The Seattle Box Defined

I think I have a one-story Seattle Box--square plan, four main rooms, porch with offset entry, low-angle hipped roof.

Wish I could do something with this new knowledge...

We should be able to figure this out

Some decisions have been pending for a while now:

• Floor
• Retro-Insulation
• Heat

What's the big deal?

Janes Infloor Heating

I met with Mike Janes, head of Janes Infloor Heating of Mukilteo (he took over from his father, the founder). We went over my radiant heating plan and I explained that there was no new slab and that I was considering putting the pipes above the floor.

Mike didn't seem to like above floor installations--he pushed the underfloor aluminum bracket system. For the 1230 SF main house, he said the aluminum would be 600 pieces @ $1.50, $975. By contrast, he showed me a couple of above-floor products and said they were $5.00 to $6.50 per SF or more (that would be $6,150 to $7,995 for materials only).

Lifting Us Up (Where We Belong)

What if the Trees Room was up a few steps instead of down or level? It would feel more like a tree house--the deck off the back would be like a platform of a tree house.

Update 5/1/15: A little more modeling, showing supports and also glass at the entry that expresses the notion of a raised platform. Pretty sure we don't want to do this, but the idea deserved a model.

Standing outside the front door looking south.

From the SW corner of the backyard

First version--no glass. It doesn't feel like a platform.

First version--using skyhooks (not shown) to support the room.

Artist's Statement

Any project needs a philosophy, a design center. In this case, we want to consider how much renovation is enough, we want to sync with the Broadview neighborhood, and we want to project a more coherent and intentional design than other homes.

One guiding principle might be "Do no more than necessary." We are not building new, and I don't want to demolish everything only to rebuild it. The original house should be apparent when we're done--we're not erecting a modern screen in front of a postwar house.

Style

We want to stand out as a clearly architect-designed home in Broadview, which is mostly postwar ranch houses. Ballard, Phinney Ridge, and Greenwood are edgier--there's more crime and more experimentation. Builders have thrown up 3-story single-family condos in backyards. Here and there, modern designs, some built 20 years ago, punctuate the conventional. But in Broadview, far fewer moderns. Homes hide behind property line fences and under big hip roofs. Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt. Homes are unfriendly--there is zero street life.

Builder Jim Bristow's home
(7703 26th Ave NW)

Pacific Northwest architecture is wood, sometimes veering into heavy timber, stone foundations, and National Park lodge territory. Black steel braces the wood. Gables, trusses. Skylights. Honest structure. Rhythms in wood--double rafter tails repeating into the distance.

Wood can work with modern white, and the existing Trees House is very dark (north-facing, surrounded by trees).

Inspired by a treehouse

"Trees House" might borrow from the aesthetic of tree houses--going out on a limb, cut lumber mixing with nature, rope ladders, structure visible from below, store-bought window panes incongruous in a more rustic setting. Maybe a black steel spiral stair up to a roof deck at leaf-level. Angled kicker supports--wider at the top than the base. Vertical--lines converging to a vanishing point in the sky.

What if the Trees Room were up from the entry? Floor @ 267.0, say. No more open plan--no seeing the TV from the kitchen. But...a better view into Carkeek, and an easier way to reach a master suite (or just a roof deck) over the garage.

Insulation

We need to decide how efficient we want the house itself to be--will we bring the existing house up to surpass current standards? Or will the heat move through the house to find the walls that we didn't insulate or seal as well?

Before we paint the existing siding, should we drill holes and force in dense-pack cellulose?  (There are 27 voids on the east wall.) Should we hang batts between the floor joists and pile it on in the attic? (1230 SF each.)

Heavy timber, wood soffits, but white walls

Structure

The structure is integral with the style, and the PNW style calls for honest, transparent structure. But it also has to do with insulation--slim, old school decking, for example, doesn't accommodate sufficient insulation. Which is how we came to SIPs--zero air flow, minimum thickness for a given R-value.

One thing I'm coming to realize is that, while radiant heat might be $20,000 and a metal roof might be $20,000, beams and lumber and framing don't cost that much. You can do a lot in wood for $20,000--the SIPs for the A.11.3 Trees Room were bid at $3,400.

Heating

Jonathan at Yosemite (Photo by Evan)

I thought we had this much figured out, but now I'm not sure. Forced air is the least attractive, but radiant heat does not have to be in the floor, and mini-splits might be fine for a 2100 SF home. A German boiler that handles heat and domestic hot water (DHW) might be fine, but there are alternatives like the Daikon Altherma air-to-water heat pump, or the Mitsubishi distributed approach.

NW Green Home Tour

The second day of the 2-day tour features 26 sites in north Seattle. (Saturday had 22 sites in south, central, and east Seattle.) I found 11 I wanted to see (the rejects were 100 year old home renovations, solar, and pre-fab projects), prioritized them, and spent 3.5 hours seeing them.

10719 1st Ave NW. Note recycled metal rain diverter over front door. Owner Dan Allison far right.

10719 1st Ave NW - SIP walls and roof, 550-gallon cistern, air-to-water heat pump by Abode Builders. It also has solar, but more interestingly, it has a Benjamin Obdyke rainscreen. It's a combination Tyvek housewrap and drainage mat that holds siding away, creating a water channel between the housewrap and behind the siding. "Slicker" eliminates the need for furring. Actually, they were advertising Slicker, but what I saw on the house was HydroGap drainable housewrap, which has little raised bumps on the wrap fabric.

Daikin Altherma heat pump

The owner, Dan Allison, reminded me of Leroy Miller, John Bleser's old partner. He showed me the 550-gallon cistern buried in the front yard--it's a recycled septic tank that was much cheaper per gallon than a "real" cistern would be. The gable roof has gutters down the sides which feed the tank and he has a standard septic system pump that lifts the water to the street level (where it is directed to the city-built rain garden on the next parcel). He plans to install a second pump and pressure tank that will bring the water inside for greywater use flushing toilets.

