Blog | EcoCoastal Homes

- December
  18
  2012
- 1585
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News, Uncategorized
When to Build or When to Renovate.
The practice of new construction, with all of the advanced green building techniques, is a lot quicker than renovating an existing structure.

But when you take into consideration having an existing building and infrastructure, we also need to know which has the greatest environmentally impact. While the simplicity of new construction might be desirable, the greater potential for decreasing the carbon impact during a renovation compared to a new construction is very evident over a 75-year life span of a home or building. The National Trust for Historic Preservation newly mentioned that the greenest building could be …….

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- December
  16
  2012
- 14891
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News
6 celebrities with deep green homes
Celebrity power couple Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady’s chateau-inspired hovel in L.A.’s chichi Brentwood section managed to raise a few eyebrows earlier this year not just because of its elephantine size — a staggering 22,000 square feet — but also that Bundchen, a noted environmentalist, reportedly planned to outfit it with as many eco-friendly bells and whistles as possible including solar panels, rainwater recycling systems and energy-efficient lighting and appliances. This, of course, led to the inevitable question: Can a $20 million palace with eight bedrooms and a six-car garage still be considered “green?”

The jury is still out on that one, but we do know that chez Bundchen and Brady would be a heck of a lot greener if they shaved, oh, about 15,000 square feet off the home’s total size. But hey, at least they tried. And look at Larry Hagman. The recently passed actor best known for playing a despicable Texas oil tycoon went and built himself

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- December
  16
  2012
- 2541
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Technical News
Sustainable building goes far beyond energy efficiency
To be sustainable, a building should work at all times. Better daylighting strategies mean we can see indoors throughout the day. When it comes to energy supply, renewables might be calledsustainables, because any building that can survive off the grid is more useful to society during disasters. (My colleague Chris Nelder covered the topic’s energy implications recently.) And a simple hand pump would have been brilliant for our friends with out-of-service water wells.

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- December
  16
  2012
- 2208
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News, Technical News
Energy efficiency within reach
A Building Revolution: The Super Insulated Passive House is a guide to the methods that builders, architects and homeowners around the U.S. and Europe have used to drastically reduce home energy consumption. The movement isn’t new, and neither are most of the construction practices, which, as the film states, were first employed in the U.S. and Canada in the 1970s when the first energy crisis reared its head, threatening greatly increased home heating and cooling bills. The change was short-lived, waning in …….

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- December
  15
  2012
- 1635
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News
Soma Reinvents the Water Filter, Makes It Gorgeous And Greener
We have been recommending water filters for years, but they are not without their issues. (Remember Beth Terry’s Take Back the Filter campaign?). They are often ugly, plastic things. I love my ZeroWater, but it is ridiculous to fill, and is seriously out of place in an architect’s kitchen.

The Soma, on the other hand, is lovely to look at. CEO Mike Del Ponte tells us that it is designed according to Dieter Ram’s principles (which inspired Jony Ives and Apple). Rams has written:

My aim is to omit everything superfluous so that the essential is shown to the best possible advantage.

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- December
  15
  2012
- 1425
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News
Winter Lawn Protection
When the topic of lawn care is brought up, people are likely to think in terms of spring and summer. When the weather gets warm and the grass starts growing, people break out the digging fork, the mower, hoe and related equipments and get to business. What they fall short to understand is that not only can they fix summer harm to the lawn in the fall and during the winter, but also they can in fact recover the lawn so it will be healthier and have smaller amount of weeds in the spring.

The most critical thing a person can perform in the fall to see the lawn through the winter and train it for next spring
Feeding is the most essential thing one can do for your lawn in the fall. Many people ……..

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Costs of Custom Homes

The first thing most people want to know is: What does it costs to build a 3000 sqft custom home in the Atlanta, GA. market? The first thing you have to calculate is the square footage you want. Once you have that, the numbers below give you a good starting point.

Adjusted Square Foot Calculation:

Above ground finished conditioned space is 100% of actual sqft
Basement level finished conditioned space is 40% of actual.
Garage space is 50% of actual
Covered Patios / Porches are 70% of actual
Decks are 20% of actual sqft.
So a 3000 sqft home with 1000 sqft of finished basement, a 550 sqft garage and 250 sqft of covered or screened porches will have an adjusted SQFT of 3850.

New Construction:

Lot costs are typically 30% to 35% of your total budget for a home.
We find construction costs of $200 per sqft + or – 10%, plus a fixed cost of about $30k for site development costs. (Utilities, Driveway, Fencing, Landscaping, etc.) If you want a modern home with flat roofs and steel, you are looking $240 per sqft + or – 10%.
Architectural Fees / Engineering Fees typically are 7% of construction costs, + or – depending on the amount of detail you want designed.
Time to draw plans are 3 to 6 months. Time to permit is about 60 days. Time to construct a home depends on the size of the home, but typically we can do about $70K to $120k of work per month on a home; with a minimum of 6 months to construct a home.

Renovations:

In today’s market we are finding that in doing large renovations/additions to homes are saving 10% to 20% versus a new home.
Typically we see costs for new added space at $210 per sqft. Redoing existing space is about $135 per sqft.
Architectural Fees / Engineering Fees typically are 6% of construction costs, + or – depending on the amount of detail you want designed.
Time to draw plans are 1 to 3 months. Time to permit is about 30 days. Time to construct a home depends on the size of the home, but typically we can do about $60K to $100k of work per month on a home; with a minimum of 3 months to construct a home.