The Quest for Simplicity

September 29, 2018 by clove Leave a Comment

As our beloved hole continues to take shape, the more technical among our readers may be wondering how things are looking on the Passive House modeling side.

As currently modeled in the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP), we are just squeaking by on the certification requirements. We had a Design Stage Review done by our certifier, Brittany, around the time we submitted for our Building Permit in the spring. The Design Stage Review is meant to be done before we start digging a big hole; and ideally, to give us some assurance that if things go according to plan, we are likely to achieve certification. Or, conversely, we would know early enough if any bigger changes were required. The review left me feeling confident in our design but with a long list of comments to respond to. Many of these comments involved refining conservative placeholder values for things like thermal bridging.

If I’m perfectly frank, I’d rather have a tooth pulled than spend a whole Saturday on PHPP updates. But there’s also the fact that things are still in flux, and while I want to know the energy impact of design changes, I am resistant to the notion that PHPP is our ultimate decision maker. There are design questions that absolutely impact the passive house model (and its predicted energy use), but are also influenced by other factors like practicality, cost, and aesthetics. PHPP doesn’t care about any of these things.

One thing that the model and I both care a lot about is simplicity. My strong inclination is to remove design complications, which by extension, tend to also remove modeling complications.

Here are the design questions we have been working through over the last while. We’re tackling each in the priority that Interactive needs answers to keep the project on schedule. I will tweak values in PHPP to test the impact, but will officially update them when we are satisfied that we have made good choices based on all of our criteria. With a bit of synergistic karma, our quest for simplicity will also lead to a certifiable passive house.

Roof Shape: Since we have to rebuild it anyway, we’ve chosen to do away with the hip roof on the ‘existing’ half. It’s a dramatic aesthetic improvement in my opinion but also a major simplification.

new gable roof (with the same floor plan)

old hip roof

Modeling the original hip roof was a less than satisfying experience. I could not completely capture the intersection of multiple hip roof slopes with the low slope roof of the new half using simple geometry and the dimensions provided on the drawings. And Interactive would have to build this! A gable roof is so much simpler to model and build.

The downside of this change is that the City needs to approve it. We are told it will only take a few weeks, but we have to submit a modified Development Permit package for the planning department’s review AND a revised Building Permit Package for the code inspection side. Good times.

Windows and Doors: We’re confirming final details of our Cascadia Universal Series fiberglass window and door order, which includes committing to the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) for the glazing. This is the value that determines how much heat is allowed through the windows versus reflected away. Higher is better in the model because it allows in more ‘free heat’, but lower is better to prevent overheating, and I think lower is ultimately the better way to go given our climate trends. I’m leaning toward using the lower value (Cardinal 360/180) on the south and west windows and the higher (Cardinal 270/180) on the north and east.

Much more fun than picking a SHGC for glazing is picking custom colours for our front entry doors. Thanks to our kindergartener’s astute design sense, there will be a purple door!

Ventilation: Each half of the duplex will have distinct heat recovery ventilation systems. We had been mulling over whether to pay for the more expensive Paul Novus units that have better heat recovery than the Zehnder units. This makes a difference of about 1 kWh/m2 heating demand, which is not insignificant when the maximum allowable is 15. I’ve got the less efficient Zehnder units in the model now, but this dilemma is likely to resolve itself even more favorably when the new Zehnder Q-series units become available in early 2019. They have vastly improved efficiency at much lower cost than the Paul units. Whoopee.

Heating and Domestic Hot Water Heating: We have chosen to go with Sanden CO2 heat pumps for domestic hot water heating and in-slab radiant hydronic heating on the ground floors. These are air-to-water heat pumps that use CO2 as the heat transfer medium instead of something like R410-A. This technology has so much potential because most other refrigerants have several hundred to several thousand times the global warming potential of CO2. And the thing that doesn’t get talked about (and as far as I can tell has not been studied) is that typical refrigerant-based systems leak refrigerant like crazy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that 80% of the refrigerant that gets added to a system leaks out into the atmosphere.

