As with any building, creating a solid foundation is important as it provides the base for the rest of the structure. In order to improve the thermal performance of the building, as well as reduce construction costs, a slab on grade foundation was designed for the prototype. Typical residential foundations consist of concrete foundation walls that are installed below the frost line on undisturbed soil or compacted gravel. An alternative to excavating and installing foundation walls below the frost line is to install a layer of rigid insulation horizontally under the entire building. This layer of insulation thermally isolates the building from the ground, as well as maintains the earth’s geo thermal heat under the area of the building, and thereby prevents frost heaves at the building’s foundation during the winter months.

To ensure the thermal performance of the foundation, we installed 6” of rigid EPS insulation under the entire building. The potential liability of installing this thickness of rigid insulation, is that the structure of the insulation can bridge over voids in the compacted layer beneath the building during the foundation installation, but then settle with the weight of the completed construction. To ensure that the substrate is completely smooth and compacted, a layer of concrete and sand called “flowable fill” was installed. This layer of highly aerated concrete is very easy to install and manipulate to create a level and fully compacted substrate. The result of these construction layers and systems is an extremely well insulated and quickly installed foundation.

Flowable fill is a mixture of coarse sand and cement that is heavily aerated to make it – you guessed it – flowable! It came out of the truck like a frothy milk shake and was easily placed inside shallow forms. When the flowable fill cures it is crumbly and easily raked or dug up which allows for fine tuning and leveling of the pad.

A layer of high-density insulation will be placed on top of the flowable fill, providing a complete thermal and moisture break between the earth and the building’s concrete footing. The combination of the flowable fill and the high-density insulation are fundamental details that provide the prototype house with a highly insulated foundation at an affordable cost.

Despite this spring’s torrential rains, excavation for the utilities and the driveway proceeded rapidly. By restricting the footprint of the utility work and quickly replacing the topsoil in disturbed areas, we prevented the site from deteriorating into an unworkable mud pit.

It was decided early on in the project to have all the utilities enter the building from below grade. Although this not the least expensive option, it has distinct advantages. The first advantage is aesthetics as we can avoid telephone and power lines connecting to the building. The second is based on the Passive House recommendation of providing one single utility service enter into the building from below grade. Having one point of entry allows for better air sealing and reduced thermal bridges at the service entry locations.

The water line leading from the street to the house is buried at a depth of 5 feet in order to protect it from freezing in the winter. Included with the water trench, we installed a 100 foot long, ½ inch diameter tube with a closed water loop connected to a water to air heat exchanger that will act as a preheat for the incoming ventilation air. Strangely enough, we have also run an additional closed water loop in the septic tank to utilize bio thermal heat exiting the building. To verify the performance of these lines, we have installed heat probes with both loops. We will be posting the performance of the house on line when it is complete- be sure to check that out.

Orange area proposed house site

The building site for the prototype was chosen for its gently rolling topography, open space and proximity to Belfast’s downtown. The three acre lot was previously used as a hay field and woodlot, but in the recent years has only been maintained as a meadow. This gently sloping landscape allows for inexpensive, low-impact construction, while the open meadow allows for predictable solar gain.

Deciding the location of the house on site is a specific task, which will impact the site’s existing ecology and appearance, as well as the home’s future use, including creating solar access, public and private spaces. Careful planning must also be implemented before construction begins to manage the impact of the site disturbance. The GO Home’s location was chosen based on conserving as much of the trees and meadow as possible, while also creating sufficient privacy for the house from the road.

Most rural and suburban homes orient the primary façade, including the main entry and windows, towards the road. While we did orient the protorype’s front door to the road for clarity for arriving visitors, we then rotated the majority of the glazing towards the south for optimal solar gain and privacy. Articulating the difference between solar and social orientation in the siting of a house requires more consideration and critical thinking, but certainly is beneficial for both.

According to Ann Kearsley, Landscape Architect of Ann Kearsley Design, paying attention to the movement of the site (earth, water, air and sun) is key to limiting the disturbance of the landscape. Ann has been working collaboratively with G•O Logic to create a low impact construction site for the prototype house (see previous blog).

During the site planning and design process we took the following elements into consideration: water drainage, existing vegetation and sunlight. Planning for, and managing storm water runoff during and after construction is critical because the building will disturb the natural flow of water of an existing site. We tried to set the building elevation in the site to minimize excavation or filling. Because the site is sloped we needed to create a level area for the building and manage the resulting water runoff. To divert the run off away from the building we created vegetated bio swales that will become a distinct landscape element. Improper management of water drainage will result in soil erosion, which becomes a problem by creating unstable soil conditions for vegetation.