Someone asked Dan "so they put on the SIP roof and you call a normal roofer to put on the roof?" Dan said "First of all, the SIP panels weigh 650 pounds. We had a crane. And we put on the SIP roof and then I installed the roof. Sheet metal that will last as long as the solar panels on it."

The heat pump outside on the north wall was Daikin Altherma--heat pump, inverter, heating, cooling and DHW (domestic hot water). PEX (polyethylene) tubing is used for hot and cold water supply lines.

Dan keeps a blog, and so does the builder, apparently.

7703 26th Ave NW. Series filters convert stormwater to drinking water.

7703 26th Ave NW - The owner here, Jim Bristow, is a contractor and he just seems to like this stuff. He's got cistern tanks all over his backyard. At least two are hooked up.

In his basement, Jim showed off a filtration system that starts on the left with 25 micron (if I remember right), then 5 micron, then the 3 large tanks, and the shorter one that reverses the ionization (or something). The silver tube on the right uses ultraviolet light to kill any remaining organisms.

Sideyard cistern at 7703 26th Ave NW

Jim had his composition roof water tested, and he found only three contaminants--zinc, silica, and chorine (if I heard and remembered right).

At this house, I met green realtor Kim Mulligan. She said that insulation is the highest value improvement to a home, and she recommended a blower door test to provide a "before" baseline, so we have a story to tell when it comes time to sell.

2429 NW 61st St - 3-story, well-designed home with a roof deck. The basement is a separable apartment. Clever details--the raised wood porch has a metal grille inset to knock dirt off people's shoes--you can look through the gaps and see the ground 4' below. The side is cement board in an interesting horizontal pattern, smooth red panels, and high-profile vertical metal siding.

2429 NW 61st St "Plum House"

Sliding barn doors on sleek chrome rails are a repeating element. The dual-flush toilets (Caroma Profile Smart) are huge for some reason. The note says that the sink drains to the toilet tank, but that's hard to believe. The shower has no door, a soaking tub and just a small curb.

The interior door trim is what I was thinking: 1/2" x 3-1/2" on the jambs, 3/4" x 3-1/2" above, run 1/4" long on each side. A Blueair air purifier was running on the stair landing.

The sign in the basement said "The owners designed [this] apartment for flexibility of use. Currently it is used as an Airbnb rental apartment. Someday it may be used for aging parents or for extra space when teenagers want a little more separation from their parents." I noticed that they have a laundry hookup in a closet, as well as a more or less "full" kitchen. Stained concrete floor with PEX radiant heat, exposed concrete retaining wall throughout.

Step-in shower with soaking tub and no enclosure

The water heater is Navien, but they have ducting and something called Lifebreath Heat Recovery Ventilator.

515 N 61st Ave - An old bungalow with a very cool inglenook--a seating alcove off the living room with a fireplace. Not much of interest here, except that they heat the house with (3) Mitsubishi mini-splits, one in the basement, two upstairs. A heat pump unit sits outside the back door.

I met a realtor here who "invented" the idea of blower door testing. He said Kim Mulligan is a Jane-come-lately.

Heat pump serves three mini-splits at 731 N 72nd St (I think)

731 N 72nd St - Blurred in my mind with 515 N 61st Ave. The inglenook was probably 61st, while the Mitsubishi was probably 72nd. They were both old bungalows, and both sponsored by Neil Kelly remodeling.

103 N 73rd St - His and her art studio in the backyard--she's on top. The floor in both rooms are ACX plywood with a polyurethane finish and exposed screwheads. When they've stained and damaged the floor sufficiently, they will unscrew and install new.

The upper floor has an inspiring view of Puget Sound. Everything is white and they have four simple fluorescent tube fixtures that bounce light off the cathedral ceilings. The bulbs are special high-CRI (color rendition index) bulbs, though, and they didn't seem as cold.

They have a cistern on the east side (the gable ridge is e-w) and green horizontal metal siding everywhere. The two artists were there; both very pleasant.

His studio at 103 N 73rd St. 9' ceilings, north awning windows.

9100 15th Ave NE - Oddball place. Two stories over a basement, but only about 25' x 25'. Includes electromagnetic shielding so the harmful rays won't bother the sleeping rooms. There's a cistern-like thing on the east side that's meant to be filled with activated charcoal in the event of a nuclear war--it will filter the air. (You can't make this stuff up.)

Interesting stair design. Each tread spans side-to-side, so there is no stringer between. They're also legal winders to save space. The rope LED under-cabinet lights in the kitchen faded from blue to orange, then purple, continuously. The kitchen featured a miniature dishwasher by Bosch, 18" wide.

Basement at 9100 15th Ave NE. The activated
charcoal pit is on the other side of the wall
from the Heat Recovery Ventilator.

In the basement, a Whirlpool whole house filtration system was inline with the main water supply. They had an air-to-water heat pump, a Lifebreath Heat Recovery Ventilator, and a tiny water heater from Ariston.

8221 40th Ave NE - Waste of time. Nice example of a rain garden, but I can't have one of those. 420-gal. cistern on display if you like that sort of thing. Heirloom apple trees.

The cistern was from Ballard Rainwater Systems, 206.931.6345 (Robert Becker).

Trees

GIF from Ann Marie (Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

• The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.--Chinese proverb
• If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.--Hal Borland
• What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?--E. M. Forster 
• Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.--Rabindranath Tagore 
• Trees love to toss and sway; they make such happy noises.--Emily Carr
• It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.--Wangari Maathai 
• I knew, of course, that trees and plants had roots, stems, bark, branches and foliage that reached up toward the light. But I was coming to realize that the real magician was light itself.--Edward Steichen  
• In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.--Alice Walker
• To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.--Leonardo da Vinci
• It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.--Robert Louis Stevenson
• Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.--Winston Churchill
• The difficulty with this conversation is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.--Douglas Adams
• a wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. i think, i too, have known autumn too long.--e. e. cummings

Progress!

