Tag Archives: green

Housing design judge on homes getting smaller, greener

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Housing design judge Heather McCune recently talked about two trends in the housing industry: smaller and greener homes.

The exteriors of the homes are getting far simpler, with far fewer gables and dormers.

There are a couple of reasons for this, we think: One is that this is a change that’s driven by cost. Every time you add a bump-out or change a roofline, it adds to the cost of the house. Builders and architects seem to be consistently asking themselves, does a change like this add value, does it add to the cost? So, the appearances are becoming more streamlined.

The other thing is a generational shift. The entry-level buyer is demanding a home designed for their aesthetic, not for their parents’ aesthetic. They seem to prefer a far cleaner presentation than what had been popular among their parents. I don’t think it would be out of line to characterize it as an anti-McMansion attitude…

Honestly, [“green” is] an evolutionary term in our industry. The definition of green is as different as each and every builder in each and every category. But we didn’t see a single entry that didn’t discuss its “greenness” in its entry statement. The industry is figuring out that green, in some form, isn’t an option anymore — now it’s simply mandatory.

But they each approach it their own way, and a lot of the builders and designers are participating in the many green-building rating systems, such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), which may emphasize different systems and concepts. Generally, though, what we’re seeing is that reducing energy usage is becoming an aspect of home maintenance, from the homeowners’ point of view. We saw less emphasis on sustainably produced building products than on energy management.

Housing going relatively smaller and greener. These trends seem to be picking up momentum and shouldn’t be a surprise (see a recent headline that suggests that here) to readers of this blog. For example, this housing judge was part of the most recent International Builders Show where a Gen Y home combined a smaller size with outdoor living.

It seems like cost is a big factor here: a larger home or a home with more “unnecessary” features means a higher purchase price while some want to lower home energy costs (some going so far as to have net-zero-energy homes). So perhaps we can infer that if the economy remains in the doldrums, these two features will continue to gain steam as homebuyers think more economically.

Net-zero energy homes: well-designed and/or eco-friendly?

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Three net-zero energy homes, homes that produce as much energy as they consume, were recently built in a well-off Edmonton suburb. The description of the homes leads me to ask: are these homes both well-built and eco-friendly?

Well lit with large, south-facing windows, the feature home offers a simple yet refined open plan for the kitchen/main room where the festivities were held.

In each room, labels here and there denoted the latest eco-friendly features and breakthrough methods of energy and resource efficiency. Particularly notable were the 75-cm thick walls, especially designed to provide insulation for Edmonton’s chilly winters.

Although not excessive in size, the house is open and spacious and has all the amenities needed for a modern lifestyle.

As Boman described to the assembled guests, one of the great appeals of the home is the sense of place that comes with it. It is “not another McMansion,” she quipped.

I’m very intrigued by the quote at the end of the above excerpt: it suggests that the homes are nice and eco-friendly. It would be interesting to hear more about the particular architectural details of these houses and how much they differ from homes that are built as part of larger subdivisions. The quote suggests the homes are known for being better quality, places rather than spaces in urban sociology terms, in strong contrast to McMansions. On the other hand, the homes have a lot of green features. Going green doesn’t necessarily make it a well-designed or a quality house. If you pull these two ideas apart, is a ugly or mass-produced green house better or worse than a beautifully designed but wasteful house? Which of these qualities are more important and how do builders and architects have to balance these two to sell such homes?

Apparently there is some momentum for these homes – see my post last week about the cost of net-zero energy homes.

Not much of a price premium for net-zero-energy homes

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As more homebuyers seek out green homes and want to reduce energy bills, they can purchase a net-zero-energy home for a price that may not be as high as you think:

The Spencer’s new home is part of a niche, though growing, segment of the U.S. housing market — net-zero-energy homes, many of which use solar energy to achieve net-zero-energy use vs. consumption. In the sun-sparse days of winter, energy consumption often exceeds generation, but in the sunny days of summer, energy generation often far exceeds consumption.

As of February 2012, 37 homes have been rated net-zero-energy or better on the industry-standard Home Energy Rating System e-scale of the U.S.-standard auditor. This number could grow 1,000 percent or more in 2012 if projects continue as planned.