Top soil is also affected by site construction. Standard building practices, such as driving trucks all over the site and stockpiling topsoil in large piles, can destroy the top soil’s organic structure. Limiting the area of construction in the planning process on the site plan and during construction with fencing is important in order to minimize the overall impact on the landscape. The top soil excavated from the house site and driveway was stockpiled in shallow piles, mulched with hat and seeded to prevent erosion. Once construction around the house is complete, the stockpiled topsoil will be re-graded around the house to complete the landscape.

Pay attention. Start by noticing. Start with the land, with the field; start with that drift of milkweed, monarch magnet; with the flattened grass ovals of deer beds; start with the lupine near the ledge outcrop, protected from the bush hog blades by the jagged stone or maybe by the mower’s annual remembering, his choosing to turn wide around that small blue stand of Maine wildflower; start with those two sentinel apple trees, remnant of an orchard row, traces of other, earlier, hands on the land. Or start with the collapsing stonewalls bounding the field,
the ashes and maples and shadblow growing up through those tumbled lines, widening trunks dismantling over generations the carefully stacked harvest of winter frosts and spring plows. Evidence of habitation: who’s been here, who’s here now. Evidence of labor: landform expressing technology and intention and, when the work stops, wildlife’s swift re-occupation.

Move. Follow the paths that rainwater takes through the field towards the woods at the bottom of the slope. Feel the topography in your gait, long strides through tall grass on shallow slopes, small stumbles when knees soften in low spots, eddies of sedges marking depressions and swales where water is held longer, draining slowly into the soil. At the edge of the woods turn around, look back up the slope to where you started, eyes now level with the road, body a register of
distance and the change in elevation. Circle the field, inscribing a path, feeling for that restful place between edge and open where structure can engage transition.

We’re introducing a building into the continuum of occupation and life on the site and, in doing so, will redirect the course of habitation and the character of this place. Our choices about where to build and how to build will determine whether any of the present inhabitants continue to make this landscape their home and whether occasional visitors might be tempted to settle down. And, as every property is part of a much larger, regional ecological matrix, our actions will also precipitate changes in the surrounding area, the impact of our presence rippling out beyond the site boundary.

Our first engagement with the site’s ecology, that complex web of relationships among plants, animals, soil, sun and water, will cause disruption and dislocation. Construction takes up space, casting shadows, interrupting water flow, and obstructing movement. We plan the construction staging to reduce this disruption, limiting crews and equipment to a small area immediately around the structure. Topsoil is removed from the building site, stockpiled in low berms, overseeded with a cover crop and kept healthy until we can re-place it around the house next spring. The site drainage pattern is reconfigured so water moves around the building and is reconnected with the existing flow in undisturbed areas downslope. We work to anticipate the site’s response to disturbance, integrating new development with existing conditions and creating opportunities to enrich and expand the ecological health and function of this landscape.

Ann Kearsley RLA, MLAUD
www.annkearsley.com

Matthew O’Malia discusses the importance of the current energy policy being debated by the Senate, and how change is necessary to realize the benefits of a green economy and green future!

“Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy produced in the United States, more energy than all of the cars on the roads today. And while automobile fuel efficiency is seriously debated as a path to save energy and money, building energy performance has not received as much scrutiny, even though we have the tools and technology to create super-efficient buildings today. A strong renewable electricity standard will mean these tools get used and these jobs created to make our buildings more efficient and begin to build the foundation of an American new energy economy.”

Read the whole editorial here: http://www.rollcall.com/news/36132-1.html

G•O Logic is currently building its 1500 Contemporary model home on a 4-acre site in Belfast, Maine, which will be completed in January.

Speech for PowerUp America- MidCoast Clean Energy Jobs Day

May 2009

My name is Matthew O’Malia of G•O Logic. G•O Logic is a design build collaboration that I started with my partner, Alan Gibson. In this company we have brought together my technical German architectural education and Alan’s many years of green building experience- in order to build the next generation of sustainable, energy efficient homes. I am here today to speak about how the Clean Energy and Security Act will help Maine, and how G•O Logic is already on board to implement the changes in building performance proposed by the Act.

G•O Logic designs and builds homes that are targeted to be 10 times more energy efficient than standard construction, and we build these homes at costs working families in Maine can afford to build, and more importantly afford to pay for heating in the future. In simple terms, a 10 times more energy efficient homes saves an enormous amount of money and energy- Saving around $90,000 in heating costs, 22,000 gallons of heating oil, and 285 tons of CO2 over thirty year mortgage. Now imagine if all new homes in Maine were built to this standard.. I can assure you, the global energy crisis would begin to look very different. In Belfast, we will be building this vision next year, in a sustainable development of 36 homes at the Belfast Area Cohousing and Eco Village…

As a small business owner, I see a huge opportunity in the state of Maine to provide quality, energy-efficient housing that people can afford to build and heat. I also see the opportunity to generate local, skilled jobs to meet that demand. But to move the current economy and people’s awareness to where this future can be realized, intervention is necessary.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 is the type and scale of intervention that is required to realize this vision.

