Archive for April, 2011|Monthly archive page

Revitalizing Community and Preserving Affordable Housing

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Habitat for Humanity’s latest efforts to bring together community and enable families to take pride in home-ownership grows with A Brush with Kindness.

How many times have you wondered how you could help a neighbor out who you noticed struggled managing their property on their own? The vines have crept through their shutters and the paint is peeling off of the stoop. Maybe the gutters have started to pull away from the fascia and you can actually see where the pesky raccoon has made an entrance into their attic. This is a neighbor who needs some help, but maybe isn’t ready to ask for help.

EarthCraft Virginia is a local partner with Habitat for Humanity DC and Habitat for Humanity of Arlington. We think it is fantastic that Habitat has created a program that helps people with the exterior maintenance of homes just as much as we enjoy partnering with them on the interior maintenance.  Exterior home maintenance is imperative and keeps a home in tip top shape; just as you want to keep a home in tip-top shape in the inside, it is important to keep it in good shape on the outside as well. “A Brush with Kindness is an exterior home preservation service that offers painting, landscaping, weather stripping and minor repair services for homeowners in need. ABWK helps low-income homeowners impacted by age, disability and family circumstances, who struggle to maintain the exterior of their homes, reclaim their homes with pride and dignity.” This is the type of service, where neighbors like you, who are so willing to lend a helping hand can do so without being pushy or insulting to neighbors who have been afraid to ask for assistance. Habitat for Humanity’s ABWK program offers homeowners who need a bit of extra help just what they need through your kindness.

Per their very informative website, Habitat for Humanity is able to provide these services locally through the following avenues:

  • Habitat selects partner families based on income, need and willingness to partner.
  • Habitat affiliates use volunteer labor and donated materials to keep costs low and take no profit for their services.
  • A no-interest loan is made to the homeowner to cover the cost of the project. Payments made by the homeowners are placed in a revolving fund to help A Brush with Kindness serve others in need.

They say it matters because “A Brush with Kindness ensures that families live in safe and well-maintained homes. The program is designed to revitalize the appearance of the neighborhood, encourage connections within the community, and most importantly, help preserve affordable housing stock.” This is not only a good thing for the community itself, but it also helps the individual homeowners lift their spirits and get back into a place of being a part of their community again.

Learn more about the local chapters of Habitat for Humanity and see what you can do as a volunteer or even apply for assistance.

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Bringing on the Rays of Hope: Solar Raisers

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment, or ACE program, have an exciting initiative that brings a whole new meaning to raising the roof!

Last Fall, ACE brought a new program to Arlington County in conjunction with Sunnovations and Solar Services; they brought the concept of helping their community members “achieve energy independence” in a way very similar to an Amish Barn Raising. What is more fun that getting a bunch of like-minded people together to do something that they enjoy to help their fellow community members out and clean up their environment in the process? Hello, added bonus!

The Solar Raisers Program is quite literally a volunteer program that brings together people who want to help their Arlington based neighbors install solar hot water heaters with the technical assistance and, well, free labor. That is the spirit!  Just like how the Amish bring together their community to raise a barn and put together a building in a day, Solar Raisers come together in a day with volunteers to put together a solar hot water heater system in a day; so instead of raising the roof, they bring the rays to the roof!

Solar Raisers are doing a great deed not only extending a helping hand to their fellow Arlingtontians in need, but also creating a cleaner environment. The installation of a solar hot water system can reduce over 25 tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the lifetime of the system per the ACE program and of course, save the happy home owner thousands of dollars in energy bills. To learn more about how to become a volunteer or even how to utilize this great program for yourself, check out the program page and become a member of ACE.

Read more about the first Solar Raiser solar hot water heater raising in Arlington, VA.

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Award Winning Architect Stresses Certification Process

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

EnviroHomeDesign’s Marta Layseca knows her green building and shares her story case study about the third party certification process.

At the Arlington County Green It Lecture Series mediated by the Green Home Choice Program manager, Helen Reinke-Wilt, Marta Layseca was able to discuss two of her recent retrofit stories in the Arlington area and stress to the audience how the third party verification service is an absolutely imperative part of the green building process. What is the 3rd party verification part of the construction process anyways? Well, it is the part of the process where the project manager or builder has selected an outside authority to come into the project and certify that the project has been held to specific standards.

In the case of Mrs. Layseca’s projects in Virginia, the Green Home Choice Program is the County green building program and the EarthCraft Virginia Green Building program is the regional green building program which provides third party verification that the home is being built to specific standards.

The EarthCraft program institutes a standard checklist that the builder follows from the outset of the build. From the construction charrette to the final finish out, the builder will follow the checklist with the guidance of an accredited technical adviser who will inspect and consult on the building practices and techniques throughout the building process to ensure that the home is “built tight and ultimately ventilated right” as they say at EarthCraft.

Third party verification services not only provide quality control and performance testing, but they also can allow for the construction team to have a mediation with the third party who can come on site to discuss how “things should be done” if a technique or application is not being done properly.