The geotechnical report arrived Monday morning. 31 pages and nothing very surprising, since report author Dave Williams warned me that a stormwater infiltration system (a rain garden) would be ruled out. We have a soil bearing capacity of 2,500 psf (meaning the soil can take more weight than the normal 2000 psf), and no groundwater was found in the 14' borings or on the 70' steep slope. That is, the site drains itself nicely.

A roof garden seems a very good idea--it is strategic from the point of view of a Green Stormwater Infrastructure (especially without the rain garden), it is a flat roof, which should be cheaper, and I think it would be a memorable buyer feature, even though its only about 600 SF. A roof garden needs some slope, perhaps 1/2" in 12" (2.39°) and some manufacturers recommend holding it back 12" from the edge. Wind erosion seems to be a concern, so I decided a 12" parapet on three sides would help. The problem with a wimpy slope is how it looks from the side, but the parapets are level.

A.11.4 - Gutters, very important for the GSI, are shown in blue

We always had the Modern-Between-Hip Roofs thing going, this is just a little more intense. Heading down the "flat roof with 30 PSF of saturated dirt on top" road, SIPs seemed like a good idea. There are standard thicknesses--6.5, 8.25, 10.25. The Trees Room needs 10.25" for R-48 insulation, and can easily span 10' between cross beams. It might be cheaper to use 8.25 and add 2" EPS under the roof garden.

No reason for overhangs where we have parapets--12" sheet metal cap, cement board siding, and awning windows.

Several vendors sell living roofs as a system with drainage mats, filter cloth, and roll-out vegetation. At least one sells vegetation "tiles." I imagine its expensive, but it could be phase two.

Finally, I realized that the curb appeal side is distinct from the backyard, where I can pretty much do as I please, including a more purist architectural approach.

Keeping it simple--fixed glass between exposed cross beams on the sides.

We might want a brise soleil off the south wall to provide shade in July:

November 14, Noon

July 25, Noon

The brise soleil could be simple wood or clear aluminum.

Also, it occurred to me that we can simply move the glass door in the breezeway to BR2 (right of the Trees Room in the solar study photos, above). It's a good quality door, and we have to replace the 72" window in that bedroom because it doesn't provide egress. It's big enough, but the operable side has you climbing out over the basement stairs. The other side of the glass door unit is operable, so we only have to solve the fact that you're 4' off the ground.

Jeffrey Frechette

I went driving around Sunday--we've had beautiful, warm weather--looking for construction sites and example houses, and I found an interesting place in North Greenwood, just south of Holman. I went back Monday morning to take a photo with better light, just as the owner was coming out to walk his dog. We chatted, and he told me he did it himself and that he's an architect. (Turns out, he has or had a design-build company and, if was licensed, he let it lapse. But anywhoo...)

9223 1st Ave NW

Horizontal wood and vertical corrugated metal. I asked him if the tower roof was SIPs and he said no. Notice the industrial skylight wells (there are two) on the roof, angled to face north. From up the block, you can see a pretty conventional comp shingle hip roof over the back half of the house.

I came across a construction site at 101 NW 105th Street where they are slowly forming a footing and stem wall. I thought there were better ways these days--this is old school.

2x for the footing, with 2-#4 and 1 1/4" plywood for the sides of the stem walls. Notice that they didn't trench for the footings.

And I came across a house that's almost finished that not only advertises itself as green, but also advertised a Green Home Tour coming up next weekend. The house, at 10719 1st Ave NW, by Abode Builders, features solar panels and will be on the tour this Sunday, along with a project with a walk-out roof garden. The Abode project features solar panels.

Trees Room Roof Slope

The highest priority open issue is the Trees Room roof. There are a limited number of possibilities:

• Flat (or nearly)
• Sloping toward the street
• Gable with a N/S ridge

Flat. A subtle slope is hard to achieve--does the plate slope? Maybe we're talking sloped insulation.

Sloping. Fine for a roof garden, but I'm not sure that's worthwhile--benefits seem elusive.

Gable. An E/W ridge wouldn't make sense: the south wall would be lower than the ridge, and we don't want rain running off to the S. We can do a high hip, but leave it as a gable on the S. The same slope can cover the dining room and entry, or not--we could do a hybrid with flat roofs at front and a gable or hip over the Trees Room only.

The Trees Room ceiling is a separate decision. We can expose the ridge beam and have a sloped cathedral ceiling, or we can have a flat ceiling with trusses above (vented attic).

One approach is a simple gable that runs long to cover the dining room. This results in a high roof over the entry/porch and a storage attic above the entry ceiling. Very 1970s. We need a pendant porch light tied in all directions for seismic.

We could have glass at both ends of the Trees Room, but we would forgo the storage attic, extend the large volume, lose the low entry ceiling, and make privacy a lot more difficult.

Process

The steps for deciding the roof slope:

1. Review the advantages of a roof garden and decide whether we want one. This would, generally, rule out a gable.
2. Create a basic interior envelope for an apples-to-apples comparison. 7' 9" ceiling at entry, 9' 0" at dining room, about 12' 9" in Trees Room. Assume a drag strut at the BR 3 shear wall.
3. Compare SIP and vented attic sections.
4. Create a few SketchUp roof designs. Compare cost, plusses and minuses. Curb appeal is huge, so this decision is critical to project success. That is, cost is not the final determinant.
5. Sketch a hip--how would that work over the dining room?
6. Decide, man.

