it will take for people to realize that if they do not vent manually the house humidity/mould will form.
This has already happened for houses built some 10-15 years ago (the first houses built as Class A or Class B) that - even if newly built - did not usually provide mechanical ventilation.
There are on the market since a few years small "in-pipe" mechanical ventilators, including a heat exchanger, basically you make a 100 or 120 mm hole in the wall and put in it a pipe that contains the vent and heat exchanger, they are very suitable to install "as an afterthought".
Trouble is that they work on "alternate cycle", i.e. they suck air from the inside for - say - 30 seconds (warming the heat exchanger), then they push air from the outside for another 30 seconds, and they may be (or become) noisy, new models have built-on timers to be able (as an example) to switch off at night if in bedrooms or switch off in the evening in the living room, etc.
In a nutshell, stone, concrete, metal, and glass are very good at transmitting heat, so the inside of your house will quickly be as hot (or as cold) as the outside. Plastic, wood, and especially air are very bad at transmitting heat (or good resisting to heat transmission) and this is what you want for your house. Back to windows, multiple sheets of glass are only desirable because they have an air chamber inside. Three layers of glass mean two air chambers, each at its own temperature.
I’m confused by what you write about stone and concrete being good at transmitting heat. I thought the point was that (a) they act as an accumulator regulating the temperature because they take a lot of energy to heat up and (b) they conduct heat poorly (or worse than a window would be mm of thickness but they are much thicker) which is insulating.
Looking up random values from the web, it seems a the low numbers for a thin concrete wall (single wythe means no cavity insulation) are about 2.5x those of a coated double glazed window. A wall which is thicker or has insulation will perform much better. And this doesn’t count any insulation from plaster or cladding or whatever.
Concrete: 0.8 W/m^2K for 10cm solid dense concrete. https://ncma.org/resource/rvalues-ufactors-of-single-wythe-c...
Window: 2.1 W/m^2K for a coated especially insulating window. https://www.justrite.com.au/products-and-services/double-gla...
I wrote about conductivity here because that’s what your comment seemed to be about. Maybe I misunderstood your comment because it seemed to me that you were implying that windows transmit less heat than eg concrete walls (reading carefully, you don’t write that) and I thought it was a given that they transmit more heat. But my question isn’t about adding windows making a building require more heating but about adding windows making a building’s temperature harder to maintain because there are not a load of big (eg) concrete blocks in the wall releasing their heat into the air after you open the door and let a load of cold air in.
This depends on climate.
When the outside temperature changes, the building will eventually get itself to the outside temperature (thermodynamics laws). How fast that change would happen exactly — depends on thermal resistance and thermal mass.
Thermal resistance acts as an amplifier (or rather diminisher) of that changing force: the higher the resistance, the lower is the force, and so more time for the change to take effect.
Thermal mass acts as a momentum against that changing force: the higher the mass, the more time for the change to take effect.
In some climates (e.g. south Europe) the outside temperature is only a problem on winter nights and on summer days. You are only fighting the outside weather for hours on end. And you can effectively make that fight with large thermal mass alone.
In other climates (e.g. north Europe) the low temperatures at winter can come for months, so you want mass, resistance, and inside heating.
Source: spent a few summers fetching water from a well and crapping into an outdoor toilet.
What is the R-value of a Norwegian wall?
That varies greatly I think. There are a lot of old houses here; built to a very different standard than a modern house. Double glazed windows has been the norm for a long time though, through the invention of the easy to clean husmorvinduet or h-vinduet:
Husmor translates to housewife, vindu to window (housewife window). Easy to clean, since they can flip around, i.e. you can wash the outside from the inside. So for most older homes, I guess it's a mix.
For new buildings; what you say holds true I think.
Speaking for myself here, my house was built around 1850-1861 (no one really knows when it was made exactly). Timber construction covered with boards on both sides; but with minimal insulation (until we started renovating the house).
There are stricter rules for building new homes now, then what they had in the 1850's of course :-). A new house built now should follow the TEK17 standard made into law in 2017 (prior versions are the TEK10 standard from 2010, TEK07 from 2007, TEK97 from 1997 etc.). They regulate everything, from how much area you should have outside to how big a shed you can set up I think. Eco friendliness is an important category though; and these are the minimum requirements that came up with a google search (in Norwegian) for your question:
https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-...
Unfortunately in Norwegian as well, but they do state how much a wall/roof etc is allowed to leak; i.e. U value. As you can see (with Goole translate at least), walls should have better insulation than windows at minimum at least.
By building profile I mean, higher requirements if you want massive windows; to account for their lower R rating than a wall.
