Garden Show/Home Show

Today, it was both the Garden Show and Home Show in Manhattan. We met lots of professionals in the area. I had a nice talk with the owner and the landscape designer at Horticultural Services who seemed interested in my plans to use edibles and "nostaglic" flowers in my landscape. However, they don't do irrigation systems, so we'd have to work with them and another company. We also met representatives from Blueville Nursery, Master Landscape, Rothwell Landscape, Howe Landscape and Lee Creek Gardens.

We talked to Christopher Shaw, who sells the Quad-Lock system of insulated concrete forms. It's an interesting option, which substitutes concrete and rebar inside of sytrofoam forms for the traditional wood framing on a house. It's more insulating and stronger than a typical house. It also costs more. We will need to research it more to see if it's a good choice for us.

Not all of the builders came prepared to show examples of their work. That was a bit disappointing, since that was our reason for attending the home show! I realized, however, that it is probably best to select our architect, get the plans ready, then shop for builders. At this point, it feels a bit too abstract.

Landscaping

Ah, exhale. It's been a really long and busy week. Last night, I felt my personal tolerance for stress slip gently over the edge, during the clean up of our chest freezer's meltdown. As it turns out, our toddler had found the temperature control on the freezer, turning it up to "rotten meat" mode. After extensive clean-up, our house went from smelling like a back-alley slaughterhouse to simply smelling like a dead pig in a swimming pool (Mike's words.) This, coupled with a very busy week at work has led me to need some "la la" time. By that, I mean time to stick my fingers in my ears, say "la la la la" and escape reality for a while.

What better way to do this than to indulge myself in fantasizing about landscaping our future home? La la la! So, where do I start? Let's start with what I like. I like "old fashioned plants" (peonies, bridal wreath spirea, hollyhocks, lilac, iris, lilies) that give a feel of an older garden, ones that you might see on an old farmstead. I love the idea of including as many edible plants into the landscape as possible. Not just in a garden set aside for edibles, but sprinkled throughout the landscape (herbs, asparagus, rhubarb, plum bushes, cherry trees) I like the idea of using plants and hardscaping to make outdoor "rooms," dividing up a yard into usable spaces. I'd like to have mysterious places, secret spots, and a little magic in my yard. I prefer perennial, or self-seeding, plants. One-shot annuals feel like a waste to me.

Now, on to what I don't want in a landscape. I really don't like landscapes that feel sterile and corporate. If it would be appropriate for a golf course, I don't want it at my house. This includes shrubs groomed into ball shapes and large tufts of grass. I don't like surrounding my plants with rocks (both because it looks "cold" to me, and because it's a pain to dig up in the future.) I'm not into landscaping that is meant to blend seamlessly into the surrounding environment. I realize that sounds bad, maybe even offensive to some. How do I explain this? I want a garden that, while it's in tune with the environmental and soil conditions of our area, stands out from the prairie landscape. Something that feels like a human creation, rather than a slight shift from what is already there. I want a garden that would look at home near an English cottage or an old American farmstead. Something with gorgeous color, wild and untethered. I'm not really a fan of subtlety.

Ah, exhale. Nothing like a little trip into la la land.

Flooring

One of the biggest questions I've had about building a green house has been about flooring. As we plan to use a ground source heating unit and a passive solar design, there are certain issues for flooring. With radiant heating (from ground source) we need to consider the r-value of our flooring choices. If a floor covering is too insulating, the heat won't be able to transfer from the system to the room (or, for cooling, from the room to the system.) As far as I know, they recommend an r-value under 4.0 for radiant heat systems. For passive solar, you want flooring that can soak up the heat from sunlight coming through southern windows, then release the heat as the sun goes down.

For both of these systems, tile, stone or concrete work well. But, it's also my goal to make the house have a "historic feel" and "have a lot of character." In my aesthetic, these ideal materials fall short. Also, I really like having carpet in some rooms, both for its coziness but also because it keeps dirt from swirling about the house and causing an outbreak of dust bunnies.

So, I've been doing some research. Turns out, I may not need to sacrifice my style for the environment. A low pile, synethic carpet (r=.7) with a thin, slab rubber pad (r=.32) doesn't have a bad R-Value (total just over 1.) Linoleum (which I like for kitchens) has a typical r value of .4. Specifically, Marmoleum has a 2.45 value for the kind you install with adhesive and a 1.7 for the floating floor type. Hardwood floors tend to be around r=.7. Engineered wood flooring around .4.

At the same time, I'm shopping around for ceramic tile. Ceramic tile has a typical r-value of .25 (so, non-insulating) and is good as a passive solar mass. My hope is to find a tile that I really like and use that in the room(s) with the most southern exposure, while using flooring that I prefer for aesthetic or functional reasons in other rooms.

