Tailored, Beautiful and Smart.

A new Bellevue Home is taking shape in Oak Park, and it embodies our mission to make homes that are Tailored, Beautiful, and High Performance.

First, Tailored.

Rather than asking the client to accept a pre-existing "stock" blueprint, Bellevue prefers to tailor the home design to the client's particular needs (including the fine points, e.g., "where should we put the big china cabinet?") and the site itself--in this case, a prime location overlooking the "Park" in Oak Park. The result, by Kelly Ludwig of Ludwig Design Development, is a Shingle Style cottage, complete with a dramatic porch greeting the neighborhood and a private backyard for enjoying the pool.

Pictures will do a better job of conveying the second part of our mission--Beauty--so check back here (or, even better, drive by Oak Park) as the home comes together. It will be beautiful.

So that leaves Smart.

A Smart home is more energy efficient, healthier, and more durable than a standard house. The bedrock of a Smart Home is a large number of small steps that collectively add up to better performance--sealing air gaps, using 21st century insulation, carefully designing the HVAC system, and so on. These represent the basic "blocking and tackling" of a Smart Home.

In the case of this home, we are working with clients who are fully committed to both the "blocking and tackling" above and want to enjoy the advantages of more advanced Smart technology including a ground source heat pump, often referred to as a "geothermal" heat pump. The picture below shows the 425-foot geothermal well being drilled on site by Marshall Mechanical, our very capable HVAC contractor.

Once the well is installed, the technology aspect of the system is relatively simple. Many of us have *air-source* heat pumps in our homes already, and the principles are largely the same. The key difference is that, unlike the air, the earth remains at an essentially constant temperature at just a short distance under the surface, and this results in dramatically more efficient heat pump operation.

To be Smart, however, "cool" technology is not enough (though it is pretty cool). The real test is the economics, and they pencil out very well when the system's energy savings and today's tax credits and very low interest rates are considered. Add to this the fact that heat pumps are more reliable than standard air conditioner/furnace set-ups, have no unsightly and loud "outside" unit, and are a great financial hedge against rising energy costs, and the geothermal heat pump starts to look both Smart and a No-Brainer.

Bellevue Built = Well Built

At Bellevue, we believe that many of you would like a better house than those that are typically available--one that you could call "home" for a long time. So in addition to having the qualities of beauty and charm, a better home needs to be more energy efficient, healthier, more durable, more comfortable. A Bellevue Cottage delivers this better home...here's how:

What makes the Bellevue Cottage more energy efficient?

1. Our high quality windows reduce air leakage and block radiant heat. Our Jeld Wen Premium windows block up to 80% of the sun's radiant heat and are rated at 0% air leakage. You simply can't get this level of performance from standard "builder grade" windows.
2. A covered walkway along our cottage's southern exposure reduces heat gain from the high summer sun.
3. Our conditioned crawl space allows air conditioning and heating equipment to perform more efficiently and takes advantage of the earth's naturally stable temperature.
4. The HVAC ducts in our cottages are sealed with mastic (a malleable concrete product) rather than ordinary "duct tape" (a big misnomer) so the air you've paid to heat or cool actually reaches its destination.
5. Our walls are insulated with dense-pack cellulose. In addition to its insulation value (known as "R-value"), this recycled product completely fills the wall cavity and further reduces the air leakage that leads to energy loss.
6. We use Icynene foam as insulation in the roofline of our second-story spaces. This advanced insulation creates a 100% air seal in the exact location where most heat is lost in typical houses--out of the roof.
7. We relentlessly air seal of each and every one of the many, many small holes that rob the typical home of heat. Even joints where two wood studs meet are sealed with caulk to prevent the loss of conditioned air.
8. Our sealed combustion gas fireplace actually produces usable heat, rather than creating heat-sucking drafts that send money up the chimney.
9. Bellevue uses a highly efficient air conditioner with a variable speed fan and a variable speed compressor. Typical air conditioning units have a single speed fan and compressor, so even when you need just a little cooling or just a little air movement, the unit must operate at full power, often in short, inefficient cycles. Variable speed units, on the other hand, can operate efficiently across a wide spectrum of demand.
10. We employ a three-zone heating and air conditioning system (master suite, 2nd story, primary living area) that allows the homeowner to set different temperatures for different parts of the house.
11. Finally, all of the above energy-efficiency items and their benefits are confirmed by a third-party official from EarthCraft Virginia.

What makes the Bellevue Cottage healthier for me and my family?

