[BabyPeanut]

w00t!
Now for my window replacements.
Already got the glass fireplace doors.
- The Incredible Shrinking Baby Peanut.

[tdrive]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lready got the glass fireplace doors.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tdrive', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lready got the glass fireplace doors.

[thuja]

As most of us know, much of the personal debt that has been accrued has come in the form of home equity loans and refinancing to remodel and upgrade homes. Many of these remodels are fantastically unnecessary such as expanding kitchens, doubling home sizes and putting in granite countertops.

At the same time, some remodeling jobs could be seen as a wise investment for a future with less petroleum/nat. gas. Efficiency measures such as insulating, solar water heaters, wood stoves are a few examples. As a DIY handyman, I also decided to build on a third bedroom onto our two bedroom house as a way of generating a little extra income (my wife and I rent out a room).

My question to all of you is, does it ever make sense to get into more debt to remodel? Any examples of horrendous "make-overs" that make no sense in light of PO?

[sammybolthead]

Yes, of course it CAN make sense, if that's what you choose. If you want to gold plate your toilet seat, that wouldn't make any financial or environmental sense. However if your renovations can do one or more of several things then, sure.

For example: if your renovations will save you money through increased energy savings FOR A GIVEN AMORTIZATION, then fine. This is one of the reasons Ground Source Heat Pumps are not more popular. For their investment, they have a 10 to 20 year payback. High capital cost and installation versus exceedingly low operational costs still scare people off because the stats show that the average family will move every 3 years. Why invest in a 10 year plan? Too bad about that too. GSHP's are wonderful.

Another is the environment. If what you are going to do is beneficial to the earth, it's worth it. If you are going to replace your high maintenance lawn with some sort of xeriscaping, great!! Won't cost much, but will prevent a lot. I've finally resolved a personal struggle in my industry with using rigid insulation to save energy. The embodied energy in rigid coupled with the non-environmental aspects weighed heavily on me for years. But when I compared that with the amortized energy savings of using it, there was no comparison. The energy saved by using rigid insulation correctly more than outweighed the energy used in creating it, net effect of saving the planet's energy.

I could go on for hours as this is my field, but I've got to get some work done!

[lutherquick]

thuja,

Long term, 20 years, those big mansions in suburbia will look like ghost towns... but short term as peak oil makes people change, those people will remodel and cut them into maybe 4 small apartments... Add some solar panels... remove the worthless grass on the front lawn and plant something to eat...

Ultimately, we will see Americans start to down size and ride a reverse exponential growth curve. Living quarters in America will eventually look like Eastern Europe, if not worse. I say worse because the US economy will not be as efficient as Eastern Europe because it's too decanted, too spread out and trains/bus/trolleys simply can't work.

But for the next 5-10 years, the US government will debase the dollar with the FED, millions of foreigners will dump the dollar thus sending all that money back to America, and in doing so, creating hyper inflation...

And all this money will create another delusion of wealth, and will make people see that they still can't pay their bills... and all this will drive folks to remodel for efficient and practicality... and finally, that generation will die off, and whoever inherits those old worthless Mc mansions will simply abandoned them...

Each year we will see fakeness diminish, while homes will fall apart, paint jobs will look terrible, pot holes will fill the streets, garbage and abandoned cars will be normal...

[strider3700]

I'm doing lots of renovations at the moment. All for different reasons.

The shop is going in to give me more storage and to free up the other shop. This gave me the chance to setup my water system in a manner that I can now have water no matter what happens to the grid.

The old shop is attached to the house and will soon be part of the living room. This is not the best efficiency wise as my house will end up being 900 sqft with about half of that being living room/kitchen. It does however let me add a woodstove to heat with, it also gives me a new front entrance. This is a plus because the old one is a big patio door that I'd love to be able to seal up in the winters as it's a big heat loss.

The bathroom is being redone mostly because It needs it. It really needs it. It will get a little more efficient in the taps and shower heads will be water saving, and the new hotwater tank will be more efficient and insulated. I'll also try adding solar hotwater at some point in the future and will plan for this. I'll also change the outside studding in that room to 2x6 doubling the insulation on it. To gain space we'll add stacking front load washer and dryers which use less electricity.

Other then the woodstove all of these changes won't ever pay for themselves unless energy skyrockets. Even the woodstove at current pricing for heating my house will take about 5 years to pay for it's self.

[sammybolthead]

Strider, don't change 2x4 to 2x6 for energy savings, if you have 2x4 to begin with that is. It's been proven that 2x4, with 2x2 strapping and rigid insulation on the outside is more efficient than 2x6 framing. This is due to less thermal bridging and higher insulation value per inch for the rigid. It also produces less waste by not trashing what you have and decreases the demand for new materials. All you have to do is strap the 2x2's across the 2x4's, place a sheet of rigid, next 2x2, etc. Works fast, slick and is better in the long run.

[thuja]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 't')huja,

Long term, 20 years, those big mansions in suburbia will look like ghost towns... but short term as peak oil makes people change, those people will remodel and cut them into maybe 4 small apartments... Add some solar panels... remove the worthless grass on the front lawn and plant something to eat...

