August 2011
BuilderNews Magazine
Feature: Project Profile

 

The 100k House

Sizing Up Your Opportunities

In late 2006, Chad Ludeman, his wife Courtney and close friend Nic Darling decided to go into real estate development. Their plan was fairly straight forward: They wanted to build houses on spec, and for the most part, they already knew the style and size of home they would build — the same style and size as most new homes in the city. Courtney is a licensed real estate broker, and to build on spec, they knew, meant building homes that people wanted to buy. In Philadelphia, where they live, that home — or so it seemed — was your standard 2,000-square-foot, three bedroom, two and a half bath house with an asking price of $500,000 or more. That was what most other developers built in Philly, and Postgreen Homes was planning to do the same.

Chad has a degree in technical engineering and manufacturing; Courtney is in real estate; and Darling worked in marketing, before joining his friends. They are all young, urban professionals, in their early to mid thirties, building careers and families. Courtney and Chad now have two young boys. Their decision to go into real estate development, Chad explains, was mostly a practical one. They wanted to own their own business; Courtney knew the market; and real estate, they figured, was as solid an investment as one could make. It wasn’t until they began pricing out land that their plans began to change.

Postgreen Homes, then operating under a different name, started off by scouring the nicer neighborhoods of Philadelphia, searching for a sizable lot on which to build its first 2,000-square-foot home. The company, with Chad as President, Courtney as CFO and Darling as CMO, also began then to work with Brian Phillips, the founding principal of Philadelphia-based Interface Studio Architects (ISA), a small, highly acclaimed firm devoted to sustainable design. “We started out thinking a little differently,” Phillips says. “This was right before the housing (bubble) burst and we were looking at bigger green projects, like 2,000-square-feet, getting a LEED rating and selling for $600,000 to $700,000.” After several long delays and a few land deals gone sour, Postgreen, however, had a vital change of heart. “The whole process (of buying land),” Chad explains, “made us take a step back, and one day were chatting, and said, ‘Why are we trying to build these homes that we can’t afford, our friends can’t afford and most people in their low to mid 30s, making decent money, can’t afford.” It was a moment of inspiration that would send Postgreen in an entirely new direction.

Phillips recalls that decision: “Chad had this moment when he realized that maybe there was this other market out there for first-time homebuyers, who in an urban setting are often relegated to a fixer upper or a small condo.”

In modern, demographic parlance, Chad, Courtney and Darling are on the leading edge of the echo-boomer generation, also known as Generation Y or the Millennials. They are, in loose terms, the children of the baby boomers, born sometime between the late 70s and mid 90s and representing the largest demographic surge of homebuyers since their parents entered the market over 40 years ago. It is estimated that from the start of the millennium on, close to 80 million echo boomers have or will come of age and need a place to live. As Phillips notes, most new, single-family homes in Philadelphia are built for the middle-class, move-up buyer, while the first-time buyer is largely ignored. Postgreen Homes decided then that it would serve this market.

The 100K house, Postgreen’s first project, would stand as its test case. Who were these first-time buyers and what did they want in a home? How small could the home be? How much could they cut costs? How green could they make it? As far as Postgreen saw it, they and their friends, this new generation of homebuyer, wanted different things than their parents wanted. Cost, efficiency and size became their major drivers. “They want these nice modern, energy-efficient homes, but they don’t necessarily care if the (homes) have all the bells and whistles and are 2,000 square feet,” says Chad.

Phillips adds to that description: “This generation is the most environmentally conscious, most consumer driven generation ever, and so we talked about houses as products.”

Another factor they considered was the home’s location. Echo boomers, it appears, want out of the suburbs and back into the city centers. Philadelphia’s population, over the past decade, saw its first population increase after more than 60 years of decline. Inner city neighborhoods, like Fishtown and Northern Liberties, just north of the city center, are revitalizing, with an influx of art galleries and restaurants and an increase in property values. It was in these neighborhoods that Postgreen first looked for lots, but soon found that they were constricted by cost. Their search widened, moving progressively out from the city center until the lots became affordable.

Just north of the Northern Liberties / Fishtown neighborhoods is the hard-scrabble industrial blocks of East Kensington. It, like many inner city neighborhoods, fell on hard times over past 50 years. Though the neighborhood is small, Chad estimates that there are some 2,500 vacant lots (about one in five), overgrown with weeds and litter-strewn, scattered amongst the houses. And not one new home, Chad says, has been built in area for at least 20 years. In terms of development, Phillips adds, it was, and still is, a neighborhood where “all bets are off” with a disjointed pattern of old industrial buildings, early twentieth-century row houses and vacant lots. The lots were cheap. Postgreen paid only $37,500 each for two — one at 1100 square feet and the other at about 2,000. And best of all, East Kensington sits along the Market-Frankford rapid transit line, which makes the neighborhood only 12 minutes or less from anywhere downtown.