“Interest has been off the charts,” said Todd Louis, vice-president of Tommy Williams Homes, the Florida-based building company that built the Spencers’ home. So far, the company has built and sold four, and has plans to build 35 to 40 more in 2012. The price of their net-zero-energy homes are still $30,000 to $40,000 higher than those that are not net-zero-energy, said Williams, but that margin is dropping with a decline in photovoltaic costs. The Spencers paid $250,000 for their home…

Shea Homes has long featured extremely energy-efficient designs, though the upgrade to solar panels could be costly — around $30,000, said Asay. He and his wife were considering the upgrade, but when the announcement was made that the new net-zero homes, with solar, were only $7,000 more than the previous base model, they jumped: “Sign us up.”

This approach is different than another housing approach that has generated buzz: passive houses are homes that are so insulated that they use a ventilator to move air from inside to outside (and vice versa – see some diagrams here). The energy costs in these homes are very low. In contrast, net-zero-energy homes have higher energy costs than passive homes but then offset the energy usage. In this article, the homes have solar panels (I wonder if this could be done in other ways – wind turbines on the roof?) which also means that the homes have to be in climates and locations with more sunlight. If the costs for doing this are reasonable and introduced completely at the beginning (meaning it can be spread out across the life of a mortgage), I could see how this is attractive for homebuyers.

I expect that we will see more homes like this in the future: beyond wanting to reduce energy bills, more homeowners appear to be interested in green homes. The housing industry is starting to warm to this idea and there are a number of ways that new homes can adapt: more sustainable materials, being a passive house or a net-zero-energy house, downsizing or right-sizing, and being in denser neighborhoods where homeowners can drive less and use less land.

New homes getting bigger, greener

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Buried underneath a story about a Generation Y home was some interesting information about the new homes of 2011: they are getting bigger and greener.

“Homes are getting bigger,” said Rose Quint, the NAHB’s assistant vice president for survey research. She said the average home completed in 2011 had 2,522 square feet, up from 2,381 the year before. “On average, new homes have more square footage and are getting more expensive,” Quint said.

It’s a seeming anomaly, considering the economy. But the key to the size resurgence lies in who built new homes last year: The economy favored those with wherewithal and who were moving up the housing food chain…

And about that environmental awareness that’s supposed to be at the heart of consumer demand these days (I heard variations on the phrase “green is the new granite countertop” no less than five times in three days here): It depends on who’s asking the questions, apparently.

McGraw-Hill Construction, a trade publisher and researcher, released a survey during the conference that painted the green share of residential construction as booming, having increased from 2 percent in 2005 to 17 percent in 2011. Further, it should reach 29 to 38 percent of the market by 2017, representing $87 billion to $214 billion in business, the report said. Driving this demand, McGraw-Hill said, is consumers’ desire to reduce their energy bills…

Grail Research, a Cambridge, Mass., firm that studies green-related issues, contends green may be less of a revolution than an evolution, if even that. The researchers found that the number of consumers with preferences for green products is decreasing as the recession continues, and that significant numbers of green consumers have switched back to conventional products.

These might be viewed as competing trends but I have argued that I think these could actually go together: Americans want space as well as greener (and perhaps greener as normal) features.

The new figures about housing size from 2011 are fascinating because the downward trend in recent years has been hailed by many as a sign that Americans have gotten their spending under control, lowered their expectations, and are moving away from sprawl and McMansions. But the 2011 figures suggest that there are still people who want (and can pay for) large houses. I’ve suggested before that housing sizes will go up when the economy improves and perhaps this is some evidence for that.

I wonder if we can reconcile different reports about consumers and green products by suggesting that green is simply becoming more normal. It is one thing to add the latest or expensive green features such as solar panels or rainwater retrieval systems. It is another thing for all new homes to have very insulated windows or an efficient furnace, improving features that all homes have to have anyway. What this would mean is that it would be more difficult to market a home as green and ask a premium price as opposed to having some expected or more basic green features. The phrase “green is the new granite countertop” fits with this idea: if you want your home to sell, you will need to have some basic green features.