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sammybolthead', 'S')trider, don't change 2x4 to 2x6 for energy savings, if you have 2x4 to begin with that is. It's been proven that 2x4, with 2x2 strapping and rigid insulation on the outside is more efficient than 2x6 framing.

[phaster]

Few people seem to realize that energy costs and use in buildings such as homes and apartments takes as much money if not more than in autos. I guess this is because natural gas and electricity meters tend to be hidden in dusty corners, with read-outs that are often indecipherable, so most people in the USA simply don't know when they are using a little or a lot of power.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts ... dence.html

Where I live in California, we are also facing a water shortage. So basically here are some of things I've done on one of my rental properties that might give others some ideas of whats possible to save energy, water and $$$ over the long run...



The above photo is an old apartment building in a "walkable" neighborhood that is in a pre-suburbia and pre-strip mall part of town. Basically my goal was to combine the "charm and allure" of 1920's restored Spanish architecture with a totally renovated and "pragmatic" open floor plan studio apartment that use to be a tiny and poorly laid out one bedroom unit.

Over a few year remodeling period the building was torn down to the studs and rebuilt "literally" from the ground up to be the most energy efficient and thus environmentally friendly apartment building in the area. One example of the the building being environmentally friendly is the choice of lighting, for example to save energy and illuminate the second floor hallway solar tubes were installed with the optional "Light Kit" which makes it possible to have an energy saving compact fluorescent hallway light at night and let in natural sunlight during the day, all in one fixture... I've calculated that with all the up grades, the building now uses I'd estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% less energy over all, because it is now insulated, has dual pane windows, energy star appliances, and lighted throughout with compact fluorescent bulbs as compaired to when it was first acquired.











Unencumbered by the the thought process and somewhat immune to conventional social norms (since I religious ignore advertisements and useless social buzz) I opted to use the KISS design philosophy. Basically this means design selections were based on the idea things should be pragmatic, economical and durable. If ya look at the pictures you'll notice there are NO granite countertops and/or stainless steel kitchen appliances which I think of as faddish and didn't pass my cost/benefit analysis.

I'll bet in years to come these items (granite countertops and/or stainless steel kitchen appliances) will be associated and dated with subprime era kitchens, just like some variant of green color paint was used in many 60's and early 70's kitchens, and a 1950's era kitchen might be associated with red formica counter tops and steel cabinets.

Besides the faddish aspect, I consider granite countertops and stainless steel kitchen appliances akin to putting makeup on pig. Got that idea long ago and it was reinforced from watching various TV news segments about the number of foreclosed properties, ya know ones where a TV reporter was going thru a few properties with a real estate agent and in most places featured, they all had granite countertops and stainless steel kitchen appliances.

The money I could have spent on granite countertops and "upmarket" stainless steel appliances, I used instead to have custom build solid 3/4" plywood cabinets thru out in place of MDF in some parts, and I opted for old school "oil based paints" which from experience lasts much longer than water based finishes.

Since drought(s) will become more sever in the western part of the United States and seriously impact the San Diego area. When ya consider that landscaping accounts for about 50 percent if not more of residential water usage, and that in San Diego we have had below average rain fall for the last two years, I'm betting that water officials might be forced to restrict watering of lawns in the very near future!!!! So to address big problems of drought, environmental quality issues and help boost curb appeal, in place of unimaginative water wasteful turf landscaping, low-water use or xeriscaping principles along with edible landscaping ideas (by including citrus trees and strawberries plants) were used in the early California Mission inspired landscape design.







I've included some of the hard scape photos, to illustrate ideas I used to eliminate traditional lawn landscaping and I'm still going to add a few more landscaping elements (like planting some borage which is a herb that helps strawberries to thrive, and is a bee attractor) in the future.

FYI with the lawn taken out, and using various hardscaping that prevents run off, is used as lower on going maintenance costs, etc., I've estimated that the property uses 80% less water over all for landscaping when compared to a verdant, green lawn.

BTW tennant water use is way down because all the toilets are ultra low flush, and I installed the most water efficent front loading washer I could buy, so I'd estimate interior water use is down by over 70% when compared to using the 1920's toilet(s) and shower head(s), and the washing machine uses less than half the water of a top loader...

Now that I have the basic solid infrastructure done on this property, the only major thing for me to do on this property is add solar panels on the roof for net metering program. But right now as it stands, California laws are kinda wacked for net metering in a rental property, I'm more than willing and able to pay for solar cells, but there is more BS laws and regulations than I'm currently willing to deal with for net metering on a rental property.

I'm also encountering the same kind of BS building codes and laws in a historical district, which is the place I want to build a garage and put solar cells on the garage roof for my own home.

[criticalmass]

A lean-to greenhouse on the south side of a home can be a potentially life-saving investment. Start your greens early, enjoy fruit all year, and heat your home with the sun in the winter time.

It may not be pretty, but that's becoming relative now too!