Research Page

News Flash
============
Hurricane Insurance hard to get in BROOKLYN! WOW! Read here This home is more important than ever now.


The research begins. This page will be update frequently as I locate important reference materials.

Florida Building Code
================
Florida has done an outstanding job putting the building code on the Internet. The 2004 code is here. I am using the search features to locate hurricane issues.

Now I am going to go looking for items that are particular to the Hurricane/Bug/Mildew proof dream home:

My first stop was looking for approved building materials. I already knew of AAC (autoclaved aerated concrete) but wasn't sure what the code said. Well it is approved.

Residential High Velocity Wind Construction is section 44 of the code. Not a lot here for the non-engineer.

And you have to love this page which shows termite infestation , sever wind and concrete weathering probabilities for the US. Now that is what I'm talking about! Now if they showed mold & mildew health statistics it would be the final vote for my criteria.

FEMA - Design and Construction Guidance for Community Shelters
================================================
I'll review this later


AAC (autoclaved aerated concrete)
===========================
I like the sound of AAC so far. You would think that a business with about 20 products (shapes) in its inventory would make it a bit friendlier to buy a house made of it. I first saw this on the Discovery Channel and the program had just about every major component I wanted to incorporate into the Dream Home. AAC was one of the items that caught my eye.

The Aerocon site has some good reference materials but I really want a "house in a box". I Googled for a long time and couldn't come up with any AAC predesigned homes. I want to see a home with a price. As soon as I start thinking of hiring an Engineer and Architect I start seeing dollars fly by. Also I still don't know what type of hurricane rating AAC will produce. There was one reference of $12/sqft exteriors and $8/sq ft interior wall. But there was nothing about floors and roofs. So a 2400 sq ft house would be 40wx60dx10h yields 2000 sq ft of exterior wall or $24,000 for the exterior walls. I read in Chicago concrete block was $8/sq ft so there is a big difference in price.

Integrated Concrete Form (ICF) Construction:
===================================
I read much about this but I to date I am not that excited about ICF. I haven't ruled it out yet. This site has some reference materials that I found interesting. The one concern I have is the ability to get rebar in the walls to withstand 250 mph winds and debis.

Concrete Cast in place
==================
The fact that the hurricane shelter design calls for cast in place concrete I think this method will win out over AAC. I just found out concrete block is $2.50/block materials & labor. For a 60x40x10h one story 2400 sqft shell it would use about 2250 blocks or $5625 (window and door openings not subtracted). I do not know the cost of labor for cast in place but a 6 inch wall would be 37 cubic yards at $100/yd^3 is $3700 for materials alone. Even if I tripled the material cost to account for placement it would only be $11,100 or an additional $5475. Big Woop! With hurricane insurance well over $1000/yr this it only takes 5 years to break even! I am trying to refine these numbers as we speak.

37 cubic yards is about 5 truck loads, so it will be a busy day when it is time to pour. Actually it will be much more since the floor will also be poured that day. I just wanted to see the block vs cast in place numbers.

Geothermal HVAC
===============
Unfortunately my brother's house caught fire and now he is rebuilding. Fortunately he has found some great items for this blog. "Information for Evaluating Geoexchange Applications" prepared for New York State Energy and Research Development Authority. Although it is mostly about buildings larger than a typical house it is easy reading and very informative.

Most of my reading reveals claims of 25% - 70% reduction in operating expense. I have seen numbers of $2500 per ton. In the New York State document listed above I have seen 1800-2500 sq ft homes sized at 4-6 tons making the cost $10,000 - $15,000 for the system. OUCH! But then oil is holding at $62/bbl so go figure... really! goooo figure! Get out that calculator! Shooting down the middle, 50% savings; 5 tons, at $2500 per ton means that 5 years savings = $12,500 or $2500 per year. So you must be spending $5000./year on HVAC. Now if you are starting from scratch (new house or existing system MUST be replaced) it gets a bit better. We will use the factor that geothermal is 2x the price of a standard system so now you only need to recoup $6250 in 5 years or $1250.yr. That yields that a standard system would cast $2500/yr for HVAC. My family of 4 easily did this when we lived in Connecticut so that looks like a no-brainer to me!

