Black Mountain Custom Builder explains Window Options

Windows can be one of your home's most attractive features. Windows provide views, day lighting, ventilation, and solar heating in the winter. Unfortunately, they can also account for 10% to 25% of your heating bill. During the summer, your air conditioner must work harder to cool hot air from sunny windows. Install ENERGY STAR windows and use curtains and shade to give your air conditioner and energy bill a break. If you live in the Sun Belt, look into low-e windows, which can cut the cooling load by 10% to 15%. As an Asheville NC Custom Home Builder in Black Mountain we know the importance of choosing the correct energy saving windows for your custom application. There are considerations to be made depending upon home site position and whether the home is a passive solar type design. ENERGY STAR windows are a given requirement if the home is to be green certified.

If your home has single-pane windows, as many U.S. homes do, consider replacing them with new double-pane windows with high-performance glass (e.g., low-e). In colder climates, select windows that are gas filled with low emissivity (low-e) coatings on the glass to reduce heat loss. In warmer climates, select windows with selective coatings to reduce heat gain. If you are building a new home, you can offset some of the cost of installing more efficient windows because they allow you to buy smaller, less expensive heating and cooling equipment. Advantage Development Co. is an award winning Asheville NC Builder with over twenty years of experience in high end custom residential construction. Visit us today at http://www.advdevco.com/ to learn more about why we build better homes and have since 1990.

Black Mountain Custom Builder talks Foundations

If you decide to have your new foundation waterproofed, and you should, the company doing the work will most likely insist that they install or monitor the installation of your drain tile system. Very few builders that I am aware of take the time or interest to adequately install drain tile. Water naturally flows toward your foundation. This is especially true if you live on a hillside or even a slight slope (which, by the way, most of us do!) Water moves horizontally through soil. Water occupies the void spaces between the particles of soil. The deeper you go into a soil, especially if it is clay, the less space there is for water. As an Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain we know the importance of good foundation water proofing and footing drain systems. Foundation problems are very hard to resolve so we take great pains to assure we never have one.

To make matters worse, the soil that is use for back fill around your house is rarely compacted. When it is dumped around your house it has huge amounts of air in it. This dirt was fluffed up and pumped full of air when it was dug from the ground. It can takes years and years for this ground to naturally compact. In some cases, where overhangs protect the dirt, it may never truly compact. It can always have more air in it than the soil that is only 5 or 6 feet away. This can spell BIG trouble for your foundation if it is not waterproofed AND if you have a bad drain tile installation. We have a leader in the industry install all of our homes foundation waterproofing systems. They provide the home owner a written ten year warranty against foundation problems resulting from water damage. Advantage Development Co. is an Asheville NC Custom Home Builder that takes steps to assure every home we build is of the highest quality and will be issue free for the life of the home. Call us or visit us at http://www.advdevco.com/ to learn why we build a better home and win awards.

Black Mountain Custom Builder shares on Foundations

Footings are poured concrete pathways that help to spread the weight of the home from the foundation walls to the surrounding soil. Footings are wider than the foundation walls they support, and form the perimeter of the home. Sometimes, additional footings are added inside the perimeter to support load-bearing interior walls. A firm foundation, including properly installed footings of adequate size to support the structure and prevent excessive settlement, is essential to the satisfactory performance of buildings including raised floor systems. As an Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain and engineers, we understand the importance of a good foundation when constructing that high quality dream home. We use beefier footings on virgin earth constructed with over 50% more steel reinforcing than required by local and international building codes.

Continuous (stem wall) foundations are frequently constructed of reinforced masonry or poured concrete, supported by a continuous, reinforced-concrete spread footing. Stem wall foundations may include interior spot piers for support of the raised floor system. Moisture control of the crawlspace created by the stem wall foundation is an important issue and exactly why we install an insulated, sealed crawl system in all of our fine customs built on a crawl area. Advantage Development Co. is an Asheville NC Custom Home Builder in our second decade of high end custom residential construction. We pride ourselves on providing old world quality combined with cutting edge building science technologies. Visit us today at http://www.advdevco.com/ to learn why we have been winning awards and building fine custom homes since 1990.

Black Mountain Custom Builder likes Recycled Paper Counter Tops

Want a green material for your kitchen counter tops that is tough enough to stand up to skateboards, boats and even airplanes? Then you will want to check out recycled paper counter tops! I know, paper does not sound like a very practical material for a counter top, after all it is quite fragile and disintegrates when it gets wet, but these counter tops are made from pulp that comes from trees harvested by managed forests along with some recycled paper. Of course, it does not resemble paper at all once it is processed and the result is a beautiful and durable green counter top. As an Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain we like the new recycled paper counter tops being offered by a company named paper stock, they are truly amazing counter tops, both beautiful, and durable.

