New design - variation on Existing design

We've just begun work on a 2 story version of the Lagom House. The original Lagom House was a 1.5 story house, meaning the second floor was under the roof rafters and included dormers to increase floor space. The Lagom 2 Story will use the same floor plan but with the second floor expanded to the full footprint of the house.

The 2 story version gives it a little bit more floor space on the second floor, not much, but will make the bedrooms feel bigger. And just gives it a different feel, a stronger MoTrad vibe. And the house becomes even easier to build without the dormers to frame. It will top out at 1,540sf now, up about 50sf from the 1.5 story original version.

The simple peaked roof will make the house easier to frame, and it also obviates the need for north and south side of the street versions of the house - the peaked roof offers good solar system exposure on both sides of an east/west street. The simple MoTrad geometry is also more compatible with existing neighborhoods than the rather abstract triangular geometry of the original Lagom House design.

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What you don't know about Mineral Wool will make you look stupid.

If you are interested in green building, or call yourself a green building expert, then you should know about Mineral Wool insulation. If you have not seen Mineral Wool handled and installed, then you need to read this. If you think that Mineral Wool batts are similar enough to Fiberglass batts that you already know what you need to know about it, then you are a fool. And you still need to read this.

image Randek AB

If you are a regular reader here you know I am an advocate of using Mineral Wool insulation to improve the energy performance of the way we build houses in the US. There are many reasons why I think Mineral Wool is the best insulation for us here. Recently I find myself making my case for this repeatedly, so, I thought it would be worthwhile to get it all down in one place and just point to it in the future.

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Radio Show Interview - all about Sweden, Prefab, USA New Wall & Swedish Platform Framing

Sunday afternoon I was on an internet radio program called Burning Down the House hosted by architect Curtis Wayne and discussed the broad range of topics that have been covered in our Letters from Sweden series.

Burning Down the House covers all matters of Design and Architecture and appears on the Heritage Radio Network - essentially an internet broadcast, the show went out by live stream on Sunday afternoon and is subsequently available as a Podcast. Heritage has a bunch of great shows on cooking and food, wine and beer, so all you foodies following out there may enjoy some of the shows they offer.

Curtis had done his homework and proceeded to lead us through the broad range of topics that we have covered in the course of our study of Swedish housing. As you might expect, we were not able to plumb the depths of all this content, but we did speak in some detail about many points. Curtis suggested I come back for another show where we could delve into some of these areas in greater depth, an opportunity I'd welcome.

There are several ways to listen to the show. Its on iTunes if that's your thing. Or you can listen online on their site, or download the audio file. If you are looking on the list it is show #81 from 11/13/11. Its best if you up the volume a bit since I was mumbling - I really got to work on my radio persona!

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Mineral Wool - first local install

Last year I started writing about my enthusiasm for Mineral Wool insulation, and now this past week I've seen the first installation of this insulation on a local project.

The mineral wool was used for renovation project, the conversion of an uninsulated 3-season room to full time conditioned space. Because the room has so many existing windows we wanted to achieve a higher insulation level in the roof. The existing framing was only 7.5" deep, not much room for insulation. So we added a 2x furring strip, combined two layers of mineral wool, one R15 3.5" (typically used in 2x4 stud walls) and one R23 5.5" (typically used in 2x6 stud walls), creating R38 in the 9" cavity we had available. We put Certainteed's Membrain over it for the vapor retarder. Its an un-vented roof and we wanted to be sure it would dry to the inside if any moisture got into the roof, so this variable permeability nylon is perfect in this case. You can see it in the photo above awaiting the finished ceiling. End note: The builder did all the cutting of mineral wool with the owner's 18" kitchen bread knife!

The owner emailed me his impressions:

The insulation is truly amazing. We are not far from the flight path into Philly. When standing in the Florida room last night you could barely hear the jets. Last night when I went to take Penny (pet dog) out by the Florida room door the room was amazingly warm and we have yet to turn on the heater this fall! When I opened the door the difference between the outside and the Florida room was remarkable.

This is why I'm advocating for mineral wool in the USA New Wall, because it achieves higher performance in the same amount of space as the status quo fiberglass batts, and the process of installing and working with batts is similar enough to not be intimidating to contractors. The contractor on this project had never worked with mineral wool before. Granted for the first time they did not like the differences from fiberglass, but they did complete the work with the same labor force and in essentially the same amount of time as they were accustomed to working. That is what makes mineral wool superior to blown in cellulose or spray foams when it comes to bringing people along, and coaxing higher performance out of builders who are not versed in higher performance.

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0970 Lagom House Construction Prints - very close to finished

I've been working slowly on the Lagom House Construction Prints over the past few months. As the first of our house plans to feature the USA New Wall, and the Swedish Platform Framing right out of the box, I've had more than the usual amount of work to prep the plans. But we are almost there.