Unfortunately, if we can't decide at a stroke, we need to develop alternatives enough to estimate costs. The Trees Room design isn't well understood--how high is the ceiling? Must there be clerestories on the N? Developing roof designs with this uncertainty is throw-away work.

Update 4/20/15: I expected process step #1 to rule out a roof garden. Instead, I was reminded why it is such a good idea. I got to step #3 and realized that a 14" deep vented but inaccessible attic over the Trees Room is dumb. Let's plan to use SIPs, at least there. Working on roof garden-over-SIP details, I decided that overhangs are dumb--we want a nominal parapet to attenuate wind erosion on the roof garden.

Once I got to step #6 and realized that I could really support a flat roof with no overhang, I extended it to the kitchen and mentally compared the complicated attic beams the structural engineer suggested for that tiny hip to a straightforward flat SIP or conventionally framed flat roof. That's gotta save us time and money. Also, as time went by, I found I really couldn't support That 70s Porch.

Design Development

We have a schematic design at this point, with a few alternatives (metal vs asphalt roof, forced air vs hydronic heat). I'm still uncertain about the Trees Room roof (slope, structure, and insulation), the Trees Room window wall, and the exact entry arrangement (the most easily solved). But, for the most part, we're done with that phase. We might want to memorialize it in a one- or two-sheet drawing package.

Between Schematic Design and Construction Documents (CD) is Design Development (DD), which is where we nail down some of the specifications--doors and windows, siding, lighting. We need to design the site work. We also need to scope the phase I work (that is, what we tell people we're doing, vs. the eventual design). For example, the basement is not conditioned space; finishing it is not in Phase I. So how do we explain the hole in the floor to the city? We'll have to insulate the spiral stair shaft, weatherstrip the bookcase door--or, leave the whole thing (the hole thing) off the plans.

Open Issues

1. Middle Roof slope. I keep showing flat, modern. That is a bit out of character for the neighborhood and for the east and west sections of the house. So, a high hip or gable roof? Perhaps a metal gable with a N-S ridge beam. Structurally, we need at least one cross (E-W) beam, since the window wall is no help with lateral loads. To roof garden or not to roof garden? And, if we go flat, are we courting ponds, or do we mean 1/4"/FT?
2. Trees Room Window Wall. Still a major open issue. Do we need to control the light with exterior louvers? Now that the floor's at 263 again, how do we get down from the door? Do we need a door? Should we have a door in BR 2 (we have to replace the window anyway).
3. Forced air vs. hydronic heat. Buyers seem aware that hydronic is more valuable. I like that it heats from the bottom up and doesn't involve pushing air through dusty ducts. It is 2-3x the cost of forced air, however. I like the under-floor system, but radiators might be less expensive. If we stick with forced air, we still have to heat BR 3 and the Trees Room and insulate the under floor ducts. Advantage: hydronic.
4. The Entry hasn't been designed, but we're pretty close. I like a closet at the existing electrical panel, and it would be fun to have a piece of casework--a boot bench and coat hooks--that is a secret door. We must have a shelf inside and outside the front door--for packages, the mail, things to remember to take. I'm leaning toward a full lite door with obscure glass, rather than something with more wood (but if the vocabulary includes horizontal golden rectangles, we could have separate panes in the door to match). Then we need a clear view of who's outside--we'll have a DoorBot or eq., so perhaps the dining room window is sufficient.
5. Kitchen windows - with a big window at the sink, maybe we don't need the side windows. Maybe they should be tall and narrow fixed glass, for extra light only. The original thought had been awning windows on the sides, square fixed glass at the sink. Unresolved.
6. Exterior siding. We'll patch the existing on E, S, W, but new walls at the garage, the kitchen, the dining room, and the entry and Trees Room need some kind of siding. Cement board? Rain screen?
7. Skylights. Big one for BA 2. Any others? Doghouse over BR 2?
8. Dining Room windows - the west-facing window can't be as tall as the N-facing. Maybe we should have corner windows instead--make the wood accent a glass accent.
9. Bedroom windows - New windows in the 4 bedrooms (and the high window in BR 4) should be consistent. I like high (as opposed to low) awning windows.
10. Metal vs. comp roof. It seems that metal is 2-3x the cost of composition shingles. Metal is easier to install on gable roofs than hip--each sheet is cut on an angle, and the hip ridge cap angles in two dimensions. Composition is easier to patch and repair. Metal may be more durable, but when has a comp shingle roof been damaged? A dented metal roof looks worse and is harder to fix. Metal roofs are slippery when wet. Dark shingles hide sheathing imperfections; metal reveals them. Advantage: composition shingles.
11. Final kitchen design. Need to tweak the appliance layout--maybe recess the refrigerator. I like Ikea cabinets, but the current design doesn't take full advantage of the available kinds. Need to choose a door style and countertop. Upper cabinets depend on #5 Kitchen windows. Solve corners--what kind of spacers do we need to make the pull-out trays work? Backsplash? Choose hood.
12. Bathroom designs. Should be consistent across the three--vanity/lav design, lighting, finishes, shower configurations. Easy, but hasn't been done yet.
13. Closets. Instead of mirrored bi-sliding doors, people are removing frames and installing Ikea armoir units.
14. Floor finish. Refinish wood in BR 1, 2 depends on #3 Hydronic. Wood in BR 3, 4? Low-pile carpet in Trees Room for acoustics. What at entry? Steps to BR 3? What in bathrooms, ceramic tile?
15. Railing at steps to BR 3. I lean toward a black steel, but glass is nice and it's a small L--3' x 6', roughly. A mid-mod wood would be cool, too.
16. Retro thermal insulation. Blow in to existing walls (esp. BR 4 E)? Soffit vents in main attic? Need to know what we're proposing.

