A Bit of Privacy

We've been living in our new house for about a month now. We love the amount of windows and they way the house really takes advantage of daylight and cool breezes. So far, we only have shades on one set of windows in one room. No other windows have window treatment yet and although we love the simplicity of that, it does leave us feeling a bit exposed at times. We are only about 25' from the street and we do have quite a few people looking at our house these days. There are times when we look out the window to see someone looking in. Sometimes we just end up waving to each other. We really don't mind too much- but there are times we feel on display.

Time for window treatments.....

Our aupair is lucky enough to have this bedroom (although it's very small) with a balcony. The balcony space is really quite wonderful, in that it's like being in a tree house. This tree also provides a bit of privacy, but it will need to be trimmed and the leaves will be gone in a couple of months, leaving it much more exposed to the street. When Kerstin leaves in October, it will become a guest room/study room.

We just installed these roller shades from The Shade Store for this room. We went with the subtle white-on-white pattern.
Now, we're just debating on window treatments for the other windows that need it (mostly bedrooms). Although I like the solar shades and roller shades, we really count on the breezes we get at night. Given the need for breezes to pass thru, and the desire to control light entering, we are going to go with a 2 or 2.5" wood or faux wood blind in white. I just have to do a bit of research to find a louver with recycled content.

See-ment Floors

Here's a post I had begun working on in early May and then promptly forgot about while more pressing matters were at hand. Here it is slightly modified for your reading pleasure today.

While the wood floors in our kitchen and bedrooms are being installed, the giant sandbox of our dining and living rooms is quietly leaving us and our new concrete floor awaits. Yep, we're using exposed and polished concrete for our flooring material in our living and dining room. (For the record, Jethro was incorrect in calling the swimming pool the "cement pond" and added to the confusion over the differerence between cement/concrete). Concrete. It's hard. It's simple. It's gray, it's durable, it's cheap. It's relatively simple to make. You take some sand, aggregate, cement and some water, mix them together and there you go. Not much has changed in the 2,00+ years since the Romans started messing with the stuff to build things like this. We like the look of concrete and the fact that it can be a finish material all by itself and doesn't need covering up with other materials. It's thermal mass will help keep our feet and space cooler in the summer and warmer in winter and we'll not worry about scratching it or spilling something on it because, well, it's concrete.

We did add piping underneath the slab, so we can have infloor heating someday if desired.


Concrete is a great material, but the embodied energy in one of its principal ingredients - cement - is actually pretty high. It is non-renewable, needs to be mined from the earth and quite often shipped from a great distance to reach a local production plant.

Consider this: "Two and a half months ago, a ship left Thailand loaded with Portland cement. It spent three weeks crossing the ocean and another week going through the Panama Canal before docking in New Orleans, where its cargo was transferred to barges. These barges then spent six weeks traveling up the Mississippi to Minneapolis, where the cement is now arriving at batch plants for use in concrete. Over 80 million metric tons of cement were produced last year in the U.S., but another 20 million were imported to meet the demands of our booming economy." EBN June, 1999 A view of the concrete floor just after it was poured. Our concrete contractor, Buckcrete, cane back in a day or so to cut in the joints. 28 days later, after the concrete had a chance to cure and come to full strength, we polished it to a nice terrazzo like sheen.
Polishing and sealing the floors.

One of the ways to reduce concrete's embodied energy quotient and carbon footprint is to reduce the amount of cement used in it's production. We can do this through the use of fly ash, a by-product of coal burning that would otherwise find its way to a landfill somewhere. By substituting a generous portion of the cement with fly ash , we've reduced the carbon footprint of the concrete while at the same time making something that looks good. The fly ash gives the concrete a slightly darker shade, and is denser, stronger, and richer looking when polished. The polishing makes it look pretty but is also a healthier choice because the polishing tightens up the pores in the concrete it retards staining. This way we eliminate the need for an additional sealer that needs to be reapplied every few years. We just have to be willing to wipe up spilled wine within 24 hours if we want to avoid some staining. Then again, some patina is kind of fun!

Polishing and sealing the floors. Wine is not the only thing being spilled on our floors....

