beausoleil architects

From outer space to a neighborhood near you

I recently accompanied a sustainable energy class from my daughter’s high school on a visit to the headquarters of Bloom Energy.  The son of the founder and CEO, Dr. K.R. Sridhar, is one of my daughter’s classmates and Dr. Sridhar was kind enough to open up his manufacturing facility to us and have his chief engineer give the class a tour.

Bloom Energy makes high performance, high capacity fuel cells – similar to the systems that were invented in the sixties to provide power for spacecraft. Bloom Energy’s version was actually developed by NASA to help power proposed visits to Mars, specifically to be part of a system to convert the Mars atmosphere and solar energy to oxygen and hydrogen fuel. Along the way Dr. Sridhar realized that the technology could be used effectively on Earth to create electricity from fuel – ideally hydrogen but also methane (natural gas), alcohol and bio-fuels.  The fuel isn’t combusted, in the ordinary sense of burning at high temperature (not a practical idea in outer space), but is chemically converted using catalysts and ionic filters.  Very high tech devises, fuel cells use some of the same manufacturing techniques used to make computer chips and employ metals and ceramics that are on the cutting edge of material science.

 Ten years of development and a good deal of venture capital later, Bloom is manufacturing ‘Bloom Boxes’, modularized units, roughly the size of a large freezer, which ganged together in groups of six generate 200 kilowatts of power, enough for about 100 homes. Although internal temperatures within the units are well in excess of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, there is very little waste heat. The exhaust is mostly carbon dioxide and water. When losses from transmission are taken into account, their efficiency is higher than even modern natural gas fired power plants.

The installations are remotely monitored by Bloom on a 24/7 basis. Their modular nature makes it relatively easy to switch out a poorly functioning unit without shutting down the entire array.  Bloom gained quick acceptance from customers who need very reliable power (think server farms and wholesale refrigeration facilities).  The operations manager who showed us the monitoring control room was very proud that the eye of Hurricane Sandy passed directly over one of their big installations on the East coast – and the power output never even blinked.

Fuel cells aren’t exactly ‘green’ in that they typically use fossil fuels as their energy source. Dr. Sridhar ultimate vision, however, is to develop bio-fuel generators, fed by agricultural waste or low environmental impact crops (such as switchgrass) that when linked to his Bloom boxes will give both reliable and environmentally sustainable power. He is especially intent on doing this in third world settings, where such systems, distributing power locally instead of through centralized grids, will have the best efficiency while giving the owners control over their power sources. He would like to vault the third world right over the industrial era into post-industrial civilization, bypassing coal, oil, and, hopefully, global warming.

Maybe it's time to start thinking inside the Box.

While we’re on the subject, there is another local company making fuel cells, perhaps more directly pertinent to architecture. ClearEdge Power makes smaller capacity residential units with as little as 5 kilowatt generating capacity (enough for a single large house).  Running on natural gas, their ClearEdge 5 unit is quite efficient, acts as a de-facto back-up generator, and uses its waste energy to heat domestic water.  Thus electricity, hot water, and emergency power in one package the size of a refrigerator. They are expensive, but well within the budget of a typical McMansion. With current subsidies, and with cheap natural gas for at least the near future, they are actually cheaper than public utility power.  I can’t wait for them to come out with a unit half that size – maybe even one that converts yard waste into biofuels -- then we’re talking about a serious game changer.

4 year Solar Anniversary!

What shall we do to celebrate our solar PV system's 4th birthday? While cake is always appropriate (usually chocolate in our family), we thought a blog to give you more details of it's performance would be even better.  We'd like to see solar arrays multiplying on everyone's roof after all!

According to Solar City, the company that installed our system and provides a very informative computerized monitoring, after four years, we have officially offset 21,593 pounds of CO2, the equivalent of planting 10.3 mature trees.  That's quite a forest on our little lot in San Francisco!

Here are some intersting graphs from Solar City:

The first shows a typical year, month by month starting in January. In all four years, May has been our best month, generating between 472 and 503 kWh. July and August take a little dip as we do live on the foggy side of town, but as you can see, there is still plenty of electricity being generated during those months as well.

The next graph, shows a beautiful curve of the path of the sun, this particular day being June 30, 2010, which has so far been our record day with 20.41 kWh generated.

Did we mention that we only paid $29 upfront for our system on a lease basis and that we've saved money from Day 1? Well, we did, but it's been a while.  You can see the details of our solar lease on our early blog post from 2008. Boles Solar Lease info

Our monthy cost for the lease is now a whopping $32 (and will rise to $36 over the 15 year term), and our net savings are about $60 per month, not counting the rise in PG&E rates over the past four years. GO SOLAR! Prices of panels have come down considerably in the past few years and there are great deals out there to save you money and save the planet some unnecesary CO2.