The limitation of CO2-based systems is that they can only do heating, whereas other refrigerant based systems can provide both heating and cooling. We’re not currently planning to add mechanical cooling and we’re hoping that by the time the climate here becomes California, we’ll have sufficient shade trees to limit our exposure.

I’ve chatted with a few people who have experience with a Sanden “combi” system, including Peter J from Cascadia Architects. He has a functioning system in his Passive House home and shared a few tips for making sure it works properly without overheating the house – like heating the slab overnight and then shutting it off during the day and having a couple of supplemental heat sources for the few very cold days.

And further to the simplicity theme: by using polished concrete floors on the ground floors, we can embed the hydronic tubing; do one concrete pour and save on other floor finishes. It also makes for a clean modern look that we quite like.

And a Bunch of Little Things: I’m keeping a running markup of all the little things that occur to us the more we stare at the drawings – like moving a toilet location; combining the laundry and mechanical rooms to remove a wall and a door; shifting a window so there is room for a single bed along one wall. So basically thinking carefully about what it will be like to live in the space and making sure it works.

We’re quickly approaching the point where we’ve firmed up the bigger system choices. I will then do another update of PHPP, after which we’ll have a very good idea how the numbers will work out. Our decision-making will then shift toward things like kitchen cabinets and countertops and away from things with an appreciable impact on energy demand.

She’s Coming Down…and Woah, Progress!

August 24, 2018 by clove 2 Comments

After hearing from our structural engineer that we can’t keep our existing roof, and that we need to make significant modifications to the existing floor joists and structure to meet current seismic code; after being put on hold indefinitely by the company scheduled to do the house lift, and after considering other related complications, Matt and I made the difficult choice to disassemble what remains and reuse it for other purposes.

Not how we had imagined or hoped things would go, but given where we are, we are confident this is the most practical choice to keep the project moving and manage our costs. Learning has been a big part of this process, and we likely would have taken a few different turns along the way knowing what we know now.

A number of considerations tipped the balance:

The cost of the house lift and modifications to the existing structure is considerably more than building new. And that’s not accounting for all the weird little things that will crop up along the way when working with an existing building, like, say, the walls being crooked and not fitting on the new foundation and below grade walls. And there just isn’t much left to lift! We would be spending a lot of effort and cost to move around four walls and a floor.
Disassembly allows us to keep moving. With no lift/move required, the excavation company can come in with their bigger/faster/more available excavation equipment and start right away.
Disassembly allows us to use the beautiful old growth fir floor joists, planks, and framing for any number of visible features, like interior doors, cabinets, shading features, soffit, and other wood accents. Matt can also likely build his entire workshop using this material. If kept in place, the wood would have been 1) drastically modified by new structure and 2) covered in drywall.

In short, it was a move toward simplicity. Sometimes you have to make the most practical choice, emotions aside. And Matt and I are heartened by the fun possibilities in re-using the old wood in new ways. We intend to keep the same design, although we are considering the possibility of switching from the current hip roof on the ‘existing’ half to a gable roof, also for simplicity.

And…Progress!

Wow, it’s amazing how quickly things can happen when you remove a barrier! This thing might get built yet.

Here was our house just before we made the call:

Then we had our meeting with Interactive and they got right to work, spending two days removing the roof and walls carefully enough to keep and stack the good wood, leaving us with just the basement:

And by the end of the week, we were down to this:

Then Level Lift came in with their machines to remove the rest and prepare the ground for the new foundation:

I have to say, progress feels good.

And in the spirit of Konmari, we wish to thank our old house for its service and acknowledge its time on the block and in our lives. We are grateful to have landed here and to have lived in this house before its transformation into something new.

House Prep

April 11, 2018 by clove Leave a Comment

As we line up final details to get construction underway, Matt has blasted through several house prep tasks that will save us time and money once our builder is on-site. Matt’s work reminds me what a good team we are. I am the planner and executor of the mostly invisible things that have made our project happen. Matt is a master planner and executor of the visible stuff. I continue to be amazed at how efficiently and thoroughly he gets this type of work done.