Some Real Wood and Some Faux Wood

As our project progresses, there have been some moments where we go “Umm. This is not exactly what we planned on….” and then we proceed to lose sleep over it, worry and eventually make peace with ourselves. And some other moments where we say “this looks great!” and we're excited about the project again. It’s all part of the highs and lows of a home project, where we are so emotionally invested. One of those “great” items was the Ipe wood sunshades. We love how the Ipe wood added richness to the façade and was a counterpoint to the gray metal siding.

We liked the look of the Ipe so much that we changed the design to add more wood to the front entry. We originally planned on finishing off the soffit of the balcony and the entry overhang in a metal or hardi-board flat panel. As we looked at the details, we decided it would add more warm and simplify the material language by finishing off both the soffit and entry canopy in Ipe.
The canopy soffit has yet to be finished. The upper soffit (thru the tree leaves) is complete with ipe.

Ipe (pronounced E-pay) is a durable teaklike tropical hardwood sold as Ironwood or Pau Lope (pow LOW-pay). Known for its hardness , ipe is more durable than redwood and cedar. It has a life expectancy of 40 years or more, and is resistant to insects and decay. Ipe is sustainably harvested in Brazil and it has a gorgeous reddish-brown color. To maintain the rich walnut color, it will have to be resealed every 1-2 years. If not sealed it will become silver-gray, which still looks good, but just doesn’t have the richness of the sealed wood.

Ipe is not cheap. It can be even higher or similar in cost to redwood- but it is durable, so if you consider the life-cycle costs, that makes it easier to swallow.

For the front entry stair, back stair and balcony flooring, we chose a composite material called Trex. Trex is made of approximately 50% reclaimed wood and 50% reclaimed and recycled plastic. You know those pesky plastic shopping bags you get from the grocery store? Many of them end up in Trex, along with sawdust, wood chips and shavings. The end product has some great advantages over wood:
- never needs sanding, painting or staining
- doesn’t splinter
- the plastic shields it from moisture and insect damage
- the wood protects it from UV damage
- Trex offers a 25 year warranty
- doesn’t use those nasty chemicals that go into pressure treated wood. (note: before getting seduced by the inexpensive pressure-treated pine lumber option, make sure you thoroughly research the chemicals used. There is a lot of literature out there that may cause you to reconsider this as a viable option).

We choose a reddish color for the Trex that would be compatible with the Ipe. There is will be a bench under the Profilit glass window in the future.

Again, the composite product is not the cheapest solution- but for maintenance, durability and sustainability, it’s a great choice. Although, we could have used the Ipe for the decking as well, we wanted to demonstrate different materials and test how they will be to maintain over the years. Check back with us in couple of years!

Exterior Siding Progress and Sunshades

The work on the exterior siding is progressing nicely this week. It's rewarding to see it all coming together and so far, we're happy with the results. During the design, we debated long and hard on the exterior material palette. Our criteria was pretty simple:
- We knew that we wanted durable materials that would be as low maintenance as possible.
- We wanted a clean and simple esthetic.
- We were concerned about proportions and minimizing height.

Early on, we decided to go with a corrugated metal panel and some sort of cement board. Cement board can come in a variety of forms such as flat panels (4’x8’ sheets and larger), shingle style and lap siding in various thicknesses. HardieBoard is one common manufacturer of cement board products.

There are many sustainable advantages to cement board siding. Cement board is composed of natural materials- wood pulp, cement, sand and water. There are multiple manufacturing plants throughout the country, so it will likely be produced regionally. It’s a very durable material with a 50-year warranty. Cement board resists damage from insects and flame spread. You can get the product in a pre-finished baked-on paint (limited colors) that has a 15-year warranty or you can paint it. Paint holds on to cement board much better than wood, so it means very little maintenance.

Like most products, along with all the good points, there are a few drawbacks. Cement board is very dense and quite hard to cut. Manufacturers will have cutting recommendations, as the dust produced by cutting cement board contains silica. All silica-containing products can produce small, respirable size particles when cut, drilled, ground, sanded, or otherwise abraded. Inhaling excessive quantities of respirable silca dust can cause silicosis (lung scarring) and other serious lung-related diseases. In other words, you need to make sure you’re protecting your lungs when cutting this stuff.