The key components of this legislation that benefit Maine businesses such as G•O Logic, include:
Updates for new construction to the National Model Building Energy Codes and Standards. Which would require a 30% improvement of energy efficiency now, and a 50% improvement of energy efficiency by 2016, with the eventual goal of creating net zero buildings.
One key requirement in the Act is that all improvements made to buildings must be cost-effective over the life-cycle of the building.

Now, how realistic is it to improve energy efficiency by 50% in a new home? Entirely realistic! G•O Logic has developed home designs that reduce energy consumption by 90% for space heating, and 80% overall. These houses look and feel like custom-designed, conventional homes. The energy-efficiency comes from very basic, design improvements—thicker walls with a lot more insulation, better passive-solar utilization, and an air-tight envelope coupled with a heat-recovery ventilation system. These homes are cost-effective because, even at today’s energy rates, the simple payback on the improvements is only about 10 years.

This legislation also creates an entire market for new green jobs. It provides funding for existing homes in Maine to have an energy audit. Based on that, a plan of action will be created and implemented to improve each homes performance. The higher the energy performance achieved in the renovation, the greater the tax incentives become. So now when I look at the thousands of old homes in Maine, I see an emerging market for green jobs that are local, skilled, and valuable to the economy.

This legislation also provides funding incentives on a state level to achieve the goals of energy-efficiency in all new construction. And the higher a state performs on reaching these goals, the higher level of federal funding the state will receive. And given the industrious and hard working nature of the people living in Maine, I think Maine will be in a great position to reap the rewards of this type of incentive plan.
Finally, this legislation proposes to create a building energy performance labeling system, with the purpose of providing home owners both the insight into a homes long term energy costs, and place an increased value on high energy performing homes. It is the same thing as monitoring miles per gallons on cars. Soon each home buyer can evaluate their choices with new important financial information. For G•O Logic, this is welcome legislation, finally there will be a federal certification establishing home energy performance, which will spur on the demand for energy-efficient homes.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act that is now before the Senate can open new doors to future green jobs, a green economy and energy security. G•O Logic, among other innovative companies in Maine, is ready to help lead the way, with the skills and vision necessary to implement this ambitious plan. Supporting this bill provides the support for a green future in Maine.

I am all for economic stimulus- especially stimulus headed in my direction. Given the new administration, and that I am in the business of building super energy-efficient homes that save homeowners money and the planet a lot of pain and suffering, you would think I would be buried in Stimulus, right? Sort of- but not really.

The recent Stimulus act extended, and in some cases, expanded tax breaks for weatherizing your home (insulation, windows, roofing material, etc). Given the poor energy performance standards of most in this country- that is a good thing. The recent Stimulus act is also getting behind renewable home energy systems like wind, solar, and geothermal. And while expensive renewable energy systems are not the most cost-effect way to spend your tax dollars when it comes to saving energy, why not? They look cool, and it gives your neighbors something to aspire to.

But here are the rubs about the rules in the new Stimulus Package:

RUB 1. Existing vs. New Construction: When it comes to energy efficient improvements to homes, insulation, roofing, windows and door tax credits only apply to old houses! If you are building new, you need to foot the bill for the energy efficient upgrades yourself. Doing the right thing with building shell upgrades (which is the most cost-effect option for saving energy) in new construction is not supported by Uncle Sam! One could certainly make the case that older homes need more help with improving their efficiency- but the fact is, depending on how you build a new home, it needs the same amount of upgrading if you really want to make a dent in the global energy problem. So, if tax incentives are not used to improve new construction, then the government should raise the building code’s standards for new construction energy efficiency. Use a carrot or stick- but do something!

RUB 2. No Passive Solar: If you are renovating your old farm house in Maine, and you are going to be adding new windows to seal up the drafts, let the sun shine in and make the most of passive solar gain, I have bad news for you… The only windows that the stimulus package will pay for are windows that reject 70% of the sun’s heat energy that hits the glass! In other words, your south facing windows will loose more heat than they will gain. That sunroom you are renovating is going to be a net loser of heat with your fancy new stimulus-enabled retrofits! How?