While I wrestled with insurance providers, equipment suppliers, banks and schedules, here is what Matt accomplished over 5 days spread over the past couple of weeks:

He pulled up about 1000 square feet of fir floor in 4 rooms, which we intend to re-lay in the downstairs suite. This job took a solid three days of bending over, prying and pulling. The great news is that we have mostly room length pieces for relaying. The challenge will be finding a place to store it and keep it stable until we’re ready for it.

Then Matt cleared out the front hedge using an electric saw. The front landscaping needs to be clear to make space for the house lift equipment (our next big step after interior hazardous material removal).

post- hedge removal

Then he pulled up the weird deck thing (which appears to have been built to cover up a bunch of broken concrete and other junk) and chopped down the two cherry trees in the back yard, where the workshop will go. He borrowed a bigger chainsaw for this job, and did his requisite youtube research to be sure he did it safely. He’ll save the bigger pieces of cherry wood for future wood-working projects. The smaller pieces were scooped up from the curb nearly as fast as we were able to type the words FREE on UsedVictoria. On that note, drop us a line if you are interested in any salvaged materials (wood, cedar siding, old wood windows, bricks from chimneys etc) and we’ll keep you posted as they become available. Will consider trades for labour and truck use!

back yard view pre-tree removal

back yard view post-tree removal

our littlest helper

An Historic Moment in our Small Project’s Life

March 10, 2018 by clove 1 Comment

front view

On Monday we finally heard the news we were hoping for: our financing is approved (!), nearly four months after we initiated our application (read the whole story). Then on Wednesday, I successfully submitted for our Building Permit (our second attempt after being turned away on a number of formatting technicalities).

It’s beginning to sink in that our vision may actually be realized in bricks and mortar – or, in our case, mostly wood and insulation. It will become even more real when construction starts within the next month.

2 years and 8 months after we closed on our property, it feels really good to have arrived at this moment. There are many things that could hinder us from finishing construction, but there is now nothing that will prevent us from starting. And as we’ve grown accustomed to overcoming challenges every step of the way – from losing out three times before finally landing the winning bid on our house, to facing combative neighbours, to being denied financing (to name a few!) – I’m feeling confident that we will be able to resolve the ones to come as well.

In the spirit of pretending we’ve just won a big award, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the many wonderful friends and co-conspirators who have helped us get this far: our many supportive friends and neighbours; our creative design team (Mark, Kate, Jonathan, Ian), our enthusiastic and flexible builder, Russ; helpful city staff and a progressive City Council; our friends in the mortgage business pointing us in the right direction, and our dogged mortgage specialist (thanks Paul!) who was willing to keep working with us despite our early setbacks. Thank you thank you thank you!

To mark this moment before steeling ourselves for what’s to come, I thought I’d shared some last photos of our house in its current form. Thanks to my friend and co-worker Chris George for snapping these beauties.

rear view

front corner view

what’s to come

Financing School of Hard Knocks

March 1, 2018 by clove Leave a Comment

Several weeks ago, I drafted a post proclaiming that I felt like a million bucks. I’d just talked with our mortgage contact at our preferred lender, who had said things were looking good and our loan application just had to get past the analyst. A couple of days after that, in the midst of last-minute prep for moving out of our house, I got an email listing all the reasons our application was being rejected.

My heart sank. You have got to be kidding! Dreaded visions floated through my head: paying rent + mortgage for months…moving back into our frigid house immediately after moving out…cancelling our contract with our builder…redesigning the whole thing. This was my worst case scenario: someone who doesn’t even know us, hasn’t even had a conversation with us, has decided our project – and by extension, *we* – are not good enough.

Why we were rejected

After I got over the shock (and our move, ugh), I revisited the email, made some phone calls. Time to get analytical and solve this problem. First order of business was fully understanding the reasons they were rejecting us.

