Trillium Architects's blog

Trillium Architects's blog

At Trillium Architects we believe in quality. We believe in building homes that work, last and are loved. Looking forward into the past we believe that you should live in a home that you would be proud to leave your grandchildren - and one that will last long enough for that to be a possibility.

We have just begun observation of the construction of what will be our second LEED Home. We have recently completed 3 new homes in Fairfield County, CT (one of them LEED Certified Home) and have one new home in mid-construction outside of San Diego, CA. The common thread that runs through these homes is that they are all super energy efficient, sustainable, relatively small homes (for Fairfield and San Diego Counties). We also have a number of additions, renovations, curb appeal upgrades and deep energy retrofits underway.

For a more complete portfolio: Please also see our website!

At Trillium Architects we design green homes.

What does GREEN mean? Green is an umbrella term that means:

• energy efficient
• sustainable
• healthy
• low maintenance
• low carbon footprint
• natural
• environmentally friendly
• smaller in size
• appropriately sited
• practical
• beautiful
• enjoyable
• user-friendly

At Trillium we pride ourselves in doing 3 kinds of ‘Green Homes’:

• New Green Homes
• Green Home Additions and Renovations
• Deep Energy Retrofits

via trilliumarchitects.typepad.com

Should I really build a well sealed home??

I like this article form Fine Home Building- it explains the 'tight house'. 

Like I have said before- it's like a swimming pool- you don't want cracks and leaks all over the place- you will just keep having to fill the pool with more water! You want to be in full control of the amount of water in your pool and its temperature. Same goes for your house. You want to be in control of when and where air (and moisture) comes in and goes out and its temperature. If you have a leaky house, you are not in control. Leaks cause problems whether they are air or water leaks.

Please read this article for more info! Download FHB- The Well Sealed Home

A House of Good Intention

( A first snippet about the LEED registered home we are building in Darien - more and more to come on this one. LEED registered means that the house is in the process of becoming LEED certified. We are aiming for Platinum.)

Building a house is dirty work. The weather for this particular job has been relentless.  The job started Nov 1 2010 and by December the weather started to be problematic. Usually I tell clients that starting a project in the winter is no big deal.  As long as we can get concrete in the ground, building in the winter usually does not really cause problems- not in our neck of the woods.  But this year was a completely different story. This year we had 85 inches of snow and it was absolutely freezing for the first 6 weeks of the year. If the guys could even make it to the jobsite they were out shoveling- foundations, roofs, driveways, lumber stacks, etc. for hours on end. We have had 2-3 feet of snow on the ground for most of the winter. Now that the weather has warmed a bit everything is mud. No matter how clean the guys sweep the site at end of the day, it is filthy again the next. And now it won’t stop raining or sleeting or snowing and then raining again.

I am always amazed that the guys on the site have such a good attitude. The electrician did comment yesterday that he didn’t understand why we even have HVAC guys on the job 'it is always cold here- all they will need is heat' he said. It’s true I can see how he feels that way. Every day on site seems to be damp and cold and dark.

Today the job site was a royal mess – temporary subfloor had been pulled up to install ducts, holes were being cut in framing everywhere for plumbing and HVAC lines. It was all dark and mud and saw dust and way too many guys working and way too many holes in the floor to fall through. And of course I was wearing high heels. 

Yet every person on this site is totally cheerful, nice, fun, happy. It was the highlight of my day to go to the site. There is just something better about building a green home. Everyone on board cares and likes what they do. We all believe in what we are doing. Everyone is sort of cut from the same cloth- GC, subs, architects, clients. Everyone is doing a really, really good job. This is a great job. This is the way a job should be. People who have horrible building experiences have no idea what it is like to build a house of good intention. This is a completely different world. This is why we design green homes: because when we go to job sites we have a great day.

Here is a rare photo of the house in actual sunshine!

 

More to come. Enjoy the snow tonight ~ happy spring!

 

Snowy Roofs!