1. Big windows = more natural light. Many studies show that more exposure to natural light is good for our health as well as our overall well-being...and our common sense tells us the same thing. So we put in the biggest windows we can, consistent with the overall design of the house.
2. Our fresh air ventilation system ensures that the air inside the home is "turned over" in a controlled manner (rather than infiltrating unfiltered through small leaks in the building).
3. Our conditioned crawl space limits humidity under the house and deters the formation of mold and mildew. By adding a small amount of conditioned air to the crawl space, the crawl also becomes "positively pressurized", keeping outdoor pollutants outside the home.
4. Air returns in each bedroom enhances air movement throughout the house and reduce pressure differentials in the house that can pull in outdoor pollutants.
5. Our sealed combustion gas fireplace ensures that the air needed to feed the fire comes from outside the house, rather than back down the fireplace or from the range exhaust, and that all combustion byproducts such as carbon monoxide are safely removed from the building.
6. Our gas furnace and our gas hot water heater are also sealed combustion--the safest approach to generating energy and hot water.
7. The variable speed compressor in our HVAC system allows your air conditioner to act like a bigger or smaller unit as circumstances dictate. In humid Richmond, this means that the air conditioner can run on a low cycle to dehumidify the air even when a limited amount of cooling is called for. Typical air conditioners turn on and off frequently, which reduces their ability to dehumidify the air.
8. "Sealed" or detached garages. Car exhaust, as well as the other funky chemicals generally kept in garages, shouldn't be part of the air you breathe inside your house. Bellevue builds detached garages, or seals off an attached garage with an air barrier.
9. Bellevue limits the occurrence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in our cottages. VOCs are often found in glues and paints, and according to the EPA, can lead to headaches and eye, nose and throat irritation, as well as doing harm to the environment at large. To ensure a healthy house, Bellevue's interior primers are zero-VOC, our interior paints are from Benjamin Moore's low-VOC product line, our drywall finishing product is GreenGuard-certified for use in schools, and our glues are OSI's VOC-Compliant product.
10. Bellevue also limits the occurrence of urea formaldehyde (UF) in the our cottages. UF is most heavily concentrated in a product known as medium-density fiberboard, which is often used in cabinetry, shelving and trim boards. According to the EPA, exposure to UF can lead to eye, nose and throat irritation, so Bellevue uses real wood in its interior trim and cabinetry, and metal shelving in its closets.
11. Of course, the above "healthy-house" items are verified by a third-party official from EarthCraft Virginia.

What makes the Bellevue Cottage more durable?

1. Our windows are special. Made with AuraLast wood, a surface-to-core pressure treated pine with a 20-year warranty, and clad on the outside with aluminum, these windows are head and shoulders better-made than builder grade.
2. Our conditioned crawl space protects air conditioning equipment and ductwork. In a typical house, a cold duct system runs through a hot humid unconditioned crawl, leading to condensation. In a Bellevue Cottage, the air conditioning system is completely enclosed in conditioned space, extending the life of the system.
3. Our attics are conditioned as well, so any ducts running through that area are also protected from energy loss and condensation.
4. We use 6-inch studs in our 10' tall walls. Going strictly by code, we could "get away with" using 4-inch studs, but we like the sturdiness of the 6-inch studs...and the fact that this gives us more room for insulation!
5. We use coved and parged foundation walls to protect the crawl space from ground water infiltration.
6. We also double-up on foundation drains, with both an interior and an exterior draintile placed around the entire foundation.
7. We use only the best on our roofs...30-year Certain Teed roofing, flashed with long-lasting copper flashing, and installed by Craftsman Roofing, one of the very best in the area.
8. We trim the exteriors of our Bellevue Cottages for the long-term: fiber-cement siding, PVC and Miratec trim, and clear fir or cedar for special decorative elements. You will also see our siding contractors carrying around a can of primer to protect the cut ends of their work--something that should be standard but rarely is.

What makes a Bellevue Cottage more comfortable and pleasant to live-in?

1. Our world-class windows are air-tight, which reduces winter drafts. Yes, you can sit near the window on a cold day...if you are in a Bellevue Cottage.
2. Our world-class windows also feature low-E glass that reflects the heat of the sun out of the house. (Low-E stands for low emissivity; the lower the emissivity, the greater amount of the sun's heat that is reflected, rather than absorbed, by the glass.) So yes, you can sit near the window on a hot summer day and not feel overheated...if you are in a Bellevue Cottage.
3. For good measure, we diligently air seal our walls and roof lines to stop the smaller drafts that typical houses have in abundance.
4. We place sound-dampening insulation around each bathroom as well as the laundry room to keep disruptive sounds to a minimum.
5. We also use a cast iron waste pipe from the second floor bathroom as well as Schedule 40 PVC waste traps throughout--all of which are substantially quieter than typical builder materials.
6. A whole-house water shutoff valve is located inside the house, so you don't have to crawl into the crawl space to turn off the water before you go on vacation.
7. We use a combination of Advantech sub-flooring and TJI joists by Weyerhauser, as well as strict attention to construction detail, so that our Bellevue homeowners will walk on "squeak-free" floors.
8. And last but not least, our designs and our neighborhood--Oak Park--provide you with all the intangible qualities of comfort that you deserve as well--rooms that fit your lifestyle, private garden areas to enjoy, shaded sidewalks to stroll on.

