Blog | EcoCoastal Homes

- April
  15
  2012
- 2170
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- By ecocustomhomes
- In Technical News
LEED overhaul to address long-term building performance
The US Green Building Council (USGBC) is revamping the LEED rating system this year. LEED 2012 will focus on improving the rating system’s clarity (providing more precise technical criteria) and making the system more user-friendly. Some may consider these competing notions, so i’’s quite a lofty goal to meet. There will be revisions of prerequisites and point systems. LEED 2012 is going through a third public comment period, and has a proposed launch date in October. A FAQ document developed by the USGBC highlighting the

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- April
  15
  2012
- 1937
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News
How To Start a Compost Heap
Many of us recycle and reuse, but there’s something vaguely intimidating about making the move to composting. I’ll admit that I was guilty of hesitation, worrying about the smelliness of the endeavor and never entirely sure of what can and can’t be composted in the first place. But after a bit of investigation and minimal effort, I’ve realized that composting is really easy, affordable, useful, and sustainable.

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- April
  15
  2012
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- By ecocustomhomes
- In Technical News
Scoring the Referees: How Pharos Judges Green Labels
[Editor’s note: This post is authored by Bill Walsh, Executive Director of the Healthy Building Network .] When building products carry different green certifications, how do you know which product is best? Maybe there is a way to compare apples and oranges. As green certifications and labels have proliferated, so has greenwash.

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- April
  15
  2012
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- By ecocustomhomes
- In Technical News
Energy Efficient Buildings in Demand Worldwide
We cannot sustainably keep pace with the world’s continuously growing hunger for energy if we continue along our current path. Especially in the building sector, however, there exists an enormous potential for energy savings where we can reduce energy use by 80 to 90% without any reduction in comfort.

Countries around the world are realizing this. Only “Net zero energy buildings” will be built inSouth Korea and California as of 2020 and throughout Europe, all new builds will have to be constructed as “nearly zero energy buildings” by 2020. Europe’s future energy efficiency directive also calls for high annual retrofit rates of public building stock

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- April
  15
  2012
- 2168
- 0
- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News
How To Make Natural Garden Pesticides
Garden pests are one of the few things I find frustrating about gardening. Whether it’s the snails taking over your lettuce or the aphids sucking on your roses – it’s definitely annoying – but not a reason to fret and reach for harmful, toxic sprays. They might eliminate the pesky culprits, but they are harmful to you and the environment

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- April
  15
  2012
- 1892
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- By ecocustomhomes
- In Homeowner News
A new Living Building Challenge: Community-scale retrofitting
Green building might be little more than a fringe hippie idea if not for certification. The medals and honors now available through rating systems have enabled a good and altruistic effort to become a highly marketable quality. LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – is now the most well-known and well-used certification system, claiming nearly 9 billion square feet of space participating in its various certification programs globally. But it’s not alone, and it’s not necessarily the greenest of the green. The relatively new Living Building Challenge has been steadily gathering fans in the green building community for tougher-than-LEED standards such as net-zero energy and net-zero water.

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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.