Although we liked the look of the flat cement board panels, with open joints or with reveals, we were a little nervous about this system in that it is so dependent on properly detailing the rainscreen system. Although it can look great, the panels don’t always lie flat and if not properly detailed or installed, it would not hold up over the years. Durability was a major requirement for us, so we decided to go with the cement board lap siding. This is a simple, proven system and requires no special detailing. Visually, it will provide us with the horizontal lines we wanted and recalls the vernacular style of the existing house.

We also debated quite some time over whether to put the metal siding at the base and the lap siding above or vise versa. In addition to the esthetics, we decided to put the lap siding at the base, so when we need to paint it in the future, it will be easy. (Important criteria for Kevin, who has had a bad ladder experience that resulted in a back brace for 6 months a few years back!).

We are using Hardie Panel at accent areas and between some of the windows on the upper floor. This helps to visually make the window openings appear larger, to unify the openings in the façade and to break up the scale of the metal. The HardieBoard lap siding is used in two manners – although they will each look the same. On the new wall construction where we have spray foam insulation and high r-values, the lap siding is nailed up tight against the drainage plane and sheathing (Tyvek Drain Wrap) with flashing and caulking as needed. Just like any other well built wall. However, on the old walls where we used a blown in cellulose insulation, we used a building wrap/drainage plane with a reflective surface (Tyvek thermawrap). We then used a “dri-side” clip system that provides a 3/8” air space between the back of the siding and the drainage plane – this enables the siding to behave like a rain screen and the air space traps warmth –thereby improving the walls’ overall R-value. This additional R-value helps the existing walls with less insulating value behave more like the new walls with higher r-values and so balances out the performance of all the walls, making the house more consistent. This way, negative air pressure and temperature draw is not significantly pulled to the lower performing walls hastening temperature loss which helps improve energy efficiency as a result. That means lower utility bills. That means more beer and pizza for us. And tell me, who wouldn’t rather spend their money on beer and pizza instead of heating and cooling their home?

We're excited to see the IPE sunshades. They are gorgeous and add warmth to the exterior.

Bamboo, Cork and Some Really Dark Wood

This weekend was the Living Green exposition at the State Fair grounds in St Paul. This annual event features over 200 exhibitors who offer a variety of services, products and ideas about improving environmental and social impacts of day-to-day life. There were 22,000 visitors in 2007 and I’m sure the 2008 numbers will beat that, based on the crowds waiting for it to open Saturday morning.

One thing that was very apparent from the exposition is all the great sustainable flooring options out there. In addition to FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified woods, there are some new engineered options out there that are quite interesting. Natural Built Home’s booth was right next to EcoDEEP’s and I was drawn to the various wood flooring samples. Wood from bushes, scrap wood and other typically-unusable wood is combined to create some very visually interesting and unique planks. They also carry a line called “Wood from the Hood” that is made from Elm trees in Minneapolis that had to be downed because of Dutch Elm Disease. Pretty darn clever.

Bamboo and cork continue to be popular flooring choices and are considered “rapidly-renewable materials”. Bamboo looks and functions similar to a hardwood floor, but bamboo is a grass and not a tree. A bamboo plant takes about 5-6 years to mature and after harvesting, it will regrow again and again. Bamboo flooring is commonly sold in two color tones: a light blond (bamboo’s natural color) and a darker hue, often described as “carbonized.” The darker color comes from heat-treating the bamboo, which actually caramelizes the sugars in the fiber. Teragren is a manufacturer I have used before. Although they are located in Bainbridge, Washington, they get their bamboo from China.
Another rapidly-renewable flooring option is cork. The bark from cork trees is harvested every 9-12 years, without any harm to the tree. Portugal is the largest producers of cork When we traveled in Portugal years ago, we were fascinated by the cork tree forests and how becoming a cork farmer would be a great gig. Imagine having to stop drinking vinho verde long enough once every decade in order to cut some bark off a tree. We currently have cork floors from Unicork in our kitchen and a plank cork product in our family room. Overall, we’ve been extremely happy with the Unicork product. Kevin laid it and finished it himself and it’s very easy to maintain. The best thing about this product is that our kitchen floor really never looks dirty. This can be a pro and con, as we probably don’t clean it nearly as often as we should. This cork naturally has a lot of texture, so if it is damaged or dinged, it’s not apparent. Another great advantage of cork is the cushioned surface it provides. This eliminates the need for a rug in the kitchen and it’s forgiving to dishes that may get dropped. We haven’t had any problems with the Unicork product denting or being damaged and it’s been installed for about 5 years. One caution is that floor imperfections may telegraph through if the cork pattern is too regular. The pattern we had selected is very patterned and it masks floor imperfections.