Windows have two basic ratings to determine their energy performance. The first is the U value, which, in a nut shell, describes how much heat conducts through the window unit, (or how much heat it “loses”). The second rating is the SHGC (solar heat gain coefficient). This number describes how much solar heat energy passes through the glass (or how much solar heat the window “gains”). In a G•O Logic home, that SHGC number is .6, meaning 60% of the sun’s energy enters the home. The stimulus package window requires the SHGC to be below .3 or 30%. If you are in Texas that’s just fine, because Texas has many more days that you need to cool than days that you need to heat, so blocking solar gain is generally good. But in Maine (and the rest of the northern portion of the US), that number is a huge disadvantage! Solar energy is the largest free energy resource, and to think people will be incentivized by the government to avoid its use is crazy–is W. still in charge of the energy policy or what? To give an example of what a SHGC does to heat load in a residence in Maine, I revised one of our energy models to show the difference between the tax incentive windows vs non–tax incentive windows in a typical G•O Logic House.

tax incentive windows (.3 U, .3 SHGC) and the resulting energy use and space heating cost per year in a 1500 sqft G•O Logic Home:

253 gallons LP ($708/yr space heating costs with LP at $2.80/gallon)

non–tax incentive windows (.19 U, .6 SHGC) and the resulting energy use and space heating cost per year in a 1500 sqft G•O Logic Home:

94 gallons LP ($264/yr space heating costs with LP at $2.80/gallon)

That translates into a huge amount of wasted energy and money over time–the difference is approximately $444/yr in space heating! You will spend your $1,500 tax credit in extra heating costs in less than 4 years and you’ll be losing money every year after that. If the government is going to provide incentives to save energy, they should at least do something that will make a difference!

RUB 3: Alternative energy systems: A Photovoltaic (PV) array is a thing of beauty. I am glad there are tax incentives available for G•O Logic homes to upgrade to net zero using tax payers’ money. But the reality is, PV is expensive technology for the amount of energy savings it produces. For example, in Maine, if you invest an equal amount of money in upgrading your home’s shell (higher insulation, better windows, air sealing, etc) and buying a fancy PV array, the money invested in improving your home’s shell will be four times more effective in saving energy than the energy produced by the PV array. So, I am glad people are excited about making a statement about their belief in saving energy and the environment with using PV, but the reality is, I would prefer not to have my tax dollars spent that inefficiently!

Now, having said that, we definitely believe in adding PV to a home that has undergone thorough energy upgrading, to the point where its annual heat load is in the realm of 5,000-10,000 btu’s/SF, or a new house with the same specs (about 10x less enegy used than standard construction). Here’s how it would work: the G•O Logic 1500 home is modeling to be in the ballpark of 5,333 btu’s/SF annual heat load, and if we meet that load with an air-source heat pump with a coefficient of performance of 2.5, the electric demand to meet the space heating requirement is less than 1,000 kWh/year. At today’s electricity rates that’s $160 per year for space heating (in Maine!).

If we meet this heating demand with PV we’d only need an 800-watt array, grid-tied to supply energy to the grid when the sun’s shining, and to take back from the grid when the sun goes down. We’d pay $6,400 for the photovoltaic array to cover the space heating demand, get 30% back from the tax credit, for a net cost of $4,480. If we put that into a mortgage calculator at 5% interest for 15 years, we’ll pay $35 a month for it (we also get to deduct some of the cost of the mortgage interest for another little savings.) Over 12 months that’s $420, but you’re saving the cost of the electricity ($160) for a net cost of $260 a year for 15 years. At that point, and all along the way, who knows what the cost of electricity will be. If it rises 6% a year, for instance, in fifteen years the rate will be $.38 kWh, and now that 1,000 kWh will be worth $383, and you’re saving all of that, making up for the PV cost and then some in a short while. It’s a hedge investment, but one thing we can all be sure of is energy prices are not going to be going down in the medium-to-long term.

The big picture is that if the government is going to influence how and what we spend our money on with tax incentives, they should at least support investment choices that make sense for the entire country and verify that those incentives result in cost-effective energy saving solutions.