We’d specifically gone to this lender, not only because we are members and heard they have the best program for residential construction loans, but also because they’d financed most of the Passive House builds in town. So imagine our surprise when one of the reasons we were given for rejection was the fact that it was a Passive House!

Hang on, what now?

In analyst words, the project was “overbuilt” because it cost more to build than the appraiser gave it value for, and there is a “limited market” for Passive House. Despite me sending along precedents for both rent and sales prices for very similar products now out in the market, the appraised value came in too low. As a result, the assessed value was less than the value of the land plus the cost to build. Hence our project was “overbuilt”.

Given these risk factors, the analyst wanted to reduce the percentage of the final assessed value they were willing to lend (the loan-to-value ratio, or LVR) from 80% to 70%. These things together meant that to even consider moving forward with them, we had to come up with a $234k gift letter (not a loan – specifically a gift) from a rich relative (specifically a close relative, not just a rich friend – sorry, rich friends), because we had insufficient equity/liquidity to pay for the amount exceeding the assessed value. With me so far?

All lending is not created equal

An important distinction: this is a residential construction loan we are talking about here. This type of mortgage is evaluated in the same way as a normal residential mortgage. They qualify us based on our ability to carry the full cost of the mortgage long-term. The interest rates are the same as a traditional residential mortgage and therefore attractively low, but the rules for qualifying are also more rigid and prescriptive than a commercial loan.

While we would really like to fit into this category due to its low cost, our project is a bit of a round peg fitting a square hole. It’s a residential project in the sense that we will renovate the one half and live in it as our primary residence, but it’s also part spec build for the new half (which we will either sell or rent).

Further complicating things, one of the quirky requirements of the residential construction mortgage is that we have to have a certain percent equity (say, 25%) in the final appraised value of the project. So we’re in this delicate situation of wanting the appraised value to be high enough to be more than the land value + cost of construction, but not so high that we don’t have the required equity.

A commercial lender will consider the final appraised value and our cost to build, but is less concerned with our long-term carrying capacity. So in the commercial lending scenario, we need to have a certain percent equity (say 25-30%) in the land value + cost to build, but not in the final appraised value. In their world, the higher the final appraised value, the better.

Now what?

In the weeks since, we met with our wonderful mortgage broker, Scott Travelbea, who helped us brainstorm a few new ideas, but agreed that if we could make it work with this lender, it was really our best bet. He also gave us the name of a private lender he liked, so I gave him a call. I had a great chat with Len, who was very generous with his time and knowledge. He said he could find any number of investors who would be willing to finance our project at any stage and in any amount (he actually googled me. I’m more than just a number on a screen!). That was encouraging to hear. The scary part is that we’d be looking at an interest rate of around 10%, plus these mythical fees that add several more percentage points. Len summed up his lending options as: “incredibly convenient and outrageously expensive!”

Len also agreed that our current lender was our best bet if we could make it work, but also suggested I call our lender’s commercial side, and gave me a name. So I did that too.

Mark in commercial lending was also very generous with his time and expertise. Turns out it’s only the commercial lending side that’s aggressively supporting Passive House at the moment. The good news, though, is that, as a result of my prodding and our mortgage contact’s persistence, the commercial side has now shared what it has learned about Passive House with the residential side and I’ve heard rumour that a residential policy is now in the works.

I talked through our project with Mark and he thought it sounded viable, but he also agreed that if we can make it work on the residential side, it would be the cheapest and easiest way to go. The commercial lenders have more leeway and generally more risk tolerance, but that comes at a price, namely higher interest rates (prime + 1.25% for example); each side needs a lawyer; more thorough appraisals are required (which we pay for), etc. So, feasible, but more expensive.

The differences in interest rates result in non-trivial project costs. In the best case scenario (conventional residential), we’d be in the range of $27-30k in interest charges over the course of construction, plus nominal fees. For commercial lending through a major bank or credit union, $47-50k plus legal and appraisal fees. For private lending, assuming (a probably optimistic) 11%, $100k. Yeowch! The private lender could be a great option to make up a very short-term shortfall, but not at all viable for the whole project. We’ve also heard stories of predatory investors who actually want your project to fail and set up terms that are difficult to meet.