Or higher requirements for a rectangular footprint vs a square footprint because the rectangle has a more surface area for the same volume.
(Does anywhere take this approach???)
It's the walls must be X, windows must be Y:
https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-...
The best window I can find from the major Danish manufacturer Velfac has a total U-value of 0.82 W/°K/m² [1]. It's a triple-glazed window with argon and coatings.
A typical insulated thin (100mm) wood-frame wall, i.e. the sort you'd use if you were building a summer house in Sweden has a U-value of 0.4 W/°K/m² [2], i.e. twice as good as the window above.
A typical rock- or glasswool insulated wood-frame wall for a modern year-round house has a U-value of 0.2 W or better, i.e. four times as good as the window above.
Wall that are so bad that they're roughly equivalent to the triple-glazed window above are something you'll mainly find in buildings from 50+ years ago, at least in Sweden. I expect Norway to be similar. [3]
'bjarneh' mentioned both triple- and quadruple-glazed windows. I've only seen quadruple used in noise-reduction applications, e.g. hotel next to a busy road. If you have a data sheet for one, it'd be interesting to see what the U-value is.
One of the posters above referred to 'R-value'. It's the reciprocal of the U-value. Wikipedia has good explanations of both, as well as typical values for windows and walls. [4,5]
References are mostly in Swedish, because the poster 'bjarneh' was talking about windows in Norway, so I wanted references for companies that actually sell things in Scandinavia.
[1] https://products-api.velfac.com/files/11644/VELFAC%20STANDAR...
[2] https://www.isover.se/hur-tjock-isolering-ska-man-ha-att-fa-....
[3] https://www.traguiden.se/konstruktion/konstruktiv-utformning...
The ones we got for our house was ordered with noise reduction, but I think that basically just meant that they did not have that little valve at the top of the windows (ventil in Norwegain perhaps also in Sweedish?).
My situation is somewhat special since I have a very old house (built around 1850) made from a timber frame construction (timmerkoja in Sweedish I guess?). So the walls were extremely poorly insulated, basically just some wool (or something similar, not 100% sure what it was) between the beams as they were put on top of each other during the build. Regular boards where added on both sides of the timber frame, but no additional insulation until we renovated the house.
The 50 year old punctured double glaze windows - that came with the house were not doing too much in terms of insulation either.
Any insulated wall will probably be better than windows, but at least here in Norway, there are a bunch of old poorly insulated houses, with double glazed windows as most everyone got these things installed when they came out:
Husmorvinduet (housewife windows) was popular since they were so simple to clean; and electricity was cheap until quite recently I guess. But any wall with actual insulation will probably beat windows for insulation; although newer windows are not as terrible as the once were.
> so I wanted references for companies that actually sell things in Scandinavia
I guess they are manufactured elsewhere; but I think the ones we ordered was delivered from Røros-vindu, but I could not find any info about actual R/U-value for the windows on their website. Just some info about what types of gas they contain and so on.
- wood
- waste
- lifelong high expense
- manual
- 3D printed houses (https://communityimpact.com/austin/georgetown/housing-real-estate/2022/11/17/3d-printed-homes-in-georgetown-offer-new-approach-to-building-communities/)(https://www.3dwasp.com/en/3d-printer-house-crane-wasp/)
- revival of the modular home (really to many to list https://www.dwell.com/article/prefab-homes-austin-texas-f734ce25)
- prevalent home centered tech
- open source communities (https://www.opensourceecology.org)
- remote work
- decreasing solar cost
- increasing last mile internet access
The home part just needs to be good enough, the land is the real value. A shit rundown place can be worth millions, just because of the land. The house itself gets knocked down for an apartment complex.
It might require permitting, but zoning is not an issue, because outside the US zoning tends to be based on activity nuisance levels.
In the US however zoning tends to be exclusive and a lot more specific, so you can (and cities do) zone large areas as single-family residential meaning you can not replace single family houses by MUAs without rezoning the area, a much more complicated, expensive, and lengthy proposition.
Not to mention US-style exclusive zoning also by definition precludes mixed-use developments.
I wonder beyond price what it means for the longevity (or persisting value) of a 3D printed home vs one that
- is made of wood
- is made by humans (and so possibly deviating from approved spec)My unscientific observation is that buildings are more often replaced due to changes in land use and taste than structural failure, and the structural failure modes include foundation issues, earthquakes, fire (far more common in the past), water infiltration, or can be the results of complete neglect.
Anyways, plenty of regions use concrete (what most 3d printed houses are made of) heavily in residential construction. You can look to them to compare and contrast.
Outside of apartment buildings, concrete isn't used much for residential that I've seen, except for the foundation. Not sure what you mean by "heavily" though.
