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Green Building Notes – The Materials in Your Timber Frame Home

timbermag — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:04:53 +0000

Choosing the materials you will use in building and finishing your timber frame home will be a critical next step. Using high quality, environmentally responsible materials is key to building a green home. Sustainability, energy efficiency, and the impact of the products you use on the health of the homes occupants are the key elements in building your new home.

High performance products that are produced by companies committed to the environment have been and continue to be developed. Building with regional materials is a responsible way to build with lower embodied energy. Products that have increased durability and reduced maintenance will continue to pay off long term. Energy efficiency is important in all decisions from appliances to windows. Be sure to use Energy Star rated components whenever possible.

As a client of Goshen Timber Frames, you will choose to build a home that is either a timber framed home wrapped in R-24 wall and R-40 polyurethane structural insulated panels, a hybrid home consisting of some timber framed areas and other areas built with the same structural insulated panels with timber roof support, or a panelized home built with structural insulated panels with timber roof support. Any of these options have given you a head start on building your home in a green, responsible fashion.

Explore the options for finishing your new home carefully. Take your time in making these decisions. Even when you are looking for a cost effective option, you will have many choices.

* Durability is key to the materials and products you use. Durable products are less likely to end up in the landfill in a few years. The manufacturing process is very energy intensive. The more durable, longer lasting a product is and the less maintenance it requires, the more energy it saves.

* Gather samples so you can compare the color and quality of your choices.

* While it is comforting to buy from companies with a responsible track record and with names that we’ve heard for years, don’t rule out a newer company who is offering a product that is comparable and is getting good reviews.

* Buying a product that is available regionally can help keep your project timeline on target. Waiting for a special order product that has to be shipped from another country or region can cause delays. Transportation is costly and polluting. Locally or regionally produced materials save money and are more environmentally responsible.

* Keep in mind the long term maintenance and longevity of the products you choose. No matter how much you like a product, research how much time and money will be required to keep it looking good. Will the product need to be replaced in a few years? Will the maintenance be a drain on time and resources.

* Recycled and salvaged building materials can add charm to your home and reduce landfill use. Sacrificing energy and water efficiency by reusing windows and plumbing fixtures isn’t a good idea, but interior doors, moldings, cabinets, hardware, and lumber are all good choices.

* High efficiency heating and cooling equipment, properly sized for your home and insulation values, save money and produce less pollution. Mechanical ventilation is necessary in today’s tight homes. Energy or heat recovery ventilators will ensure healthy indoor air.

* Water efficient plumbing fixtures (water conserving showerheads, toilets, and faucets) save water and reduce the demand on septic systems and sewage systems. Reducing water usage saves on the water system and reduces energy costs to heat the water.

* Listen carefully to your own voice as you make decisions. The input of the professionals is critical, but you and your family will live in your home. Accept their suggestions and advice, but use only what works for you and your family.

The above items are the big picture. The harder decisions will be smaller, more detailed, but every bit as critical to building a sustainable, energy efficient home. Your home as a whole is the end result of many, many smaller pieces. We will start defining energy efficient and sustainable building products early in the design/build process and will be available to help you evaluate your choices.

Building a sustainable, energy efficient timber frame home doesn’t have to be difficult and isn’t rocket science. Just spend the time and energy necessary to make good choices and you’ll end up with a home built for generations.

And when you build…don’t forget to build boldly.

Green Building Notes – Your Timber Frame Journey

timbermag — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:42:53 +0000

Green Building, in it’s new and sometimes abused persona, is not really a new concept. It has always been important to use resources wisely, to build with the materials at hand, and to conserve energy. New technology has helped us to achieve some of these goals, but if we look back, we see that many before us have built green, without all the hype. Adobe homes protected Native Americans in the Southwest from sweltering heat, wattle and daub homes used materials at hand to build shelters, skyscrapers built in the late 1800′s made use of urban space. So while architects, designers, and builders today would like to take credit for this movement, they are truly just making the public more aware of the importance of building green.

The goal of Goshen’s Green Building Notes is to inform and educate. Choices are many and often confusing. Whether you choose to build a home that is certified by one of the many certification programs, (LEED, NAHB, many local and regional options), or to build a home using best practices without certification, is a very personal and budgetary decision.

Goshen Timber Frames has designed and built green homes for many years. We’ve helped our clients design and build homes that fit their lifestyle and budgets while not encouraging them to overbuild. Our material and energy efficient homes sit quietly nationwide, enjoyed by families of all ages and economies.