Free Energy Upgrades - our date is set, what about yours?

It has taken a few months to iron out the details and schedule the contractor, but in a few weeks Building Efficiency will be starting the energy upgrades to our 1922 home in San Francisco as part of the Energy Upgrade California Program.  We will be getting insulation added to the exterior walls, air sealing at all the doors, windows and fireplace, and a brand new high efficiency gas heater, all for free!

It's not too late to apply to the program as the $4000 from the state program will be available until the end of the year, but for San Francisco residents to qualify for all the funding (an additional $2000-$5000), the construction work needs to be complete by June 30, 2012.  For more information on the program, including a list of qualified contractors, take a look at the wonderful website the San Francisco Department of the Environment has set up.  You can even take a quick survey  online to see if your home is a good candidate before officially embarking on the process.

The Wind of History

The restored Murphy's Winmill, Golden Gate Park

If you haven’t been out to Golden Gate park recently, there is a grand new attraction. The 106 year old Murphy’s windmill at the Southwest corner of the park has been restored to operation. The sweep of the sails, the largest in the world of traditional Dutch design, takes one breath away. It’s a wonderful work of mobile art, craft and technology; history and the future wrapped in a slate and copper skin. Modern wind turbines may be more efficient, but this clipper ship of the windmill world is far more beautiful.

I was fortunate to get a personal tour last October from Lucas Verbij, of Verbij Windmill Design and Construction BV, the Dutch consultant who restored the cap, sails and mechanical workings of the windmill while the base (the ‘smock’) of the structure was being re-built by local contractors. He and his rigger – who climbs onto the wood ‘stock’ frames to set the cloth sails – were here to test the operation before handing the project off to the city.

The 64 ton cap (the top of the tower which holds the axis of the sails and which spins to face the wind) was reinstalled last September, after an almost ten year restoration process in Lucas’ workshop in Holland. The cap supports the sails, holds the main shaft and brake and gearing mechanisms. One of its more intricate parts is the fantail, a small windmill at the back, whose purpose is to drive the cap around so that the main windmill faces the wind. Any shift of the wind direction, left or right, and the small fantail mill turns and rotates the cap in the right direction. It’s an intricate dance. The main sails – the propeller blades – rotate at around 15 revolutions per minute under a strong wind. The blades are a work of art in themselves - heavy wood beams tapering to a narrow end, pierced with angled wood framing to creating a delicate winglike structure.

I was surprised to hear that, so far at least, there is nothing for the windmill to do. The original purpose, when it was built in 1905, was pumping irrigation water for the park. Murphy’s windmill and its slightly older cousin at the northwest end of the park could together pump 1,500,000 gallons of water per day from the freshwater aquifer that underlies the west end of the park. Lucas described the original pump and gearing as having a perfect design, with a kind of pre-Detroit syncromesh transmission. All of that was lost in the decades following its installation, as electrical pumps replaced the fickle wind and the structure was left to rust and decay. So at the moment, the system is running with the brakes on. Lucas said there was enough potential power to move 10 cubit meters of water a minute, 75 kilowatts of electrical generating capacity. That's about enough power to electrify about thirty homes.  Hopefully this will be put to use. Why not power the park’s waterfalls or lighting with this sustainable resource? 

Inside the Cap

Phil Ginsberg, the Rec and Park General Manager, says there is a plan afoot to have the windmill pump a small amount of water to irrigate a produce garden which will be used in connection with a food concessionaire in Millwright's Cottage. We can only hope this plan is brought to fruition and is able to keep the sails spinning.

See http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist/wmill.html for more history of the windmill
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It's hard work to create a Passive House

One of the projects currently on Beausoleil’s drafting boards (i.e., on our computer screens) is a modest remodel of and addition to a typical 1950’s ranch house in San Carlos.  Besides creation of a master suite, a guest suite and a better relationship to the back yard, the owners desired to go well beyond normal practice in remodeling the building envelope. They wanted to approach, and possibly meet, the rigorous requirements of the Passive House Institute and reduce the building’s energy use by as much as 90%.