 

Ah the snow ~ There is nothing I geek out on more the day after a snow storm than driving around looking at other people's roofs. Last night we got 22" of snow in my home town. The way snow melts off of a house roof tells the story of the roof's insulation inside.Different amounts of snow tell the story in a different way. Heavy snow will tell the story more in icicles and  what I call snow slumps-large swathes of snow falling down a roof.  

 

 

 

Why do icicles happen?  Well really what is going on are called Ice Damns. Ice damns happen when heat from inside the house flows out of the house- mostly through the roof (because heat rises). When the heat flows out through the roof (because there is not enough insulation) it melts the snow that is touching the roof. That melted snow turns to water and runs down the roof until it gets to the gutter/ eave and then it starts to drip down. However since the air is very cold (less than freezing) the water turns to ice and as more water comes dripping down the icicles grow longer.

What's bad about this is that at the gutter line a LOT of ice is forming! And behind that ice the dripping down water that has not frozen yet is creeping into and behind your roof shingles, sometimes popping them up and often penetrating through to the interior of your house and then causing water damage in the ceiling near the roof eaves. Bad!

 

 

 

The way this problem shows after a light snow fall is with stripes on a roof. Look at these 3 pictures. All 3 of these houses are neighbors, they face the same direction. ( and yes, sun and wind can often throw off the results!) They quickly reveal the levels of insulation in each house. 

 

 

 

House #1 has very poor insulation. You can see the white stripes at each roof rafter. There is likely no insulation between the rafters which is why you can see the black asphalt shingles showing. The heat from the house has poured through and melted all of the snow off the roof. Where the rafters are, the heat gets though more slowly and thus there is still a bit of snow clinging there- un-melted. You can also see at the over hangs and the porch roof below there is still all snow in tact. That is because there is no heat flowing through there- just cold outside air.

House # 2 is less 'bad' but you can see the same patterns emerging. This house may be moderately insulated in the floor of the attic/ above the living space.

By the way if you ever see the opposite- broad white stripes and thin black ones where the rafters are- that means there is some decent insulation in the rafters- probably batt insulation- but it pulls away from the rafters, or is not well installed, so it is letting heat sneak out right along the rafter lines.

The third house (below) was recently built and I watched it go up and I happen to know that it was very well insulated with blow in insulation and sheathed with the Zip System which provides a great air infiltration barrier which inturn makes insulation perform to its highest potential. Good job! All of the snow is in tact! No heat is leaking through! 

Here is an example of the detail for a decently insulated house:

Have a look at your roof today and the next few days as your roof melts! Do you need more insulation?

BTW: simply insulating your roof can cut hundreds and hundreds of dollars off of your heating and cooling bill per year. Payback times for this kind of work are usually less than 2 years! Why not !!??

Happy sledding ~ Elizabeth

 

How to Prioritize the Insulating of a Historic Home

Below is an email to someone who is the recent owner of an 1800s house located in a historic district. The house had a Home Energy Audit recently in which it had a blower door test and a lot of air sealing done (in the obvious and easy places around door, at electrical outlets and any exterior wall penetrations) and then the blower door test was repeated. The air sealing measures improved the blower door test by about 18%- not bad.

But the final blower door test resulted in an Air Changes per Hour number of 10.45 ACH @50Pa. (If you recall a recent post on this blog the LEED registered house in Rowayton achieved a 1.24 ACH @50Pa. Another recent home we did in Westport (a well done house but not LEED level) got a 3.52 ACH. For the record a Passive House would need to be 0.6 ACH and the average decent house is about a 5.0  or 6.0 ACH. SO 10 is not great but it is a very old house. To improve this number and get a better thermal envelope for the home, this was my advice:

If it was my house I would prioritize things this way:

(of course as money comes available...perhaps when our lovely economy changes)

1. Insulate the attic as much as possible (with cellulose or sim. If you don't use the attic for storage then fill it up! Leave roof vents of course. Try for a minimum R50 which is about 11".