Also a feature of the Lagom House plan set will be the unique foam insulation formed slab on grade. Similar to a frost protected shallow foundation, this is an "Americanized" version of the slab forms that are a commodity in Sweden. These allow for home foundations to be made quickly, with low labor and low material costs, resulting in a highly energy efficient foundation system. Beats spending money on muddy holes in the ground.

Look for the plan set to break in the catalog very soon. We'll take pre-orders any time. In fact, if you are the negotiating type and you want pre-order discount, then you better get on the horn now, because once the plan set is posted to the catalog negotiation time will be over!

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Raising our standard of care

One of the foundations of how the Swedes build houses is the air tight barrier created at the vapor retarder/barrier plane of the wall. There is a movement about in the US to push that air barrier to the exterior of the wall, and the vapor retarder with it which raises a whole host of other problems. One of the issues is that its well known that its nearly impossible to seal an air barrier around the floor joists of a two story house. Well how do the Swedes do it? Simple, they use this:

Doh! Why didn't we think of that? Why not is a good question. Its because our standard of care is too low. Builders everywhere in the US use fiberglass batts with asphalt impregnated craft paper as their vapor retarder. This is trimmed loosely around obstructions and never achieves an air-tight barrier. Now that more builders are thinking about this I see decent air barriers installed, but the space between joists - spray foam is recommended. Another subcontractor, another process, another reason for a builder not to bother. So that's why the Swedes have these clever folded vapor barrier sheets - so they can quickly wrap and tape off a penetration by a floor joist or beam. They don't need a special insulation for between the joists or new trades or subcontractors.

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Energy Smart Housing Innovation, The Swedish Way

I am very tardy in introducing this book to you. I've known of it for some time as it was written by Holger Gross, a friend of Scott Hedges, my co-author in the Letters from Sweden series. In this book Holger makes a thorough introduction to many of the techniques and products used in Sweden to create energy efficient houses.

Holger comes from a structural engineering background but spent a large part of his career in the timber framed housing industry. He has since written several books as consumer guides to home ownership and condominium ownership. This book takes a consumer guide approach to explaining the ins and outs of energy efficient house building.

You will find first a background on Swedish housing and energy use, and basis for what has driven Sweden to refine their techniques for building efficient housing. He continues to outline conceptual approaches for improving performance, and then launches into a detailed look at the various components of building.

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0751 RS House - now direct from us

When we first started offering the RS House as a house plan it was not here on our own catalog. Why? In many ways the house is inconsistent with our other house designs. Its a very specific design solution created for an individual client. It was not designed to be a product as are the rest of our designs.

At the outset I just felt that this made the house too different from the other designs and I decided to offer it through other house plan vendors instead. After a couple of years of this we've reconsidered. The truth is we think we can do a better job marketing this house than any other vendor. And I think we have more followers interested in this kind of house than any other vendor. So we are making a place for it here in our catalog. You can now find its own catalog page.

The house is still very different from the other offerings, and because it originated as a custom commission we've made a special collection for designs like this. We are calling it LamiDesign+, jumping on the + bandwagon with Googles' new social media site. The meaning is that the genesis of these designs is something more than our other Collections. They represent the outcome of an intensive design process with one of our individual clients. As such these house designs will be a product of that collaborative process. So these are not just LamiDesign houses, they are LamiDesign+.

Another stark difference from the rest of our plan offerings is the pricing. Because the development cost of these house plans has been paid for we can offer them at a much reduced pricing. Any house design you will see available here will be offered with the full consent and cooperation of my client for whom the original house was designed. In each case I will be entering a pay-back arrangement with these clients, so that sales of the plan will off-set their investment in design services, with the ultimate goal being a complete reimbursement. I think this is a completely unique proposition in the world of house plans, and for that matter in architectural practice. Its intended as incentive for people to invest in design, to build better designed houses, and to encourage the results of that investment to be used to further spread good design. I think its a tremendous win-win, and the latest innovation we are bringing to the house plan industry.

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0751 RS House - Photography of the finished house.

We long ago promised fresh pictures of this house when spring came and the trees leafed out. Well the trees did their part, and we did return to take more photos towards the end of June.

I was joined by my friend, photographer Glenn Hudson. Glenn is an amazing nature photographer and portrait shooter, but he was keen to shoot the house. Unlike most staged architectural photographs you'll find his shots of the house have a natural feeling - not a propped and dressed magazine shot. We like this. Houses are for real life, not for magazine shots. So enjoy these, and enjoy more of Glenn's photography on his flickr site.

