EcoUrban Collection Cabinetry~

We LOVE the new cabinetry collection by EcoUrban, out of Chicago, and are using their product in many of our homes.  What makes them special?

There are a bunch of reasons we like the company and think that it’s differentiated. The shortlist is that they 1) have put a ton of R&D into the product to make it very highly green – answering a lot of the health issues related to off-gassing in building products, 2) are well-branded and have a beautiful, aesthetic, European-looking product at a price point that is significantly lower than other high-end products, and just marginally above the ubiquitous high-volume, low-quality cabinetry producers seen throughout the building industry; 3) have a product line that is interchangeable (think the Swatch Smart Car) so that as clients grow in their new homes, they can ‘upgrade’ their cabinetry for something on the $5-$10K order, rather than the ridiculous $20K-$30K upgrades for in other good cabinetry; and 4) are an ‘on demand’ producer that builds right here in the U.S., and that can offer stability of supply and longevity beyond many of the other mom and pop green/eco cabinetry manufacturers that are used regionally by folks trying to build green homes.  Just as importantly, this means they are creating green jobs right here in the USA!

Check them out at:

http://www.ecourbancollection.com/cabinets_aire_chroma.html

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Blu featured in Home Power magazine

Home Power recently featured Blu Homes in an overview of the growing green prefab industry.  Check out the article here: http://www.homepower.com/article/?file=HP129_pg38_Anderson

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steel vs. wood framing - more food for thought

I recently read a good steel vs. wood column posted by Michelle Kauffman on January 14th (http://blog.michellekaufmann.com/?p=1793), and thought I’d put forward a bit of the research we did when thinking about the wood vs. steel question.  One of the most comprehensive articles I have read on the subject can be found in a study called “Life-Cycle Energy Use in Office Buildings” by Cole and Kernan, 1996.  It is a study funded by Natural Resources Canada that examines:

1. 1) Energy to initially produce the building;
2. 2) The recurring embodied energy required to refurbish and maintain the building over its effective life;
3. 3) Energy to operate the building ~ i.e. the energy required to condition (heat, cool and ventilate) and light the interior spaces and to power equipment and other services; and
4. 4) Energy to demolish and dispose of the building at the end of its effective life.

The study — although done using commercial buildings rather than residential homes for its examination — makes some interesting points.  In particular, it points out that not only do we need to think about embodied energy in the steel & wood products, and operating energy, but the recurring embodied energy required to maintain the building over its effective life.  Taking this into account potentially makes for an improved argument for steel framing.

One of the last quotes from the article reads:

“Depending on the effective life of a building, the initial embodied energy may be greater or less than the recurring energy associated with refurbishment and repair.  Over a typical 50 year building life, the initial embodied energy of the structure represents a relatively small portion of life-cycle embodied energy (i.e. less than 5%) and, as a consequence, the distinction between wood, steel and concrete systems is also less marked. Reducing embodied energy involves much more comprehensive design approaches than materials’ substitution.  Since the recurring embodied energy figures associated with materials’ replacement and repair are significant, attention must be focused on materials’ longevity and the ability to replace elements within a total building assembly.”

Perhaps at the scale of a residential home this makes less of a difference.  But, if we are building for durability over time and intend our homes to last hundreds of years, perhaps steel does offer at least some benefits not taken into account by initial embodied energy.

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the Alternative Consumer features Blu Homes

The Alternative Consumer, http://www.alternativeconsumer.com/, a blog dedicated to helping busy consumers find eco- friendly life choices, featured Blu Homes this past Monday.  The AC was recently named as one of the top 20 green blogs (see the list! http://www.thebudgetecoist.com/archive/top-20-green-blogs) for finding “great ways to spend your dollar while lowering your footprint.”  We are psyched to be connected with them, and to continue helping clients design their own beautiful, green, healthy homes~

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Blu VP Exhibits Innovative Construction System in Austin

This past weekend, Blu Homes VP Dennis Michaud coordinated and led the production of the third “Digitally Fabricated House.”  Built entirely of friction-joined plywood parts, cut using a computer-driven robotic tool called a Shopbot CNC, and assembled without the use of nails, screws, mechanical fasteners, or glue – each component of this structure was 3D modeled in Cambridge, MA; fabricated using a Shopbot in Exmore, VA; and assembled for exhibit at the Maker Faire in Austin, TX.  The Maker Faire, a nationally touring and renowned exhibit of innovative ways of “making things,” is funded by the popular Make Magazine – which awarded Dennis’s team the blue ribbon Editor’s Choice award for their house.  This project was in a way a continuation of his research that was also recently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.  In Austin, the Digitally Fabricated House drew tens of thousands of visitors to view and touch how it was designed, fabricated, and assembled – including live demonstrations – and attracted the attention of Austin’s mainstream and grassroots media.  After two live, primetime television interviews, lots of Q&A with developers, re-builders, and multiple philanthropic and non-profit organizations – as well as some great conversations with local Austin residences – the team disassembled and neatly packed up all of the parts in about an hour. 

