We are thrilled to be able to host an open house with informational tours of our new Net-Zero energy home currently under construction in Pacifica at 478 Monterey Road on Sunday October 7th from 1-4pm! Please join us for this unique event to see the “guts” of our home before the … Read More
How we sealed the envelope of our house In my earlier blog “Your house is swiss cheese”, I discussed the general idea of air sealing houses for energy efficiency. Here’s how we did it on our own house: In initial discussions with our green building consultant, Katy Hollbacher of Beyond … Read More
(where’s Colin Jost when you need him?) This week our dear friend Jean asked for an update on our construction. Have there really been no blogs since the one on heat pumps a couple of weeks ago??? Sadly, no; not because nothing is happening, but because so much is happening … Read More
NEWS FOR EARTH DAY – WE REALLY HAVE STARTED CONSTRUCTION Almost eleven years ago, we found a vacant lot for sale in Pacifica, having looked around for a few years for a place to build our own house. The price was right, we had the cash, and 478 Monterey was … Read More
Tuesday, April 10 Christine here today, Bob actually did have to go do some paying work… The excavation and grading is starting! We stopped by yesterday to see the equipment on the site and was told by our contractor that they found oil underground. WHAAAAT? My mind raced in … Read More
No, this blog isn’t about the latest ‘green’ building material, or about Swiss Chalet style architecture. It’s about one of the newer trends in residential construction: air sealing for energy efficiency. Some years ago building scientists (yes, there is such a discipline) discovered that the greatest source of energy loss … Read More
As part of our commitment to the environment, it is important to regularly question the way that buildings are built and to reevaluate our processes and documentation to best benefit our clients and the planet. In many parts of the world, the Passive House movement is growing significantly. In Belgium … Read More
We are finally ready to share our plans with you! Thanks to Terry and Gerry at Millennium Enterprises for working with us to establish a preliminary budget and brainstorm additional ways to simplify and save costs. We have made the decision to go ahead and finalize our construction drawings and get actual … Read More
As we announced when we started this blog seven years ago, we plan to build our own house in Pacifica. Some of our studious readers may have been wondering what happened with that project. Our intention at the time was that we would have moved in about 2009 … but … Read More