“Scientists and scientific studies have a minimal effect on public opinion” about global warming

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While one might think that scientific data and reports are convincing, a sociologist argues that these matter little in the debate over global warming:

“Scientists and scientific studies have a minimal effect on public opinion,” says Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle, lead author of a new climate attitude study in the Climatic Change journal. “What really drives public opinion on climate change are the ways that political elites describe the science.”…

In the current Climatic Change journal, Brulle and colleagues looked at 74 public opinion surveys from 2002 to 2010, in a bid to figure out the contradiction in opinions between experts and everyone else…

“The science doesn’t matter because the science isn’t the real issue,” Brulle adds. “It’s about politics and money.” All we have with climate change, he suggests, is politicians taking sides in an economic debate over whether we should spend money to address climate change, or not (with one side very strongly opposed), and hiding behind a smokescreen of debate about settled science to avoid making those issues clear.

Brulle is suggesting that instead of debating how much we should respond to global warming (which seems like an interesting debate to have in itself), the debate has turned to the credibility of the actual science. So if conservatives admit that there is warming, then they would have to admit that money needs to be spent on fighting it and they don’t want to do that? There seem to be two issues here: the actual data and then the value judgments about what should be done.

I’ve been seeing reports on Brulle’s findings for several months now. If he is correct, are politicians taking notes about how to change public debates? At the same time, I imagine it is more difficult to make the case for spending money on environmental concerns with such economic issues (see the Keystone pipeline debate).

I wonder if there are other areas where there is something similar going on and scientific studies have little impact. If there is a common view that science is the province of liberals and elitists, how many people will trust what it has to say?

Conservatives fight against perceived UN efforts to herd people into urban areas

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A number of conservatives are fighting hard against green efforts that they claim are part of a larger UN plan:

Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.

They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights…

The protests date to 1992 when the United Nations passed a sweeping, but nonbinding, 100-plus-page resolution called Agenda 21 that was designed to encourage nations to use fewer resources and conserve open land by steering development to already dense areas. They have gained momentum in the past two years because of the emergence of the Tea Party movement, harnessing its suspicion about government power and belief that man-made global warming is a hoax…

The Republican National Committee resolution, passed without fanfare on Jan. 13, declared, “The United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called ‘sustainable development’ views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment.”

This is one of those stories that simply made me say, “Huh?” when I first read it. But the article suggests this is now mainstream in conservative circles as Newt Gingrich has mentioned it in a debate and the Republican National Committee has addressed it.

I would be interested in hearing more about whether this is really about sprawl (conservatives want the right to live in the suburbs/more rural areas) or about related issues like international law, the power of the UN, the environmental movement, and liberty. It also suggests that sprawl is not simply about where one can live but symbolizes a whole way of life that is associated with freedom.

I didn’t realize this was tied to a larger movement but this helps provide some background for why some Naperville residents have been so vehemently opposed to smart meters (read some of their arguments here). This group has gathered over 4,000 signatures on their petitions and they make a sort of slippery slope argument: it may be smart meters today but soon the government wants to get all of your information and influence your decisions in the future.

A last question: what is so threatening to freedom about bike lanes?

A $1.1 million eco-home that is not a McMansion

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A new house on the Parade of Homes tour in the Twin Cities area is made out of repurposed materials, is not a McMansion, and cost $1.1 million:

“With Excelsior one of the oldest communities in the state, we wanted the house to fit in the neighborhood. This looks like a 1910 farmhouse but it has the energy efficiency of 2012. It’s only a two-bedroom, 2,500-square-feet house; it’s not a McMansion,” he said.

It was built with as many recycled, reused, repurposed materials as possible. The floors, walls and ceilings are made of wood from an 800-square-foot fallen-down cottage that was on the property and from wood salvaged from another dismantled house. The roof is made of old tractor tires and sawdust, although it “looks like wood shingles,” said Shelby.

“It’s triply certified: USGBC Green Building Council LEED Platinum, Minnesota GreenStar and Builders Association Twin Cities,” said Shelby, who noted the residence has a HERS score of 18. “HERS, Household Energy Rating System, benchlines a house built to 2012 code at 100 for energy efficiency. … My house has a HERS score of 18, so it is 82 percent more efficient than a standard house.

“It’s geo-thermal, with electricity coming mainly from solar panels on the garage roof. I’m going to have very few bills; in fact, I become a utility with my solar because when I’m not there and not using electricity, it’s producing electricity and sending it back into the grid, and then they have to pay you the same prices they charge for a kilowatt hour.”

