Recycling Building Materials

As the roof trusses were going up, the builder enclosed an adjacent hemlock with protective tape to keep workmen from parking or piling heavy materials above its root system. He also posted a recycling checklist of how to segregate and recycle different building materials. It included addresses of local recycling centers and what materials each one accepted.

Lydia and Robert came out on Monday to take stock of their creation. Robert particularly liked the long, horizontal window that you look through as you drive into the garage. I think we need to plant something spectacular there. They checked measurements and we agreed that a medicine cabinet was needed if there were to be no storage drawers in the vanity. And Robert told a funny story about anchor bolts, the metal strips that connect the foundation with the framework of the house. It seems another architect friend designed a home for a family in Michigan. Visiting the site, he noticed the contractor hadn’t installed them.

“Where are the anchor bolts,” Marvin asked.

“What are anchor bolts?” said the contractor.

“They’re the things that keep a house from shifting off its foundation.”

“Oh,” said the builder. “We don’t have much of a problem with houses shifting off their foundations. Out here in Michigan, we just use gravity.”

An Interlude

I love the humility of my original home’s site in the cup of two slopes. Rather than parading itself at the land's highest point, it became part of my 5 acres by backing up against hillsides of second-story forest growth. It looks uphill at old logging road clearings and west toward wetlands pioneered by alders.

When I woke this morning, the second story south wall was underway. It looked huge and looming from my home’s living room windows. Lydia Marshall (Drucker Architects) and Dan Neumeyer (Jade Craftsman Builders) arrived soon after for a budget and what-happens-next meeting. Lydia said she was forever thankful to the cedar we’d protected that will visually break up the south façade of the building as you drive in. Its two-stories don’t look so intimidating from that approach, but seem enormous as I gaze uphill at them from my house.

Part of that is the bright color of the new wood, which will be clad in HardiPanel painted Ranger Green like my house – blending with its cedar and hemlock backdrop. Much of its bulk will disappear in the trees.

Lydia asked today if I’d climbed to the 2nd story. I did that after work, but didn’t have the nerve to step off the ladder onto the new footing. There was a bad experience from my own roof, not being able to find the first step of the ladder on the way back down. Even so, I gazed out from 2nd floor level and saw this will be a tree house. Perched a third of the way up 30-60’ cedars, occupants will see robin nests, barred owl perches. Coyotes and black tail deer trotting by at dawn and dusk. It will be a good place to live.

Framing

Framing on my project began in late April. We considered alternatives and decided that a two-story structure would reduce the footprint and ground disturbance of the garage/apartment.

My architects chose a technique called advanced framing, or optimum value engineering. Unlike conventional framing that uses wood inefficiently, advanced framing only uses studs and headers where absolutely necessary. For example, studs are spaced 24" on center rather than the conventional 16", corners have two studs instead of three. We eliminated headers in non-load bearing walls and modified the technique a little by using scrap lumber at the corners instead of metal drywall clips. Robert and Lydia dimensioned the building to match standard sizes of materials such as plywood to reduce cutting and waste.

Less wood means less waste and allows more room for insulation. Homeowners can save $500 to $1,000 on materials and 3 to 5% on labor costs by using advanced framing according to Department of Energy estimates. Savings on utility bills can be as much as 5%. Builders are still unfamiliar with this method, however, and that learning curve can slow the process. Once Chuck and Ryan of Jade Craftsman Builders started framing, though, they realized how easy it was.

Take a look at the DoE’s Web site, www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/designing_remodeling/index.cfm/mytopic=10090, for more detailed information.

Early Planning

We’re going to follow my garage-studio apartment project week-by-week so you can see the choices my architects, builders and I made to reach our BuiltGreen certification. In the planning stages, I worked with Lydia Marshall and Robert Drucker of Robert Drucker Architects to design a small, innovative space that would function in a variety of ways. The 560 s.f. studio apartment above the garage comfortably combines living, working, sleeping and cooking areas.

We took advantage of existing infrastructure and reduced development of undisturbed woodland by incorporating the new building into my home’s septic system, well, water filtration system and utility lines.

Ted Clifton, the Skagit-Island County Builders’ Association (www.sicba.org) Built Green certifier, met with us to review our plans and clarify what our options for reaching 4 or 5-star certification would be.

Though I live in an area of second and third-growth forest, we oriented the building to face south so that it could capture solar energy and installed infrastructure for future photovoltaic installation.

Jade Craftsman Builders (www.jadecraftsmanbuilders.com) agreed to limit heavy equipment use to avoid compacting soils, and we preserved a 30’ hemlock adjacent to the building site. Tarp fencing downhill from the building site was erected to prevent silt runoff from disturbed soils, and we saved topsoil from the foundation excavation to be reused in post-construction landscaping.

In the foundation, we specified concrete combined with flyash – a by-product of coal-fired electric generating plants. It offers environmental advantages by diverting the material from the waste stream. Flyash also improves the performance and quality of concrete by increasing strength, reducing permeability and reducing the corrosion of reinforcing steel.

Our failures: We weren’t able to save and transplant my favorite mature huckleberry bush, which broke into dozens of pieces as it was being dug up, and some small critter took a liking to a section of the exposed propane line connecting the tank to my house. He chewed so many holes in it that I lost most of the tank’s contents before we discovered the problem.