Just to keep myself organized, I'm pasting an e-mail from Marmoleum here:
"It will be fine to install either the Marmoleum sheet goods or the Click(our "floating" floor) over radiant heat. We do recommend having theheat shut off or turned down for at least 48 hours before installation,during and 72 hours after installation. It should then be raisedgradually, so adhesive and material can cure/adapt together. Thesubstrate temperature should never exceed 85 degrees. The R-Value of theMarmoleum sheet goods is 2.45, and the Click with a vapor barrier (whichwill be needed when installing over radiant heat) is 1.70.Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Jennifer Malloy Technical Services"

Kind of Like the Look of This

This is actually the front of a house, which seems strange to me. But, as the side of a house, there are some good elements to it. Well, what I think that I like is that it's white, and has lots of windows (with small, divided panes of glass) and has a screened in porch on one side. One odd thing about it is that the screened in porch is on the west side of the house (wouldn't want to be there in the evenings!) Also, I don't like the strangle little angular window that juts out on the lower, right hand side of the house. Otherwise, it captures something of the feel of the house that I'd like to build.

Beauty, Function and Performance

Our friend Mike, a professor of architecture at KSU, was nice enough to meet with us to discuss some of our beginning questions about the house. One question we were left with was what balance of beauty (aesthetic considerations), function (how the house will work for our needs) and performance (how energy and resource efficient the house will be) we are looking for. Of course, the answer is: we want it all!! But, realistically, we have to consider that there will be trade-offs. If we are honest with ourselves, the priorities come down like this:
1) Function: of course, function has to win out. We can't have features for aesthetic or performance reasons that compromise how the house will work for our needs.
2) Beauty: One of the big points of building my own house, rather than moving into someone else's house, is that I have a really particular aesthetic that I'm seeking. Building is a really long, scary, stressful, expensive process. We're willing to engage in the process to get a house that feels really right to us, and the look of it is a huge part of that.
3) Performance: We really do want to have a house that is as efficient as possible while still addressing 1 & 2.

So, one of the big questions is where the trade-offs will lie. We plan to meet with Mike again in a few weeks. I'm starting this particular post to begin collecting questions about features that we want that may conflict with performance.
1) Mike would like the front porch to wrap around the house to connect with a sunroom/porch on the back of the house. We plan to have the garage on the north side of the house (thought that would be good, to block the main house from the wind. So, the porch would need to wrap around the south side. We know that our southern windows will need to have some overhang to block the summer sun. But, would a porch provide too much shading and block the sun from warming our house in the winter? What if it was narrow?
2) What types of flooring materials would be good to use with ground source heating? We like to have bedrooms carpeted. How much would that interfere with the performance of radiant heating?
3) What types of flooring materials work well as a thermal mass to store heat? What are the worst materials? If what we want for our flooring (either for beauty or function) doesn't match up with our need for thermal mass, what would be an alternative thermal mass?

Okay, that's it for now. More later.

My Favorite House in the Little Apple

This is my favorite house in Manhattan. It's just north of the intersection of Juliette and Poyntz. I love the symmetry and balance of this house. I love the double layer porch with its the simple, substantial columns. I love how how the porches are topped by those slight arches (more rounded corners than true arches.) I also like the solid, weighted look of using limestone on the bottom of the porch. If you could look more closely, you would see that the front windows are decorative glass (not stained, but cut and leaded in a simple design.) It looks like a home that was lovingly built for a large family. It's beautiful, but simple. It has style without being fussy. It seems warm and welcoming, to me.

How Green?

On the way to work today, Mike asked me how green I wanted our new house to be. He pointed out that I have, in the past, dreamed of being "off the grid" (energy independent.) I still feel that this would be a wonderful goal. I definitely hope to use geothermal to heat and cool the house. I want to orient the house, the windows and the eaves in such a way that we are warmed by southern light in the winter and avoid harsh light in the summer (i.e. passive solar design.) As for active solar technology, I plan to look into it and see what the costs and benefits would be. We need to be sure that our local electricity company is willing to "buy back" any extra energy we produce during sunny days so that when we use energy on cloudy days, we aren't paying for all of it. I'd also like to use a whole house fan and plan the windows in such a away that we are able to capture breezes on warm days.

So, how green would I like the house to be? Very green. But, I'm not willing to sacrifice much in terms of comfort, convenience and style. For example, I'd love to capture rainwater to water the yard, but I really like the convenience of an automatic sprinkler system. So, maybe we can just say that I'll have a sprinkler system but I'll try to landscape in such a way that excessive watering isn't necessary? Maybe my rainwater could be funneled into a pretty water garden?

Let's face it, some "green" homes are just, fugly. Yeah, I said it. They are plain, odd, and asymmetrical. Some of them aren't as much fugly as they are just far too modern and angular for my tastes. Check out these examples.
No offense intended towards the owners of these very green homes. It's just that this isn't my style. I want a beautiful home; a home that is lovely, formal and a little bit opulent. One that shows my style and my personality. And, is as green as can be (without needing to be fugly.) In fact, I would go so far as to say that it would be good for the world for us to build an exceptionally beautiful home that is also green, just to show others that you don't have to sacrifice style for the environment.