Your site will be all important as you move forward with your project. Whether you own your land or you are just beginning the search for a site for your new home, you need to consider how the land lays, how your home will be sited, and the impact of building on the site. If you are building in the mountains, The Mountain Home Guide is a good place to start. This guide was created with much input and thought by professionals in North Carolina.

If you are looking at land, consider how you will live in your new home. Are you a “house mouse” or a “field mouse”? Will you spend much time outdoors or do you prefer to spend your time inside? This will impact everything from how your home is sited to how it is designed. Don’t hurry this process. Changes after the fact are time consuming and expensive.

The smallest footprint will have the smallest impact. This is critical to your new home and should be taken very seriously. But, just as you shouldn’t build too much home for your lifestyle, don’t underbuild either. Your home won’t serve you well if you have to add on to live comfortably. There is a perfect fit for everyone.

Designing your home to work for you and to fit on the land will take time and energy. You will need to walk the land, visit with local builders who are familar with not only building, but with the regional landscape, have a local excavator out and discuss the impact of building on the site and how the landcape will change in order to accomodate your new home. If you are building for a view, take a ladder to the site, climb up and look around. This will likely be your first floor view. If the site is challenging, consider renting a lull or bucket to get an even higher view.   Take your time. If you have the luxury of visiting the site during all four seasons, you are far ahead of the game.

Building green encompasses every aspect of designing and building your home. As you move forward, you will have to make many choices. We’ve listed some of these choices and offered some suggestions. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of books and other resources available on green building. It is a touch phrase and has become a hot topic. In our next few posts, Goshen we will to offer some of the simplest decisions you can make that offer the largest impact.

Green Building Pro Expo – Visit Goshen Timber Frames

timbermag — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:08:50 +0000

Last week Green Building Pro provided everyone interested in green building the opportunity to participate in talks given by industry leaders. Attendees included architects, engineers, builders, suppliers, and others interested in building better, more sustainable homes, buildings, cities and lifestyles. Goshen Timber Frames is pleased to have been a participant.

Timber frames, enclosed with structural insulated panels, offer an easy solution to building a home that will use minimal energy to heat and cool and a home built with a rapidly renewable resource. Since Goshen has long been committed to building the right way, long before “green” became a touch phrase, it was easy to see the fit into the newer building paradigm.

The Green Building Expo is still open for those who might have missed it. Registration is free and the presentations are available for viewing. You can also visit the booths of the exhibitors and check out the materials offered. At the Goshen booth, you can see videos of timber frame raisings and download home plans.

So stop by and check it out. The virtual Expo is the way of the future.

Goshen Timber Frames at Green Building Expo

Timber Frames – A World Apart

timbermag — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:32:19 +0000

Our recent visit to the International Builders’ Show reinforced our knowledge that a timber frame is a world apart from a conventionally framed home.

As we visited the vendors and viewed the new products, one of the things that kept coming to mind was that many were addressing problems that don’t arise in timber frame construction. Insulation, infiltration, remodeling issues (bearing walls), design issues (bearing walls), and much other information was alien to us. Polyurethane posts and trim were interesting, as were fake beams that weighed about as much as a cardboard box and finished to look like distressed timber. You’ve got to love ingenuity.

Since we use structural insulated panels to wrap our homes, we didn’t have to discuss the differences in how to insulate between studs in stud walls. We didn’t have to discuss the different truss configurations. Our timbers take care of everything.

Timber Frames seem to solve many of the problems that builders are struggling with today. We see more timber frames today than in recent history and I expect we will see even more as the importance of a sustainable structure is acknowledged.

Timber Frames and the International Builders’ Show

timbermag — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:56:49 +0000

The annual NAHB’s International Builder’s Show is possibly the most important event of the year for builders to review products, expand their business knowledge, and bring back to their clients a better understanding of what will help them to make their project more successful, be it a cabin in the woods or a multi-million dollar commercial endeavor.

Designing and building timber frames doesn’t isolate us from the rest of the building world. A timber frame company should be able to speak with authority to much more than building timber frame homes. We should be informed and educated about all the components that bring the project together. That isn’t to say that we can be expected to be experts in all the building trades. We should, however, be conversant with the most current building materials and practices.

The Builders’ Show gives us the chance to make sure that we have answers…or at the very least know where to get the answers for our clients. We’ll spend three days from early morning until late in the day trying to take it all in. The recipients of all this hard work will be the clients for whom we design and build timber frames.

We’ll come back excited about new technology and a lot more able to supply the information that’s important to anyone building today.

That said, I’ll close for now.