The floating cork plank floor in our family room has a thin layer of finished cork on top of a thicker cushion of cork. It’s a tongue and groove product with gaps at the room edges to allow for expansion. It does add insulation value to our slab on grade floor, which is the main reason we chose this product.. The one downside is that it can be damaged by heavy objects. We had a extremely heavy, ancient couch sitting on it for a couple of months and didn’t realize that a furniture pad had come off one of its skinny legs. It left a series of small dents that never really sprang back.

We were very tempted to go with cork in our new kitchen because of the great experience we’ve had with it in our current house. We did, however want to create a consistent flow from entry to hallway to kitchen- so we decided to go with a locally harvested FSC red oak floor.

Our flooring contractor (and neighbor), Greg of Chelsey Flooring was busy working on it this weekend. On Saturday, Greg was working on finishing the edge details and sanding the floor to an ultra-smooth finish. The adjoining existing wood up to the entry was also sanded. On Sunday, I stopped by the house and Greg and Tonya were panicking as they started to lay down the stain. We had approved quite a dark, rich coffee color sample. The stained wood was such a huge contrast with the existing floor that they weren’t sure we would like it. I did match what we had approved and was achieving the consistency in tone that we were after. Oak is not one of my favorite woods and I generally don’t care for the grain patterns. A dark stain is able to even out the grain patterns and creates a strong, solid base. I think it will be great when complete. It’s definitely making a bold statement!

A few notes about our wood floors - We salvaged much of the existing oak flooring upstairs and are re-using that in the hallway and guest room. More information about that in a future post. For the new wood in the kitchen we were able to obtain FSC certified red oak from one of our great local suppliers - Hovland Lumber in Mora, MN. Eric Hovland hand picked and milled the wood himself and it is of exceptional quality. Hovland Lumber is part of the Upper Minnesota Certified Forest Products Group - see Resources for link. The group has a lot of high quality woods unique to nothern Minnesota and manages their forests in a sustainable manner. Greg Fisher (our flooring guy) drove up to Mora on a Saturday to pick up the wood and get it inside the house so it could acclimate to the conditions of the house for a few days before he started installing and finishing.

Flooring and FLOR

Remodeling of an existing home means there is going to be some mixing and matching and patching. This certainly holds true for the flooring in our project. The majority of the house will have hard surface flooring. The main floor will be refinished hardwood flooring with existing oak hardwood used in the entry, pantry, and new FSC certified oak hardwood at the kitchen. The mudroom has existing maple floors and Kevin’s office has existing fir floors. The dining and living room will be new polished and sealed concrete.

The upper floor is a bit of a challenge, as the existing walls are all gone and none of the new spaces align well with the previous flooring outlines and uses. This meant that spaces like the bedrooms and corridor have only partial existing oak hardwood. We decided to consolidate the existing oak hardwood by salvaging it and using the hardwood flooring from the kids’ bedrooms to piece in and complete the flooring in the corridor. We were told it would be less expensive to just rip out all the wood and start over with new, than it would be to piece in existing wood. But we feel it’s important to reuse the wood from the existing floor, so we'll pay a little more to do so.
We decided to go with carpet in the 2 kid’s bedrooms, rather than hardwood or cork. The use of carpet is a hotly debated topic these days. There is the camp that says that carpet is a source of mold, dust mites, and other critters that are horrible for your health. The other side has evidence supported by the Carpet and Rug Institute (not exactly unbiased) that claim that carpet actually traps allergens that can be removed by vacuuming, thus increasing air quality. If someone in our family suffered from asthma, we might have a different opinion- but we don’t have a problem using a limited amount of carpet. Because we'd likely use area rugs in a hard-floored room anyway, we don’t think a fully carpeted room makes much difference when it comes to air quality.