Rare in North America though.
A timber frame alone is not really much prefab? Should we not make whole walls with internal and external cladding (whatever tech selected), cables and pipes or a least conduits?
It seem to me that we could have open source full plans for a few models of cost effective houses.
Then builders and prefab manufacturers could bid on the price and selection of parts to build it.
The houses I see builded here are terribly inefficient. Complex shape and roof lines with a lot of unused space. They are made to look like an old house that was upgraded multiple time instead of being one large rectangle or square with simple roof. Furthermore the ratio of exterior walls to inside space is far from optimum, resulting in larger material and heating cost than necessary.
And if you hate McMansions, you'll love: https://mcmansionhell.com/
There's plenty to discuss about houses (if you've got time on your hands), but give me a pretty good home. Green? Where I grew up you could drive around in the woods and see old abandoned log houses turning back into land and a few rocks, all on their own. A worthy goal to work towards.
Lloyd's still kicking and blogging. https://www.lloydkahn.com/
Sidetracking a little, I wish someone(s) could develop a complementary vision for the urban context. This escape to the woods ethos does not scale. Yet, it's the only one that - at least in my impression - has crystalized in some truly homely aspirational bitesize aesthetics, that seems in reach, if only one would just commit.
The closest thing I can think of was maybe "the loft", you know, think 80s cool. But they kinda suck in hindsight. The townhouse maybe, but so dependent on if the actual surroundings are tolerable, a little too large to have broad demographic appeal. Maybe the shotgun. They definitely have that cutesy thing going. Can be spacious, small, simple layouts, lot's of room for craftmanship... Just spitballing now.
How does that work exactly? Here's how I understand it: I would have to cover an entire building with some sort of a skeleton (layer) of wood, with an air gap in between. And it will cause the rain drops to slide down to the ground instead of the wall absorbing it.
Sounds expensive. Am I missing something?
Around here (mostly concrete or brick buildings with a thick exterior polystyrene insulation) water-repellent acrylic or silicone renders are more popular. Example: https://isomat.co.uk/product/marmocryl-silicone-decor-2-en/
I guess using both would be overkill. Not to mention attaching a rain screen with the outer layer of polystyrene would be more difficult.
There's some more info here: https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Rainscreen
I hear the term "rain screen" fairly often to describe open cladding styles. Scroll down to "timber cladding profiles" and then "open cladding": https://www.thousandhuts.org/walls Rather than a more closed timber cladding, like shiplap or board-on-board, there would be a gap, maybe 8mm between the cladding boards. Rain can get in, but with an effective membrane beneath, it's waterproof. And there's always ventilation, so it dries out more quickly. If the wall is built for it, the membrane should be vapor permeable and allow the building to "breath".
I'm not sure if this is as appropriate for your local buildings if they have exterior polystyrene etc. Where I am in northern Scotland many of the buildings from the past several decades are timber frame inside + cavity + a wall of concrete blocks. Those concrete blocks are basically the cladding. They have the same renders as you linked on them. While a lot of people are skipping the blockwork and just cladding the building with timber or metal instead.
You have external cladding to protect against bulk water, UV; it is generally metal siding, brick, stucco. You then have a >5mm air gap between that cladding and the next layer of your building:
* https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-001-t...
This is because moisture will either get through the cladding, or the cladding itself will absorb water (brick, stucco), and needs a way to dry.
You don't need a lot of space behind the clapping, but you need something:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainscreen
* https://www.dupont.com/products/tyvek-drainvent-rainscreen.h...
As others have described there are wraps. We just used firring strips made out of PVC. Others do it with ripped strips of pressure treated 2x4s.
You SHOULD still do it over the exterior insulation if it is there, so there is a space for things to dry out.
The reason you see old 100+ year old uninsulated houses standing is that, while they were crappy for retaining heat and combatting airflow, they did at least always dry out after they got wet. This is even more important in a modern home where all your materials are preventing that drying out, so you have to plan for it.
And it seems being 'whelmed' is already in common use, as a mediocre middle ground feeling between over and underwhelmed.
Well, that boat has sailed. Building has pretty much become unaffordable for us, unless we'd move way out to the country side. And I mean WAY out - we would spend a lot more time every day driving everywhere). We'd also have to build a rather modestly-sized home to fit it into our budget.
The thing is, the only reason we've started thinking about a new house in the first place is that - with a growing family - our current home is starting to feel a bit tight.
The only alternative would be to buy an older house and renovate it. That would possibly keep us in the general area, but financially it wouldn't be viable either. Houses here are usually priced so that if you were to get them to a modern standard, you would end up having spent the same amount of money as if you built a completely new home. Except that the old one will be, at its core, still an old house.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
I like the idea of the core of my house being true 2x4s made of hardwood, instead of scam “2x4s” where they say it’s because of their sawblades but I’d say it’s because the mills squeeze too many “2x4s” out of a log.