Quite a long list, but as we have come to realize over time, sweating the "small" stuff is what allows Bellevue to make "big" claims for our homes, such as:

Bellevue Built = Well Built.

A peek behind the walls...

Energy efficiency is a key reason that a Bellevue Home is "smarter" than the typical house. Unfortunately, much of what makes a Bellevue Home so energy efficient is hidden once the drywall goes up. Fortunately, we've captured our first Oak Park Cottage the day after insulation was completed, so the "guts" of the home are still visible. Here's a inside look at our insulation and air sealing strategies.

1. Our walls are packed tight with Applegate-brand cellulose.

While delivering an R-value of 21 in our 6-inch walls, and an R-value of 13 in our 4-inch walls, the real magic of dense-pack cellulose is how completely it fills the wall cavity. This dense, complete fill means that air infiltration, the primary cause of heat loss, is reduced, and the insulation actually performs up to its theoretical R-value. (Unfortunately, standard fiberglass batt insulation contributes nothing to air sealing and often performs well below its factory insulation rating.)

2. Foam is cool, and effective.

An efficient home makes use of every bit of potential space, including "under the rafters" areas on the second floors of many cottages, but insulating and air-sealing these unusual spaces properly is nearly impossible with traditional means. To meet this challenge, Bellevue Homes uses Icynene spray foam, the industry leader in "open cell" foam. When applied to the roof and other hard-to-reach areas of the home, the foam forms an air-tight barrier. Given how much heat leaves a standard unsealed roof, this air-tight barrier is crucial to maintaining a comfortable temperature at a reasonable price.

Like other foams, Icynene is a petroleum-based product; while it is not perfect from a "green" perspective, we believe that the energy savings it creates more than offsets the energy used to produce it. And unlike other foams, Icynene uses water rather than a CFC as its "blowing agent" (the material used to create the air bubbles in the foam), another plus factor in the product's environmental impact.

3. Fiberglass batts are good for something.

If you are a reader of our blog, you know that we don't favor fiberglass batts, as they don't contribute to air sealing (the first priority in energy efficiency and comfort) and they generally perform well below their laboratory insulation ratings. However, they do perform rather nicely in the role of sound insulation--such as in the picture below, muting the sound from the washing machine and dryer. The first Bellevue Cottage at Oak Park has sound insulation around the utlity room, all bathrooms and all drainage pipes from the second floor.

4. Our insulation contractor, Creative Conservation, really "sweated the details."

Creative Conservation has been the leading insulation contractor in Central Virginia for 3 decades. While quality insulation projects require the right products, proper installation is even more important. Home construction by its very nature creates multitudes of little holes (to pass electric wires, or to vent the exhaust from a gas range), and all of these holes represent potential energy loss if they aren't filled. It may not be glamorous, but filling each of these holes is mission-critical if the home is going to be as energy efficient as it can be.

The picture below is one example of "filling the holes"--an electric wire, a control wire, and a heating duct are running from the conditioned crawl space through the subfloor, and each is sealed with an expanding foam. Just multiply this work by 200+ holes or so...

Below is another image that demonstrates the importance of sweating the details. Were you aware that there are energy-stealing air gaps between wall studs that are nailed together, in this case to support a window opening? If you look closely at the image below, you'll see that the Creative Conservation team has carefully placed caulk along each of these gaps.

Multiple little things adding up to a big overall impact...that's how energy efficiency and greater comfort are achieved in a "smart" home.

Three Reasons to Invest in Energy Efficiency

Wellhead Prices. Source: Energy Information Administration.

Improve your cash flow.

With a 30-year mortgage at 5% fixed APR, borrowing $1000 costs the borrower about $65 per year. An $1000 investment in energy efficiency (for example, upgrading wall insulation in a new home from fiberglass batts to a densely-packed cellulose) can generate $75 per year in heating and cooling cost savings, meaning the homeowner is better off ("cash flow positive") from Day One, even before considering the additional benefits below.

Insure yourself against future energy price increases.

No can say with any certainty where energy prices will be in 10 years (a reasonable time frame to consider energy efficiency investments), but I'd suggest that "higher than today" is a reasonable guess. Building a home that is inherently energy efficient is an excellent insurance policy against both short-term price spikes and long-term upward trends.

Be more comfortable in your home.

So, you've invested in energy efficiency and have a few extra dollars in your pocket. While some fret about rising prices, you are secure in the knowledge that your home uses much less energy than the great majority of the houses available today. And now, for the icing on the cake...you can walk on your wood floors in winter with bare feet, because your crawl space is insulated and conditioned. You can sit by the big west-facing window in the summer, because the window has a low -E coating that reflects the sun's radiated heat. In other words, your investment in energy efficiency, so often discussed in terms of dollars and cents, has perhaps its biggest payoff in terms of simple enjoyment of your home.