FLOR is a modular carpet system made by Interface. The modular carpet system idea is certainly not new. As a child, I remember quite a few basements with carpet sample squares as the flooring in the rec rooms. FLOR carpet is that same concept, as it’s a do-it-yourself system that allows you to change and rearrange the tiles. I love the idea of being able to change out just one or 2 tiles if there is a stain, rather than recarpeting the whole room.

Interface is a very progressive carpet company that pledges to eliminate any negative impact they may have on the environment by 2020. They are leaders in industrial ecology, with the goal to be a restorative industry. They have continued to be very successful and are a great example of how a company can be sustainable and profitable at the same time.

FLOR comes in both residential and commericial grade. FLOR carpets for residential use come in a variety patterns, colors and prices. The tiles are 19.7” x 19.7” and range in price from about $7/tile to $25/tile. There are loads of styles from which to choose and I would highly suggest seeing actual samples before ordering, as the tiles range from soft/cushy to rather hard/scratchy. It’s impossible to tell from a picture in a catalog or on the web what exactly the carpet will feel like. The tiles have varying amounts of recycled content, wool, or corn- but all FLOR products meet the Carpet and Rug Institute’s (CRI) Green Label Plus standards for VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) emissions, are formaldehyde‐free and contain anti‐microbials that inhibit the growth of bacteria and mold.
This is Toy Poodle, color LaLa Lime. We will use this along with 3 other colors in Mazzy's bedroom. She is excited about designing the pattern.

FLOR is also completely recyclable. You can just call up Interface and they will arrange to pay for shipping costs to send the FLOR tiles back to them at the end of their useful life.

The FLOR website has a great tool to design your own floor or rug. You define the size and then you can place the color/style tile as you wish. After you have designed the floor, it will give you a breakdown of the types and price. Only negative thing is that there is no way to save your pattern.
We will use Straight & Narrow tiles in 3 colors in the boys' room. Declan says he likes everything I design, so he trusts me to figure out the pattern. I think he's trying to score a few points with me......

We ordered our FLOR tiles from Natural Built Home. They offer 10% off and we were able to make the deadline to get free shipping (another 13% savings). This even beat the 20% trade discount that we could have gotten by buying directly from FLOR (available to design professionals only). Stay tuned to see if this product can actually install as easily as they say!

Metal Walls

This has been another big week for work at the HAUS. All trades completed their rough-ins, had their inspections and insulation was installed in the wall and roof cavities. Look for another post mid-week on Insulation and Plumbing Inspections. There are some good stories to tell there.

The house is beginning to look more like itself with each passing week. We're excited to see the metal wall panel installation beginning to occur around the West and North sides of the house. The crew is doing a nice job keeping panels in alignment, fasteners equally spaced and aligned and trim and drip caps at corners and windows water tight and sealed. The metal you see installed is a 7/8" corrugated metal panel from Metal Sales (local to Minnesota but with mills and manufacturing sites elsewhere in the U.S.). This metal panel is typically used in agricultural structures (pole barns, sheds. etc.) but we like the texture and the price! The panel comes in 34" wide sheets cut to length, is fastened through the ribs with pan head fasteners and self-sealing neoprene washers and comes complete with foam closures at top and bottom along with trim and drip edges to manage water and keep out insects and the like. It also has a 45 year warranty on the paint finish (charcoal gray). Some colors meet Energy Star and Cool Roof Council Rating criteria which were not a strong consideration in this application as we are using it on the walls.

View of the Northwest corner of the house. We plan on replacing the garage in the foreground in a couple of years.

A look at the ribbing, corner trim, metal drip edge and fastener spacing.

A good shot of how our windows are detailed. We used a narrowline brickmold at all windows. The drip cap and sill at top and bottom give a nice long shadow line across the elevation and keeps the opening simple and clean. The light gray material on either side of the window is Hardie Panel - a durable fiber cement board product we're using selectively around the house.
It will be painted some bright color - yet to be determined. I'm sure we'll change our minds several times before deciding.

