Diane & Glen's plans for F27

landscaping plan

the customized Cedron floor plan

front & rear elevations

side elevations

Gary & Beth's house

Nuestra casa en Argentina está casi lista. En invierno, las viñas están desnudos, y la temperatura en la noche es mas frio que 20F. Pero el campo de golf está todavía muy verde.

casa linda, casi lista

living @ La Estancia

Mike & I plan to move into our new house on 1 September, 2011. We'll be living there until further notice.

LEC folks who currently plan to be in residence during the month of November include at least 6 families, altogether 15 people (Beth, Bevan, Carol, Collin, David, Gary, Jane, John, Kent, Linda, Margaret, Melissa, Mike, Sarah, & Tanya) at last count.

Any chance you'll be there, too?

our roofline

what it's like to build: window stop bars

Here's a clever piece of hardware we saw at Hotel Colomé:

window stop bar

Fortunately for us, Norberto Cornejo's construction team built Hotel Colomé & is also building our house, so he's going to obtain & install this hardware on our windows, too.

what it's like to build: details

The design modifications to our Calchaqui Homes semi-custom-house plans began in March, 2010. We accepted a construction bid from Norberto Cornejo in August. Construction began in September.

By that time Calchaqui Homes had sent us numerous revisions of nearly 100 drawings that specified the detail of our house, including these:

1. aire acondicionado: air conditioning
2. antepechos: windowsills
3. arquitectura: floor plans
4. baño: bathroom
5. calefacción: heating
6. carpinteria: cabinetry
7. chimeneas: chimneys
8. cielorrasos: ceilings
9. columnas: columns
10. corrientes debiles: Internet, phone, & TV outlets/wiring
11. cortes: interior cross-sections
12. escaleras: staircases
13. estructura: structural supports
14. gas: gas lines
15. iluminación: lighting
16. lavadero: laundry
17. paisajismo: landscaping
18. parilla, aka asador: outdoor barbecue
19. pintura: painting
20. pisos: floors
21. pluvial: roof drainage
22. riego: irrigation
23. sanitaria agua: clean water
24. sanitaria cloaca: waste water
25. solias: thresholds
26. techos: roofs
27. toilette: powder room
28. tomas: electrical outlets
29. umbrales: thresholds
30. unifilar topologico: electrical box
31. vistas: elevations
32. zócalos: baseboards

We found the amount of detail daunting & wondered how to keep track of it all. How would we even remember what we had decided?

By mid-December we began to create a spreadsheet that would contain everything we knew about the house we wanted built. This task took us nearly a week. We created the spreadsheet as a Google document & shared it with our Calchaqui Homes liaisons & the Cornejo construction team.

We used this incrementally updated spreadsheet as the base document for all our meetings with Calchaqui Homes.

The benefits of the spreadsheet have been great. At all times, we know which design decisions are open & which are closed. By the time our house reached the finishing stage (now), all the decisions have been made.

Below I describe each section of the spreadsheet.

Costs

For our house, the uncovered, aka additional costs above & beyond the construction bid, include these items:

1. air conditioning
2. cabinetry that cost more than the builder bid
3. ceiling fans
4. granite that cost more than the builder bid
5. heating
6. irrigation
7. kitchen appliances (dishwasher, garbage disposal, microwave oven, refrigerator, stove)
8. landscaping
9. laundry appliances (combination washer/dryer, wine refrigerator
10. lighting
11. solar hot water system
12. window stop bars
13. wood-burning stove

We listed each cost along with this information:

1. item
2. brief description
3. supplier
4. cost
5. date we approved the supplier's bid
6. open issues

Drawings

We listed each drawing & this information about each drawing:

1. name
2. brief description
3. revision #
4. date we received the latest revision
5. open issues

Finish Details

Ooh, dauntingly long list: seems like it took forever to make all these decisions:

