Posts Tagged ‘nc homes’

Exterior Finishing

Monday, January 18th, 2010

 

Exterior Construction

Exterior Construction

During the exterior phase of construction the interior can also be under construction, we will address interiors next week.

Garage doors can be installed before the concrete flooring is poured, but most door installation professionals would prefer the flooring intact first. All drywall should be hung, but not finished, thus allowing for a much smoother paint job later. Keep in mind that your garage doors are a very important aspect of your home, especially during bad weather. All DV Wise custom homes demand a smooth and obstacle free door installation project for our sub-contractor, because when the weather is at its worse, your garage doors are too.

The brick used for your home is a major aesthetic point for your home. An unprofessional job here will haunt you forever. We use seasoned, local professionals only for all our brick and stonework. Good or bad brickwork will greatly affect the curb appeal, resale value, and be a constant reminder of a job well done or a few dollars saved. Brickwork can not be repaired without a major renovation. Doing it right the first time applies greatly here.

Our siding contractor will be installing the siding, soffits and gutters. Contractors rarely enjoy working behind someone that does the same work they do. Again, a penny saved may be many dollars lost.

Stucco is applied best during spring and summer conditions. Patience pays off well waiting a month or two for better conditions. Applying stucco is done in phases, with the color applied in the final step.

We consider your driveway and garage flooring long before its time to pour. The day when the concrete truck is scheduled to arrive, we ensure all needed personal are aware, prepared and on site ready to install your driveway. This too is a step not to be taken lightly, mistakes here can be costly and unappealing. You should wait with finishing the concrete, until all the heavy trucks and equipment are finished with their jobs. Try to make this one of your last projects, especially when it is not done on the original soil. Your driveway should be reinforced with rebar, although it is almost impossible to eliminate all cracks, rebar helps greatly.

Decks should be constructed after the stucco and/or siding is completely finished. Railing is required for all decks 2 feet or more off the ground on all NC homes. Various forms of railing are available, aesthetics again should be greatly considered. The railing should be very stable and attractive.

Landscaping is nearing the final stage of the building process, indeed it is an exterior aspect, but should be done after the interior of the home is complete.

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Is LEED on Track to Save the World? The Overstatement

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

The report overstates the impact of LEED because it attributes to LEED the environmental benefit of a project having achieved a certain point, without exploring the question of whether or not LEED actually contributed to that decision, choice, or action.

For example, lots of LEED buildings are in urban centers, where they get points for being located near public transit and basic services. Watson associates those points with reduced vehicle miles traveled, which is the intent of those credits. But wouldn’t most of those projects have been in those locations regardless of whether or not they pursued LEED? The only way I can think of to correct for this assumption would be to interview a representative sampling of LEED project teams about their decision-making process for each credit, and find out which points were actually affected by their decision to go for LEED certification.

To some extent this is a matter of semantics. In talking about reduced VMT and water use, Watson refers to the “savings from LEED,” but in discussing operation energy savings he refers to the benefits “from LEED buildings.” The latter is less presumptive, because it doesn’t imply that LEED itself is responsible for all those benefits.

Source: www.BuildingGreen.com

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