The first bit of our composite wood decking found it's way onto the site late this week. We're using this at both entry stairs and the balcony off the guest room. We like composite wood decking because of its durability, low maintenance, color fastness and high recycled content (made from recycled wood fiber and plastic that would otherwise end up in landfills). There are many composite woods available on the market today - but we chose Trex (brasilia cayenne) - it's rich color will be a nice match for the Ipe/Ironwood exterior sunshades/trellises we're using above the windows on the south side of the house. Trex won't splinter or crack in the hot summers and cold winters, doesn't need sanding, staining or sealing and can be cut and installed just like wood.

A view of the decking at our small balcony.

Countertop Selections

In the last 5 years, we have seen a tremendous growth in the development and availability green products, including many types of new sustainable countertop materials. Because of all the options available and our goal to demonstrate new materials in EcoDEEP Haus, we will have 3 different types of countertops. For our kitchen, we have selected CaesarStone- see previous post Coloring our World. For the bathrooms, we wanted to select equally durable surfaces that showcase innovative sustainable strategies.

One of the increasingly popular countertop choices are those made of recycled paper. PaperStone is one of the more well-known brands. http://paperstoneproducts.com/
PaperStone products are made from post-consumer waste, recycled paper and proprietary, petroleum-free, phenolic resins. This product is so durable and stable, that it can be used as an exterior rain-screen material. It comes in a variety of great color and a couple of options for recycled content. For us, the down-side of PaperStone are that it’s manufactured in the state of Washington and must be shipped here. It comes in sheets 60” x 144”, which is much larger than our bathroom vanities, so it’s not too practical for small projects.

Recycled paper counters can be worked with regular wordworking tools.

Another more local option is Shetka Stone. http://www.shetkastone.com/ It is made in LeCenter MN. There are less color options, but there is this funky shredded money option. Talk about a conversation-starter! I’m not sure what kind of message is sent by having countertops made of shredded money?

Our cabinetry makers, Eastvold Custom, introduced the idea of going with a Richlite laminate. Richlite is also a recycled paper product and has been around for decades in such uses as skate board park surfaces. http://www.richlite.com/
We are going to use a black ¼” surface laminated to a high density substrate for our master bathroom. The substrate and core material at this countertop and all our cabinetry is no environmental slouch either - as we are using the "Sky Blend" family of products - SCS and EPP certified and free of formaldehyde among other little nasties.

For the shared bathroom, we are splurging a bit on a recycled glass terrazzo countertop (at $75/square foot). Natural Built Home, http://www.naturalbuilthome.com/products/counter_tops_7/
carries many green countertop materials, including PaperStone and two types of recycled glass countertops. We are going to go with the locally produced, Element Surfaces recycled glass terrazzo countertops. http://www.elementsurfaces.com/
In addition to using recycled glass aggregates in our castings, the resins are free of volatile organic compounds, and off-gas no fumes or chemicals during or after curing. We are able to totally customize this countertop by selecting the glass chip color, the size and percentage of each. This sample was created for us based on a mix of gray, clear, orange and amber glass in a gray matrix. It’s pretty close, but for the final, we will tweak the sizing and percentages a bit. I think it will look great with the gray floor tile and orange glass tile.

Flat Roof, Green Roof, Metal Roof, Woof Woof!

Well folks - at long last, our roof is on! We were able to get it installed just before the snow fell last week and so now our house is nearly fully enclosed.
Here's a little information on our roof system. In keeping with our modern aesthetic, we elected to use a flat roof. Many people are afraid of flat roofs in climates with lots of snow or heavy precipitation - but there's really no reason to be. Look at all the commercial buildings out there that have - guess what - flat roofs. You just don't see them on houses very often.



There are a number of reasons why flat roofs make sense.

• First of all, the roof isn't actually flat. The top chords of our trusses slope slightly (1/4" per foot) to ensure proper drainage away from the center of the roof area and is directed to the roof drains and downspouts with some tapered roof insulation and "crickets" - built up areas of the roof to direct water flow. Leaky roofs are usually due to poor installation rather than poor design.


• Flat roofs are usually better insulated than pitched or gabled roofs. This leads to a reduction in the heating and cooling needs of the house.


• Flat roofs also usually last longer - and so have a lower embodied energy that their traditional gabled counterparts. They also are less likely to be damaged in a hailstorm.