This sounds like an interesting house but several things stand out:

1. A 2,500 square foot home for $1.1 million? I assume that someone might want to buy it for its green features but it reinforces the idea that truly being green is only attainable by people with money.

2. It is intriguing that the owner wants to be very clear that this is not a McMansion. Why would he feel a need to do this? It sounds like he wants to emphasize that while the house was expensive and has some upscale green features, it doesn’t stand out in the historic neighborhood.

3. The owner later says later in the story: “This is not just some fancy home. This is a statement of an ethic…Truthfully, I’ve been standing on my soapbox 15 years talking about these things. I thought it was about time to walk the talk.” This home is not just a place to live; it is a personal statement, one couple’s testament to how they think they and others should live. This feeds into the larger American idea that your house (and many other consumer objects) should express your individuality and your ideas.

The rise of granite countertops

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I’ve written about this before but more people are also interested in this topic: what is behind the rise in popularity of granite countertops?

“What’s interesting is how granite has quickly become the one and only material, across the country and across all price points,” says Ron Cathell, a real estate agent in Northern Virginia. It used to be a high-end thing, back in the 1990s when these countertops began making appearances. It was aspirational. “Then, 12 years ago, the first sort of moderately priced homes started using it. Now, every home has to have granite if you want to sell it. Not just sell it, but rent it. It’s become such a thing. It’s almost — ” he searches for the right metaphor. “It’s almost like trying to sell a house without a toilet.”

As the price has gone down, the popularity has gone up; just look at the graph provided by StoneUpdate.com, a Web site dedicated to the natural stone industry. In 2000, 895,000 metric tons of granite slabs were imported to the United States. In 2011, that number was 1.43 million — and that’s down from a high of 2.64 million a few years ago. The recession slowed granite sales — even cheap granite, which can be bought for as low as about $30 a square foot. Less cheap can go for $80, or however much you’re willing to spend, really. The backsplash is the limit.

“Let’s get deep, let’s get psychological,” says Anthony Carino. Carino is the co-host of “Kitchen Cousins,” a renovation show on HGTV, the network that taught the world about recessed lighting and radiant heating, that democratized the stainless steel appliance so it could be enjoyed by New Yorkers and North Dakotans alike. HGTV is the land that viewers visit when they are trying to cultivate a personal design aesthetic by spying on what everyone else is doing. “People wanting granite countertops is people wanting to sound like they know what they’re talking about,” Carino says. “It’s like listening to two guys talk about hot-rod cars.”

I would argue that this is not psychological – it is sociological. Granite countertops are in for three big reasons:

1. It signals something about its owners. Perhaps it is that they have the money (a marker of social class). Perhaps it is because they have the right taste (though whether it is about aesthetics or being functional would be interesting to look at). Perhaps it is because they are smart enough to get behind the latest trend (#2 on this list).

2. It is what is popular now, thanks to HGTV and other outlets. People want what is popular, partly because they don’t want to be left behind (like having Harvest Gold appliances) and partly because of #3.

3. It helps a home sell. Add stainless steel appliances and decent cabinets and you have a kitchen that is ready to help sell the house.

People internalize these important factors and then make a decision whether to purchase granite countertops or not.

A few other things intrigue me:

1. Are granite countertops “green” or “sustainable”? Does it matter?

2. I’ve seen a few references here and there to a backlash against people who buy this. One referred to purchasers as the “granite and stainless set.” Will this grow into a bigger movement and/or how long will the granite countertop popularity last?

3. Is part of the appeal the natural nature of granite? Although one could argue that it is strange to bring a big slab of rock into your gleaming kitchen…it makes for an odd mix of modern machines and prehistoric rock.

4. How do people sell other countertop surfaces these days if granite is so popular? Besides price, what is the sales pitch for something else?