Lighting Design

I've been holding off thinking about lighting, because it's fun--sort of a reward for doing the less-fun design. The actual design is still in the future, but Peggy sent a guide for Residential Lighting, developed by the California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis. In addition to specific recommendations, the guide explains the intent of laws like California's Title 24. I don't think Washington is as rigorous, yet.

The basic rule is that you can have low efficacy (low light output per watt used) if you provide special switches or high efficacy ambient lighting. You can buy inefficient lighting credits, sort of.

One thing that bothered me about California's standard is that they want "vacancy" switches that turn the lights off when no one is in the room. I have no problem with switches that both turn off and turn on the lights based on motion detection, but California insists that the switches must turn off only. No "occupancy" switches; only "vacancy." They recommend ultrasonic instead of the old passive IR sensors to avoid turning the lights out on someone hiding from the sensor.

Also, they don't seem to like fixtures that are capable of using an incandescent lamp--so, no cheap CFLs. No cheap fixtures, for that matter. They want CFLs with a GU-24 base, like the low-voltage halogens we used to have in the kid's rooms. Track lighting is bad because you can switch out the lights.

They also encourage "layers of light"--ambient, task, and accent lighting. They like dimmers and 3-way switches, particularly for hallways. Since they like dimmers, they like lighting control systems that let users choose more dramatic, dimmer, lighting. They like low and high setting LED lights for front porches. It's on dimly until the sensor detects motion, then it brightens.

The guide explains the measurements: Lumens is the light output. Lumens/watts is the efficacy. Incandescent is low-, LED is high-efficacy.

Color temperature (CCT) is how warm/cold the light looks, and CRI is the "color rendition index," which shows how truly colors appear in the light.  CCT above 4,000K are too cool, but the guide stresses that keeping CCT consistent is the important thing. I agree.

CRI of 100 is perfect, 80 is not very accurate. The guide says aim for a CRI of 90 or better.

Kitchen: Ambient lighting--CFL (compact fluorescent lamps) downlights. Task lighting--especially at the sink (with a separate switch). Watch out for countertop glare. Under cabinet lights are calculated as part of the total--at least 50% must be high-efficacy. High-efficacy lights must be switched separately from low-efficacy. Their example shows a square kitchen, about 100 SF, 8,508 lumens.

Bathroom: Each must have at least one high-efficacy light. Any low-efficacy fixtures must have a vacancy switch. Any fans must be switched separately from lights. The guide shows as an example: a ceiling light (GU-24 base LED) and a vertical bath bar (dedicated LED) on either side of the mirror on one switch--45W total. A GU-24 base LED downlight over the shower--12W--on a separate switch. 2,700 lumens in a small 3/4 bath (not counting the shower downlight, another 804).

Garage: Lights in the door opener are okay, but they have to turn off automatically (as they all do). They show 3 "linear surface mount" (dedicated LED) fixtures--154W total, on a switch with a VS (vacancy sensor). The 2-car garage seems to get 11,858 lumens.

The guide seems to avoid suggesting lumens--the examples talk efficacy, but you have to reverse engineer lumens yourself. Their kitchen example has about 142 lumens/SF on 3 switches (main, island, and task). Their bath is 83.5 lumens/SF on 2 switches (main, shower). And the garage is 30 lumens/SF on one VS switch. Their living room example has three switches, 57 lumens/SF.

Next step: WAC 51-11R, the Washington State Energy Code, Residential Provisions.

If your sills was good, I'd say "Fix er up!"

Mr. Blandings meets with Joe Appolonio. I met with John Apolis, owner of CSES structural engineering. I paid for an hour of his time, and I was hoping he would load me down with free information. Not so much, but he didn't leave me empty-handed in that department, either.

We don't have to modify the existing house unless we're applying new loads to it. That makes sense. He was surprised that I would consider trusses over the Trees Room, because they're so tall.

Getting the glass right to the soffit look that I have in mind is a simple matter of cantilevered posts. Not cantilevered horizontally, but vertically. The post leaves the shear wall and sticks up into the sky, supported by the part that's embedded in the wall below.

Mr. Apolis' multi-cantilever design

He sketched a roof framing system that works for me: Some number of cantilevered posts. Run beams on two sides (E and W) and let them cantilever past the last posts. Hang another beam on the ends of the cantilevered beams. We have such a "hung" beam at the N and S ends. Those beams hang past the E and W beams--cantilevering in a different direction--and they support outlying beams that are parallel to the first set of beams. The members get lighter as we move out. The last two sets of beams hold up the soffit and fascia. Between the first set of beams, we use joist hangers for 2 x 12s (could be 2 x 10s per IRC table R502.3.1).

Problem with the Trees Room is that we need a "third wall" for lateral stability. We agreed that the BA 3 north wall would do, and that it would be good if it aligned with the closet in BR 3, so that the shear wall would be longer. He prepared me that we probably need to trench in the slab for a new footing for that wall. For uplift, it might even be good to just run it all the way to the west wall.

He suggested heavier posts at the SW and SE of the Trees Room at one point, maybe 4 x 8, but then thought that glu-lams, like 3-1/8 x 9, would be stronger and more attractive. I like that he's thinking "beam" thoughts about posts.

Simpson Strong-Wall

As for the garage door, we need Simpson Strong-Wall, because the little stems are too narrow for standard shear ratios. But he said that I might only need one. But then he explained that I'll need a beam across the garage parallel to the garage door header. The garage door header is necessary because the hip roof loads that wall. The second beam is necessary as a drag strut to transfer wind load on the west wall to a shear wall at the entry closet.