Our white membrane roof during installation on a cold day.

We've elected to use a fully adhered TPO white reflective membrane from Firestone (Ultraply TPO 60 mil). It features a very high solar reflectance index - which means it is reflecting heat away from the house and that will lower our cooling needs in the summer. (The ultraply product comes with an Energy Star rating - and so we'll get a nice little tax rebate as well) Shouldn't we want our rooftop to absorb heat in the winter? Not really, because since our house is going to be very well insulated (14" of spray foam and fiberglass) it wouldn't have as much of an impact in the winter. The white membrane also will reflect light back up onto the solar panels - slightly improving their performance.

We've designed the roof to carry the weight of a green vegetated roof system - even when the soil and plant materials is fully saturated with water. We are still in the process of selecting the green roof manufacturer but we can tell you that it will be an interlocking grid and tray system that can go right over the top of our membrane - no issues. The system will be pre-planted with native plant species appropriate to our microclimate and site exposure. We expect to have about 4" of soil depth and grow wildflowers, grasses and sedums in our trays. We're looking forward to how this roof system will help absorb and manage stormwater, suck up CO2 from atmosphere., sequester carbon, provide habitat for butterflies, improve air quality, further reduce the temperature of the roof, improve acoustics and insulation value and in general be a pretty darn cool thing.

This is how our green roof and solar panels should look when complete!

A small area of rooftop on the existing house will remain as a gable roof - rather than using asphalt shingles here, we've decided to use a standing seam metal (steel) roof on this area of the house. The paint finish on the metal roof is also energy star rated and comes with a pretty darn good warranty. 45 and 50 year warranties are pretty typical for metal roofs and very many last quite a bit longer than that. By the time our roofs need to be replaced, I hope to be well in my cups. Happiness is never having to reshingle your house.

A Little Riff on Wood

A lot of people ask me - "Hey Kevin, what do you know about wood? " I smile a knowing smile and nod my head slightly. "Not enough" I say. But here are some interesting things to know about the wood that we've used on the framing and structure of our house.

Now, a lot of folks feel that too much wood is used in the construction industry. And that's true, generally. Wood shrinks, swells, twists, pops, absorbs moisture, is a food source for insects, is flammable and isn't always the best choice for a building material. Wood has the benefit of sequestering carbon, is renewable, readily available (in the Midwest), pretty forgiving and when used thoughtfully and appropriately, a fine material to use in construction. We considered (and if we were located in the South we'd probably use) metal studs. We also considered using Structural Insulated Panels and Insulated Concrete Forms, but each of those systems proved to be not quite right for our remodeling. So, we went back to good old wood. It's simple. Everyone understands it.

We've taken great care to reduce the amount of lumber used in the construction of our house by the following actions:

• Use of engineered wood products (trusses, beams, sheathing) to take the place of dimensional lumber wherever possible. This reduces the amount of virgin material required as the products can be made from reclaimed scrap and smaller pieces of wood.


• Alignment of Trusses and Wall studs. (This aligns structural loading so that post sizes and walls needn't be oversized to distribute loads - meaning less material is used)


• Non-load bearing walls have studs spaced at 24" on center instead of 16" on center, and the elimination of headers at openings in all non-load bearing walls. (Again, this means less material is used)

We've also committed to using FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified and SmartWood wood products wherever possible on the project. All framing lumber, sheathing and decking on the house is certified wood product. The exception to this rule are the trusses (couldn't get the trusses with an FSC chain of custody #) and some of the roof decking (our supplier, Certified Wood Products - tragically ran out of FSC plywood decking and we had to buy the regular stuff as we were a few pieces short.).

It's important for us to use FSC and SmartWood products because the wood and forests it grows in is sustainably managed and harvested. The carpenters liked working with it because it was of very high quality, straight, true and dense. It cut and nailed and screwed just the same as normal wood because it IS normal wood - but better. I like it because it's environmentally responsible and it costs the same as the usual stuff you might otherwise buy. We're fortunate here in the Midwest because over 50% of the FSC Certified Forests are located in the Upper Midwest - Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan. So, that means that the wood products are local and (usually) readily available. http://www.truenorthwoods.com/,