The Conditioned Crawl Space, continued.

While we have discussed the importance of an insulated and conditioned crawl space in a previous blog post, the recent installation of the crawl space insulation at Bellevue's Cottage No. 1 at Oak Park has inspired us to revisit the topic.

Unlike the vast majority of homes being built today, this cottage will be "closed and conditioned", rather than "wall-vented" (wall vents are those small metal vents that are placed about every 12' around a typical foundation). There are two primary reasons to close and condition a crawl space: first, to control moisture that might contribute to mold growth and other long-term durability and air quality problems; and second, to reduce cooling and heating bills.

Crawl spaces have traditionally been vented in the hopes of drying out them out. Unfortunately, during the warmer seasons, outside air actually has more moisture than air inside the crawl space, so the "outside" air has zero ability to contribute to drying of the crawl space, as shown by the top two lines in the chart below (taken from data from 12 homes in the Richmond area.)

Source: EarthCraft Virginia

What's more, this moist crawl space air comes into contact with colder items in the crawl space, so on a Richmond summer day, hot humid air is making contact with colder ducts, air handling units, and floor joists, leading to...

Source: Flickr (Creative Commons License)

...condensation, which is no friend of the equipment or the wood products that support your home.

If you take a look at the chart again, you will notice that a closed and conditioned crawlspace--essentially a short basement--maintains a lower and more consistent humidity than a wall-vented crawl space, through a combination of air sealing and the supply of a small amount of conditioned air directly to the crawl space. Lower humidity and more consistent temperatures help prevent mold and other moisture-based problems that can chip away at your home's durability and air quality.

The second reason to enclose and condition a crawl space is to save money on energy. Ducts that travel through a conditioned crawl space, rather than a typical wall-vented one, lose less of their heat (or "coolness") to the crawl space because temperature differentials are reduced. Conditioned crawl spaces also tend to more effectively retain heat (or "coolness") within the house itself. For example, Bellevue uses 2" thick sheets of rigid foam attached directly to the foundation walls to form the bottom layer of the homes "thermal envelope", but most vented crawl spaces use fiberglass batts stuffed into the spaces between the floor joists. Unfortunately, these batts can insulate your home only when they are able to trap air effectively. Since they are exposed on one side, and gravity is constantly working to pull the batt from contact with the subfloor above, air cannot be effectively trapped and the insulation performs well below its advertised R-value (as the familiar cold winter floor over a vented crawl space can attest). The bottom-line: a conditioned crawl can reduce energy costs by 15% or more.

Source: Closed Crawl Spaces: Introduction to Design, Construction and Performance, Advanced Energy

This link has as comprehensive 80-page report on the benefits of conditioned crawl spaces, tailored specifically to the climate of SouthEast. For our part, Bellevue Homes is a firm believer that the conditioned crawl is another example of "quality doesn't cost, it pays."

12 Important Questions About Your New Home

1. Has your home been designed to take best advantage of its orientation relative to the sun?

The sun can be a friend or a foe, especially in Richmond. The western summer sun can be brutally hot, but the southern sun can be a joy year round if properly accounted for in your home's design. By designing each home for the particulars of its lot, Bellevue ensures that your home takes the best the sun has to offer, and declines the rest.

2. Is the outside of your home treated as "leftover" space, or has it been designed, built and landscaped to provide additional "living room" and privacy?

Often, homes are square boxes placed on rectangular lots, without consideration for how the outdoor areas might be made inviting as well. At Bellevue Homes, we use the shape of the home itself as well as careful landscaping to create outdoor rooms that expand the space of the home.

3. Have substantial measures been taken to protect your foundation from water damage?

If the foundation isn't solid, nothing much else about the home matters. Bellevue waterproofs our foundations and then places interior and exterior drains around the perimeter to ensure that your home's foundation lasts a lifetime.

4. Is the home's crawl space insulated and conditioned?

Building scientists have come to realize that the traditional method of ventilating crawl spaces invites exterior conditions (especially humidity) to come into the underside of the home. Bellevue insulates and conditions the crawl space to protect floors systems from moisture and mold while ensuring more consistent temperatures inside the home.

5. Does the home employ engineered floor joists and subflooring, glued and nailed to act as a single system?

Bellevue Homes uses Weyerhauser's iLevel Floor Joists and Huber's Advantech Subflooring, both considered "top of the class" in their product areas, to ensure level and squeak-free floors. And our craftsmen glue and nail each piece of subfloor, which means a quiet walk to the fridge for a midnight snack.

