You searched for:

hardi

Postgreen Homes – Facades and Floor Plans

April 8, 2009

The 100k house and its neighbor, the somewhat erroneously named 120k, are moving briskly toward the finish line. The build, while a definite success, has been an education for everyone involved. We have learned dozens of valuable lessons about almost every aspect of our buildings, lessons we will soon be sharing with all of you, [...]

30 comments Read the full article →

120K House is Back on the Market

April 7, 2009

If I told you the 120K House was available to purchase again and now we have tripled the size of the back yard, would you buy it?

Due to personal issues, the clients that had the 120K under contract are unable to follow through with the purchase at this time. This means it is available again [...]

31 comments Read the full article →

100k Construction Update: Drywall, Siding and More

March 19, 2009

It has been a busy couple weeks and to cover all the progress we will have to give you an update in a couple forms. First, check out the video walk through to see our current state of construction. It doesn’t provide much in the way of details, but at least you can see what’s [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

Home Slicker Instant Rainscreen House Wrap

February 25, 2009

After deciding to go with James Hardie Vertical siding, it took us some time to determine exactly how the best way to apply it to our SIPs house would be. The main questions was whether or not to employ a vented rainscreen or not.

A vented rainscreen is basically an air gap in between the cladding [...]

29 comments Read the full article →

Sweat Equity vs. Wish List for 100K Construction

September 22, 2008

We have been considering putting some sweat equity into the construction of the 100K House from the beginning in order to increase the value. We wanted to keep the list of sweat equity tasks reasonable to keep the construction on schedule. There is also the desire to keep the list of tasks to a difficulty [...]

9 comments Read the full article →

Budget Reduction – Results from Builder & Architect Meeting

August 7, 2008

This Monday, Brian and May from ISA met with Scott from Build It Green Philly to brainstorm final cost reductions that could be made prior to finalizing the construction drawings. The team came up with some good recommendations for cost cutting that get us another big jump towards our goal. Some of the cuts are [...]

32 comments Read the full article →

New Renderings from ISA with Hardie & Stucco Siding

March 19, 2008

I noticed today that it’s been a while since I’ve posted any pretty pics so here are the latest renderings from ISA. We have been discussing how to create an interesting, modern and affordable facade for weeks and this is what we’ve gravitated towards.

You can see that we have a bit of a vertical theme [...]

12 comments Read the full article →

New Floorplans and Elevations from ISA

February 21, 2008

ISA and I have had a few meetings since the discussions on the new floorplans last week. If you look closely you will notice that we have incorporated some reader suggestions such as surrounding the new bathroom layout with closet space rather than having them run the length of the side wall. Special thanks to [...]

23 comments Read the full article →

Second Design Meeting (this time with our builder)

December 9, 2007

On Friday we had our second design meeting for the 100k house. This time we invited Scott from Level 5 to join us in order to give initial feedback from a cost standpoint on our initial design. Overall the meeting went very well and we all agreed that we got a lot accomplished. We left [...]

14 comments Read the full article →

Random Cost Reduction Ideas From a Day at Barnes & Nobles

November 27, 2007

[...]

  1. The best way to reduce cost/complexity/time is to eliminate common features or steps altogether (this is from my Industrial Engineering days).
    • Walls & Doors – an open layout eliminates a lot of walls and doors
    • Drywall – Do we really always need drywall? How about exposed concrete block, SIPs or ICFs?
    • Open Shelves vs. Full Upper Cabinets
    • Angle Stock vs. Square Stock

[...]

4 comments Read the full article →