‘Passive House’ (Passiv Haus in German) is an idea that was formalized in recent years in Germany, though the basic concepts have been around at least since the 1973 energy crisis started people thinking about curbing energy use in buildings.  ‘Passive House’ is related to the broader concept of passive design in architecture, where the environmental comfort within buildings relies on local environmental forces, rather than utilizing complicated mechanical and electrical systems. In classic passive design, a building is designed to allow windows to admit solar heat in the winter, and to be shaded in the summer; occupants open windows for ventilation and cooling; heat is regulated through good insulation and air sealing; daily temperature cycling is smoothed by providing thermal mass within the building envelope. Space heating is minimized and people are expected to live with a bit of minor discomfort – putting on a sweater when the temperature swings a bit low, wearing shorts when its hot, getting up off the couch to adjust shades and windows – instead of cranking the thermostat.

The Passive House Institute standards require very heavy duty insulation (typically double to triple the insulation value most homes have), triple glazing on the windows, very tight air sealing, and (not so passive) ventilation using a heat recovery exchanger to retain the heat in air being exhausted. Very good detailing and supervision of construction is necessary to make these houses meet the standards, as it is very easy for air and heat to escape through a poorly conceived, or a poorly made, building shell. With excellent insulation and air control, most of the heat for the house can come from the building occupants and their electrical appliances. The need for air conditioning is eliminated.  With good natural lighting and photovoltaic panels on the roof generating power, very little energy input from outside is required.

Getting back to the project on our drafting board, the owners hired Allen Gilliland of OneSkyHomes, a Passive House Institute certified consultant and builder, to analyze the design of the house using the Passive House Planning Package and make recommendations. The PHPP is a software tool that comprehensively models the energy use of a building, including its skin, insulation, windows and doors, air sealing, ventilation, and mechanical systems.  Allen thought he had an easy task ahead of him, but it turns out that modifying an existing ranch house is a tougher challenge than designing a new house. 
The ranch house in question has typical 2x4 stud walls, and their thickness didn’t provide enough space even if high performance sprayed foam insulation was used.  Luckily, the owner wanted to remove the existing stucco wall finish and replace it, so amending the wall thickness was conceivable. 
Likewise the roof is framed with 2x4 rafters, and even though the attic provides a large space for insulation, the edges where the roof comes down to meet the walls are inconveniently slender. And, as it happened, the house’s roof had been replaced recently so the owners were naturally disinclined to rip the roofing off to add more insulation on top.

The other inconvenience is that the existing house is oriented to face east and west, just the opposite of ideal north-south orientation.  East and west glazing is hard to shade for summer cooling, and doesn’t face the warming sun of winter, so the project had a strike against it from the start. 

Triple glazing in our mild climate seemed silly to me (and to the window suppliers who laughed at the owner when he asked for triple glazed windows to be priced), but Allen explained that it wasn’t just energy control, it was comfort.  Triple glazing ensures that the interior surface of the glass stays within a comfortable temperature range – one doesn’t feel cold radiating out and therefore feels more comfortable.

Allen’s creative powers were challenged but he came up with several good alternative packages for balancing insulation value, cost, and constructablity.  We are looking at combinations of spray foam and densely packed cellulose insulation within framing spaces, extra layers of polystyrene foam on the outside of the shell, and taped plywood sheathing for air control. We are now awaiting pricing of these options before completing our construction drawings.  The owner is prepared for a certain amount of sticker shock (these improvements may not pay for themselves in a strictly economic sense for a long time), so we may end up with a very good but not certifiable Passive House design.

 

Up on the Roof

Much of the curb appeal of a house is up at the roof level. While we live within the space of a house, and enjoy its environmental comfort, its furnishings and its security, how we feel about the appearance of our houses depends a lot on whether the roof design appeals to us.  Terra Cotta tile, wood shingles, copper gutters; the modern appearance of a horizontal cantilever, the ancient look of a steep slate roof with gabled dormers; these elements probably do more to establish the character of our houses than anything else. It’s clear from our own experience that a stucco box with antique clay tile roof has a whole different feel than the same house with cheap composition shingles.

Roofs are where the action is.  And for the last thousand years, they have also been where the latest high tech gadgets are on display.  In 1100, the average house had a fireplace – meaning a stone or brick lined area in the middle of the floor – under a smoke hole in the roof.  Lots of smoke everywhere, and lots of drafts taking away the heat.  Then some bright mason thought of creating a shaft to guide the smoke up to the roof. Supporting that shaft required backing up the fireplace with a wall, which to their delight, was found to absorb and re-radiate the heat of the fire. 

 

 

 

 

 There followed a few hundred years of experimentation, and the result was the ‘modern’ fireplace with its three sided firebox, smoke chamber above, and tall chimney.  Smoke and drafts were controlled, heating improved. Soon every lord and knight had a fireplace or two, the fancier the chimney the better.

