an addition for Aunty in ithaca

This fall we had the privilege of designing and buildng an attached mother-in-law unit for some great clients on the south side of Ithaca.

The work started with an intese bit of demolition requiring a large U-haul moving truck to remove the debris-2 trips in fact. Once the house was prepped for the new addition.. no small task we began the creative process of attaching new to old. After a few days we were framed in and things were looking up! For a number of reasons, additions can be more difficult than straight up new construction. Site access is often one of those reasons.

This project had next to impossible site access. Fortunately arrangements were made with the exceedingly friendly neighbors to allow us to use their adjoining backyard to bring in a skid loader for the drilling of he foundation holes. These neighbors were in fact more excited about the addition it seemed than the client was! Maybe you had to be there....

Anyway, the limited access made for a lot of carrying marterials the 30 yards or so around from the front of the house and of course the aproximately 6000 lbs of debris out. Oye Veh!

Even so, building is for the most part enjoyable work. But what i enjoyed most about this project, was how much it meant to the family we were doing it for. They told us each day how much they appreciated our efforts and how pleased they were that the addition was fianlly being built. You see, the family was struggeling to continue to share their living space with a well meaning great aunt who had come to live with them a couple years earlier. They loved the relative, they just couldn't take the accompanying lack of privacy much longer. They had considered building an addition a year before, but felt that it would be too expensive for there budget. Much to their delight, our estimate came in around 25% under what they had previously been quoted. Their desire to stay in their home by "adding on" for the aunty was now possible and quickly becoming a reality! The simple but nicley appointed independant apartment was completed with hardwood and tile floors, a full kitchen and bath, and simple pine trim throughout. Aunty just loves it!

The home owner writes "As soon as the project started, they moved so efficiently and professionally. We were pleasantly surprised at how much they could get done in a short period of time. Further, as they got closer to finishing, we saw that not only was this going to be done in a timely fashion, but also the work was clearly of the highest quality.

as I sit and write this brief note, my aunt is comfortable in her new independent apartment, close but not too close, and my wife and daughter are playing cheerfully with the privacy that we dreamed of. We couldn't be happier!!!"

Energy efficient home started near Ithaca!

Congratulations to the Dan and Lisa Scherer family! We broke ground on their beautiful new home (designed with Rod Lambert) out near Trumansburg on this beautiful sunny morning in May. Stay tuned for construction updates on this interesting passive solar home to be constructed with ICF foundation and SIP walls.

Thanks to Geroge Van Valen and crew and King Brothers in advance for doing great excavation and foundation work!

shades of green

There's a lot of buzz these days about being green, and for the most part that's a good thing. But defining what's green and what's not is a pretty subjective task. With all the noise and claims of Eco friendliness out there, it can get difficult to see the trees for the forest.

When it comes to "green building" in progressive Ithaca, there are many shades to choose from. Living roofs, straw bale walls, local lumber, low VOC paints and finishes, residential solar and wind installations, and more. As I look around me at what other folks in the green building business are doing to reduce their impact on the environment, I can't help but wonder if we ourselves are doing enough?

This is the question that lead to this post... My first thought is, hmm well, maybe not, after all we've never created an earthen floor for a customer and we frequently use materials produced from far away.... But with further consideration I think, well, it depends on who we are building for. Not every customer is willing to make the aesthetic leap to rough cut siding with no paint, regardless of the benefits. It's true, what clients are willing to spend their hard earned dollars on is as big a factor as any in what green materials and methods we are able to utilize on a given project. And then I think, ...hang on a second there buddy, maybe we're doing just fine, and perhaps our part on the Ithaca green building pallet is just as important as all the others.

So, what is it that we are actually doing, you ask?

Well our unique shade of green building comes from knowing how to design, and build lower Eco-footprint, highly energy efficient, affordable homes. Homes that require less material and energy to create up front, and therefore less energy and money to operate or maintain over the long haul. Point in fact, we recently we were involved in the construction of an Energy Star rated 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with around 1,200 sq' of interior living space. That's less than half the size of the average new home built in the Northeast these days. This particular design, dubbed "Habitat" by it's designer, Ithaca resident Rod Lambert, is all about getting more home out of less resources. Utilizing proven design elements such as window placement that optimizes winter solar gain while reducing summer heat build up, exterior walls built of SIP panels, as well as a floating slab with radiant heat are just some of the ways we get the green effect going.

The family that moved into this house we recently worked on, told me that the Energy Star assessment team came by recently. Apparently during the process of checking out the house's energy saving characteristics, the technician who did the "blower door test" (the test that checks for air infiltration) said that she had never had a house rate so well . That made me smile.

It's true that sometimes I feel a little guilty that we are not doing more obviously green projects like building living roofs and such (though we have in the past!), but then I remember what we are doing for the cause, and I feel pretty good about our part. After all there are many shades of green that make up the forest and each one is integral to the whole.

rob

too hot to build

Like other outdoor work, Major league baseball, or farming for example, construction is a weather dependant endeavor.

And you'd think that all things being equal, summer would be the best time to build things, just as it seems like the best time to grow things, or play catch. Most would agree that whether your setting trusses 20' off the ground, or plowing a field for corn, it's pretty nice to work when it's 68 degrees and there are puffy white clouds drifting across a sharp blue sky.

Unfortunately in Ithaca, it's not 65 degrees very often, especially in the summer. In fact, it tends to go pretty quickly to 80 or 85, even in late May or early June, and there are frequent days when it pushes 90 or more. Keep in mind that as a carpenter you're often working without shade, and with east coast humidity doing it's part, by mid afternoon you're not making sense to your co-workers because you're working with a fever.

That's why when folks ask me if framing through winter (as I did the last two winters) "isn't it just awful...you know being out there in all that cold, wind and snow?" I reply, "actually no, in fact I prefer working in the cold of an Ithaca winter to slogging around through the dog days of summer.

I was considering this question another humid 92 degree afternoon as I stumbled around the work site in a weather induced fever, lifting material, climbing ladders creating my own heat wave, and I found myself longing for the kinder, biting cold of winter.

During early winter when high temps might reach only into the low 30s, being out in it seems pretty okay, a bit unpleasant at first, especially if there's a wind, but okay. Hey, you're not going to get frost bite, and you can always add another layer. Anyway, you gradually acclimate. As the winter progresses and temps continue to drop, you just go with it, commenting about how cold it is to the person on the other end of the 2 by 12, checking the radar for possible snow squalls before heading to work, and agreeing on a low temp cut off point (LTCOP) with your work mates for the following morning. That is, the forcasted high temperature at which you'll all just stay home. In early winter its 32 degrees, then a week later its 28. By January you're okay with working outdoors all day at 25 degrees, but you pick up a box of those magical hand warmers on the way to work just to be safe. As long as you keep moving your okay, so you take a short lunch break to avoid getting too cold while sitting. Gradually as the winter reaches its depths, you find you can tolerate 19 or 20 degrees with out much complaint and are willing to continue working with temps as low as 15 degrees, if there's not much wind.

None the less, winter does bring forth some days that are just too cold or too snowy to build, and on those days you're glad to stay home with your family and make soup or something. What I decided the other day is that we need the same allowance for the summer. Frankly, there are days each summer when it is just too damn hot to be out. Days where it takes a couple hours after getting home just to get your body temp back to normal and your brain restarted. Days when it would have been better to have gone to the lake with the kids. How does the saying go something about...mad dogs and English men?