For more information see:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits#s1

At G•O Logic, we know we can build super energy efficient, beautiful homes at an affordable price. None-the-less we have always had trouble finding the right words to really express what the affordable thing is all about; Inexpensive, cheap, low cost, reasonably priced, affordable- those terms all seem to imply that the quality of our homes might suffer in order to keep the first costs (or construction costs) low. When in fact, that is the exact opposite of how we design and build! We do not use cheap alternatives like vinyl siding and vinyl windows- we don’t even use anything less than triple glazing! We build homes that are durable, great to live in and will save a huge amount of money and energy in the long term. But a G•O Logic home does not cost more than most standard construction because of how we have unified the design and construction of our buildings. But how can we really express that concept?!?
I have a motto when it comes to building performance and sustainability: “when in doubt, look to the Germans”. And so I did. In the most Recent issues of Detail, Review of Architecture, 2009, series 4, the entire issue is based on Kostenguestig Bauen, or “Cost-Effective Building” (not a bad term). The editorial article for that issue, titled “Cost-Effective Building Means Sustainable Building” (no doubt something was lost in translation), by Dietmar Eberle, is an excellent explanation of the very concept that we have been struggling to express… The concept being the delicate balance between first costs vs long term costs, assuming the building will be used long into the future. Cost-effective therefore relates not just to how inexpensively a house can be built, but what is the most effective use of our resources today and in the future… (It seems that in the US we have real trouble with that idea of planning for the future.) In reading the article, Mr. Eberle brings up a few good values that we share at G•O Logic as well.
1. Not too small! Building the absolutely smallest house for the sake of costs or material saving does not make sense. Cleary we should live with less, but reacting too far in the opposite direction is also a mistake. Take public housing projects- they are not being taken down because they are a delight to live in. Creating a floor plan with space and flexibility to accommodate various uses today and in the future is key. Overly small and specific space planning does not gracefully accommodate changing needs and results in obsolescence in the future.
2. Build the best shell! As designers and builders we cannot control how people live in the homes we build. We can, however, control how well the building shell will perform in the long term. Today millions of houses are being retrofitted and upgraded to make them more energy efficient. We knew the energy thing was coming since the 70’s, but conventional wisdom insisted, “why bother with building for the long term, when you can build dirt cheap today”? Alas, now all these homes are having expensive and rather ineffective retrofits being done to their shells- it costs less to do it right the first time! In addition, the building shell is the most expensive long term investment that a home owner will make… and like any financial investment, why not put your money in one that will perform well and save a bunch of money in long term?
3. Be local! The US is a big country with a huge variety of climate conditions. The way we design and build has everything to do with the local climate, and the specific climate is the one factor that will not change over the building’s lifespan- if it was cold last winter, it will be cold the rest of the winters as well. Not accounting for the most basic realities is crazy.
So how do we describe our homes: Affordable?, cheap? Inexpensive??? I think I like the sound of cost-effective. It makes sense for the planet, and it makes sense financially to do the right thing!

With the launch of our website we’re offering a line of homes that prove great design, comfort, unparalleled energy performance and reasonable cost can coexist. We’re not here to throw around now-meaningless terms like “green” or “sustainable” to describe what we do. Let’s accept it: every new building on earth has an environmental cost, either initially or over the long term (or both, generally). Here in the frigid north a building can be made to produce more energy than it uses through the application of renewable technologies, but only at an enormous cost. Net-zero is possible and certainly worthy, but it’s affordable only to a very few. G•O Logic is out to show the most sensible approach to reducing energy use in buildings is to push the envelope on performance and at the same time keep costs affordable to the average homebuyer.

We’re in trouble, folks. I just read “Heat” by George Monbiot. In spite of years of official ignorance of the problem, it turns out climate change was and is happening, and the outlook is so dire it’s almost too depressing to think about. But as Mr. Monbiot is a true optimist he spells out a necessary path to survival in the next 30 years: reduce carbon emissions by 90%, nothing less. What does this mean for energy use in buildings? Again, we’re in trouble. Buildings gobble up around half of all the primary energy  used in the world (way more than cars and trucks do), but since heating oil has been so cheap historically we haven’t been too compelled to do anything about horribly wasteful buildings. Monbiot cites the German Passive House concept as a reasonable, proven method to reduce energy used for space heating in buildings by 90%, the same as his target. The passive house idea is catching on the the U.S. and we at G•O Logic are designing and modeling our homes to meet that standard.

Specifically what can we do? Create buildings that use the very least amount of energy possible for the various needs we humans have: staying warm, bathing with hot water, and watching episodes of Lost on wide-screen t.v.’s. What we as designers and builders can do is build a building that does such a good job of keeping out the cold we need nothing but the most minimal amount of electricity or firewood or body-heat to keep it warm; specify the most efficient water-heating appliances coupled with a solar-thermal system to cover half the annual domestic hot water load; remove the t.v. room from the floor plan and specify furniture with built-in chess boards. Who said architecture can’t be manipulative?

But don’t these homes cost a lot to build? What level of energy efficiency are we talking about at what cost? In the next series of posts  we’ll look at the numbers to see if this plan is affordable and and the reduction in energy use achievable.