These recycled counter tops also have many advantages such as being heat resistant, scratch resistant and stain resistant. This type of counter top is a solid color throughout the entire thickness so any scratches that do occur will not be very noticeable. With a heat resistance of up to 350 degrees you will not have to worry about burns on your new counter. But perhaps, the best thing about these recycled paper counter tops is that they are very sanitary and, in fact, the material has been certified by the National Sanitation Foundation for use in cutting boards. It has an impervious surface and resists the growth of bacteria. Advantage Development Co. is an award winning Asheville NC Custom Home Builder that likes to stay current on new trends and products being offered for custom home building. Visit us today at http://www.advdevco.com/ to learn why we are the choice of many discriminating home owners in the Asheville NC area.

Black Mountain Custom Builder shares on Insulation Basics

There is no component of a home more important in minimizing energy costs than insulation. Insulation is the material used in walls, ceilings, roofs, and foundations that slows the flow of heat. Most insulation works by trapping air in tiny pockets, and it is the air that actually does the insulating. If you could keep air perfectly still and did not have solid materials that heat also conducts through (like fibers or cell walls), the air would insulate to about R-5.5 per inch. (R-value is a measure of resistance to heat flow; the higher the number, the lower the heat flow.) As an Asheville NC Custom Builder in black mountain we know and appreciate the science behind good insulating materials such as fiberglass, cellulose, and foam.

With fiberglass insulation, the glass fibers create air pockets that impede air movement; higher-density fiberglass insulates better, because the air pockets are smaller and air molecules have more trouble moving around. Cellulose insulation works the same way, though because the air pockets are somewhat smaller, it insulates a little better. Polystyrene relies on a cellular structure, rather than fibers, to trap the air. Advantage Development Co. is a master award winning Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain and is here to better educate clients on the best suited insulation for their new home application. We are a big fan of using polystyrene on the foundation walls, spray foam in the rim joist, blown cellulose in the walls, and spray foam in the attic at the roof line to totally insulate the house envelope. Visit us at http://www.advdevco.com/ashevillencbuilder.html to learn more about us an Asheville NC Custom Home Builder.

Black Mountain Custom Builder likes Window Layouts that Incorporate Creative Window Design

Imaginative window design can help you enjoy your house more and make it greener at the same time. Building with an efficient use of interior space is a tenet of green building, but it may leave you feeling claustrophobic. One way to avoid this is to use the outdoors to create the sense that the room you are in is part of a larger space. Windows with low sills bring sight lines closer to the house, increasing visual connection to the outdoors. High windows such as transoms bring in enlightening views of the sky, but extra units cost more. We sometimes have custom patterns made into our windows to create the effect of transoms without breaking the budget. We are an Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain that likes creative window design and layout in our fine custom homes.

When privacy is not an issue, consider dropping window sills lower than normal. Doing so pulls sight lines closer to the house, increasing visual connection to the outdoors. As long as the edge of the glass is 18 inches above the finished floor and 30 inches away from a door, it should not need to be tempered, which saves money. Sometimes it is worth it to pay extra for windows that sit even lower. This is particularly effective on sloping sites, but even on a flat site, it changes the feel of a space dramatically. As an Award Winning Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain we like working with clients on creative ways to enhance the overall feel of that new custom home without breaking the bank. Visit us today at http://www.advdevco.com/ to learn more about how we design and build award winning homes in Asheville NC.

Black Mountain Custom Builder hates Thermal Bridging

Everything is relative, especially when it comes to thermal bridging. Thermal bridging occurs wherever assembly components with low R-values relative to surrounding materials span from the inside to the outside of a building assembly. Thermal bridging takes place in wood-framed assemblies because, although wood is a pretty good insulator at about R-1 per inch, it is at least three times more thermally conductive than any cavity insulation, which start at about R-3.5 per inch. With steel framing at about R.04 per inch, it is thermal bridging on a whole different scale. Steel framing typically reduces the in-cavity R-value by as much as 50%, while wood framing reduces in-cavity R-value by a bit less than 10%. As an Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain for over twenty years we understand the negative effects associated with thermal bridging.

Wrapping a building envelope with exterior rigid insulation eliminates thermal bridging. Rigid insulation as exterior sheathing is a great idea for wood-framed assemblies, imperative for steel. But as in all things hydrothermal, you get a double benefit when you reduce or eliminate thermal bridging, you save energy and reduce the potential for condensation, mold, and rot. The main reason we put insulation in framing cavities is because there is space, it is the easiest and least expensive place to put the stuff. But it is not the best place, in large part because of thermal bridging. In what Joe Lstiburek of Building Science Corporation calls the perfect wall (or roof), all of the insulation is on the exterior. This means that the building frame experiences nearly the same conditions as the occupants, a real recipe for happy, comfortable, and long-lived people and buildings. Advantage Development Co. is an award winning Asheville NC Custom Builder in Black Mountain that strives to have less thermal bridging in very fine home we build. Visit us today at http://www.advdevco.com/ to learn more.