Not anymore, but we used to.
Lumber was whatever trees were nearby. And cut to the size they were actually sold as.
Also, nominal dimensions have always referred to the as-sawn size: planed size has always been smaller by the amount of planing since small-dimension stock began to be used 120-140 years ago. The only difference is that the actual (smaller) size varied widely between sawmills until the early 1960s, when the finished size was regulated.
The house is built from wooden railway sleepers arranged vertically, the whole outer wall are those beams next to each other. Structurally I guess much superior to any 2x4.
There was some insulation added in the 90s but it is still crap.
My choices here are:
1. spend a lot of money to redo insulation, change the windows change all the floors, completely redo heating and the result is still a smallish impractical and frankly ugly house inside and out.
2. tear the whole thing down, recycle the materials and build a truly modern, beautiful, practical, energy generating passivhaus. Will cost more, for sure.
3. sell the thing and try to find a similarly good plot and build on it.
And I don't think dimensional lumber is really a scam? You can go to a mill and buy rough cut wood still. Its cheaper but it also has its own possible drawbacks, you might need to dry it out, the boards will not have exact sizing like dimensional lumber and depending on your building code and the mill you buy from, you may need to get it graded and stamped for inspections. Ignoring recent price spikes, wood and framing are only a small part of the cost to build.
Is this true? Shipping things from where its more efficient to produce them I thought was better? The scale of ships and shipping containers means the carbon involved per item is pretty small.
Trees, for instance, don't grow well in areas with little soil. Or for extreme example they don't grow at all in places that are cold enough. So shipping them in from places where they do make more sense then attempting to grow them locally.
I mean I'm sure there are scale advantages in gravel quarries and logging mills, but I'm not certain how much that matters.
The example I always heard about growing locally was tomatoes. Tomatoes grown in Canada, in greenhouse – and eaten in Canada – have a larger carbon impact than importing Tomatoes from Brazil where they grow without a heated greenhouse.
Trees are obviously able to grow in lots more places, but that doesn't mean they grow equally well everywhere I'm guessing. I'm not an expert but the carbon cost of moving things around the world is often quite small comparatively.
The PGH book is mostly focused on a north eastern US perspective, where trees are plentiful.
I am starting a complex renovation project in Venice, Italy. I wish there were a knowledgeable local PGH chapter here to help me out.
Also, on a personal level, I find his enthusiasm for quality to be infectious, and it puts me in a mood to write good software.
I don't think that homelessness has much to do with construction costs: homeless people are usually not those who have $70k lying around which is not sufficient even as an initial downpayment for a home. The lack of housing is real, but it's more about regulations which forbid to build "cramped", "ugly" houses or "slums", or anything at all near elite houses which may not go down in "value".
ROI is being used in it's economics section, literally as return on investment.
> I don't think that homelessness has much to do with construction costs
No, but it does have to do with ROI, which you hand waved away above by redefining ROI to be non-financial rewards such as enjoyment.
Housing as an investment has put housing out of reach of a increasing percentage of homeowners and raised rental rates.
The least expensive rentals in my city are out of reach for those making minimum wage in my city.
What do you think it means? "Enjoyment of my property" is an important aspect of a Cost-Benefit Analysis but it's not ROI.
Anyway, it a is a singular problem in an otherwise laudable process.
It's always a very strange feeling when I see how in the american home-reconstruction TV shows they're tearing the walls and it's all wood.
Same case when I see the effects of hurricanes... it all feels very fragile comparing to what we have here.
According to our national agency 90% of all single family homes built in 2020 was with a wooden frame/core and about 5% masonry.
Edit: Stucco plaster on wooden core is somewhat common here, which maybe makes it look like more houses are masonry core than actually is?
- wood is cheap in US (historically was 10x cheaper)
- there is a lot of land, plots are big, so you can fit everything in a single level
- wood is better for handling earthquakes, brick walls cracks
- cultural (wood has always been much better for construction in US)
I work in the wood-construction industry so we are trying to get more people to build from wood, so we have a pretty good picture of which regions traditionally build from wood and which don't. It's really hard to generalize across Europe as usual. If anything, wood construction is certainly becoming more popular, not less.
Wood is a perfectly fine for homes. You can build long lasting and efficient homes using it and in fact engineered wood is showing up in some high rise construction. Wood is historically cheap here where as in parts of Europe it is quite costly.
Thank you kind stranger for showing me what real indifference and ignorance looks like.