The 100K house, for all its conceptual complexity and considered approach, is, in terms of design, remarkably simple. The original challenge (and hence the name) was to build a 1,000-square-foot, super green home for $100,000 in materials and labor. The resulting design was a box — no juts, no jogs, no bays, because all that costs money. And, in fact, there are no interior doors, either, except for on the bathroom. It was a design process, observes Phillips, unlike anything ISA had worked on before. “I often use the phrase industrial design for what we did,” he explains, “because it is a little more like designing a can opener, in that there is a function and the design is always going to follow that function.”

That function was to be a super-efficient, market-rate affordable home that retained its market appeal. No small feat, for sure, and one that brought ISA to a unique conclusion. The way they saw it, Phillips explains, is that they had two choices: They could either design a traditional home that looked like all others, only with cheaper, less attractive materials, or they could push the limits, use quality materials and redefine our expectations of home. Obviously, they chose the latter, and the resulting home has garnered considerable attention. The 100K house, since its completion in May 2009, has won awards from the national American Institute of Architects, its Pennsylvania chapter, as well as its local, Philadelphia chapter. It received a LEED Platinum for New Homes and was recently reappraised in early 2011 for $299,000. The finished size of the home came in at 1,150 square feet, with a final price for materials and labor of only $91.00 a square foot. Including all costs, materials, labor, permitting and design, the home’s final construction cost was around $200,000 — an impressive success in a city with few new homes priced under a $500,000. Postgreen and ISA have since completed nine additional homes, modeled off the 100K concept, and are now designing several more. Postgreen has also started another company, Hybrid Construction, to serve as its general contractor.

“We feel that the 100k approach, that a building should look like its parameters, inspires almost everything we do at this point,” says Phillips. “It has almost become a fundamental ethos for us. A building needs to do certain things, and it can look really great doing it, but (it’s design) shouldn’t be about a certain look that people anticipate… about some nostalgic idea of your childhood home.”

“The 100K house,” he adds, “taught us how to give up other things that in our minds are superficial, while still maintaining this core, performance-based model of a home.”

 

Behind the numbers”

Lot size: 1080 square feet

Lot Price: $37,500

House size:

100k house – 1,150 square-feet

120k house – 1270-sqaure feet.

Footprint: 648 square foot.

Construction method: Structurally Insulated Panels

Construction costs: $105,000.

Construction price per square foot: $91.00 per square foot

Finished cost: estimate $200,000 / $173.00 a square foot.

Appraised resale value in March 2011:

$299,000 – 100k

$319,000 – 120k

Number of bedrooms: 2

Number of baths: 1

Climate: Northeast: cold winters, warm summers.

 

Project Specs:

Exterior Construction: Structurally Insulated Panels

Exterior siding: James Hardie Fiber Cement sheets & stucco

Interior walls: Drywall/ Birch Plywood

Flooring:

Downstairs: Polished concrete

Upstairs: Birch Plywood

Heat: Subfloor radiant

Hot water: Solar thermal hot water / gas boiler back-up

Air conditioning: Split-ductless, passive and Energy Recovery Ventilation

R-values:

Walls: R24 (6.25 inch (Structurally Insulated Panels)

Ceilings: R40 (10.25 inch Structurally Insulated Panels)

Green Amenities:

Solar Thermal Array

Solar tube in bathroom, to bring solar light to interior space.

High R, SIP Panels walls and roof, with sealed vapor barrier

Energy Recovery Ventilation unit

Rainwater collection / rain barrel

Ceiling fans

Sunshades on exterior windows

Estimate monthly heat/hot water costs (winter): $70

May 2011
BuilderNews Magazine
News Feature

 

Safety First

OSHA Rescinds Exemptions for Residential Fall Protection

 

We’ve all seen it before: A group of workers up on a roof, scrambling up a 10:12 pitch, a ladder leant against the eave, a smattering of staging planks scattered here and there, with, perhaps, a line of 2×4 toe kicks closer to the peak. No harnesses. No safety nets. Nothing, in fact, between them and the ground save for a few 2-by-boards, work-site bravado and a lot of good fortune.

Dangerous? Definitely. Illegal? Well, that was always a little harder to tell. Not even the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) knew where to draw the line. And, for the last 16 years, the agency has left a great deal of residential construction and fall protection safety up to the judgment of the employer, the employees and the OSHA compliance officer on case by case basis. According to a 1995 OSHA directive (STD 3.1 – Interim Fall Protection Compliance Guidelines for Residential Construction), OSHA’s enforcement policy allowed for a considerable amount of “compliance flexibility” on certain residential construction activities, including, among others, a roofing tear-off, shingling and/or repair.