6. Are walls and ceilings insulated with advanced materials, or the old stand-by, fiberglass batts?

Insulation technology has come a long way, and building scientists now assert that the way insulation is installed is just as important as the material itself. Unfortunately, fiberglass batts are nearly impossible to install without creating air gaps that reduce their stated effectiveness by up to 50%. More advanced products, such as dense-packed cellulose and spray foams, dramatically reduce air movement and therefore perform much closer to their factory ratings.

7. Have windows been selected to enhance the home's appearance and performance?

A great window might cost 2 or 3 times more than the typical "builder grade" window that finds its way into even some nicer custom homes. This better class of window usually pays for itself quickly, because the quality translates into less heat loss (or heat gain in the summer) and thus lower energy bills. And, of course, the more substantial feel and beautiful look of these better windows provides a little pleasure every day.

8. Has the home been air-sealed to save energy, reduce drafts, and enhance comfort?

In a typical home, about one third of the energy that the homeowner purchases literally goes "out the window"...or through other multiple small openings in the house. Energy experts agree that plugging these leaks is the single most important factor in maintaining a comfortable and efficient home. This "plugging of leaks" requires plenty of patience and can't be readily observed by the homeowner, so energy experts use a "blower door" test to determine how leaky a house is. If your home hasn't had a blower door test, you are probably paying to heat air that is on its way out the door.

9. Has careful attention been paid to the home's materials in order to ensure healthy indoor air?

A well-sealed home reduces incursion of outdoor pollutants, but the materials selected for the home itself can have a greater impact on the air you breathe. With careful product and vendor selection, Bellevue Homes limits the use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and urea formaldehyde in your home's paint, carpets and cabinets, helping you breathe easier.

10. Have your homebuilder's claims of energy efficiency, indoor air quality and long-term durability been certified by a qualified third party?

Important as they are, claims of efficiency and quality are hard, if not impossible, for the homeowner to verify. That is where a trusted third party such as EarthCraft Virginia come in. While no builder will ever admit to building a home that is not energy efficient, only a select few submit their claims for verification to others. To protect your pocketbook and your health, Bellevue recommends that you always "trust and verify".

11. Does the home emphasize quality over quantity?

A home is an asset unlike any other. While it is tempting to try and get the most square footage for the least amount of money, our most recent housing crisis has shown all of us that housing cannot be thought of as a mere commodity. Bellevue believes that homeowners will have more happiness in a well-made home tailored to their particular needs, rather than "speculating" on square footage in the hopes of selling it for a trading profit in the future.

12. Do you take delight in the home's design and details?

The difference between a "house" and a "home" is the emotional response you receive as you live in it. Any collection of "bricks and sticks" can keep the rain out, but the attention of committed designers and craftspeople transform these materials into a home. Bellevue Homes strives to build homes that delight their owners--please take a look and see if we are succeeding...HomesByBellevue.com

High Performance You Can Count On

Bellevue Homes is committed to building high performance homes--healthier, more energy efficient, more comfortable, and more durable than most houses being built today (and certainly more so than older or even "relatively new" houses).

You may (rightfully) be thinking, "Sounds good, but how can I know that Bellevue Homes' claims of 'high performance' are true?" The fact is, most of what contributes to a home's performance is hidden from the homeowner behind the drywall or in the attic, so a homeowner can do little more than take a builder at his or her word alone. While trust is a good thing, trusting *and* verifying are even better, and this is where EarthCraft comes in.

EarthCraft is an independent organization that inspects, tests and certifies homes across 8 criteria: site planning, energy efficiency, resource efficiency, waste management, indoor air quality, water conservation, homeowner education, and builder operations. To be certified as an "EarthCraft Home", Bellevue will need to meet certain standards in each of these areas, and will need to excel in several of them. At Bellevue, our focus will be on energy efficiency and indoor air quality, which have direct benefit for the homeowner as well as the world at large.

The bottom line is, we are committed to high-performance--so much so that we are *eager* to have a third party inspect our work on your behalf.

Learn more about EarthCraft here.

Smart and Beautiful

Each home that we build at Bellevue Homes must meet two equally important tests: first, "is it Beautiful?"; second, "is it Smart"? Meeting one of these tests is difficult, and meeting them both is what keeps us up at night (in a good way).

We define Smart as...

1. Energy Efficient...in a Bellevue Home, energy bills should be substantially lower than in a similarly sized house.
2. Comfortable...the energy bill will be lower and comfort will be higher--fewer drafts, more consistent temperatures, less indoor humidity
3. Durable...materials and workmanship will keep your home beautiful over time
4. Healthy...Bellevue Homes proactively manages indoor air quality through our selection of construction materials, controlled exhaust appliances, and our use of fresh air ventilation in our homes.

Defining "Beauty" is harder, but here are some of the qualities we strive for in each of our homes.

• Balance and Rhythm
• Substantial and Well-Built
• Inviting and Spacious
• Elegant Simplicity (as Leonardo da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.")