1. acequia extensions: locations, materials, shape
2. air conditioners (artefactos de aire acondicionado): # of units, kCal ratings, locations of interior & exterior units
3. appliances (artefactos): kitchen, laundry
4. backsplashes (revestimientos): kitchen, laundry, vanities
5. baseboards (zócalos): shape, type of wood, wood stain
6. bathroom tile (baldosa, porcellanato)
7. bathtub (bañera): shape, size
8. bidets (bidets)
9. bridges (puentes) over the acequia: how many, material, shape
10. cabinet handles (manijas)
11. cabinets, interior & exterior (carpintería): bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, pantry, linen closet, walk-in closet
12. ceiling fans (ventiladores): attached light fixtures, heights, locations, models, switch locations
13. closets (armario, ropero): height of hanging rods, rod material, shelving
14. countertops (mesadas): bathroom vanities, kitchen, laundry room
15. door & window handles (manijas) & latches (picaportes)
16. door keys & locks (cerraduras)
17. door sashes (bastidores): shape, type of wood
18. driveway surface (superficie del acceso vehicular)
19. electrical outlets (tomas): # of outlets per plate, locations
20. faucets (grifo, grifería): bathtub, bidets, kitchen, laundry room, lavapies (foot-wash), showers, vanities
21. flooring, interior &amp (pisos); exterior
22. garden borders: location, material, shape
23. glass (vidrio): cabinets, doors, windows
24. hose bibs (llaves)
25. hot water heaters (caldera, calefón): brand/model, locations
26. lighting fixtures (artefactos), interior & exterior: heights, locations, switch/plate brand/model & locations
27. lintels (dinteles): locations, shape, size, type of wood, wood stain
28. mirrors (espejos): full-length, vanities
29. paths (senderos): location, material
30. plants (plantas): list of plants, planting locations
31. ponds (lagunas): depth, lining, plumbing
32. radiators (radiadores): # of elements per, brand/model, locations, temperature regulators, zones
33. roof beams (vigas): shape, size, type of wood, wood stain
34. screen doors & windows (telas mosquitera): framing, type of screen
35. shower enclosure (mámpara): material, shape, size
36. showers (duchas): height of showerheads
37. sinks (bachas): kitchen, laundry room, vanities
38. staircase (escalera): banisters, rails, steps
39. thresholds (solias, umbrales), interior & exterior: materials, shape, size
40. toilet roll holders (portarollos)
41. toilets (inodoros)
42. towel racks (toalleros, perchas)
43. trellis beams (vigas): shape, size, type of wood, wood stain
44. window sashes (bastidores): shape, type of wood
45. windows, fixed (paños fijo) & opening (hojas de abrir)
46. windowsills (antepechos): shape, size, material
47. window stop bars
48. wood stove (salamandra)

For each finish detail we listed the following:

1. item
2. specifications including, where applicable, brand & model numbers
3. date of decision
4. open issues

Ok, this is very anal, but guess what: we think it's working. Hardly any last minute decisions or missing component schedule delays. When it's over, we'll tell you how it all worked out.

what it's like to build: carbon footprint

As we have lived for more than 15 years on an off-grid property on the Big Island of Hawaii, we are used to generating a low carbon footprint.

Hawaii house, the east elevation faces the ocean

We live in a passive solar house with big picture windows facing mostly south & east. Louvered windows to each side of the picture windows provide ample ventilation. Most louvers are somewhat open all of the time.

In this mild climate – 60-85F all year long – we don't need heating or air conditioning. The great room has a wood stove that we frequently light on winter mornings or during long rainy days. We have no curtains, only a bamboo pull-down shade in the bedroom & rice-paper shades in the guest bathroom for privacy. These shades are down once or twice a year, maybe.

We collect rain water for drinking & washing. That it rains 250" per year here is a big help.

our stream during rain

We generate electric power from the year-round stream that runs through the middle of our property. Back in 1998, we built a hydroelectric system that generates a continuous 700-900W, which easily supplies our needs. Of course we use low-energy appliances, low-energy light bulbs, & we hang-dry our clothes. We use our diesel-powered backup generator when we want to power-wash the decks or use some other a high-amperage power tool for an extended time.

Solar hot water panels on the roof supply plenty of hot water, plus surplus electric power heats an electric element in the water heater. We have a pair of 9-gallon propane tanks that feed the kitchen stove & the instant hot water heater (which is usually isolated, via a valve, from the solar hot water system because the solar panels supply plenty of hot water without this backup heater's assistance).

Naturally we wanted to build a house at La Estancia with a small carbon footprint, although we knew the footprint would be larger than what we're used to.

downstairs floor plan of our La Estancia house

Since La Estancia is in the southern hemisphere, we oriented our house north & east this time. Big picture windows or double glass doors face these directions from the great room & kitchen, which are the daytime & evening living areas of the house. The big double doors on the west side are protected from the late afternoon sun by a patio roof. The big picture window in the bedroom faces south & may need curtains for warmth in the winter.