He also sketched what seems like a horrible over-design for the kitchen and explained it to my satisfaction. He says span the 10' width with two flush headers--one in line with the existing north wall, the second parallel, but under the hip ridge. From those headers, come up with 4 x 4 posts and support the ridge with another beam. That beam cantilevers back over the existing roof and--voila--the kitchen hip roof doesn't add a feather's weight to the existing roof.

He seemed to think a beam at the extended garage hip roof was necessary, also, but that could bear on a post on the second garage beam.

We discussed other ways to brace the Trees Room, and he liked cross beams and threaded rod cross-bracing, one or both. He mentioned steel and I told him it was too expensive--I think he was feeling me out. What I call TSC (tubular steel column), he called HSS (hollow structural sections, I know now). HSS4x4x1/4 is 12.21 #/ft, so a 13' column would be 158 pounds. MetalsDepot cost is about $16.32/ft (not including shipping or fabrication).

I got along with Mr. Apolis well enough, but I was underwhelmed with the information he shared. An hour of his time is not enough for him to consult a book or a built project on my behalf. We just chatted generally. He evaded when I tried to pin him down, such as on the live/dead load required for a roof garden. I'll send him the plans so he can bid the structural design, but I'll keep looking, too. He mentioned that he plays guitar and is a member of the Songwriters of Seattle.

Apolis warmed to the challenge of the Trees Room toward the end of the meeting, but I guess I would have liked to hear him sell me on paying him hourly to brainstorm and run tentative calcs for various alternatives. Instead, he sees it as a standard gig--so much for the calcs and marking up the drawings.

Rethinking Trees Room

The existing breezeway is a concrete vault in which undisturbed grade is almost as low as the basement. To achieve the A.11 design, we would need to break up and remove 4 CY of concrete, then pour new footings, create new stem walls, and frame a new floor. We save all of that if we are able to use the existing top of concrete in the breezeway.

Lowering the Trees Room floor to 261.2 gives a nice overview of the room to the entry, but it fights the view into the ravine. Keeping the floor level with the main house, 263, lets us look down into the ravine.

This drawing shows a 12' 9" ceiling height in the Trees Room. The view into the trees would seem to dictate the height and window configuration, but the lowest branches of the trees by the property line are too high. We have basically a square hole at the end of the room, and it's a horizontal band of green leaves (the deciduous trees in the park), with occasional trunks closer in. It's not about looking up and down, but the parallax of the windows, the trunks, and the green background.

We need to use the existing steps down to BR3, but they are too narrow--34". I would prefer more like 43". We accomplish this by bumping 8" into the garage. We need to preserve the little wall at the top of the stairs as well--not moving the electric panel should save a lot of re-wiring (or not).

So, what is the Trees Room roof? I think I like a flat ceiling with 24" glazing all around, I tried to imagine how an engineered truss might accomplish that. We'd need a top chord bearing with a hidden header and a bottom chord outrigger. Maybe it's crazy, but here's the soffit design:

The truss height doesn't matter as long as there is room for 10" of batt insulation and air space above. It makes spray foam or SIPs look pretty good. I've shown a Pratt truss--flat on the bottom, sloping with a slight gable on the top. I'm not even sure they can do that. Maybe we don't need the overhang, anyway--it's an expensive detail and it tends to block the view of the trees to the east and west.

Expert Advice: Soils Investigation was Truly Boring

As promised, Dave Williams from Zipper Geo returned on Friday 4/10 with a tiny drilling rig and two operators. It was Dave's birthday, and he brought Staff Geologist Bryan Fowler. They arrived at about 12:50 and stayed until about 3:15. Dave left early, maybe 2:30.

Dave brought me a section of a Seattle "Technical Requirements Manual" that suggests that a 70' steep slope needs a 500' setback for any kind of infiltration, like a rain garden. I told him Keith Cross warned me about dueling agendas: Storm sewer doesn't want my runoff, but ECA doesn't want it infiltrating into the ground. Maybe a big umbrella?

Before he left, Dave walked me out to the top of slope and told me he had climbed all the way down and back while they were drilling in the front yard. He said there were piles of debris down there--even concrete that had been tossed over the edge and he gave me a lecture on why that's bad. I told him I was a friend of the park and wouldn't use it as a dump, and he said he had to give basically the same lecture to Seattle Parks and Rec on a West Seattle project, where they found park employees doing the same kind of dumping. The problems with it include scraping off topsoil as the heavy debris moves inexorably down to the creek. Any bad chemicals leach into the groundwater, and the disturbed soil accelerates the slope erosion. Some kinds of debris will travel down the creek and form blockages that thwart the salmon. Geez, Dave, I said I wouldn't do it.

Bryan Fowler, Zipper Geo, center

The drilling was actually pretty noisy for a couple of hours. I saw Zoe and her kids watching from across the street as the rig came off the truck, so I went over and apologized for the noise. I told her I would like to show her and her husband some plans when the design is further along.

The end result of the drilling, by the way, was a set of baggies of soil taken at various depths. They said they would go 15 to 20 feet down; the report will show the actual depth. Bryan said that some of the soil samples would be further tested. Dave promised to get back to me with an estimated report completion date on Monday (4/13) and I reminded him that we had kind of said no later than 4/28. He seemed confident.

John Zehren
At 3:00 pm, Arborist John Zehren (Renaissance Tree Care) came by and spent time walking the property with me. He identified the small tree on the west side as a Dogwood (he didn't say, but I'm guessing Cornus florida) and the ornamental outside BR 1 as an Asian Pear (Pyrus sinensis) that will bear fruit. I asked him about moving the palm and he said it's easy because the root ball can be very small. You only have to protect the top, he said, but the tree is very heavy.