Late last year, however, OSHA drew that line. A new directive (STD 03-11-002), issued on December 16, 2010, rescinded the 1995 directive allowing “compliance flexibility,” reinstated all pre-existing standards prior to 1995, and effectively imposed far stricter fall protection safety regulations for all residential construction projects. The new directive (STD 03-11-002) gives builders until July 2011 to comply or face the possibility of hefty OSHA fines.

As of July 2001, contractors are again required to provide and/or ensure the use of guardrails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems for all workers, employees and subcontractors, working six feet or more above the lower level. If “conventional” fall protection cannot be used, the contractor or roofer must then provide an alternative method, or methods, of fall protection and must also maintain, on site and available to all workers, a written document explaining why conventional fall protection was not feasible and what alternative methods would be used.

When these standards were established, in 1994, both the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) argued that the standards failed to account for safety measures commonly used in the industry, such as roof brackets and 2x6s, which, opponents argued, provided adequate slide arrest protection for workers. Industry professionals also argued, as they still do, that on many residential construction activities, the use of conventional fall protection systems is either infeasible or poses a greater threat to worker safety than many alternative methods.

OSHA, recognizing the need for further consideration, then issued STD 3.1 as a temporary directive intended solely to give OSHA officials time to review the existing standards. Under STD 3.1, OSHA allowed for “compliance flexibility” for four, specific groups of residential construction activities. Taken, verbatim from a 1999, plain-language revision of the directive, those four groups were:

GROUP 1: Installation of floor joists, floor sheathing, and roof sheathing; erecting exterior walls; setting and bracing roof trusses and rafters.

GROUP 2: Working on concrete and block foundation walls and related formwork.

GROUP 3: This group consists of the following activities when performed in attics and on roofs: installing drywall, insulation, HVAC systems, electrical systems (including alarms, telephone lines, and cable TV), plumbing and carpentry.

GROUP 4: Roofing work (removal, repair, or installation of weatherproofing roofing materials such as shingles, tile and tar paper).

One of the most important, and somewhat trouble of provisions of 1995 directive, was that it also allowed contractors and roofers to simply ignore the existing OSHA standards, for those activities listed, and to use alternative methods, without having to document why conventional methods were not used or what alternative methods would be used instead. What all this essentially created, explains Bob McLeod, the manager of the Vermont Occupational Safety and Health Administration (VOSHA), was a considerable amount of ambiguity and confusion for builders and roofers. “It looked like it might be a good idea,” says McLeod, referring to the ‘95 directive, “but in actual practice it was so confusing and it created so many problems that it just wasn’t worth it.”

One significant point of confusion, McLeod notes, was determining what activities were, or were not, covered under the 1995 directive. If, for instance, a worker went from roofing in the morning to installing siding in the afternoon, the required fall protection not only changed, but the contractor’s compliance and documentation responsibilities also changed.

More importantly, though — and the main reason why OSHA has rescinded the STD 3.1A directive — is that with this confusion came an unacceptable level of worker risk. US construction workers, while comprising only five percent of the US work force, account for nearly 20 percent of all worker deaths, reports OSHA. And, among the leading cause of deaths in the construction industry, most are from falls, and the vast majority of hose fall take place in residential construction. Consider the numbers:

There are roughly 6.7 million construction workers employed in the US, and every workday of every year, one of those workers will fall to his or her death. Factor in the number of reported worksite injuries resulting from falls, and one in every 20 US construction workers will endure death or serious injury, this year alone, from a worksite fall. And, contrary to common opinion, the US census reports that older workers (45 to 54-years-old) are far more likely to be killed on the job than any other age group, with the number of 45 to 54-year-old worker deaths outnumbering all 16 to 34-year-old worker deaths combined.

 What Builders Need to Know

As of June 16, 2011, all residential contractors and roofers must now adhere to OSHA’s fall protection safety standards 1926.501 and 1926.502, on all residential projects.

What this means is that for any worker on site, either as an employee or subcontractor, who is working six or more feet about the lower level, the contractor is required to provide and/or ensure the use of one of three conventional fall protection systems — guardrails, safety nets and/or personal fall arrest systems. If such systems are deemed either infeasible or to present a greater safety hazard to the worker, an alternative method of fall protection may be still be used. But, unlike in the past, the use of alternative methods of fall protection must be accompanied by written documentation that explains why a conventional system was not use and what alternative system is to be used instead. This plan then must be left on site and made available to all workers.