So far the most "engineered" geothermal system I have found is from EarthLinked . I can't say I would recommend it since this is just the early stages of research but it does look cool :)

EnergyStar is a government resource and in some sense not very informative, however the pages have links to other sites that are worth the time to read. I use google to search the site like this
geothermal site:energystar.gov which seems to work better than their search system.

GeoExchange.org .is cool. I especially like their page on incentives available! That is a great way to save money if you qualify. They have some estimates on savings but they appear to be a bit rosy compared to other resources but I am not qualified to judge yet. I will be though!

Geothermal Manufactures:
Water Furnace - gotta love that name! To bad they seem to only be in Canada. A!
Climatemaster
EarthLinked
Radiantmax
TerraLink

Suppliers and Contractors:
Contractor locator
Allient Energy

So far my thoughts on geothermal are:
- It's worth the extra up-front expense
- A vertical system here in Florida should work fine. Easy to drill and lots of water under the ground.
- It will have an integrated water heating system
- I like the "green" factor.
- It's mature enough to trust.
- I wish it was easier to buy. One manufacturer with a list of contractors to get bids from. I want "Geothermal In A Box".

More geothermal facts and papers:

Geothermal hat Pumps == Trend and Comparisons
3 gal water per minute per ton of Heat pump capacity
Typical residence is 3 tons

International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA)
For standing column wells 80-120 ft water per ton AC

Solar Hot Water Heater
=======================
I just discovered the blog where a team built a homemade solar water heater for under $4. They produced constant flow 110 degree water, and were able to obtain 170 degrees by letting the water sit in the solar heater for some time. All this on a 76 degree day!! BRAVO! Click to read the story .

Sterling Engine
=========================
An amazing engine design that can work even with slight tempature differentials. Dean Kamen the inventory of the Segway has redeveloped this engine for use in underdeveloped countries. I wander ... could I use it in Orlando Florida? I'm thinking if I can combine Solar hot water with Geothermal cold water can I run the house? Now that's what I'm talk'n bout!

Here is Dean's site with info on the sterling engine. And here is one of the bet explainations of how they work complete with colorful animations.

The Dream Begins

This is a work in progress to design an energy efficient home, that can withstand the terror of a Cat 5 hurricane and the ravages of termites, mold and mildew in Central Florida. I am on this journey and invite you to come along, the outcome is not known and for anyone wishing to move to Florida I believe this is a blog you should read. This is intended to be my scratch paper with the resources and information I discover. As we go along you can help make Google pay for the construction by clicking on the links every time you visit. Each Firefox downloads puts a buck in the pot for the house and each buck is greatly appreciated. So click away.... and let's get this party started.

I recently moved from Connecticut to Disney World (Kissimmee Florida for now). I have a 9 & 4 year so you can guess our motivation. As we prepared to pick up roots we used the Internet extensively to research where we wanted to be. We had Google Earth when you actually had to pay for it, we used the FBI records, all the real estate sites and we still could not make sense of the Florida housing market. I ran an expeditionary trip with my trusted brother and we were just baffled by what we saw. Huge swaths of land measured in 100's of acres cleared to the bone with only 4 housed under construction. $500,000 homes within walking distance to 40 year old trailer parks. For Sale signs on every 10th house. And yet the prices seemed to increase each day we were there! After returning home with pictures, video and notes in hand my wife and I decided to rent for a year and check it out first hand. So this will be about what we learned in the past 8 months and what we want.

30 years ago I picked up a civil engineering degree, used it for 10 years then jumped onto the computer revolution and have been programming ever since. As an engineer I always loved concrete and I think it will finally come to play a significant role in my life.

I now invite you to come along with my family as we try to settle down and figure out what we are to do about our dream home.

Beginning days Living at Disney World:
===========================
The day after we arrived we went to motor vehicles and got our Florida drivers licenses. By lunch time we had our annual passes ($1600 for family of 4) and were in the parks reveling in the beginning of our adventure. I believe this to be the best deal in entertainment in the United States. We get the major parks Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, MGM Studios plus 2 water parks, access to Disney Quest which is a huge building loaded with video games (no quarters necessary!) and ESPN! WOW! This deal only gets better as you get closer and closer to Disney property so this should help you understand some of our motivations as I press on with this blog. Because it is really more about getting our home in Florida that Disney.