He was impressed by the Douglas Fir with the swooping trunk at the driveway. He wants me to remove the asphaltic concrete touching the bark at the south side, but he didn't like the idea of removing and replacing the entire driveway because it will expose the roots to damage. He thinks I should carefully cut out bumps caused by roots and fill the holes with gravel. We agreed that it's a special tree that deserves special treatment, but I'm not keen on gravel patches. He showed me that the bark on the east (sloping) side is finer grained than around the other sides--that indicates recent growth; the tree is compensating for its skewed base.

He agreed that the cedar drooping on the garage roof is a priority, and he used a laser pointer to show me the 3 or 4 limbs that he would cut. There's a limb from this tree drooping onto Rob's property next door, but we agreed we'd wait until someone complains.

In the back yard, John zeroed in on the cedar at the middle of the property. I told him I've seen squirrels going into it and he was concerned that the hollowness might be extensive. He noticed that someone has trimmed and topped it--it's not as tall as it should be. Nothing to do now, but be watchful, he said. Again, the bark and a bulge at the base suggests that the tree is working to give itself a better foundation. "The tree is aware of the damage and is putting its energy into repair," John said, paraphrasing.

Another thing Dave Williams of Zipper Geo mentioned was that there are no evergreen trees on the steep slope. That's a sign that the slope is moving--eroding, I guess--in geologic, or centuries, time. True, John said, but the trees are phototropic--growing straight up to the sun--as opposed to geotropic--growing perpendicular to the slope. If they were geotropic, it would indicate that the soil was more migratory.

I asked John to come back and trim the cedar and we agreed on Tuesday, 5/26. He's booked, and I'm not in a hurry. He gave me a price for other work, but I think I should wait to see his work on the cedar and get past the worst of the construction. As he left, he had one more piece of advice: When it's snowing, or the wind is blowing real good, just don't go outside, period. And don't park a car under the fir or cedar. Just don't. He was serious.

Structural Engineers
I contacted Michael Chamberlain (Strong Work Structural Engineering), who is too busy to meet this week, but he was chatty by email. He wrote:

For a roof garden, spanning 14 ft, a good option, if you can spare the roof depth, would be pre-manufacturer 2x trusses. I would guess that they might be about 18" deep. Although, I guess the first question is how much load are we talking? 3" of soil (green roof)? 6"? Big trees? Planters? 

Also, with a heavy roof, seismic bracing will be required.... meaning a seismic retrofit of the walls of the room below....or alternatively, the exterior walls of the floor below.
If the walls of that room are really tall, 10 ft plus, then you may need to go to 2x8 studs.

I replied 4" of soil, and he said "For those loads, you could also use 11-7/8" i-joists or 2x14's."

I also contacted John Apolis (CSES), who was slower to respond, but who can see me sooner. Mr. Apolis said "You can certainly come into the office with a set of plans and we can go over them, I’ll make suggestions or provide options, etc. Any meeting longer than about 15 minutes is billable, with a one hour minimum ($160). We can go through a lot of material in an hour. If you want to send PDFs of your plans, I can provide a fee proposal for the structural design." (I suspect I like someone with a Greek name because of Joe Apollonio, the expert engineer in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)--"See what she leans?")

So, thanks to various experts and engineers, it's been a productive week.

Window Wall Designs

This is a multiple choice test. There are no right answers (or are there?). The first four have a 16' ceiling, the second batch, just an 11' ceiling.

The A schemes have a 16' ceiling

The B schemes have an 11' ceiling

Agghh! It's April!

I knew it was a double-edged sword, but I'm really feeling it. Being an architect, I can generate endless designs "for free" and choose the best. If I didn't have this ability, I would have to pay someone who would show me two or three options from which to choose. We'd have a one-hour discussion, ending with a decision on which option to pursue.

Time is money. I'd have to pay the designer, so we would both be incentivized to finish quickly.

As the designer, I want it to be perfect. Therefore, I'm incentivized to stall and delay actual decisions. Everything is tentative, because committing to a particular design ends the game. It almost certainly represents "settling" for something less than perfection.

Money is money. If I did this all the time for other clients, I would have a better handle on what different options cost. As it is, "perfect" is expensive. My "improvements" to the design fall into three categories:

• More expensive materials--a mediocre design in clear stained wood looks better than painted drywall
• More complicated building--more corners, more ins and outs and built-ins...that'll make it "better"
• Wild structure--wouldn't it be cool if the house didn't touch the ground? 

So every redesign seems to pile on more money, one way or another. I notice this, so I start self-limiting, producing designs that are deliberately "cost-effective." My first plans called for adding 1500 square feet and stairs. Now, I've settled on a 600 square foot addition.

This observation is based on working on the design of the window wall at the south end of the Trees Room. First, I know that much window is expensive. With a 16' ceiling, it's about 240 SF of glass, which is at least $14/SF without labor. At 11' 6", it's more like 140 SF.

Then I realize that the structure has a problem. I'm assuming a moment frame with a curtain wall, even if the end result doesn't look like that. The two side walls want to fall in on each other, and the windows won't stop them. Luckily, "X"-bracing wouldn't hurt the view and might look cool. But that's when I realized--I'm paying a structural engineer now, too. I can't just size the "X" bracing myself; the city will want calcs.

I found these structural engineers. It's as good a list as any to start with.

• CSES Engineering - John Apolis; small projects, near T+K
• Strong Work Engineering - Michael Chamberlain, Phinney Ridge
• Fossatti Pawlak - Pete Pawlak (No...larger projects only)

Before I start wondering if the structural engineer can suggest better ways to support the roof--center beam, truss joists. Does this stupid engineer (whom I haven't met) even know about SIPs? Before I spin out of control that way, I start to think about solar radiation. Is this window wall going to be a greenhouse in summer? Of course it is. Will the afternoon sun be blinding? Perhaps. How about louvers all around--flat, horizontal, 12" shelves every 18" or so to shade the windows from summer sun and let in winter sun? Oh, and what about acoustics? This is the media room--what if it's a big, boomy barn with echoey drywall all around because I can't afford anything else?