2. Insulate and seal the ceiling/floor between your basement and the first floor. Definitely use a closed cell foam for this. This involves 'filling' each joist bay (maybe 4"-6" thick continuous) with spray-on closed cell foam. Your house is balloon framed so you will have to block the tops of each joist sill box (the area between the top of the foundation wall /the sill plate and vertical exterior wall rising above) to keep the foam where you want it (in the joists bays at the top of the foundation wall..not up in the walls.) This will not only give you a great R value to keep house warmer but it will reduce to almost zero the air and moisture infiltration from the basement into the conditioned house. In the end it's really all about air infiltration - as I am sure they told you.

3. Since you do not have the original historic windows on the house- and instead have wood with triple track aluminum storm windows,  I would recommend - eventually - replacing windows. The Historic board would never let you put the windows that you currently have on the house today. Replacing the windows with a U.28 or lower double pane window with true historic lite patterns and muntin design will not only greatly improve your energy efficiency but will also bring the house back closer to its true historic aesthetic. It is actually getting easier every day to get some more highly energy efficient windows that actually mimic the original window designs and satisfy historic review boards.

Also, by getting windows with a U-value of at least U.28 you will achieve a  better thermal envelope overall and you will earn the federal tax credit (for as long as it lasts.) and be sales tax exempt.

There are windows out there that get U-value as low as .14 readily available now (awesome!) and I happen to know they are working hard to make these things look good too so if you wait a year or 2 you could actually get some fantastically insulative windows that look good too. Replacing windows either way double or triple or 'awesome' will run you probably $30,000 - $40,000 or more depending on a lot of things. (Yes if you go 2 pane vinyl you can get much cheaper but I don't think historic will let you.)

(Financially, you kill 2 birds with one stone by replacing windows - efficiency and aesthetics. Since it is easier to replace windows than to retrofit the walls with insulation, it is perhaps not a horrible idea to do the windows if you- financially - can only do one. Historic homes sell better if they look more accurately 'historic'. I also am a believer in aesthetics. I believe that houses that look and feel beautiful and 'quality' get treated better, resale better and are cared for longer. And a long lived house is a very green thing.)

4. As the ultimate move- take off your vinyl siding  and possibly your exterior sheathing and insulate the walls of the house from the outside. You can do this the easy way or the hard way. The hard way means taking off the sheathing (the boards behind the siding) and adding insulation to the wall cavities from the outside. This is nice because you do not disturb the interior plaster. However, because you have interior plaster walls you have to be careful of what you put in the wall cavity. There are dangers of moisture passing from inside to the outside and condensing in the wall cavity- causing all sort of moisture problems. Blown in cellulose truly depends on a vapor barrier to keep it from getting soggy inside the walls. Most old houses don't have vapor barriers. Unless you can really stop the air infiltration through the wall, this is not a good way to go. Foam insulation would provide a form of air barrier and also has the qualities of a  vapor barrier but many people feel it is too untested for use in old homes. This is a route I would like to look into more thoroughly.

Your house is balloon framed so blocks would have to be introduced to prevent the insulation from simply falling into the basement. If you have already foamed the floor between first floor and basement than this is taken care of at the bottom.

 

The easy way to insulate from the outside, would mean leaving the sheathing on and adding insulation that wraps the house. Consider putting one layer of 1/2" to 1" polyiso foam wrapping the house. Tape all the seams  and carefully tape or caulk every wall penetration- including window and door openings - to create an exterior air barrier.  This will greatly reduce the air flow thru the walls. Doing so will  greatly enhance the functional R-value by significantly reducing air infiltration, plus it adds a bit of thermal value. You can shoot the siding right through the new exterior insulation and only add 1/2" to1" thickness to the walls. It could work with the current detailing and add a lot of insulative value to the house (air infiltration and thermal bridging being greatly reduced....)

Insulating the outside walls- in the end is the hardest and most 'dangerous' part of making your house energy efficient. Moisture is much harder to control in older, existing houses than it is in new construction or more recent retrofits. The most bang for you buck will come, anyway, from taking care of attic and basement heat loss and stopping air infiltration wherever possible.

 

I think if you do the first 2 for now you would see a very good result. If you only ever do the first 3 I think you would be doing great. If we found a way to do all 4 your house would rock!

 

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Some finished photos of the Rowayton House

 
   

(Alex Wilson is founder and executive editor of BuildingGreen, LLC in Brattleboro, VT.)