How Smart is a Tankless Water Heater?

Tankless water heater's are increasingly popular, and Bellevue Homes is researching whether to install them in our new homes at Oak Park. Our working conclusion, still under review, is that these units should primarily be used in cases where space is at an absolute premium, because the energy savings alone are not sufficient to make them a smart investment.

Here is our thinking...

• Upgrading from a traditional storage-based water heaters to a high quality tankless water heater costs range from $1500 to $2500, installed. Why is this price differential so large? Tankless water heaters rely on large quantities of natural gas being burned in a very short of amount of time. This requires large, high quality burners (as much as 4x as large as those in a traditional storage unit), oversized natural gas delivery pipes, special exhaust vents, and a micro-processor to manage ignition. Storage units, on the other hand, use standard-sized gas lines, don't require electrical connection, and are made in much greater quantities with simpler technology.
• Relative to a high quality storage unit, we would expect a tankless unit to save between 35 and 70 therms of natural gas per year, or about $40-$80. These figures suggest a typical payback period on the order of 40 years, a figure that is much longer than the likely life of the tankless heater. Of course, more precise results depend on the exact nature of a particular homeowner's usage patterns, but this payback period suggests that Bellevue Homes will often look to use our "energy efficiency" budget elsewhere.

What are some of the other considerations that might be considered? A tankless unit can be mounted on an exterior wall and may take up essentially zero usable floor space. A storage type unit, on the other hand, typically requires a small closet and associated access space. This strikes us as the most compelling reason to work with a tankless system--though $1500 is a lot to pay for a closet!

Other considerations don't seem to point convincingly in favor of either the tankless or storage based system. Some suggest that tankless systems will last longer, but these systems are more complicated, repair parts are more expensive, and repairs are not likely to be suitable for do-it-yourselfers. Tankless units allow an "endless" supply of hot water (since there is no tank that might run out), but "endless" does not mean "unlimited"--typical tankless units can deliver between 2 and 3 gallons of hot water per minute (a high volume hot shower may be on the order of 2 gpm). Tankless systems experience a 3 to 10 second delay in delivering hot water--the electronic controls need to process the fact that hot water is called for and then fire up the burners--and some systems have difficulty in delivering smaller amounts of hot water.

Based on the above, you'll understand why Bellevue Homes will likely install more high-efficiency/highly insulated storage tank hot water heaters than tankless, but don't be surprised if a tankless system shows up in one of our homes. Sometimes a home's floorplan is "just right" without the hot water tank closet, and the tankless system's space saving design will come in handy.

Your Crawl Space--Supporting Peace of Mind

Behold the humble crawl space—about 3-4’ high, running underneath the full first floor of the typical Richmond house, pocketed with little vents ever so often, and maybe a small door so someone can literally crawl inside.

A typical house crawl space combines the worst of two worlds. On the one hand, it is essentially open to the outdoors, since it is uninsulated and has vents placed around its perimeter, meaning outdoor temperatures and humidity conditions are essentially brought immediately up against your house’s underbelly. On the other hand, it also acts likes a dark enclosed space, since it receives very limited light and air movement to dry and ventilate the space.

Despite these inhospitable conditions, the typical crawl space is only partially sealed off from a house’s floor, usually with haphazardly installed fiberglass. And the typical crawl space serves as the location for the majority of a house’s heating and cooling equipment, where indifferently assembled and insulated air ducts struggle to bring conditioned air to the interior of the house while the unconditioned crawl attempts to keep this expensive air for itself.

The combination of these features translates into the mold risk, colder floors, and inefficient heating and cooling equipment—in other words, worry for you the homeowner and less money in your pocket.

Naturally, we at Bellevue believe you deserve a Smarter crawlspace, even a Beautiful one. So we treat the crawlspace as a small basement by sealing it off from the elements, insulating it thoroughly, and providing it with a small amount of conditioned air to ensure even temperatures and humidity levels.

The bottom line for the homeowner is peace of mind—your house is exposed to less risk of mold and other moisture related problems—and more money in your pocket, as your heating and air conditioning equipment runs more smoothly when it is running in conditioned space.

Creating a Smart and Beautiful crawlspace costs a bit more, but the real challenge for the homebuilder is delivering the necessary workmanship and attention to detail. Some of those details include…

- Rigid fiberglass insulation around the entire crawlspace interior

- Thick polyethylene plastic laid over the crawl space “floor” and tacked to the crawl space wall, providing a barrier to ground water

- Dual perimeter foundation drains—inside and outside of the crawl space—to keep the entire area as dry as possible

The crawlspace is a critical area that is too often “out of sight, out of mind.” However, in this area of your home, as in many others, “quality doesn’t cost, it pays.”