 

Chimney design became so important that some French Chateaus seem like exercises in chimney design, with the building thrown in as an extra.

 

 

In the 1700’s, founding father Ben Franklin got us thinking about electricity. He invented the lightning rod and thus started another fad. As before, this functional element was soon refined by the wealthy into a decorative symbol of their importance.  Any house without half a dozen many fingered rods was not only unsafe but uncool.  Weathervanes also became au courant, and were often combined with lightning rods. You could tell when the storm was coming and know that you were protected. 

 

 

By the1950’s, chimneys began to lose their appeal as central heating became common.  What was the new status symbol?  The TV antennae, soon replicated on every roof in America. 

A few decades later, and it's satellite dishes.  Meanwhile, the chimney is starting to disappear as designers specify high-performance direct vent fireplaces or choose to eliminate the anachronism entirely. Traditional fireplaces are, quite literally, like burning money from an energy efficiency point of view.

 

So what’s next?  As energy costs rise, and as environmental awareness grows, I think we will see a lot more solar panels and wind turbines on roofs; green roofs too.  We’ve already seen how celebrities, like Jay Leno, and high tech companies, like Adobe, use wind turbines as a status symbol.

So, power up, be the first on your block to spin, absorb, or grow your roof into celebrity status.  And who knows, you might just save the planet.

 

 

 

 

Now, chill out with the lyrics from Up on the Roof by Gerry Goffin and Carol King. You probably know the tune:

 

When this old world starts getting me down

And people are just too much for me to face

I climb way up to the top of the stairs

And all my cares just drift right in to space

 

On the roof it's peaceful as can be

And there the world below can't bother me

 

Let me tell you now

When I come home feelin' tired and beat

I go up where the air is fresh and sweet

I get away from the hustling crowds

And all that rat race noise down in the street

 

On the roof's the only place I know

Where you just have to wish to make it so

Oh, let's go

up on the roof….

Demolition - the sad alternative to deconstruction

In stark contrast to the house deconstruction photos and blog posted earlier this month, this photo shows two nearby homes being demolished. 

Granted the materials will need to be recycled per the laws of the local municipality, but it seems so sad to see all that wonderful framing lumber shredded, when it could have been reused by artisans creating handmade furniture or people building new homes for the needy.  Was the price difference really analyzed, or was this route chosen just because it is the "normal" and expedient way to take down a house?  We don't know, but we encourage you to take the extra step to give John Morrow of the ReUse People a call to see if you too can't actually save money as well as reduce energy consumption through reuse by selecting deconstruction instead of demolition.

Sustainable Solutions: don’t demolish, deconstruct!

Construction has begun on a Beausoleil Architects designed residential remodel with a new second story in Los Altos, California.  The project will feature sustainable design in many aspects of the construction, but what is most interesting so far at this stage has been the deconstruction.

While most remodeling projects include materials to be taken out of a home; old cabinets, sinks, flooring, wood framing, etc. , and generally a portion of these items are recycled  (Los Altos is a prime example of an ecologically conscious municipality requiring 50% of materials to be recycled), many items still end up in landfill.  Deconstruction, on the other hand, involves the literal reversal of the construction process by carefully pulling the house into its’ component parts: fixtures, lumber, masonry, etc. for direct reuse.  It is not only ecological, but economical.

In this particular case, the existing house, built in 1953 was due for some major upgrades.  The plumbing, electrical and heating systems needed replacing; there were single pane windows and little or no insulation in the walls and roof.  The floor plan was cut up with a lot of small rooms, and did not suit the needs of a modern family with children.  A few years ago, the home would have been simply demolished to its’ foundations and over 35 tons of material would have been added to the landfill.  The owner opted to look into deconstruction as an alternative and found that it made sense from a financial perspective as well.

Working with the General Contractor, Gerry Jensen of Millenium Enterprises., we obtained quotes for both options, demolition and deconstruction. The deconstruction process obviously takes longer as materials need to be carefully removed, sorted and documented.  The beauty of deconstruction though is that instead of simply paying to have unwanted materials removed, the owner obtains a tax credit for donating them for charitable purposes.  Working with the Reuse People in Oakland, who are incredibly experienced with the process, the first step involves a preliminary inventory and dollar value provided by an independent appraiser. The cost of this appraisal is borne by the Owner upfront, but their fee is also tax deductible.  In the case of this project, the cost for demolition was bid at $12,000; the cost of deconstruction at $17,000 with the additional cost of the appraisal at $3,000.  The final appraised value of the goods donated was $83,678.  Assuming a tax bracket of 30%, this will leave the owner with a donation credit of $25,103!  According to John Morrow of the ReUse People, this amount can be carried over for up to four years, which in most cases ensures a full deduction.  Deconstruction does indeed pay off!