Piling up those lessons learned

To sum up this roller coaster in a few pithy lessons learned, I offer the following:

Construction financing is harder to get than a typical residential mortgage. I.E. plan for more time. Three months has proven to not be enough. Four might be if we are lucky. Which means that we needed to plan for a longer gap between when our drawings were ready to submit for Building Permit (i.e. far enough along for our builder to put together a budget) and when we wanted to start construction.
Construction financing is not really conducive to shopping around to multiple lenders at once. There is more pitching and back and forth and getting to know one another. Hence my first point. If one lender falls through, we’re starting from scratch with our next option.
The less cookie cutter the project, the harder it will be and the longer it will take to secure financing. Our project is definitely not your typical cookie shape. Part retrofit/part new build; part primary residence/part spec build, and Passive House.
The best lender today might not be the best lender tomorrow. When I talk with others who have done several development projects, they say things like “Scotiabank is good right now.” Tomorrow it could be someone else. They get rejected by all but one big bank. And that one is like, yeah, no problem! I’ve also heard many people say that the financing world is just “strange” right now. Whatever that means! Again, refer back to lesson 1 and build in extra time.

Throughout this process (and now well-informed by it), we have continued to work with the residential side lender to revise the scope, reappraised, and resubmit the application in terms that the analyst is comfortable with. Fingers crossed round two will be successful!

We’re Moving!

January 19, 2018 by clove 2 Comments

We have neither our Building Permit nor secured financing, but we are moving February 1!

Because we are raising our existing house and renovating most of the interior, we have to vacate during construction. Plan A was to move to the end of our block and rent our neighbours’ newly created garden suite for a 10-12 month experiment in tiny house living. We were actually very excited about this idea, as well as the fact that we would be a short walk away from our house during construction. But given that our neighbours are also rebuilding their entire house, they’ve encountered enough of their own roadblocks and schedule extensions that our timing no longer aligns.

Plan B, which is really a bit of a miracle given the 0.7% rental vacancy rate in Victoria right now, is to move back into the house we rented when we first returned to Victoria almost 4 years ago. It’s currently empty because it’s part of a whole-block redevelopment proposal inching its way through the public process. It’s a great little house that will fit all our things and it’s literally around the corner from my mom. We also got a discounted rate on rent in exchange for the risk inherent in only being guaranteed tenancy through May 31. I am pretty certain we’ll be able to stay beyond May, but it is possible that we’ll have to move again before moving back into our completed home. Better to not think too much about the prospect of moving 3 times in one year, though. Willful denial can be a very useful strategy to keep us progressing from one step to the next!

Our Building Permit application is ready to be submitted, save for structural drawings that are now being drafted (our structural engineer was sadly delayed due to a personal emergency). I’ve been down to the city a couple of times to check that we’ve included what they want to see, with the intent that once the application is submitted, it will quickly pass through the various departmental reviews. And since we’ve already been through rezoning, I am confident that the Building Permit is a formality. It will happen, it’s the when that could throw things off. The city aims to respond within 4 weeks to a building permit application, but if there is any back and forth over the details, this could stretch out. There is some prep work we can do on the existing house and site in the meantime, though, so I remain optimistic on that front.

The financing is the last big piece of the puzzle that still has me nervous, as it’s really the last point at which someone outside the project can say No and delay it until we find someone else who says Yes. It’s only coming together now because, in order to get financing, the credit union needed an appraisal of the existing house and proposed project. To do the appraisal, they needed a construction budget. For Russ to give us a reasonably accurate construction budget, we needed close to complete drawings. We have all of those things now, and the appraiser has what she needs. All we can do for the moment is pack up our house and have faith that the stars will align!

How Much We’ve Spent So Far

December 8, 2017 by clove 4 Comments

We have arrived at our first moment of financial reckoning. I’d budgeted $30,000 of self-financed work to get us through rezoning.