To summarize, here's my top-10 list of green building priorities:
by Alex Wilson

#1. Reduce energy use
#2. Reduce water use
#3. Ensure a healthy indoor environment
#4. Reduce the need for driving
#5. Build smaller and optimize materials use
#6. Ensure durability and reuse existing buildings
#7. Protect and restore the site
#8. Use green materials
#9. Create resilient, climate-adapted buildings
#10. Make it easy for homeowners to be green

In addition to this Energy Solutions blog, Alex contributes

Congratulations to B P C Green Builders

Yesterday we did the blower door test for the house in Rowayton. For those of you who don't know what a blower door test is you can read about it here. Basically it is a test to see how air tight and generally awesomely well constructed for energy efficiency a house is.

The lower the number the better. As a reference:

The
IRC’s current energy code requires 7 ACH at 50 pascals.

Energy Star requires less than 5 or 6 ACH, depending on the climate zone.

Tight house Less than 5 ACH/50
Moderate house Between5 and10 ACH/50
A Leaky house Above 10 ACH/50

The Rowayton House (drum roll please.....) 1.2 ACH/50 !!!!

This test  just how awesome a job the contractor did at building the house. The truth is hidden in the walls and once the drywall is on the inside and the siding is on the outside you have few ways of knowing what is really happening within the walls. And if you are not on site all day everyday watching the contractors work, you could miss a lot. An architect's best friend is a trustworthy contractor. A trustworthy contractor is - of course- also the owner's best friend.

They are hard to come by but they definitely exist. BPC Green Builders (Chris and Mike Trolle) are definitely a great example.

Every construction project takes a team. The owner has a dream, the architect draws the dream and the builders constructs the dream. Along the way there is a ton of planning, changing, detailing, thinking ahead, worrying and bill paying. We all discuss and work on detailing the house and figure out exactly how it will be built. But a lot of times no matter how much you figure it out ahead of time or how well the architect details a house...it doesn't always get built the way it was planned.A bad contractor cuts corners when architect and owner aren't looking. A good contractor builds it better than the architect and owner expect.

I just want to publicly thanks Chris Trolle for a job VERY well done. Every job meeting was -if not simply very pleasant - actually fun. The entire construction project was a smooth sailing. And the results are undeniable.

I also want to thank Leslie for being an awesome client. They don't come any better: Smart, savvy, good at communication, completely understanding of the process and great at allowing the process to happen, plus a fabulous eye for design and wonderful taste. A true and equal team player. 

 

A video of the LEED home in Rowayton, CT

Cathing up

For a while now things have been too busy to write. 3 of our 4 houses are now basically complete. The third family moves into the third house tomorrow. This is the house in Rowayton- the LEED certified house. We will be wrapping things up and doing final testings and then we will see where it stands- LEED gold or LEED platinum. Meanwhile   broken ground on what will be our second LEED home in Darien. It is interesting how different the process is with this one. I will be blogging regularly about as we proceed.

One final note as the day ends- we will be holding free classes in our office revolving around 'How to prioritize your energy efficient, green renovation or new home' and 'How to work with an architect or contractor.' Please check back for dates!

Trillium Architects Portfolio: New Construction

 

 

 

 
 

  
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Trillium Architects Portfolio: Deep Energy Retrofit

Trillium Architects Portfolio: Green Additions + Renovations

 

Some updated Rowayton Photos

The LEED home in Rowayton is about 1 month away from completion. We are all very excited because it is looking great. I think it is truly the epitome of a Fine Green Home! I will write more soon but for now some pictures:

And some more Old Greenwich pictures

 

Old Greenwich House Photos

Check out these new photos from our recently completed home in Old Greenwich.

 
 
 
 
 

Westport Home Photos

Here are some of the newest photos of our Green New Construction home in Westport, Conn. 

The house is nearly complete and looking fantastic, and the owners are excited to fully settle in to their beautiful new home.

San Diego, California Photos

North Carolina photos

 




 
  

Old Greenwich Photos

Rowayton Photos