Salvage & Surprises
Originally intended as a gut job with a budget of $800,000, the project grew substantially as the house was taken down to its studs. Once the house was stripped to its underpinnings, the contractors then realized the true scope of the remodel.
“This house was poorly built and had zero insulation, and no space to add any,” co-owner Chris Landis says. “It was brick on block with furring strips.”
The design/build remodeler chose Icynene spray foam to insulate the interior, basically creating “a giant cooler,” says Andrew Kerr, Landis’ project manager for the remodel. “We used a ton of that stuff.” Maryland’s residential building code calls for R-19 in the walls and R-49 in the roof, Kerr says.
To accomplish that, he and his team insulated interior walls using closed cell spray foam. For each wall, the homeowners lost about 3.5 inches of interior space per wall, but were more than happy to trade those few inches for the resulting huge boost in living comfort. Because they had more space to work with under the roof, Kerr was able to use open-cell spray foam up there to reach the mandated R-value.
Integral to the couple’s energy retrofit was the geothermal system. “I’m from Minnesota, and energy matters out there,” Magraw says. The pair also knew a couple of people who had installed geothermal systems and were happy with them.
Three wells, 6 inches each in diameter, were drilled in the front yard, ranging in depth from 360 feet to 420 feet. The vertical closed-loop system supplies the home’s cooling and heating needs. Hooked up to the system are three fans and a water pump.
Designed so that the homeowners can block off various sections of the house if they are not in residence, the geothermal system has three zones: The upstairs is one zone; the caretaker’s suite, also on the second floor, is a separate zone; and the first floor and basement level comprise the third zone.
The geothermal system’s total installed cost was about $80,000, roughly twice the cost of a traditional zoned air conditioning system, Kerr says. Magraw and Low chose the system because it is the greenest option available for heating and cooling, and knew they would be in the house long enough to see a return on investment.
To reduce the homeowners’ dependence on electrical power, Landis Construction installed 80 4-foot-by-2-foot solar panels on the roof of the northwest-facing home. Originally the plans called for 24 panels, but one of the bedrooms required a major structural overhaul to bring it up to code, and the homeowners decided to have Landis build a second-floor caretaker’s suite over the garage. This gave the contractors the opportunity to re-roof the garage, allowing them a lot more space to place panels and to position them in the right direction.
Inverters, which transform the direct current generated by the panels into alternating current, are in the garage. The power goes directly to the grid and is reflected as a credit on the homeowners’ electrical bill. The house was completely rewired as well. The two 200-amp panels are also in the garage, along with a backup generator.
The geothermal system and the solar panels—while they don’t take the house off the grid—will substantially cut its energy consumption. “It has enough solar to run half their house for the year. With the geothermal system and solar, they will probably spend $200 a month total on their energy bills,” Chris Landis figures.