Here’s what we’ve actually spent:

Building & Landscape Design: $14,000. This includes two early concepts and a redesign; a full set of architectural drawings suitable for rezoning, plus Landscape Plan.
City Fees and Associated Costs: $4,500. This includes the rezoning application fee, the public hearing fee, plus a lot of printing – $787 worth of paper and signage! Forgive us, trees.
Site Survey: $1,350. Required for the application, as well as for our architect Mark A to create the Site Plan
Tree Preservation Plan: $500. Required for the application, completed by an arborist.
Existing House Stuff: $1,900. Includes hazardous materials survey so we don’t unwittingly poison anyone, plus a fee to get rid of our above-ground oil tank. Good riddance!

Total spent through approval of rezoning = $22,500

So, we are currently under budget for the items I had accounted for – woo, party!

Hold the phone, don’t send the invitations out just yet. There are a few asterisks and things I plain neglected in that innocent early budget.

The biggest of my omissions is the Building Permit fee at 1.25% of the construction budget. I’d thought somehow that this fee would be much smaller. Russ our builder is working on the budget as I type, but with my current, ever-escalating working number, we are looking at $11,000-$12,000. Half is due when we apply for our permit and the other half is due when we pick it up.

A few others:

Landscape Deposit – this one was a surprise. It’s required of any project that needs a Development Permit (determined based on location of the project from what I understand), and is equivalent to 120% of your landscape budget. Ouch. It’s a way for the City to ensure we follow through and finish up the landscaping. We’ll get the deposit back, but it hurts to have to come up with this at the front end.
Design package for Building Permit. The design drawings need to be fleshed out in more detail for our Building Permit application and for construction.
Builder Deposit. This goes toward actual construction costs, and provides assurance to Russ before he starts ordering stuff for our project. A reasonable expectation, but something that must be planned for.

For the sake of completeness, there are also some items that I handled myself but would have a real cost if we hired someone else to do them:

My general project development time, which I did not record consistently enough to provide a meaningful total (perhaps better not to know?). Let’s just say a lot of hours – planning the concept, coordinating with the team, consulting with neighbours, coordinating with the city, putting together presentations etc.
Passive House modeling costs. So far, I’ve spent 45 hours on the model. This includes a fair chunk of learning time, reworking, and remembering what I’d done when I put the model aside and came back to it several months later. The model still needs to be updated before we start construction, again after we change anything significant, and then finalized after construction is complete. As the project Passive House Consultant, I will also need to document the construction to show that we built what we modeled. Actual certification requires that we hire someone independent who is qualified, and we’re expecting to spend $5,000 for this piece.

So, overall we are doing OK budget-wise. We are not completely blowing the budget, but I missed a couple of key items in my first pass. This is nothing if not a learning process after all!

We’re working on financing now, so we hope to answer very soon whether this is all going to fly – stay tuned and thanks for reading!

It’s Unanimous!

November 17, 2017 by clove Leave a Comment

Matt and I outside Council Chambers post-public hearing

In my preparation for our public hearing, I replayed the cautionary voices of others who have done this before: ‘There is always someone who hates your project no matter what you do!‘ Or: ‘Sometimes you’ll go into the public hearing thinking you have community support only to be blindsided by a mutiny!’

My best case mental visualization of the event was that we would have enough positive voices to ring out over the negative ones. I sent invitations to everyone who had expressed support or interest throughout the process. A couple of neighbours said they would come, and a couple of others said they would write a letter. Otherwise, it felt (strangely?) quiet on our block in the days leading up to the hearing.

Here’s how it went down:

We were 3rd on the agenda of rezoning/development permit applications, and somewhere around 10th on the overall agenda, which meant we were called up at 8:45, over 2 hours into the evening’s proceedings. The public area of Council Chambers was full of people early on, and with each item that was ticked off the list, more and more people filtered out. A small group of our neighbours and friends were still among us, along with some people who were waiting for the agenda items after ours.