So, I could hire an architect, but I know how I would treat such a job. Since it's not their project, really, they're not responsible. They can say the acoustics look okay to them, because I can't call them if the acoustics turn out badly.

Calming down, repeating my mantra (insert joke mantra here), I think I need to develop the drawings to the point that I can take an hour of a structural engineer's time. Perhaps I'll try two different engineers and choose one of them to do the calcs. When I feel confident of the structure, I'll draw it up, including structural details, and ask one of the engineers to review, mark-up, and run calcs on it.

At some point during this process, I should pay for an hour of an architect's time to just chat over a set of plans. There are a lot to choose from:

• Rhodes Architecture + Light - they do lighting design, as well
• McClellan Architects - NW Contemporary in a big way
• Floisand Studio - I noticed their work for Pagliacci Pizza
• Lane Williams - Their name keeps coming up

Barrister Style Cabinets

From...wait for it...Ikea. Yes, Ikea.

Removing the Lint Trap

I mean, the garden tool shed that doubles as an outlet for the dryer vent. Pulling that down was fun, including running into a small spider with a shiny black bulb, like this:

I killed it since it looked mean, and now it seems that it was a black widow. Since reading about spiders, I can feel them crawling in my hair and up my pant legs, but that's probably just the dust and lint combination :-).

The Great Deck Rip-Off

I don't know what the structure under the breezeway floor is. I think it is a concrete slab, poured on a wood form that was then dismantled and removed from under the concrete. Or it may be a wood floor on concrete stem walls. There is an access hatch, but I don't feel like crawling in.

Crawl space under the existing desk--I want to see inside that access door, and also, I want to figure out the plumbing at BR 3 (left). The mystery valve (right front) and the extension cord to nowhere need figurin' out as well.

So, I took off the railing. Pieces of it were squishy with moisture, and it hasn't rained in a couple of days.

I opened up the dryer vent cabinet, too (they had screwed half of the pair of doors in place. We can see that the cabinet was not original, because the siding and the soffitt continue inside.

Update 4/9/15--I removed the "garden shed" yesterday. Kevin came over this afternoon with his circular saw, his sawzall and his construction acumen, and together we opened the deck up so that I could check under the breezeway.

Kevin had the brilliant idea of just removing part of the deck, so that the backyard is still accessible. He also suggested we put up a guardrail of sorts rather than just leave the drop off unprotected. I'm smart, too--I put the square white louvers on the dryer vent.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure

This has been a tricky design. I think that if I install two rain barrels on the sideyards and route the downspouts to them, I'll have kept nearly 100% of the stormwater hitting the roof from impacting the storm sewer, Carkeek, or the neighbors. These rain barrels can fill jugs for landscape watering, or can be pumped to provide hose pressure. Each rain barrel has an overflow pipe that I can direct toward one of two rain gardens in the front yard or, for the middle downspout, to the driveway.

I'm showing concrete bulkheads to strengthen the drainage swale pipe, then gravel from the street on either side of the driveway. The City of Seattle has a form for requesting approval to build in the street right of way--I think this is the sort of thing they'll accept. With two cars in the garage, two in front of the garage and four head-in from the street, we've got an 8-car party.

Need to come up with an approved "semi-permeable" driveway material.

I worked out that the new entry path is a gentle ramp. So is the path from driveway to west side deck to BR3. I show stepping stones at the entrance to BR4 (the former living room) because we need steps at the brick planter if the brick planter is to remain.

How Big is a Car?

Remodeling the driveway. Guest parking spot(s) would be nice. So, how big is a car? I picked three models and found the manufacturer's dimensions for their 2015 models.

Model	Length	Width	Height
Toyota Camry	15' 10-7/8"	5' 11-11/16"	4' 9-7/8"
Nissan Leaf	14' 7"	5' 9-11/16"	5' 1"
Ford Escape	14' 10-1/8"	6' 9-13/16"	5' 6-5/16"

NW 118th Street is 20' wide, and the neighbors across the way often parallel park, leaving a single 12- 14' lane, so parallel parking on my side is unlikely to work.

Oh, Hail No!

It was dry here at 5:30 a.m., teeming at 7 a.m., so loudly that you could hear it inside. We could hear it because it was actually hail.

Hail piles up on the back window of the car

Hail reveals the deck structure

Planning for rainwater, we talk about a storm surge dropping 3" per hour. I'd guess we saw almost an inch in about fifteen minutes.

Environmental Impact, no fooling

Dave Williams of Zipper Geo is out this morning, putting stakes in the ground where his soil boring people should drill as soon as April 6. He wants to do this in person to minimize the chance that the drillers hit some underground utilities. I showed him where the sewer and water lines leave the north wall of the basement and where the oil tank is.

Between now and drilling, I'm told that utility locating people (USA) might come by and spray paint the street.

This is quick work--I only signed a contract with Zipper yesterday at 5pm. He said they should have the report in four weeks--about April 28--but hopefully a week or two sooner. The geotech report is the critical path until they deliver it, at which time my architectural drawings become the critical path. After that, Seattle DPD is the critical path, followed by my foundation contractor.

I still don't have a final design, but I have to start thinking about when to brief the neighbors. Preferably, I'd show them a rendering before I submit plans to the city. Also, the folks to the east (the Swierz's) have a drain pipe emptying into Carkeek--Mr. Williams said he would have to mention that in his report.

Update 4/3/15: Joseph from USIC (not USA) came by looking for buried gas and Comcast lines. I showed him the overhead Comcast and confirm no gas, so he spray painted "No gas, no Comcast" on the street and took off. Nice guy.

Update 4/3/15: Soil boring is scheduled for Friday, 4/10, before noon.