Take for instance, if the duct work is not being sealed with mastic, and the HVAC contractor is arguing that they only want to use tape; the third party verification service provider such as an EarthCraft adviser can intervene and discuss why the technique being used is not the best, and correct the situation to help the builder achieve a higher performance, more energy efficient design. This will ultimately arrive at a healthier, more cost saving product for the builder and a more satisfied client. Now who can argue with that?!

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Q&A with the David Peabody: Passive House Architect

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

Take a moment to get a glimpse inside the mind of a Passive House Architect.

Have you ever wanted to get the insiders perspective on what makes their project unique and what they find to be the most impressive features? We were lucky enough to snag some time with David Peabody, the lead architect on the Passive House in Bethesda, MD. Here is what he had to say about his beautiful, functional new passive design work.

GreenGobbler: We would love to know from your perspective what the most impressive parts of this home are?

David Peabody: What makes the house on North Chelsea Lane impressive is not just that it will use 10% of the heating and cooling energy of a standard house. Its real impressiveness is in the fact that an architect with a few weeks of training and a good contractor could build it using standard construction materials at a cost increase of less than 10% over standard construction.  The Passive House program makes state of the art methodologies and modeling software accessible for architects and builders. As the costs of energy rise, and as these houses become more common, I believe that this approach will be commonplace within 5 years.

GG: What has been the most challenging in the build process, and what has been the most satisfying for you as the team lead?

DP: The most challenging architectural piece was in development of a completely new set of standard construction details for our houses. Luckily, I only have to do that once for this construction system. The most challenging piece in the construction process was reaching the airtightness requirement. That required careful work on the part of all the subs: concrete, SIP, mechanical, electrical and plumbing. We learned that infrared imaging is indispensable in completing the process. For when we got the house under pressure, it was the IR camera that identified the remaining leaks which needed patching before we got to the .6ACH at 50 Pascale.

GG: Is there anything you would suggest to someone else looking to begin their own passive house project?

DP: Plan everything ahead. Work with people who have done it before and you will be well up on the learning curve.

GG: Why do you think Passive design is just now becoming a player in residential design in the US?

DP: It has only reached mainstream construction in Europe, where it originated, in the last five years or so. And we are a bit behind them. Obstacles have been: it’s foreign; it requires changing the way we do things; the bad reputation of the super-insulated houses of the 70′s. Once people see that these houses can look normal and be built very close to market costs, they will become more common. Rising energy costs will determine the speed of acceptance.

Many thanks to David Peabody for taking the time to discuss his wonderful project. For more information, keep your eyes on our site, and we’ll continue to update you on the progress of this passive home in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Arlington Based Architect Greens It at Lecture Series

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

The Green It Series with the Arlington Green Home Choice Program featured speaker Marta Layseca of EnviroHomeDesign at last night’s lecture series at the Arlington Central Library.

Arlington County has a very strong green building community and they keep it so by hosting community based lecture series such as the one hosted at the Central library last night featuring award winning architect Marta Layseca of EnviroHomeDesign. The series topic focused on the retrofitting of existing homes which are being remodeled in the Arlington area. Marta spoke on the importance of bringing together a team of professionals to review the existing conditions of the property, assess the requirements of the design and the specifics of the clients’ needs for functionality, the certifications needed to become a truly green built property and the homeowners own verification.

There were two case studies in which Marta highlighted, and Eco-Spanish Colonial and an Eco-Brick Colonial, both homes were requiring retrofitting and remodeling to different levels, but Marta and her team were able to bring these homes to higher green standards through ensuring that the homes thermal envelope was properly sealed, the mechanical systems were properly addressed and that the resources and design were addressed not only with the homeowner but thoughtfully considered through passive design. Marta spent quite some time discussing the concept that window frames in the US are not insulated window systems and that this causes a lot of energy loss. Having a third party verification system such as EarthCraft, Marta advocates is a great way to ensure that the home is sealed properly at pre-drywall. “Energy conservation strategy, especially at the windows and at the concrete foundation and insulation of crawl space and attic creates a thermos.”

What Marta means by creating a thermos out of the home is that, once you have created a very tight thermal envelope, there is a point at which fresh air needs to be introduced into the home to create a mechanical system that is healthy such as an energy recovery ventilator, or ERV. Both homes in her case studies presented had ERV systems and both were tightly sealed. The client who lives in the Eco-Brick Colonial property was at the lecture to participate in discussion: “At first I was skeptical; I wasn’t ever sure what we could even do regarding a green home… but now we absolutely love where we live.” Regarding the ERV system, she states  that it is “nice to have the fresh air coming into the home… it even smells fresher.”

The other systems such as energy efficient resource selection, i.e. the high heel trusses,  high fly-ash concrete, grey-water tanks for flushing the toilets,  and many other eco-friendly selections were discussed in more detail. The fact that Marta creates beautiful, functional, healthy homes which make her clients happy was almost appeared as  a side note to the high performance features and systems that go into these award winning homes in this discussion.

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