THE GREEN PARADE:
Doing It Greener The Second Time Around
By Cindy Kleh / Photos by Carter Photographics or Courtesy of Cabin Creek Carpentry
 Life is always changing.
When Jamie and Lisanne Smith first built their 1,700-square-foot dream home in 1995, they were newlyweds with limited financial resources. Lisanne was the children’s librarian in Fraser and Jamie a ski instructor during the winter and a carpenter in the summer.
“We put everything our limited budget could afford into it,” Jamie recalls. “We used the least expensive windows in the house originally. You could stand beside the old windows and feel the cold and hear the wind howling outside on winter days.”
Fast forward to 2001. Jamie and Lisanne now had two small children and a growing construction business: Cabin Creek Carpentry. The business office located in the garage was starting to fill up with equipment, and the living room had become a makeshift office. They built a new garage and hoped that would be enough, but it wasn’t.
So in 2008, the couple decided to join the garage and the home by adding a library, mudroom, and an office with a door that could be closed for peace and quiet. The Smiths were ready to remake their home the way they had always wanted – with a tight thermal envelope while wasting a minimum amount of the earth’s resources in the process.
 Jamie contacted Scott Munn of Munn Architecture for help in the connection of the two structures. “I knew what I wanted to do with the old garage space and the look of the outside but I needed help joining the buildings,” says Jamie. “Scott was a big help creating 3D options of the existing structures and connection options.”
The Smiths transformed their Tabernash home in 2008, adding a library, guest room, mudroom and office, and created a tight thermal envelope in the process. The house was re-sided with beetle-kill pine, and stained to give it a more historic look.
“We used reclaimed wood from a barn I bought a few years back out of Iowa. They typically bulldoze these old structures into a pile and burn them. I made arrangements to have this one dismantled and shipped to me. We used heavy timbers for window and door trim and old red barn siding as vertical accents in the gables. We cleaned up some of the material and used it to make interior doors and accent trim, too. We also re-sided part of the house with locally milled beetle-kill wood treated with a nontoxic product that gives new wood an old patina.”
The old siding that was taken off the house was reclaimed by a Cabin Creek employee, and some of the windows were given to a client who used them in building a barn, thus keeping them out of the landfill. “They got windows better suited for their project and we did too.”
The Smiths’ goal was to add 824 square feet of heated space without adding to the energy bill. The first steps were to replace and seal the windows, seal all the seams, and create a thermal break that would increase the R-Value. They also replaced all the light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones that use two-thirds less energy, replaced old appliances with E-Star ones, and had a high-efficiency gas furnace and water heater installed.
“Our gas bills over a four-year average for the months of January, February and March were $8.17 per day,” Jamie explains. “January through March for 2009 averaged $5.75 per day! That’s a dramatic shift considering we added over 800 square feet of heated space!”
 Looking to the future and accepting the fact that traditional energy sources can only climb in price, the Smiths have also prepped their remodeled home for a grid-tied solar system that will be added when the solar costs drop and there are more incentives available to homeowners.
The “new” kitchen is actually the old kitchen with a reconfigured plan that opens up more space. The refrigerator door used to trap family members behind it, so the function of refrigeration was moved across the room into the former pantry, and a new pantry was built next to it. Not only does the new refrigerator use less energy, but it is recessed and out of the way, paneled with reclaimed wood to compliment the décor.
The Smiths decided on soapstone countertops because this type of stone lasts forever and is mined from the surface of the earth, a more eco-friendly process than some other choices.
Because Lisanne was a librarian and is now home-schooling the two children, she felt the family needed a library. Most of the shelves, fashioned from beetle kill, are already overflowing with books. As you climb the stairs, another set of shelves made fromlocally reclaimed wood holds even more books.
 The Smiths still plan to redo the bathrooms and add lowflow toilets. They are already saving water after replacing their old washer with a front loader that spins out excess water, requiring less electricity to dry each load.
Lisanne points out the lack of “new carpet smell.” The chosen carpet pad was more expensive, but has a lifetime warranty (so it will not be landfill-bound in a decade or two) and does not “offgas,” a real concern for her since the family is living and breathing at home more than most. Wood stains and paints were also chosen for being water-based and having no VOCs.
The Smiths have a few words of advice and encouragement to other homeowners considering a remodel:
• Do your homework. Research all products, prices and claims of greenness.
• Decide what you want to accomplish and consider all desires while thinking ahead of possible problems.
• Remember that you will be living with the process of remodeling for a fair amount of time. Choose non-toxic materials.
• Don’t try to save on the thermal envelope. Spend the money necessary on quality windows, roofing and insulation. Replace other low-end items later.
• Reuse or reclaim whatever construction materials possible. Sometimes the results are more stunning than the latest new products.
• Consider the future during your planning stages with an eye on alternative energy.
Follow the links below for more articles within the Green Parade section.
READ MORE STORIES ON THE GREEN PARADE IN:
• People Paving The Way: Locals Lead The County To A Greener Future
• Renewable Energy Rebates: Where Locals Can Get $$ Back
• Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Starts At Home
• Green Heat From Brown Beetle Kill: Central Boiler Perfects Outdoor Wood Burning
• The Antique Elegance Of Timber Frame Homes: Age-old Building Tradition Makes Sense Today
• Doing It Greener The Second Time Around
• Holistic Architecture: Architecture + Energy = Harmony
• 2009 Feature Articles |