It is also important to note that OSHA requires written documentation for each individual use of alternative fall protection systems, and for each occurrence. A production builders, for instance, cannot not use the same plan for all homes of a similar design within a development, but must instead produce a new plan for each new work site and construction activity.

To sum up OSHA’s new directive: If you can use one of the three conventional fall protection systems, use it. OSHA has intentionally sought to discourage, and make onerous, the use of alternative methods in the interest of improving worker safety. As the directive clearly states: “OSHA is not persuaded that there are significant safety or feasibility problems with the use of such equipment for the vast majority of residential construction activities.”

—————————

Side Bar:

Federal OSHA’s Top Ten Standards cited for violation by general contractors in the construction of single-family housing (from October 2009 to September 2010) and the average fine imposed:

#	Standard Cited	Standard #	# of Citations	Average Fine Imposed
1	General Requirements	1926.451	462	$747.00
2	Duty to have fall protection	1926.501	395	$1051.00
3	Ladders	1926.1053	162	$557.00
4	Training requirements- Fall Protection	1926.503	102	$376.00
5	Hazard communication	1910.1200	95	$193.00
6	General safety and health provisions	1926.020	95	$873.00
7	Head protection	1926.100	81	$578.00
8	Eye and face protection	1926.102	73	$658.00
9	Training requirements: Scaffolds	1926.454	65	$424.00
10	Wiring design and protection	1926.404	63	$498.00

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Link: http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/citedstandard.sic?p_esize=&p_state=FEFederal&p_sic=1521

———————————-

For information on OSHA’s fall protection standards and the conventional fall protection systems, see the links below:

OSHA “Fall Hazards: Participant Guide,” at www.coshnetwork.org/sites/default/files/1%20FallsParticipant.pdf

Directive STD 03-11-002 http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=DIRECTIVES&p_id=4755

OSHA standard 1926. 501 – Duty to have fall protection: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10757

OSHA standard 1926.502 – Fall protection systems criteria and practices: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10758

 

Spring 2011
Norwich Record: Norwich University Alumni Magazine
News Feature

 

Lessons in Collaboration

A New University Program Integrates Disciplines in Pursuit of a National Honor

 

In every way possible, Norwich University works hard to prepare its students for life beyond the classroom. The school boasts one of the most rigorous academic environments in the county and holds, as its written mission, the education of students “to make moral, patriotic, efficient, and useful citizens.”

Since 2009, Management Professor Dr Michael Puddicombe has led yet another effort in pursuit of this goal. Dr. Puddicombe is the director of the University’s Center for the Integrated Study of the Built Environment, or CISBE. CISBE’s main objective, as the name denotes, is to integrate the diversity of Norwich’s academic disciplines into one collaborative center of study. More specifically, CISBE stems from Puddicombe’s own experience in the construction industry and his recognition that along with a student’s mastery of one discipline, cooperation between the disciplines is as equally important to learn.

Puddicombe, it might be said, is a man with a past; a past, it so happens, perfectly suited for his work with CISBE. Prior to obtaining his PhD in Operations Management, Puddicombe worked in construction, doing, as he says, “everything from digging ditches to owning and developing projects.” It was through this experience that Puddicombe faced, firsthand, the construction industry’s often debilitating lack of cooperation. “Architects, engineers, and contractors, like George Bernard Shaw said of England and the US, are people separated by a common language,” Puddicombe said. “We really don’t know each other. So we started the construction management program with the idea that we’d get everybody working together.”

Now, under the auspices of CISBE, students from Norwich’s three construction disciplines —architecture, engineering, and construction management — have collaboratively completed one project, are working on a second, and next year will begin a critical third.

The first project, the Energy Mobile Building Arts Research Center (EMBAC) was completed in the summer of 2010 and stands in Disney Field, near the Armory. The rectangular, box- like structure is a solar-powered research lab designed to be transported by trailer and to serve as a promotional tool for both Norwich and the project’s focus on sustainable design.

The second project, the RAE(V) house, pronounced ‘rave,’ is a solar-powered house that architecture Professor Matt Lutz expects to start building in early 2011. The design of the home was Norwich’s 2011 entry into the Solar Decathlon, a biennial design competition hosted by the US Department of Energy. Through the competition, 20 US schools are chosen to design and build a cost-effective, energy-efficient, solar-powered home, which, to make it even more challenging, must be transported and erected on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Norwich’s 2011 entry was not selected, spurring students and faculty to set their sights on 2013 and to use their work on EMARC and RAE(V) to influence, inspire and inform the 2013 entry.

“In the long run, we are going to come out much stronger as a result of what we are doing,” said Puddicombe. “When you have an architecture student, an engineering student, and construction management student actually working together on a physical project and realizing how their decisions impact each other, it is a learning experience that just can’t be replicated.”