I learned something new last Friday

This took place at a property I have listed for sale, and with me were the Buyer, a builder, and an engineer. We were there to discuss the feasibility of what could or could not be done with the structure, as affected by the topography, height restrictions, existing layout of the home, and of course, how much it might cost.

The builder, Rick Dubrow of A1 Builders and Adaptations Design here in Bellingham, is one of the best and most experienced building consultants I’ve ever worked with. A1’s work is top notch, but long before they ever place the first ounce of concrete or pound the first nail, Rick’s style of talking — and listening — to a client and educating them about possibilities and processes of building… that’s why I refer him again and again. He’s a professional communicator, hands down.

Anyway, there we were, a half hour into the consult, standing below an un-maintained, 50-year-old house, when Rick spoke the words that were completely new and profound to me:

“I’m all about conservation, and I’d love nothing more than to see this house preserved and re-used in every way possible,” he started.

“But in the energy life-cycle of a house,” he said, “including all associated energy consumption of materials production, transport, construction, and then what is consumed during actual use of the house over its life-cycle, six sevenths of the energy is consumed after construction is complete.”

I stood there, trying to wrap my head around exactly what he had just said, when he continued…

“So it’s almost certain,” he said, “that the most efficient thing to do with this near 2900-square-foot house, in the context of what you [the buyer] intend to create here, is to tear it down.”

This was, to me, some serious outside-the-box thinking. In this day in age, as we’re peppered with constant messages of “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle!” the default philosophy is to conserve and build to what’s there. That’s the most “responsible” thing, or so I unquestioningly had thought.

But what I picked up during this meeting from Rick, is that the most responible thing is to continually keep learning, keep asking questions, keep studying, and adapt when new understandings come to light.

There are many hours of design and contemplation ahead before the final call is made to remodel or tear down, but Rick’s insight added a valuable twist to the decision making process on this project.

I can see where people would think in those terms. That’s how we’re programmed to think in the first 18 years of our life as we navigate the K-12 educational system.

But that’s really not how houses work. Houses don’t “pass” or “fail.” Houses “need.” Every house “needs.”

Brand new houses that’ve never been lived in almost always need a short punch-list of stuff the builder either forgot, or that’ve been undone by the new house gremlins. (Mark my word, those gremlins are a wily bunch).

There are always wood scraps in the crawl space that shouldn’t be there, occasional un-fastened skylights, leaking P-traps, plumbing vents that never got glued, and some other favorite finds you may not have expected of a brand new house.

NewER houses of any age begin to show need more readily after they’ve been through a few seasonal cycles, and have settled — as all houses do. For example, the roof and gutters could very well have a carpet of moss and grime at the end of even that first year if you’re tucked into the trees. That layer needs to go if you want the full design life out of those components.

Furnaces are ready for cleaning and tuning after just that first year. Any combusting mechanism, just like your car, comes out of tune with use and needs to be kept in check by a pro. It’s less than $100 and money well spent.

Middle-age houses hitting that 15-25 year mark are some of the neediest. Their original appliances are very likely sputtering to a stop by then. The water heater’s ready to let go all over your floor and leave you with cold showers, and is best replaced before catastrophe strikes.

At 15-25 years, your composition roof in this Pacific NW climate is starting to wish for retirement. Roofs are like bald tires: Do you really want to take them all the way to ‘failure’ before replacing them? No, you sure don’t.

And older houses, otherwise known in these parts as “character homes” very likely need a little bit of everything. That’s part of the charm and way of life of owning a character home. You enjoy those projects. You take tremendous pride in revitalizing and sustaining a classic, like owning an old wooden ship. It’s a labor of love, and it’s non-negotiable, so keep that at the front of your mind if you’re set on owning a classic.

Houses, like people and pets and plants and  pretty much everything most worthy in life, don’t pass or fail. They need. And part of what we give back to our houses for everything they give to us, is to fill those needs, again and again, with care and gratitude.

Heather and I bought our first house

The house needed EVERYTHING. And Heather and I had the vision, the skills, and the energy to do it. In fact, we were (read: “I was”) giddy at what a castle it was, even though you couldn’t see the paint through the yellow cigarette film plastering the walls and ceiling. I’d spend my nights and weekends fixing it up, and make it into the home of our dreams. We’d start a family there, by golly, and all would be joyous.

A full five years later, as we were moving out, into our 2nd home, we put the finishing touches on the full-gut, inside and out remodel. Five years. The work I’d “envisioned” multiplied easily five times over as we tore into the project. Nights and weekends, cold wintery months, rainy season after rainy season the work rolled on.

Meanwhile, I watched others nearby buy brand new houses with 30% more space for a couple hundred more in their monthly payments, and I second guessed my decision to go for a fixer.