A member of City staff introduced the project and what was being proposed for Council consideration. I was then called up to the podium with a (strictly enforced!) maximum 15-minute window to present whatever we thought relevant to Council and the public. Using a pre-loaded presentation, I introduced our project goals and talked about our design choices, materials, and rationale. I described how the project fit into the Official Community Plan and the Gonzales Neighbourhood Plan. I summarized the consultation process and how it influenced the design. I concluded by expressing our appreciation for everyone who provided engaged input and ultimately made our project better.

Council then asked a couple of clarifying questions, then opened the floor to anyone who wished to speak for a (strictly enforced!) maximum of 5 minutes. Five neighbours spoke in support and none spoke against.

Every neighbour spoke so eloquently about their personal stories as they related to our project. One spoke about how the character of our community is not just about what the houses look like, but about the individuals who live here and make it their own. Another spoke about having lived on the block since he was 5. Another about how they’d originally lived in the townhouses next to us and then bought a house a few doors down so they could stay on the block as their family grew. This was by far my favourite part of the evening – each neighbour sharing their personal histories and experiences on the block, and their own reasons for supporting our project.

After everyone spoke, the public hearing portion closed. Council then asked a few more questions before offering their opinions on whether and why they supported prior to the final vote. All who spoke were emphatically in favour and the vote to approve our application carried unanimously.

Holy cow!

Never have I witnessed so much smiling and excitement at a public hearing! If you want to see it for yourself, you can watch it here (Nov 9, about 2h:45 in).

We owe thanks to City staff for their work moving this forward. Thank you to the City Councillors for their words of support and encouragement. And most of all, thank you to our neighbours and friends who have listened and made suggestions, shared their opinions and ultimately offered their support. We feel so fortunate to be part of such a strong, supportive, and forward-looking community.

We have some more work to do now to finalize the design prior to submitting for Building Permit. With a little luck, we will begin construction early in 2018. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

You’re Invited!

November 3, 2017 by clove 4 Comments

Dear Readers, Friends, Neighbours,

Well here we are, finally approaching the moment when City Council will vote yes or no to our rezoning application. The rezoning is what will change the use of our property from single family to two-family + suite. If we get through this, all that is left in terms of the City’s process is to apply for the building permit to begin construction.

First: We want to thank each of you who shared ideas for making our project better, for offering support, and even just for showing interest in what we are doing. Our project is better because of you! We have made many friends through this process and continue to be amazed by this incredible community we call home.

Second: We officially invite you all to join us at our public hearing next Thursday, November 9 at City Hall! The meeting starts at 6:30 and we are third on the agenda. The format is that we present for 10 to 15 minutes and then Council hears comments from any member of the public who wishes to speak.

If you can’t make the hearing, or speaking in public isn’t your thing, feel free to send a letter or email. These do get read and considered. Here are the City’s instructions for doing this:

For those who are unable to attend, your input can be via mail, an email to publichearings@victoria.ca, or you can drop off your written feedback at Victoria City Hall to the City Hall Ambassador located to the left of the main entrance. Correspondence should be received by 11 a.m. the day before the Council meeting.

Please note that all correspondence submitted will form part of the public record and will be published in the meeting agenda. Your address is relevant to Council’s consideration of this matter and will be included as part of the public record. If you choose to share your phone number and email address with us and wish that it not be disclosed, please let us know and we will ensure it remains confidential.

Thank you again and see you out there!

Choosing a Builder

June 24, 2017 by clove 1 Comment

For a successful Passive House or ultra low energy project, it’s important to bring your builder on board early – especially if you want one for a reasonable budget. Material, assembly, and detailing choices will all impact cost, and your builder will have the best insight on these impacts. On top of this, the local construction market is hot right now and some builders are booking a couple of years out. Planning ahead in any case is a necessity.

While a year or two ago, there was only one builder in town who had built a Passive House (shout out to Mark Bernhardt!), we now find ourselves in the enviable position of having several excellent choices.