A Window on Your World

At Bellevue Homes, we believe that windows are the single most important component in a home. While many items contribute to making a home “beautiful” (kitchen cabinets, exterior trim, paint colors), and others contribute to making it “smart” (insulation, hot water heater, smart lighting controls), windows must be both smart and beautiful at the same time. To fulfill both these objectives at one time, windows are among the most sophisticated products in your home—and among the most expensive. Given this fact, builders are often anxious to reduce the cost of this line item, and a homeowner would do well to understand the key role windows plays in making a house a home.

Let’s talk Beauty first. As we’ve mentioned before, beauty is better observed than discussed, but certain characteristics of beautiful windows seem to repeat themselves in home after home. First, the size, design and arrangement of the individual windows need to “make sense” within the context of the whole house. A little English cottage with massive windows and modern trim will strike the eye as “off” somehow. Equally, the default usage of the Colonial window (you’ve seen them—a double-hung window with 9 small panes of glass above, and 9 matching panes below) works perfectly well in a Colonial home but is not nearly as endearing in homes of a different style.

Due to their expense, windows and their associated trim pieces are often targets of “value engineering”, where material quality and quantity is reduced to a minimum. The Bellevue homeowner is accustomed to high quality products, and will undoubtedly notice that our windows are appropriately substantial in all the right places, and our trim is meant to last. When you look at other houses, be sure to look hard at the windows, from inside and out—the quality of this one component of the house will likely speak volumes about the quality of the house overall.

A final point on glazing bars, the little pieces of wood molding (or commonly, vinyl) that divide, or appear to divide, a window’s glass into smaller panes. In very old windows, these bars were functional, allowing smaller pieces of glass to be combined into a larger window. Of course, with modern manufacturing methods, these glazing bars serve a purely aesthetic function, but it is an important function nonetheless. While we intellectually understand that the glass is a single pane and that the bars are only decoration, at a subconscious level we expect even decorative elements to look as if they could actually perform their original function. Glazing bars with the “substance” of masking tape can only detract from a house’s beauty; substantial glazing bars, which create an all-important shadow line in the mind’s eye, can make a great deal of difference in a home’s appearance.

Now let’s talk Smart. Windows perform a difficult task, providing the homeowner with a view of the outdoors without letting the outdoors—hot and humid, or blustery cold—inside. This is a lot to ask of two panes of glass in a wood frame.

During cold weather, windows are an invitation for warmth to escape; stopping this escape is a function of both advanced science and old-fashioned craftsmanship. Window science has brought us the double-pane window, trapping a layer of air (and in more advanced models, inert gas) to provide the insulation that glass by itself will not. Craftsmanship shows up both in the quality of the window’s materials (wood, for example, is a better insulator than vinyl), the quality of the product (better windows manage to open and shut tightly; lesser windows simply don’t), and the quality of the installation—the biggest potential air gap isn’t within the window itself, but in space between the window frame and the house. The quality of installation is hard to ascertain on a sunny day in May, but tends to be felt as an uncomfortable draft in December.

When the weather turns warm, your windows become an invitation for the sun’s heat to enter. While heat makes its way into your home in a number of ways, the most critical one relative to your windows is radiated heat, where the intense heat of the sun creates infrared waves that, unfortunately, can partially pass through glass. If the panes of glass were made up of aluminum foil, then these rays would be reflected back outside, but visibility would be substantially reduced! Fortunately, window science has come to our rescue once again—windows can now be coated with a very thin metal layer (known as a Low-Emissivity coating) that reflects the heat-producing infrared rays but allows light into a room, along with views out.

The National Fenestration Research Council (NFRC) has become a de facto certification standard for window manufacturers, making comparisons across window makes and models relatively easy. In a new house, the NFRC sticker should be visible on each window so the homebuyer can see what she is buying (windows made by a manufacturer not participating in the NFRC ratings are not worth considering). The numbers on the NFRC label not only enable you to understand which windows are “better”, with a little work, they can be translated into a dollars and cents figure, with better windows saving you money every month.

In the case of windows, as well as many other elements of your home, quality doesn’t cost; it pays.

If It Is Not Beautiful, It Is Not Sustainable

The image above is a beach cottage from Bethany Beach, Delaware--once situated along the beach itself in the early 1900s, the cottage was moved inland recently to serve as a nature center. The "reuse" and "recycling" of this elegant building brought to mind the anonymous quote above--"if it is not beautiful, it is not sustainable"--and got us to thinking about the meaning of the phrase "green".

“Green” is a term that is in danger of losing its meaning. At Bellevue Homes, we focus on three themes that we find are directly relevant to the homeowner while also contributing to the planet at large. In other words, for Bellevue, being “green” starts close to home, and then radiates outward.

First, we ensure that our homes are as healthy as possible. We avoid toxic materials such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde wherever possible. We use sealed furnaces and fireplaces to protect homeowners from combustion exhaust. We also spend a great deal of effort protecting the home and its occupants from outdoor pollutants and irritants, such as mold and pollen. Some of these products and techniques cost a bit more (though not always), but we sleep "easier" knowing you are breathing easier.