Ahh… but the experience. It’s a rite of passage to either build or fully re-build one’s home, isn’t it? For me, it was. I have the tools and skills of a journeyman carpenter, and enough understanding of the other trades, to just pull it off. And rewarding it was, to see that neglected split level turn into a thing of true beauty. We still own it, as a rental now, and I take tremendous pride in seeing it brighten up the street with its new EVERYTHING.

Take on a fixer for your first house if you wish, but understand three things:

• A fixer is not just a house, it’s a way of life. It will consume you long after you’re willing to be consumed. And…
• It will take 2 to 5 times longer and cost 2 to 5 times more than you ever dreamed of.
• And therefore will likely be 2 to 5 times as rewarding.

For 22 years now, Remodeling Magazine

First, let’s look at some of the other upgrades and their respective returns:

• Adding a sunroom, 54.2% return.
• Remodeling a bathroom, 77% return.
• Remodeling a basement, 91.6% return.
• Adding a deck, 82.1% return.
• Adding a back-up generator, 57.9% return.
• Adding an attic bedroom, 87.7% return.

And as far as making upgrades to the house itself, the single highest return on investment, which in Remodeling Magazine’s analysis returned nearly 130% of cost, is upgrading the front entry door. Some friends of mine made this upgrade before selling their Columbia neighborhood home. We all agreed it made a substantial impact on the presentation – and helped sell the house in 3 days.

I often quote

One, “If you want to save cash, flash!”

And two, “Don’t be a dope, slope!”

I’ve seen plenty of instances where both rules are broken. For example, rather than flash a joint between two materials, such as where siding meets a deck ledger, some people will just intall a bead of caulk and call it a day.

Does that work? No. No, it doesn’t — it needs metal flashing.

I’ve also seen plenty of flat, horizontal surfaces that don’t shed water, such as poorly drained flat roofs. There are a lot of places in the world where flat roofs work just fine, where the rainfall is relatively minimal and the heat of the sun bakes off any standing water faster than you can say, “Death Valley!”

But the Pacific NW is not one of those areas. Here, one could almost truthfully say, “If it doesn’t drain, it doesn’t dry!”

So, if your house has a flat roof, get out the ladder and hike on up there a day or two fter the next good rain. Is there a lake up there? If so, you’ve got a situation, pardner. And you’ve got two choices:

One, fix the drainage. Are there scupper or other drain-holes for water to escape? If so, are they clogged? If there aren’t any, there needs to be. If they’re there, but the water is elsewhere, guess what? The two must meet.

Two, if fixing the drainage isn’t a possibility for whatever reason, then you need to get some slope so the water can shed, like it does on a gable roof. It’s possible to maintain the flat roof “look” of the home while getting enough slope built in to get the water running downhill and off the surface. That’s the goal.

Water that just sits on the roof like a lake will eventually find its way into the structure, where it will leak into the interior, and cause rot and mold and all sorts of nasties. And the sheer weight of it is hard on the house. A 20 foot by 20 foot lake of water 1 inch deep weighs a ton. Imagine if it’s two inches deep. Full size trucks weigh less.

If you’ve got a flat roof, climb on up there and check it out. If there’s a lake, and if you need a referral to a roofer or a general contractor, give me a ring. I’ll put you in touch with the right people.

Last month, we took a family vacation out of town.

Our house is less than 2 years old, so we don’t spend a lot of time worrying about things going wrong with it, i.e. mechanical breakdowns, leaks, stuff like that.

But on our 1st full day gone, our friend Ruth called with an alarming message: The kitchen floor was flooded, and water was starting to leak through the downstairs ceiling! Yikes!

We’d hired Ruth to come by and clean the house while we were away, and THANK GOODNESS for that. We’ve left home countless time in the past without arranging for anyone to drop by. Her visit while we were away was purely coincidence, really, and sheer good luck!

Ruth identified the leak as coming from under the kitchen sink, so she shut the valves off there and mopped up the mess, then called us.

The next day, another friend (and contractor), Eric, dropped by to assess the damage and pinpoint the leak. We’d gotten off easy: only some paint blistering on the downstairs ceiling and heating duct chase. And the leak, it turned out, was due to a loose air-gap fitting for the dishwasher, which was still running when we left the house on our trip.

Had Ruth not gone by less than 24 hours after our departure, the water would’ve soaked into the flooring, framing and sheetrock for nearly a week, and caused a lot more damage!

My  point is this: If you’re going away for even just a few days, and you have a neighbor or a friend who you could exchange drop-bys with, DO IT! Just have them drop by your house and run through it, looking for trouble. It doesn’t need to take longer than 5 minutes, if that. Have them make sure there are no leaks, broken windows, funny smells, damaged roofing from branches or trees, or anything unusual.