We rented a brand new house that resides on a golf course. It is a small 4 bedroom, we needed rooms more than square footage and the price was already up $1350/mo + utilities. Since we are in cash preservation mode we surely didn't want to go any higher. As it looks now that is actually a killer price for a 4 bedroom ...yikes! I have been an owner for 25 years and not used to paying rent like that. It is described as "concrete block and stucco", which is a bit deceiving, because over 1/2 the house is WOOD! Now where is that in the real estate description. Now I understand why all the termite inspectors and termite insurance! We will revisit this in detail.

We arrived in the beginning of the summer in 2005 and at night we were getting spectacular if not frightening lightening storms. With the expanse of the golf course out the back door we could see far off into the distance and all I can say is WOW! The lightening didn't just spark across the sky .... it seemed to DRILL DOWN ....zzzzz...zzzzz ....zzzzzz ....zzzzzzz poof! Lasting for seconds at a time Whoa! That was intense!

Then Katrina hit the Gulf! Everyone that forgot how devastating a hurricane can be got a rude wake up call. There is still devastation around us from the storms in 2004. Roofs are still tarped and scraped. Signs haven't been replaced. Even street signs are still missing. That's over 1 year later! So now what happens, WILMA CAT 5 erupts. Well this 'ol Connecticut family is ready to high tail it out of Dodge! And we did! We ran all the way to North Carolina to visit family for a week. Chicken you think? YOU BET!

Keep in mind that after a hurricane if you have damage so does everyone else so good luck finding trades people willing to work for normal wages. You'll be paying a premium IF you can find anyone to begin with. And in the mean time you are exposed. Not fun!

Well Wilma was a no show for Kissimmee. Everything was fine. But my ideas on my ideal home were beginning to congeal. Hurricanes, wood (termites), travel to the parks and gas blasting over $2.00 per gallon.

Here is some roughed out specs I have come up with. I will be linking them to suppliers and research articles as I go along.

Design Criteria as of March 1, 2006:
=========================

For termites - mold - mildew:

• No Cellulose products for the structure
• stainless steel kitchen
• All floors tiled - area rugs ok
• Interior doors may be wood since they are hinged and not permanent
• No Sheetrock
• Possible stucco walls inside and out.
• Exposed ducting for A/C.
• Need some architectural channeling for cables & Pipes because walls will be solid.

Storm shelter:

• Exterior walls must withstand 100mph 2x4 impact (concrete block fails).
• Construction should meet public hurricane structure codes
• Interior room with no windows typically used as home theater to be hurricane panic room.
• High impact windows
• Hurricane shutters on windows
• Backup generator with fuel to last 10 days
• House elevated to max flood water plus 2 feet.

Energy efficiency:

• geothermal heat pump (down here we are living on top of a lake)
• High temp thermal storage reservoir
• solar collector (6ft parabolic mirror from old satellite dish) to generate high temp water. They myth busters built the exact item, if they are reading I'll take it off your hands now that the Archimedes's challenge is over.
• sterling engine for electric generation
• LED lighting through out
• Possibly use AAC (aerated autoclave concrete)
• Possible swimming pool for thermal sink

Architecture:

• It seems like south west adobe style lends itself to the criteria so far. Using some terracotta tile around the parameter will add some decoration while opening the roof to additional outdoor living space. I like the idea of an elevated living space with Florida being so flat. As soon as you get higher than a palm tree you can see for miles and the sunsets and lightening storms are beautiful to watch.

Location:

• Never live on a golf course - they start mowing and spraying at 5 am!
• Florida is being so overbuilt that you must purchase exactly where you will be working, commuting is a nightmare now and getting worse daily. You want to keep commutes to less than 10 miles.
• Schooling was a major concern, we were lucky that our daughter was so far advanced for here age that she would withstand a year in a bad school while we were trying to get settled. Now Kissimmee is not considered by many down here to be a "great place" but we were blown away how great the school was compared to Connecticut. Kissimmee blows away Connecticut so that was a welcome surprise that none of our research uncovered ... and we looked! But the class sizes are much bigger. In the 5th grade she has about 27 in her class vs 17 in CT, however she has real books, gets challenging homework and is provided an exceptional gifted program. It is the class size you need to worry about because the towns are getting over built faster than they can add schools.

The links are coming as soon I as organize my exiting ones in Firefox..

Click and Download ... Google can afford it!