We got Gold!

This past Sunday, we had the great honor to host the Arlington Green Home Choice Program’s annual awards ceremony at OUR house!  It was an awesome success.  Arlington County uses this opportunity every year to recognize the home owners, builders and the homes that voluntarily participate in the program to build and retrofit homes to a high performing level that is “healthy, comfortable, cost efficient and reduces energy and water usage and protects the environment.”  Helen, the manager of the Green Home Choice Program works tirelessly to engage builders through the entire process from design, construction to commissioning.  She certainly kept us going through the hard times with her encouragement and her frequent site visits tell us how serious she and the county are about promoting green homes.

We really like the program because of its prerequisite that the home be Energy Star qualified.  Even though Energy Star isn’t the most stringent standard out there, it is a great starting point and more importantly, it is performance based.  This also means a Green Home Choice building will perform significantly better than a conventional home.  Additionally, as Energy Star continues to tighten its standard, Green Home Choice homes will also improve in energy performance.  Modeled after the EarthCraft program, Green Home Choice uses a score card to determine other sustainability features of a home, such as water use, site design, etc.  Here’s the 72 page score sheet. http://freshaireva.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Arlington-Green-Home-Choice-Guidance-Manual-1-01-12.pdf  It’s also good to look for ideas in during the design process.

For this year (2011-2012), twelve homes were certified in the Arlington Green Home Choice program.  Out of which 6 received”Certified”, 3 “Silver” and 3 “Gold” awards.   This is the first year, Arlington has given out the “Gold” awards.

GHC Certified Homes

Here’s our gold!

Matt Fine and Jake (Zavos Architecture and Design), me, Jay Fisette (Arlington County Board Member), Charlie Byrd (Intellistructures), Ricardo Leon (Leon Home Improvement), Helen Reinecke-Wilt (Manager of GHC)

Special thanks to Helen Reinecke-Wilt,  Joan Kelsch for organizing this successful event.  To Jay Fisette for his support and commitment to a sustainable energy future.  Congratulations to all the other Green Home Choice participants.

Stay tuned and be sure to come visit us on June 3rd for the 10th Annual Arlington Green Home and Garden Tour.  For more information, click below.

http://www.arlingtonenvironment.org/be-green/live-green/gardentour/

Quick we need more foam!

Today, we’ll write about something lighter and shorter.  We finally got around to insulating the basement some more.

To recap from where we left off several month ago, the basement has 6″ of EPS insulation below the slab, as well as a 20 mil Stago Wrap as a vapor barrier.  See “Building a Bullet Proof Slab” for a review http://wp.me/p1F8Cx-3q.

On the walls, we used a Superiorwall system which included a combination of XPS and EPS foams as insulation.  See “How to Build a Basement in 3.5 Hours” http://wp.me/p1F8Cx-4w.  We also added more EPS to the outside to beef up the R-value and break some thermal bridges, see “Outsulation” http://wp.me/p1F8Cx-4w.

Now that you have thoroughly studied our foundation, we can move on the to next step of adding yet more foam to this house.  I know XPS and EPS aren’t the more sustainable insulation products to use but cut us some slack here.  We are beginners and need to work with something forgiving.

So, the next step is to complete our continuous thermal envelop by laying foam on the basement floor.

Here’s a before picture

Basement Before

As you can see, the StagoWrap is still sticking out of the concrete.

Salvado and his crew from Leon Home Improvement came to help us out today.

XPS in the stud cavities

They cut small pieces of XPS and filled the stud cavities with it, detached the Stago from the walls and laid them flat on the concrete.

Continuous Insulation

Then, they cut a piece of 1″ XPS to fit along a wall and butt it up against the foam in the wall cavities, creating a thin, cleaning caulking joint.

XPS Floor

A few hours later, the floor insulation was done and the continuous insulation was completed.  They moved on to insulating the walls with EPS foam.

Cutting EPS

EPS Foam Insulation

EPS is easy to work with.  Just cut it to size and jam into the space.

Eric and I decided to get our hands dirty too.

Caulking around spray foam

This penetration already had been sprayed around the pipe.  We decided to caulk around the foam joints as suggested by Sam at 475, then tape around the whole thing.

Wire Penetration sealed and taped

MiniSplit Penetration (Before)

MiniSplit Penetration (After)

I think all these steps are truly a “belts and suspenders” way to seal things.  I can see how spray foam might not create an extremely good seal.  When we trimmed back the bulging foam, sometimes we see voids or areas with only a very thin layer of foam.  Additionally, I think another reason is longevity, I am not sure if I trust the foam to hold that penetration for the rest of the building’s useful life.  The caulk adds another insurance policy between the different materials, i.e. foam and OSB or foam and PVC tubing, etc.  The tape is probably the final coverall.  475 folks, I know you are reading this, tell us what you think?

I have to say, I am not sure how I feel about doing a 3 step sealing process for 1 inch holes, there maybe larger gaps between my SIPs or other building members that I can’t even see.  I guess sealing penetrations are probably the low hanging fruit in a way, mainly because you know where the holes are.  Other potential places of air infiltration, say between SIPs or seams may be difficult to find visually.

 

 

 

 

Backfilled! Ready for SIPs

While we were practicing how to install a window in the basement, Leon Home Improvement was doing the heavy lifting, filling and tamping of dirt around the foundation.  Man, that’s a lot of dirt!  See the before and after photos.  So far we’ve had enough dirt to back fill.  I really hope we don’t have to buy more dirt!

Before

After

The garage area (the cutout) will need to get filled by another 4 feet or so, because a concrete slab will be poured on top, compaction is necessary.  I pray for dry weather for the next few days.

SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) delivery is scheduled for next week!  I can’t wait for this to look “more like a house”.