It’ll make it easier for you to relax during your trip, and if some mishap does occur and your friend can catch it early enough, you may save yourself a lot of money and material cost for the repair.

Whether or not you’re a fan of the Mythbusters TV show, if you value your house and your life, this is one you don’t want to miss…
Click here to view the embedded video.

A: Every house performs differently. The setting, the ground-type, the orientation… it all matters. And so does the era the house was built in, the choice of lumber that went into it, the carpenters who built it, and on and on.

It’s been said: You can take a house design, replicate it exactly just across the street, rotate it 90 degress, and it’ll behave differently. It will breathe differently, dry differently, warm and cool differently.

That’s why there are no hard and fast rules that apply to every house in every setting. Like people, every house is unique. And when you dig in and research and analyze a house, it deserves a fresh look and an open mind.

As for the photo and what’s wrong with it: That 4×4 is pressure treated, ground-contact rated lumber. It’s engineered to avoid doing exactly what it did, which is rot and crack and topple over. The posts on either side of it are fine… but this one – despite it’s intended design — was uniquely destined for failure.

Men fix things.

And that holds me back.

It’s not my “highest and best use” at this stage in my family’s life. It’s a skill I absolutely treasure and will pass on to my boy Hayden when/if he wants to learn it. But because I work full time as a Realtor and am trying to spend every possible minute with Hayden and train as an athlete and blog and keep SOME of my friends from totally writing me off… it’s not fair to those things — those high priority things (by my choice) that I try to fit carpentry into that equation as well.

But still, our house — like ANY house — needs some occasional carpentry.

And at 37 years old, married, with a kid, I’m finally able to force myself to do that until-now unthinkable four letter word that my wife, and wives the world over, have come to love:

HIRE!

It’s true. All those tools in the garage that define me as a carpenter… well they need a home, other than our garage. So I’ve been assigned the duty (by Heather) to HIRE a builder to build us a tool shed on the back of the house.

By GOD I’ve built sheds!

I’ve built sturdy 8×12′ gable roof, board and batten, 4′ door, ventilated storage sheds. I’ve built timber frame, cedar sided, copper cupola’d, plumbed and wired garden sheds. I’ve built side-of-a-mountain, sheltered-by-trees, capable of holding 6′ of snow on the roof bivvy sheds in Yosemite National Park, for crying out loud!

And now I’m forced to outsource! And for what? Why CAN’T I, capable carpenter man, erect my own tool shed on the back of my own house on my own land, to house my own tools?

Because my wife understands something us not-quite-as-evolved men still struggle with:

The Value of Done!

I’m hiring it out despite my skills and tools because if we pay a professional builder to build it, it’ll actually get DONE in a non-geologic time frame. And  the value of that exceeds the cost of paying for his labor, mark-up and profit. It lets me focus on my full time job as a Realtor, and as a dad, and an athlete, and a husband… not necessarily in that order.

Men who fix things — or think they can — are also men who tend to step over dollars to pick up nickels, and let things go un-done for way too long because we know WE could do it, and we don’t know the Value of Done. But at 37 years old, I’m starting to see it, the Value of Done. And my, my… it is a BEAUTIFUL THING!

What un-finished project are you unable to let go of and outsource to a pro? Is it time to defer to the Value of Done? I bet the wife says, “YES!!!”

Money’s tight in ‘09 for a LOT of people and businesses.

“Prices are down…
Incentives are high…
Drop what you’re doing…
And Buy! Buy! Buy!!!”

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself there. Seriously, though, there is a list of home upgrades for which, if you can scrape together the money THIS YEAR AND NEXT, ‘09 -’10, you can get some serious kickbacks! The reason is because there are a number of different incentives and rebates available for such things as:

• Windows and Doors
• Lighting
• Appliances
• Heating systems of many different types
• Roofs (weird but true, click here!)
• Insulation
• Water Heaters

And a list of other, less-traditional components like solar panels and windmills, solar water heaters, geothermal heating systems, etc.

I’m working with some clients right now who are looking at $900 in federal tax credits and another $1000 in rebates from Puget Sound Energy because of a window upgrade — about 25% of the total job cost, all told.

It’s worth a few minutes of research. Here are some links to related major websites with more information:

• Energy Star
• Puget Sound Energy
• Cascade Natural Gas
• Department of Energy

Be sure to check the manufacturer of ANY item you’re considering replacing or upgrading, as they may have additional rebates available. And DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Ask a ton of questions before just buying any given vinyl window or a truck-load of insulation. There are specific criteria that must be met in order to qualify for certain credits and rebates. My client’s windows, for example: They chose to spend 10% more on a qualifying window, in order to save 30% on the total invoice. That pencils all day long!!!

So give us the scoop: Are you going to make some upgrades and take advantage of these incentives? Share your story…