Second, we invest in energy efficiency that has clear “payback” for the homeowner. Some of these investments are decidedly mundane, such as sealing the small openings in the home’s “envelope”, but they benefit the homeowner every month in the form of lower energy bills and more comfortable rooms. Less energy use inside the home means less energy use in the world at large.

Third and finally, we believe that a home designed to be loved and built to last is inherently “green”—such a home will be maintained more diligently and have a longer useful life than a typical house, seemingly built to fall apart before the mortgage is paid off. A home that can be lovingly "reused" over time preserves the world's resources *and* brings joys to its occupant every day. That qualifies as "green" to us.

Price per Horsepower?

Photo of Jaguar XK12o from Flickr (Creative Commons, tibchris)

Bellevue Homes takes great pride in the quality of the materials we use and in the craftsmanship employed to bring these materials together in a Beautiful (and Smart) home. As design-conscious folks, we are also “genetically pre-disposed” to steer homeowners to spend their construction budget on increasing the quality of their homes rather than merely the quantity as measured by square footage.

We are aware that “price per square foot” is an often-cited metric to compare houses, but given the important role that a home plays in our essential well-being, a better metric would seem to be “happiness delivered per dollar spent”. Reducing your “price per square foot” by buying a large house that is indifferently constructed risks missing the point entirely. We are reminded of the famous sign from Einstein's office: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

This got us thinking about another reasonably important purchase—the car—an object that, like a home, has both practical and emotional importance in our lives. No one suggests that we compare cars by their “price per horsepower” or “price per passenger”, because a car often has to satisfy both our simple need for transportation as well as a host of other desires as well.

Of course, such a metric can easily be created (see below) and can just as easily miss the point entirely.

2011 BMW 5-Series 528I Sedan

3.0L L6

240HP

$44,550 MSRP

$185.62 per HP

2011 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe

6.2L V8 OHV

430HP

$48,950 MSRP

$113.84 per HP

2011 Subaru Outback 2.5i Limited

2.5L H4

170HP

$28,495 MSRP

$167.62 per HP

2011 Toyota Camry Sedan

2.5L L4 DOHC

169HP

$20,770 MSRP

$122.90 per HP

2011 Volvo C70 Convertible

2.5L L5

227HP

$39,950 MSRP

$175.99 per HP

Sunlight--Sensible and Lovable

"Light-filled" is one of the most welcome qualities of any home. Each of us implicitly understands that light-filled spaces are healthier (a key aspect of "smart") and lift our spirits in mysterious way ("beautiful"). Designing a house to take maximum advantage of natural light touches upon many factors (window selection, the depth of the eaves, etc.), but in this post, we'd like to focus on the relatively simple question of orienting a house on its site.

At Cottage Lane, the front of each home will face west and the rear of the home will face east. This suggests that the cottages should have some means of moderating the hot afternoon sun (it is Richmond, Virginia, after all), such as a deep porch, high tech windows, or some carefully placed deciduous trees. At the same time, the long southern exposure of the homes presents a great opportunity to create light-filled rooms, both inside and outside.

With these thoughts in mind, we've created a simple site plan for Cottage Lane that shows the anticipated placement of each cottage home on its lot.

As the site plan above shows, we plan on shifting each home slightly to the northern side of the lot--this will maximize the amount of sunny outdoor garden and yard space for each home. The homes will be longest along their southern edge, to capture the greatest amount of sunlight possible.

Floor plans for each cottage will include a "sunny corner"--an outdoor "room" that is partially enclosed by the home itself to provide a private, welcoming place for outdoor entertaining and relaxing. Finally, we'll be placing porches or substantial stoops on the western facade of the cottages, to shield the homes from the hotter late day western sun--reducing cooling bills and encouraging neighborly interaction.

Please let us know what you think.

A house, or a home?

Our goal for Cottage Lane at Oak Park is to build homes, not simply houses. A house is a collection of building materials that provides basic shelter and a place to keep your stuff. A true home contributes to the well-being and happiness of those who live within it.

A house becomes a home when it is both Smart and Beautiful. These criteria have been applied to buildings for centuries (though they were perhaps forgotten in the most recent housing mania).

A Smart home protects your family's health and its pocketbook, delivering the comfort you need in a perfectly sized package. A Beautiful home has the ultimate "you know it when you see it" quality, revolving around invaluable but hard-to-describe qualities such as attention to detail, symmetry and proportion.

In seeking to build homes that are Smart and Beautiful, Bellevue is inspired by Richmond's great older neighborhoods as well as the immensely well-crafted homes already built at Oak Park. Learn more about our plans to emulate these great examples here.

Image: A sensible and lovable house in Ginter Park, Richmond, VA.