We don't expect to need air conditioning, but we are installing 3 cool-only Carrier units, one in each of the 3 rooms, just in case we need it & also for resale value. More importantly, we have purchased 7 ceiling fans, each with an overhead light: 2 fans in the great room, 2 on the west-facing patio, 1 in the kitchen, 1 in the bedroom, & 1 in the upstairs room.

upstairs floor plan of our La Estancia house

For heating, we chose a wood stove in the great room & radiators heated by a gas caldera (furnace). We cut the recommended number of radiators by more than half because it seemed ridiculous to us. The wood stove will create lots of heat in the main living space, which has no interior walls. The smallest room with the most radiator elements is the bedroom. For bathrooms, we have outlets for portable electric heaters if we want them. Upstairs will naturally be warmer than downstairs due to convection, & the windows on all 4 walls will capture all the sun there is.

Limiting electrical use involves lighting, appliances, & behavior. We cut back on the original lighting plan we received so that the interior fixture count is as low as we could make it. In addition, most light switches control only a single bulb, which means that one flip doesn't draw more electricity than required. Ceiling fans & their lights are each controlled by 2 switches: one for the fan, one for the light. All bulbs are compact fluorescent, LED, or halogen. Landscaping lights are solar-powered.

Regarding appliances, we chose appliances with the best low-energy ratings we could find.; we bought a combination washer/dryer but won't use the dryer much because we have a tender outside the laundry room where we will hang-dry our clothes. Our kitchen stove runs off propane.

simplified drawing of the solar hot water system

With all the sunny days in Cafayate, solar hot water was a no brainer for us, but we had a difficult time finding a solar installer who shared our solar understanding. Our friends who are right now building a very small carbon footprint in Jujuy led us to Christoph Müller, who has designed & will install a solar hot water system for us.

Our passive hot water tank, which contains a serpentine that acts as a heat exchanger, will sit in our mechanical room. Our two solar collector panels will sit on the north-facing roof of the laundry room. Our calefón (instant hot water heater) will be available to supplement the solar heating during rainy times. Our suspicion is that we will route hot water around, not through, the calefón most of the time because we won't need it.

Originally, we hoped to buy a single, dual-function calefón that would supplement the solar hot water heating & heat the radiators. That turned out to be a contractor warranty nightmare, so we had to back down & buy the second caldera (furnace) to heat the radiators. Perhaps we will go to the original design when we reach replacement time for one or both of the heating units. Of course, we hope both units last forever.

what it's like to build: lighting

At some point you'll look at a drawing titled Iluminación (Lighting), which will show you where all the fixed lighting fixtures will be installed in your new home.

Count them. That's how many lighting fixtures you will need to choose & pay for. For our 2,000 square foot house, the number was well over 50, which horrified me – too many!

Mike & I worked the number down below 40. That seemed doable, & what we should have done next was sort the fixtures into types, e.g., exterior ground, exterior sconce, interior hanging, interior sconce, interior cone, etc., & decide which locations could use identical fixtures. For example, we are using one exterior sconce fixture for all the patio sconces.

exterior sconce light
some will be mounted vertically, some horizontally

Had we known to do this analysis & make these decisions, we would have known that we only needed to buy 15 different types of fixture.

Instead, we took our revised lighting plan – 37 fixtures! – to a store that we chose quite randomly on Avenue del Libertador in Buenos Aires. We liked the salesman who worked with us because he figured out quickly what sort of fixtures we preferred (plain, modestly priced) & he didn't push us. The prices seemed very reasonable.

In less than 2 hours we managed to choose most of the fixtures. We forgot about a few, & we made some mistakes about which lights went in open beam ceilings & which went in the flat ceiling under the second floor. All in all, we solved 90% of the lighting problem.

The salesman sent us a quote, we passed that along to Calchaqui Homes, where our liaison helped us complete the order. Because we bought all our lighting in a single store, we realized a 15% discount on the total.

Choosing lighting, like choosing appliances, would have been hard for us to do through an intermediary. If you possibly can, plan to choose your fixtures (& your appliances) during a visit to Argentina. We shopped in Buenos Aires because that's where we were (shopping for granite), but we'll have to pay more for delivery as a result. I imagine (but don't know for sure) that we could have found all the same lighting in Salta.

To see a sample of our lighting fixtures & prices, please visit this post on Cala House blog.

what it's like to build: ceilings

We chose open beam ceilings throughout our La Estancia house except where the 2nd-story room forced us to have flat ceilings.

The next question was what would go between the beams.

We decided against tongue-and-groove because we've had that in Hawaii for years & wanted a change. We saw the smooth white between-beam ceilings in the Heath Club, liked them, & asked for the same.