Also, Megan McArdle recent wondered why people purchase stainless steel appliances.

h/t Instapundit

Gisele Bunchen defends her eco-friendly, 22,000 square foot home

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I’ve wondered this before: can you have a truly large house that is really eco-friendly? Gisele Bundchen tries to make such a case for their new home:

While Giants fans have been rabble-rousing Tom Brady over the upcoming Super Bowl XLVI, environmentalists are giving the Patriots quarterback and his supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen the stink eye for a different reason – their brand new, 22,000 sq. ft. mega mansion in Brentwood, CA. The celebrity couple recently moved into the $20 million home with their young son, and one has to ask why a two and a half person family needs such a ginormous space (if you do the calculations, that’s about 7,333 sq. ft. per person). Bundchen, who is known for her eco-activism, rebutted people who questioned how such a McMansion could be called eco by touting its sustainable features such as solar panels on the roof and rainwater recovery systems, but we wonder if that’s enough to call the ginormous home green.

The eight bedroom mansion has a six-car garage, a lagoon-like swimming pool, a spa, a gym, a nursery, a butler’s room, an elevator and a wine cellar. Apparently, Bundchen and Brady purchased the land in 2008 and had an original plan for the house, but ended up adding to it because they felt it was too small. To give you more of an idea of how sprawling the home is, the two wings are connected by a bridge.

While the vast size of the manse has many environmentalists raising their eyebrows, Bundchen is reported to have explained that the home is actually quite sustainable with solar panels installed on the roof, rainwater recovery systems, waste reduction and recycling programs, energy-efficient lighting and appliances and eco-friendly building materials. She also made the case that while the Brady clan is only three people, with all of their relatives constantly visiting, they need more space.

Perhaps it is more sustainable than the typical 22,000 square foot home (how many of those are there in the United States?) but this probably isn’t the right metric to use. Is it as sustainable as a 10,000 square foot house or even a 5,000 square foot house? Perhaps. What we need to happen is for a big star to have a huge home like this but then have it be LEED certified – would it be green enough?

Beyond the eco question, I think a typical person might ask what one even does with that much space. That must be one big family to host…but this is related to another issue: the size of a home itself and the land it requires could itself be seen as wasteful beyond the actual energy the home requires.

“The 2012 New American Home”

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Each year, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) puts together a “New American Home” featuring the latest and greatest for single-family homes. Here are the features of the 2012 New American Home:

Phil Kean of Winter Park, Fla., the architect and builder of the 2012 home, seeks to honor the architecture of the past while taking advantage of current technologies and design trends. Kean is focusing on functional and transitional spaces and attention to detail instead of square footage and the design uses space efficiently to create a calm and serene living environment.

The latest green building products and methods are factored into every aspect of the home’s design. Kean designed the home to achieve “emerald” status under the green building certification process administered by the NAHB Research Center and based on principles set forth in the ICC 700-2008 National Green Building Standard™ certified by ANSI – “Emerald” is the highest of the four levels of achievement a home can attain…

Kean has designed The New American Home 2012 to take maximum advantage of Florida’s friendly climate. Walls of movable glass panels and motorized screens provide a seamless flow from the indoor to the outdoor spaces.

At 4,181 square feet, the home will be the smallest in The New American Home series in many years. It will be displayed as a two-bedroom floor plan that will appeal to empty nesters, and will have four additional rooms that could be converted to bedrooms if needed.

Kean is building The New American Home 2012 on an infill site in an older neighborhood close to downtown Winter Park. Amenities within walking distance include shops, restaurants and a public library.

See videos of the home here. A quick discussion of some of these themes:

1. While the Wall Street Journal suggests this home provides evidence that “the love affair with supersized McMansions is waning,” the home is still 4,181 square feet, significantly larger than the average new house size of about 2,400 square feet.

2. There is a continued push to go green. I didn’t even know there was an emerald level…

3. This sounds like a New Urbanist type of setting: it is a new home but is in an old neighborhood so residents could walk to a historic downtown. I wonder what the neighbors think of the new home; while it isn’t a teardown, I imagine it might be different than some other nearby homes?

4. The design and furnishing of this home seems modern, following in the footsteps of “Le Corbusier and Richard Meier.” Perhaps this works better in Florida but I wonder if the average wealthy homebuyer would be interested.

5. And how much would this particular house cost in its current setting or transplanted or built elsewhere? There appear to be some cool features such as a suspended staircase, an art gallery, and a waterfall table on the back patio but I’m sure those things add up.