The sky was overcast that day, but it actually made for an even north light on all sides of the house. Good for seeing what the house looks like, if not for a dramatic shot of the sky. After the link below you'll find more photos from our visit in June 2011.

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West Chester Leed House - new local build

This new home project from my local practice may be the first project to use a variation on the USA New Wall. But even if it does not we are vetting a number of interesting tech here and it should be fun to watch.

This is not a modern styled house, so no eye candy for our modern house following, but there will be lots of interesting tech and well worth watching the build. Even though the house has a craftsman style feel to the exterior, the floor plan is very modern, open plan, to accommodate contemporary living. And as the name suggests it will be Leed Certified.

This house is utilizing Superior Walls, a precast, and pre insulated basement wall product. This allowed the basement to be installed in one day - no concrete formwork and much abbreviated prep time. Rather than a conventional footing and fragile, relatively speaking, basement wall, the precast wall is very strong and stiff and only requires a stone bed beneath it. This stone bed spreads the load out to meet the undisturbed soil at with a load pressure within its bearing capacity, and this is how it precludes conventional footings.

We are encouraging the use of Mineral Wool in a USA New Wall Better Wall configuration. It may instead use foam and blown in cellulose, but still in the Better Wall configuration. In case you are curious this will not be using Swedish Platform framing, rather conventional western platform framing is being used. But the Better Wall configuration with an exterior insulation layer does improve the thermal bridges inherent in western platform frame.

Our client Intersect Homes is the owner/builder of this project, so we have a build dedicated to building green. Slide show below after the jump to get more of a feel for this project as it starts.

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USA New Wall - Swedish Platform Framing in detail

Its time finally to look at the Swedish Platform Frame in detail. Lets compare Swedish Platform Framing to Western Platform Framing side by side.

What we are going to look at is how SPF framing improves thermal performance over WPF, and how SPF lends itself to off-site construction better than WPF. We'll hit those points at each step. Behold, the Swedish Platform Frame, in all its glorious simplicity. Seeing the wall system in its entirety makes clear the importance of the wiring chase. This element contributes the essential mechanisms by which the wall can be made air-tight and thermally improved.

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USA New Wall - Swedish Platform Frame, the future of house building

At the end of my Best Wall post I promised to introduce the Swedish Platform Frame. First we will look at the context. The Swedish Platform Frame is the next evolutionary step in stud framing. Thats a pretty bold claim for a nobody architect from New Jersey. But its true.

Balloon Framing revolutionized house building in America with the introduction of the first stud framed system. Wester Platform Framing refined the method making the required studs smaller, easier to transport to site, easier to mill. Its served us well, but house building is under new pressures to deliver greater energy performance, and the once brilliant Western Platform Frame is simply no longer up to the job. Times have changed. The Swedish Platform Frame method is the next sensible evolution of these stud framing methods and is destined to replace them as the way we build houses in the US.

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USA New Wall - The Best Wall

The third configuration of the USA New Wall is the Best wall. Nothing earthshaking or revolutionary in this version. We simply take the two version of the Better wall, the exterior insulation version, and the interior insulation version - and combine the both.

The Best wall has the exterior insulation layer in the rainscreen cavity, and the interior insulation layer in the wiring chase. We've just added R14 to our R23 2x6 wall or our R28 2x8 wall, and two insulated thermal breaks for the studs.

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USA New Wall - The Better Wall

The second configuration of the USA New Wall we are going to look at is the Better wall. The Better wall is all about breaking the thermal bridge of the wall framing. We start with the Good wall, and add insulation layers inside or outside that keep the studs from sending your heat directly through the wall. The framing of the wall is still kept simple so you already know how to build this.

The Better wall comes in two flavors, so lets start with the interior insulated wire chase version. We add an interior wire chase to a basic wall which provides a space to run wires and mount electrical boxes that will not puncture the vapor retarder/barrier. This is a huge asset for maintaining the air-tight envelope of the house. Wires are easy to run, and can be snugged between the furring and vapor retarder. Plumbing supply lines can also live in this space.

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USA New Wall - The Good Wall

The first configuration of the USA New Wall we are going to look at is the Good wall. The Good wall is all about what is the greatest gain for the least effort. How can we make the wall we build every day perform better without loosing any sleep or worry about how to build it. We don't want to know about sprays or blows - we want to work the way we know how to, but we want to build a Good wall.

The Good wall is all about increasing the insulation value in the wall cavity. So first of all we use 2x6 studs and the configuration of the framing is expanded to 24"oc. Mineral wool batts rated at R23 are used in place of the more common fiberglass at R13 or R19. Mineral wool batts are unfaced, so that means we need to introduce a vapor retarder or vapor barrier membrane. Which you use will depend on which climate zone you are located in, and whether or not your home has air conditioning.

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