Our builder told us how he liked to build such ceilings so that they will not develop cracks caused by expansion & contraction, showed us an example in progress at a Cafayate winery, & we agreed that he should use this technique for our house.

First they raise the beams:

bedroom & hall beams

Then they layer 2 types of mesh over the the beams. One is a very wide metal mesh. The other is a much finer mesh, not sure whether the material is metal or something else:

2 layers of mesh laid on top of the beams

Over the two layers of mesh, they pour a mixture of concrete & small styrofoam balls. It's the styrofoam expanding & contracting that prevents the ceiling from cracking when the temperature changes:

looking down at concrete-with-styrofoam over mesh over beams

looking up at concrete-with-styrofoam over mesh over beams

Stay tuned to see how they finish the ceiling interior.

David & Deirdre's preliminary site plan

site is in the N-section, west of Charles & TC, slightly south of the river

tiny houses

Who will build a tiny house? Why not visit Tiny House Blog for ideas?

Today, THB's featured home is located in Uruguay, slightly rundown, Matt, but worth a look?

might be dug up & put on a truck . . .

I don't know how tiny a house needs to be to be classified as tiny, but under 500 square feet (approx. 50 square meters) makes sense to me.

To live in a container that you could buy & ship straight to your lot, check out ecopods:

an ecopod container house

If you'd rather live in a sphere or install a sphere for your treehouse, visit freespiritspheres:

a sphere house

You could even build your house from a whisky vat or a glider:

converted Horsa glider

Check out Tiny House Blog's photo gallery for more ideas.

Charles & TC: the VERY preliminary N-11 site plan

N-11 is the gray pentagon in the center of this map

roof

We are pleased to announce that our house is getting a roof.

eucalyptus poles make a trellis over the kitchen patio

garage crossbeam

master hall beams in foreground, master bedroom beams in background

cane ceiling under the parilla patio roof

wire mesh onto which concrete/styrofoam ceiling will be built

mesh/concrete/styrofoam ceiling of master hall

Jennifer, David & Marco: house plans

Jennifer, David, & Marco larking it up Mexican style

Jennifer, David, & their 14-year-old son Marco, New Zealanders for now, are celebrating the beginning of their house construction on lot E40. They chose the Hortensia semi-custom design from Calchaqui Homes.

Here's a reminder of where E40 sits on the master plan. Notice that the lot has road on three sides, an acequia running through, & is a very short walking distance to the Fitness Club & the Heath Club.

Below are elevations, floor plan, & preliminary landscaping. In the landscaping, ignore the guest house & pool, because they're future possibilities.

East (front of house) & South views

West (back of house) & North elevations

Layout

House siting & preliminary landscaping

what's it like to build: key questions

Some things we learned along the way:

Appliances: do the shopping yourself. Salta had everything we wanted, i.e., dishwasher, garbage disposal, kitchen stove, microwave oven, refrigerator, washer, dryer, wine refrigerator (see below). Be aware that standard kitchen stoves have burners with low BTU ratings. We bought our kitchen stove at a restaurant supply store; the lowest-rated burner has a higher BTU rating than any of the burners on a standard stove. We chose a combination washer/dryer because with only two of us, that's a more economic solution, plus we have a tender (walled-in-but-unroofed clothes drying area) just outside the exterior laundry room door. Choose what you want as early as possible & ask CH to buy & store them so that you don't pay more later due to inflation. Also, that way the builder & cabinet maker know exactly what size to leave for each appliance.

Cabinetry: we went with standard sizes (instead of custom) because it was more economical. Because our kitchen counters are deeper in some places than the standard lower cabinets, the builder built pony walls between the real kitchen wall & the back of the cabinets.

Closets: if you don't want your closets (clothes closets, hall closets, linen closets, pantry) to have raised floors, say so. The Argentine standard seems to be closet floors raised 2-3" above the real floor. We didn't see the point.

Construction Bid: ours did not include appliances, cabinets (unless built by our builder's carpenter), heating & air conditioning, lighting. Landscaping was a separate bid.

Door & Window Glass: we went with DVH, Doble Vidrio Hermético, which means double-paned windows. It's an energy-saving way to keep the house warmer in winter, cooler in summer.

Door & Window Screens: yes, you need them; flies & mosquitoes can be very annoying at certain times of year. We could not obtain the kind of fiberglass screening we're used to in the US, so we're going with very fine mesh metal screening, which comes in one color, silver, which will be painted black so that it does not reflect the sunlight.