At Blu, we find this project particularly great because it is an example of efficiency in material usage and on-site time that is such a big part of our company ethic.  As we continue to move forward in bringing new innovations to affordable, well-designed homes, we also love any opportunity to be involved in “extra-curricular” projects that push ourselves and the homebuilding industry in general.  

Dennis explaining the innovative construction system in an informal Q&A session.

The openning of the Maker Faire exhibition.

The Digitally Fabricated House for New Orleans exhibited at the MoMA (NYC).

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realty and research in Utah

We asked Andrew Stone, a realtor and EcoBroker at Windermere Utah we’ve been working with, to write something for us about a research event we ran with him recently in his area:

Working as a Realtor and EcoBroker Certified agent in Utah I had the opportunity to work with Blu Homes Co Founder, Maura McCarthy as she was scouring the country for a place to locate one of the first Blu Homes products. In the process of determining if Utah was the right place to Launch Blu Homes, we put together focus groups to gauge the interest of Utahan’s in the products that Blu Homes will offer.

Because of the diverse population in Utah we were able to build a group of people from many organizations and professions. Attendees in our meetings included Preston Koerner, owner of the Green Design Blog, Jetson Green, a member of the Utah Clean Energy Task Force, members of Net Impact, the USGBC and local architects, builders, realtors, residents and homeowners. Through the focus groups we were able to pinpoint areas in the home designs that needed to be changed to fit Utah’s unique environment and tastes and because Blu Homes have designed such unique, affordable and ecological homes to begin with, they were immediately accepted by the groups with only minimal cosmetic and design alterations to interior layouts and exterior finishes. The participants were very excited by the ease at which these homes could also be customized. Being able to add custom “pods” to the design gave a completely different feel to the home and would allow additional customization for each potential owner.

We found that Blu Homes will be offering a product that will generate a strong interest in Utah and feel that Utah is a key location for the build of one of the first homes and the launch of the product in the West. Blu Homes was met with great enthusiasm and support. We are now working on securing a yet to be named location for the first home and hope to announce it soon!

As Andrew said, we are looking forward to going forward with our first products and announcing our progress in the next few months!

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navigating the morass of land and construction loan financing

We have recently begun the process of putting together recommended lenders and mortgage brokers for Blu Homes. Mortgage financing right now is a complicated process, and even more complex for buyers who want to build their own customized home. Lenders have lost so much money in the housing crisis that risk adversity is everywhere, and it is hard for even the most ‘upstanding’ of applicants to get through the process with just one lender.

My top few suggestions are 1) if you are building a house and do not yet own land, try starting with a land/lot loan rather than a construction loan. Lot loans are much quicker (~3 weeks to process vs. 5-6+ for construction loans) and allow you to break up the complicated process of building a home into smaller “bite” sizes, as well as to move quickly when you find that “right” piece of land; 2) do not get frustrated when you find you need to speak with more than one lender! I know of many folks that have had to go through several lenders to find the right fit; 3) because rates and policies are changing every day, be certain to talk to multiple banks or brokers, and compare them on their on down payments required, rates, and other details (like ‘balloon payments’, etc.)

Now to the details: there are a lot of tricky elements in lot loans and construction loans - although you may have already seen much of this, we thought we would share our thoughts and experience with these:

• • Lot/Land Loans: here we are referring to loans that are separate from construction loans and just used for the initial land purchase:
    • Upside: relatively quick turnaround time — you can get initial approval to buy land at a particular price in a day or two based on a review of your personal finances (however, sometimes lenders are idiosyncratic about this and do have questions on your desire to build a house or any other aspect of your background, job situation, etc.) This allows you to move quickly to make a bid on a piece of land that may have other interested bidders. Then, your lender does a land appraisal to make sure the amount you’ve requested to purchase the land is on par with their idea of the land value. It can be better to work with a mid-sized local lender who has lots of appraisers nearby, and that may not have suffered as many losses due to land speculation during the boom over the last couple years. If the appraised value is close, then you can move forward with a land. If not, you may need to change your bid or move to another lender.
    • Downside: very high down payments – because of speculation in land for home building and resulting defaults with the slow in home demand, lenders have gone from a down payment requirement before the crisis of as low as 10% down, to a new base level requirement of 25% or higher (I have not seen anyone lower than 25% - please let me know if you do). I have spoken with several firms that are now requiring 35% to 40% down on lot loans -particularly those that have been hurt badly in the mortgage crisis, like the big players – Citigroup, etc.
      • Another downside is that many firms just don’t do lot loans, because there has been historically more speculative risk associated with these
      • A third downside is that lot loans can be trickier to get for undeveloped land. Because the costs of laying utilities, etc., are less certain without a good deal of diligence, the true value of the lot is harder to assess. We have found that some lenders don’t like doing these kind of land-without-utilities loans.

• • Construction loans: construction loans are for the land/lot plus the house itself. If you already have land, a construction loan will buy out your existing land loan. If you did a lot loan right before the construction loan, you can conveniently “roll” the equity from your lot loan into the construction loan (see below)
    • Upside: much “cheaper” than a lot loan in the sense that you can put a much lower down payment on a construction loan, similar to a typical mortgage, of anywhere from 5% to 15%.
      • Another upside is that a construction loan can work in conjunction with a lot loan—where the lot loan equity will “roll into” the equity for the construction loan. This often works out nicely – so that for example a 25% down payment on a $100,000 piece of land – $25,000 – will work as the equity in a construction loan (land plus house) of $250,000, where one only needs about 10% down.
    • Downside: a lot of work. It takes a long time to work out a construction loan – sometimes 5-6 weeks – as one needs to get all kinds of detailed subcontractor costs spec’d out.
      • In addition, banks require that the GC that is filling out your construction loan has multiple references, history in building similar homes, etc. So you need to work with a GC that will get through the construction loan himself/herself without any hiccups.
      • Note that the actual form for a construction loan is extremely detailed – requiring the GC to detail sometimes hundreds of small costs in the project.

Below is a short overview of how a lot loan + construction loan package, staged so you do your lot loan first, should work and eventually roll into a typical mortgage.

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Balancing costs and savings for energy efficiency - NPR

I heard this story on public radio on my commute this morning… it’s a story about how hard it is for us all to quantify our home energy savings and understand the balance between the up-front investment for energy efficiency and the average monthly costs of the home (in terms of energy use, mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc.). The quick example on NPR was compact florescent lights (CFLs,) which cost a little more up front, but DO save money in the medium- and long-term. Beyond that, this challenge of knowing whether certain things like spray foam insulation, low-E argon filled windows, efficient HVAC, etc., are cost effective is something faced by most owners, and something that is becoming more and more important with energy prices rising.

We are providing data on energy costs for each of our home designs that is tailored by home design, region where you live and local utility rates, and position of the house relative to the sun. Our feeling is that this should be free data that is included when anyone buys a home – a sort of “nutritional label” for the house.

We are focused on these numbers to ensure that the energy savings from our homes are quantifiable and prove to you that it makes sense financially to invest in efficiency gains (not to mention all the other benefits that those gains will bring besides financial!)

We will be posting some of our homes’ energy use and carbon emissions vs. “average” homes numbers soon, on our website. It’s really exciting stuff, more to come soon~

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Blu VP of Product Development designs & builds high tech home for MoMA in New York City

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City is doing a very cool exhibit called ” Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling” starting this month that surveys the past and present of prefabricated home building (see http://momahomedelivery.org/). Blu’s VP of Product Development, Dennis Michaud, designed and built one of the homes in the exhibit as part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Planning team. We will be at the opening of the exhibit this week and encourage you all to stop by and view the innovative home Dennis put together this summer~

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welcome to blu|blog!

Hi world! We at bluHomes are proud to announce the launch of our blog, blu|blog!

It will be a forum for us to share information related to:
• research on fun, innovative, and environmentally-conscious building materials and methods through the design & development of our line of homes
• news around green housing and green living
• updates on our company, offerings, and projects

As design-oriented persons who like cool features and care about the planet, but are also on a budget, we hope you will enjoy reading and commenting on our content. We hope also that you will share with us your comments and questions through the blog.

Our full website will be launching in the next several weeks and we will be sure to
notify you about that event. Again, thank you for your interest!
The BluHomes team:
Maura
Bill
Dennis

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