“This Old House” Films in Baxter Village
Mark and Cindy Slafka are enjoying life in Baxter Village in one of our most popular home plans, the Mayberry. This past week an interest of theirs, “This Old House”, came to their home. Although they don’t come close to having an old house, the Slafkas were the recipients of a great upgrade to their home – a steam humidifier. A humidifier can really make a difference in home comfort during the drier winter months. Read more about how idea they had became a reality. It is a great story.
Does a Little Foam Really Matter?
A small amount o foam insulation adds up to 2 sf of wall insulation that saves you money.
I was in one of our Springfield homes under construction the recently. I watched as an installer from Austin Insulating went from outlet to outlet spraying a small amount of foam behind each one. Seems like a small thing but I thought you would appreciate how big this can be and why we do it.
When an outlet is on an exterior wall of your home, we are left with approximately 3/4″ of gap between the back of the box and the exterior wall sheathing. Left alone this gap would not be insulated. Current South Carolina building code does not require any special insulation of this area. In fact for years, it has been largely accepted as an uninsulated part of the home. The gap is too small for fiberglass insulation to be effective so it is typically just left empty. The problem with this is that creates a cold spot and potential energy leak for your home. Consider, if there are 20 outlets on the exterior walls of your home and each one did not have any insulation behind it. It would be equivilant to having 2 square feet of uninsulated wall in your home. Would you accept that?
Building code does not requre this special foam. We believe it is worth it as it adds to the comfort and energy savings of your home. Remember all of our homes come with an Environments for Living guarantee.
Catch “Going Green” Online
WBTV recently ran a locally produced show on things you can do to Go Green. It was a great production with several suggestions from saving water to building a green home. Some of the ideas can be done right now with no real expense.
Our own Forrest Ranson, had a segment on the show covering some aspects of green building. One of our home owners was, also, included in front of their own very green home.
Take look at the show on WBTV’s website. Go to segment #7 to see his part. Let us know what you think.
“Going Green” WBTV April 28, 2010
Forrest Ranson with Evans Coghill Homes was recently interview by Kristen Miranda (WBTV). The interview will be part of the “Going Green” documentary aired on April 28, 2010 at 8:00 PM EDT. Our part of the show focuses on a few products that are available for today’s home owner.
Evans Coghill was interviewed by WBTV because of our leadership role within green building.
Forrest regularly teaches about green building products and practices with the Superior School of Real Estate.
Tune in and let us know what you think.
(WBTV is on the following channels in the Charlotte area – Time Warner 2 & 225, Dish Network 3 & 6484, Direct TV 3, Comporium 5)
Snack Well Cookies and CFLs
What do those tasty little Snack Well cookies and those curvy CFL light bulbs have in common? Apparently, both can lead to over indulgence.
Time Magazine reported that when we install energy efficient lighting, we lose 5% to 12% of the potential savings. Why? Because we leave the lights on longer because they cost less to operate. Kinda like the Snack Well cookies. We can eat more of them because each of them have less calories. Nevermind, we are negating some of the positive attributes of the cookie and the light bulbs.
Take a look at the article Less is Actually More. It is short and pretty interesting. Gives us something to think about.