Driveway: we don't want gravel & couldn't afford pavers, so we're going with asphalt; we've asked for our driveway to be paved the next time La Estancia has a road-paving event.

Electrical switches & outlets: find what you like on the Internet & specify the brand & model. They are different from what we're used to. Lots of switch models have lights in them, which we did not want (I like it dark at night). Note that switch plates are oriented vertically, not horizontally, so if you have more than one switch in a plate, specify above & below, not left & right. Also, request at least two outlets in each outlet plate (or you may not get two).

Fans: bathroom exhaust fans: no, an open window will dry the bathroom out in short order; kitchen stove hood & fan: no, we have good ventilation in the kitchen & throughout the house; ceiling fans: yes, we'll have 7: 3 in the great room, 1 in each of the 2 bedrooms, 2 in the west-looking outside patio. Unless you buy the brand of ceiling fan that's in the Heath Club, ceiling fans are cheap.

Granite: we found what we wanted in Buenos Aires, & then CH had the Salta firm special order our choices.

Handles (cabinets, doors, windows): we chose them over the Internet.

Heating & Cooling: turns out the heating/cooling wall-mounted heat pump units don't heat when it's really cold out. We chose not to go with radiant floor heating because I'm hot-blooded & didn't want to suffer the slow cool-down. We chose Argentine-standard radiator units in each room. A single calefón (instant hot water heater) both supplements (if necessary) our solar hot water & has a separate flow system that heats the water for the radiators. We chose cooling-only wall-mounted AC units, which are less expensive than the heating/cooling heat pump units. Each of these wall-mounted units, whether they are for heating/cooling or just cooling, have an exterior unit along with the interior unit. Decide where you want the exterior units unless you don't mind the noise they'll make. We halved the recommended number of radiator units because we'll also have a wood stove in the great room. We halved the recommended number of AC units because Cafayate locals told us that even in a very hot year, you only need AC about 20 days a year. Besides, we have all those ceiling fans.

the radiators we'll have look something like this

Heights: be sure you specify the heights of your clothes hanging bars, countertops, showerheads, towel rods, wall lights (interior & exterior), etc. Argentine standards may not be what you're used to.

Internet connection: wireless doesn't travel well through concrete & rebar. Specify carefully where you want Internet connection points, & recognize that one will not be enough. We have three: great room, master bedroom, upstairs room.

Keys & Locks: unless you want those long black keys, a different one for every lock, ask for Kallay locks & Yale-style keys. We'll have all our locks keyed to a single key.

Lighting: it's good to have your lighting fixtures chosen by the time the walls are up because that's when they lay in the wiring. In fact, they laid in all the ceiling wiring for our first floor before they set the second floor on top of it. We chose all our lighting from a single store in Buenos Aires because we were there & we liked the salesperson. I'm sure we could have found everything in Salta, too. We had no problem choosing fixtures that use low-energy bulbs.

Plumbing fixtures, sinks, & tile: we chose them over the Internet.

Solar Hot Water: CH is working with the vendor we chose, so they now know how this vendor's design works. Decide early if you want solar hot water & whether you want the hot water tank(s) on the roof because that will affect roof design. Roof tanks are the cheapest & most efficient solution, but the tanks must be hidden from view, another design issue. Because we found our solar hot water vendor late in our construction process, we're going with the hot water tank in our mechanical room.

Wine Storage: We don't understand the wine storage areas/rooms designed into the CH houses; who keeps wine at ambient temperature? We bought a 120-bottle wine-storage refrigerator & designed a spot for it in our laundry room.

I'm sure you have topics I haven't addressed. E-me with questions & I'll post more.

roof beams on our patio

view east from yard into patio

view north from master wing into patio w/ parilla

photos & news from Margaret & John

We are getting closer to house completion at 35E with the order of appliances and tile selections. I really like the design over the windows, along with the tiles surrounding the lower exterior of the house.

We are having a late Spring in North Dakota with cool weather, much rain/cloudy weather and late seeding of crops of great concern to farmers. Usually warm weather comes all at once, then and crops catch up, but the selection of what is planted will determine success of harvest. There is a rich variety here which includes wheat, barley, corn, soy beans, eatable beans, potatoes, sugar beets and sun flowers. the last two named are late to be harvested and can run into cold weather and snow when it had a late spring planting. Wheat has been a vintage crop in this area but the money crops of soy beans and sugar beets have been the money crops the last few years. We don’t do the farming anymore but remain much interested.