We narrowed our search to three builders: NZ Builders, Bernhardt Contracting, and Interactive Construction. I have gotten to know all three through the Passive House community and my work at RDH, and all three are passionate about building ultra low energy homes. I mention them all because any one would be an excellent choice depending on the needs of your project. All three builders have at least one Passive House as well as other net zero/ultra low energy homes under their belts.

The downside to having these choices was that we’d have to say no to two of them – something I was not looking forward to. Matt and I took a similar approach we’ve taken when buying a house: establish our criteria, do our best to keep emotions out of it, and make the most rationale decision. Hiring a builder does add another layer of complexity over buying a house, though, because you are choosing not just the end product you think you will get, but also the person you will work closely with over the next year or more.

So what did our choice come down to? Prior experience was a prerequisite, but here are the other criteria we considered:

Enthusiasm and experience working with the existing house and materials:

How keen were they to work with the existing 100-year-old structure (framing, walls, roof) and existing materials (like our fir floors, solid wood doors, and bricks from our three chimneys)? Yes, it may ultimately be easier (and cheaper) to tear down and build new, but that is not what our design is about. Our existing house has a lot of good material in it. It shows none of the telltale signs of rot or other structural damage, and our design was specifically intended to preserve as much of the existing house form and materials as possible – and to look that way. If we were going to tear down and rebuild, the design would have been completely different.

The marriage of old with new. Rendering Mark Ashby Architecture

Crew size and proposed construction duration:

The ability to build as quickly as is reasonable will save us financing costs, as well as the amount of time we need to live/rent somewhere else. Available crew size varied and estimated construction ranged from 7 to 12 months.

Budget input:

We didn’t ask for a budget, but did ask for their input on whether they thought our budget was feasible. They all said No! The cost of materials has skyrocketed in the past year, and there is a severe skilled labor shortage locally. Our original construction budget of $600-650k, which seemed entirely reasonable a year or two ago, is now laughably low. Let’s all have a good laugh (cry) and move on, because we’re now likely to be pushing the $1M mark. On the plus side, the value of real estate has gone up significantly as well. Such is the inherent risk in development.

Budget projections from all three builders were in the same range for a new build, although a builder won’t do a detailed budget until you have signed on the dotted line. The number can vary widely depending on interior finishing choices that are largely up to us. Renovation costs are also more variable and depend heavily on what we find behind the walls and what we want to do with the interiors.

Hourly labour costs did vary between the builders and this was a factor in our decision-making. But again, difficult to judge whether that automatically leads to a more expensive project – especially if one builder places a heavy emphasis on upfront planning and another flies by the seat of their pants.

As one of our project goals is to reduce our cost of living, we will have to keep a close eye on budget and likely make some difficult decisions to keep costs within a range we are comfortable with.

Fit:

Fit was the toughest criteria for us to evaluate objectively. Is there a fit with our values, as well as how we think and work? Do they approach their work the way we do in terms of problem solving and attention to detail? How do they respond to our ideas?

I recommend spending a good amount of time talking with any builder you are considering, because this one comes down to intuition more than any other criteria. We also talked to people who have had homes built or renovated by each builder, and toured works in progress. In this exercise, we were looking at attention to detail and quality of finish work (but not necessarily the actual finishes, which reflect owner’s preference not builder’s skill). We were also listening for how the crew communicated with us and with each other.

In the end, our evaluation against our criteria led us to sign on the dotted line with Russ Barry at Interactive. Our signed letter of engagement allows Russ to slot us into his project schedule (likely for late this year, depending on our rezoning timeline).

Now what? Next month, we will meet with Russ and Mark A to hash through assembly details – from a Passive House performance, buildability and cost perspective – and firm up those pieces. This will allow Russ to develop a more detailed budget, and will allow me to refine the Passive House model. Closer to the start of construction, and before he starts ordering materials and otherwise committing financially to our project, we will need to give Russ a deposit to the tune of $30,000.

And of course, we are still waiting on rezoning, so we won’t get too far ahead of ourselves until we clear that hurdle. Stay tuned and enjoy our beautiful summer weather in the meantime!