Gean and I have been in the Real Estate business since 2004.  Thru good times and bad.  Having come from a background of engineering and fortune five hundred companies I was shocked at how many so called “Real Estate” professionals really don’t seem to take the business seriously.  The recession has weeded a lot of them out, but I see people everyday putting the sale of their homes or a good portion of the buying decision for a new home, in the hands less than competent sales people.

Recently I was looking at a commercial building for potential office spaces.  Beautifully restored, the circa 1900 building fit right in with our policies regarding reuse and conservation of resources.  The agent for the seller had emphasized in the description of the property, the fact that it had a modern, geothermal heating and cooling system.  This too fit right in with energy conservations, low operating cost, good use of the property. 

But the building was on a zero lot line parcel, so I wondered where the heat source for the geothermal system was located.  Since there was no room for a  buried loop, no large body of water, about the only possibility was a well, somehow drilled under the floor of the building.  I approached the agent  – and asked where the water source and discharge for the system were located.

The response – “There’s no water in the system, its geothermal!”

Great I thought – what new and exciting medium does this 1990 installation use? 

“No idea!” replied the agent – call the man who installed it.

ME CALL the builder …. you are the agent – I thought to myself – you’re getting paid good money to rep the owner and you have no idea what or how the “super efficient, geothermal HVAC” system in a $500,000 property works??

Long story short, I bypassed this so called “AGENT” and did call the HVAC guy only to find out he PUNCHED a shallow well under the building and is essentially using surface water in the system.  Works after a fashion – better than an Air to AIR system as long as the water holds out.  Any flow test? – “NO” – temperature studies? “NO”  – permit for the well? “NO” Discharge permits? “NO” – but it’s efficient  he emphasized over and over!!

RIGHT!

I went back in the building to examine what I noticed might be auxiliary  resistance electric heating units scattered around the building – confirmed … that’s what they are!! 

Efficient … maybe as long as the outside temperature is above 60 degrees and below 80 … but outside that range I’ll bet the building is uncomfortable and expensive.

The agent didn’t have clue – pity the buyer who swallows the line about how efficient the building can be operated ….!

My window fan is efficient between 60 and 80F !!

BUYER BEWARE! 

DLW

My neighbor at the top of the mountain decided to buy a modular log home from a firm not too far south of us. Nothing would satisfy this owner – but a real log cabin – and a modular really got her attention because of the speed of construction.

Over the last few weeks – the installer (I will not call them builders – for reasons which become obvious) scratched back the top soil, threw some concrete in the ditch (no steel) and built a concrete block foundation wall. When he vented the crawl space, I knew we were not dealing with a GREEN builder.

Last Friday, they delivered the modular and set it on the foundation.

Oppsy …. the building was 3 feet longer than the foundation!! I didn’t have my camera with me, but I will get a few pictures this week.

As promised:

Time to get out the old “foundation stretchers” !!

This is a classic modular screw up … when you get in a hurry … its easy to make mistakes … big mistakes!   It can be fixed, I suppose … but in the end it’s really poor workmanship – all round!

Unfortunately – “quality control”  in home building just hasn’t caught on for some who call themselves builders!   In general I like modular home building better than site built – but even it … has its limitations.  Someone once said, – “You can’t fix careless!”  Goes for modular’s too!

As for the “real log” issue – there is a reason we stopped building with logs 100 years ago.   The good ole “Thermal Mass” argument sounds good for a weekend cabin – until you realize … by the time you warm-up all that thermal mass – its time to go home!

Want a log cabin – fine!   Build it with SIPS and put real log siding on it.   Then you can still spend (your vacation time) refinishing the logs every year.

But … at least it wouldn’t take a cord of wood to warm it up this Winter!

Think Green!

DLW

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Think Green,