So what does the deconstruction process look like?  Once the appraisal is done and the contract signed, the deconstruction contractor, Marcan Enterprise in our case, came to take away all the cabinetry, appliances, interior doors, plumbing and lighting fixtures.  I was really impressed with how neatly they had all the material sorted and organized on site.

   

The contractor then had to come in and do some abatement of hazardous materials that were found in old tile and sheetrock, for example.  Once the potentially hazardous materials were removed, it took approximately 1-1/2 weeks for Marcan to take apart the home, brick by brick, stud by stud.  Over 5800 lineal feet of wood framing alone was salvaged!

The only materials not salvaged were old asphalt roofing shingles, lumber under 6 feet in length (recycled instead), a small amount old rigid insulation, and single pane aluminum windows (no longer allowed for energy reasons).  Single pane wood casement and double hung windows are salvaged.

So what is done with all these donated materials?  Well, in Oakland at the ReUse People’s retail outlet at 9235 San Leandro Boulevard, anyone from the public is welcome to come by and purchase materials at an incredibly discounted price. (Check their website for additional operations and retail locations in southern California, Denver, Kansas City, Sacramento, and New Britain Connecticut.)  Who are their typical customers?  According to John Morrow, there are several categories:

• People who cannot afford to buy new
• People with income properties
• People looking to be especially environmentally conscious and reduce their carbon footprint
• People looking for authentic period pieces for their remodels
• Artists, including furniture makers, whose purchase of old lumber accounts for 25% of The ReUse People’s sales

 

When my husband and I remodeled our own 1920’s bungalow in the Westwood Park neighborhood of San Francisco some years ago, we purchased salvaged interior paneled doors, scrap marble slabs. A single pane wood window for our garage, and period glass doorknobs.  We saved a lot of money, but we also purchased items that were in keeping with the original design and craftsmanship of the home, so that the addition felt as though it had always belonged.

 

We encourage you to consider deconstruction for your remodeling project.  It is suitable for any scale project, from a small kitchen or bathroom remodel, to a large addition or tear down.  It is the right thing to do, both for the planet, and for your pocketbook!

 

Rags to Riches

This is hopefully the first installment of a rags to riches story: how discarded water from your laundry (that’s the rags part) can turn into edible riches.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is launching a new Laundry to Landscape pilot program, the object of which is to install greywater systems that utilize laundry wastewater for irrigating landscaping, thus reducing water and sewer use. The program is aimed at single and duplex home owners, and includes a short training class and subsidised sale of the necessary piping equipment.

For those not familiar with Greywater systems, they involve the use of wastewater from bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs and laundries to irrigate landscaping (and in some cases for toilet flushing).  Wastewater from toilets, utility sinks and kitchen sinks are not included, as they contain much more bacterial and chemical components and need more sophisticated treatment.  Bathroom sinks, laundries, showers and tubs, given the use of appropriate cleansers, are considered safe for use in landscaping, as long as some basic precautions are taken with how the water is distributed.  The state has even legalized ‘simple’ systems, involving water from a laundry, without needing a permit. More complex systems are also possible, however.  Check out the Greywater Alliance or Greywater Action for general information.

The program is being run by the Urban Farmer Store of San Francisco, and they are looking for 150 volunteers for the pilot.  The benefits include a $95.00 subsidy on parts and training by experts. This will cover most of the costs for many people.

We intend to irrigate edible plants -- a small fruit orchard and blueberry bushes – with our system. It may take a few years for things to mature (growing edible plants in San Francisco’s climate is always a challenge!) but we have hopes for a cornucopia. 

Permit approved!

 

A building permit has just been granted by the City of Los Altos for our first home under Build It Green's Green Point Rated standards.  Congratulations Carol!  Construction should be starting next month with Millenium Enterprises as the chosen general contractor.  We are shooting for 86 points in the categories of Energy Conservation, Indoor Air Quality, Efficient Use of Resources, and Water Conservation.  We plan to keep you posted over the next year to evaluate the associated costs  of our chosen points and the ease of adapting them to the constrution and verification process.

  We are also currently in the construction documentation phase on three other new Green homes in Los Altos and hope to contiue to share our experiences with you.  Feel free to use this format to ask questions, discuss your favorite ponts withing the system, and the greening of residential construction in general.