Another adventure is in the books. It will probably be a week or so until Mr. Hughes spins today’s adventure into golden prose, so I figure I’d throw up a photo to build up the anticipation.

We built a fun modern farmhouse for a family a few years ago. They have just put it on the market for resale. (Note that they have done a lot of landscaping since our original photos were taken!) Check out details here:

http://charlottesville.craigslist.org/reo/2813536861.html

EarthCraft-certified farmhouse with modern interior, designed and built by Latitude 38.
- 3 spacious bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms
- Unique 2010 construction in an established old neighborhood
- Highly energy-efficient with US Department of Energy score of 64 on the Energy Smart Home Scale
- Sizable quarter acre city lot with idyllic creek and bridge
- Solid maple and natural slate floors throughout
- 9′ ceilings throughout with 4′ full-sized, sealed crawlspace
- Large Pella Pro-line double hung and awning windows
- Spacious kitchen with Bosch and Samsung appliances
- Wood and concrete countertops and large center island
- Wood panelled accent walls throughout
- Solid wood doors throughout
- Dual-zone heat pump heating and air conditioning
- Large covered front porch
- Large modern shed and custom wood playset in backyard
- Fenced on three sides
- Metal roof and hardiplank siding
- Located in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood
- Walk to UVA; take the trolley to the downtown mall
- Off-street parking

Find more pictures and information at http://www.qbode.com
Contact David Tooley at detooley@gmail.com or (706) 461-3068 to schedule a showing.

We’ve been pretty lucky this last month or so with the weather.  All of the tradesmen have been working on the inside forcing us to be outside installing the siding.  Except for a few ridicuously cold and gusty days after after the new year, the gods have been smiling on us.

We have worked our way around the whole house installing almost all the hardiepanel siding.  We went with the prepainted variety this time around mainly because we didn’t want cold weather to halt the painting process.  We also had our friends at Martin Roofing bend up a whole slew of specialty siding joints and flashing out of aluminum, which we prepainted prior to installing.

These last few days, we’ve rolled onto installing the galvalume metal roof that wraps down part of the backside.  We’re hoping to have our cypress siding in the next week to complete the outside soon.

There is an old plumbing maxim: Hot on the left, cold on the right, and sh*t runs down hill. Well, I gloriously proved that wrong…

Our toilet was leaking water the other night and was doing it in a way that made absolutely no sense.  After troubleshooting everything two times and not being able to come up with an answer a light bulb suddenly went off: what if the sewer is backing up in to the house.  I went outside in my slippers and popped off the lid of the drain clean out to be met with a geyser to rival Old Faithful.

Digging up our front yard the next morning, I thought I would trace the drainline to the sidewalk.  There was an old house on the property that was torn down before we bought the lot, so I just tied our pvc drain line into an old 4″ cast iron pipe that headed out into the street.  Last summer we inspected what I could see of the cast iron and it looked in great shape, so I decided to forgo the expense of running a new line into the street.

What I didn’t realize until I was sitting in a canal of my family’s waste was that after three feet, the cast iron switched over to terra cotta pipe, which was crushed.  (I think I have myself to blame on that one as we happen to run a vibrating plate tamper over that ground a few weeks back when compacting a little path a few weeks back.)

Anyway, never a dull moment at Latitude 38.  Next Friday, I hope to get up some photos of the new Riverbluff house as the exterior is really looking sharp.

We thought we’d spotlight a lit of our dare I say “oddball” plumbing fixtures in our new house.

The first photo shows a simple water fountain we put in our kitchen. We drink a lot of water and we’ve noticed over the years that our dishwasher has too many water glasses from people constantly starting new ones. We wanted to get an old fashioned porcelain school water fountain, but the the used ones we found were in too bad of shape and the new ones were too expensive. The water fountain fixture piece was five bucks and we just used a metal mixing bowl for the bowl, which we drilled a hole in the bottom for the drain.

The second photo is of an old fashion water spigot that we plumbed down low to supply Felipe, our 100 pound lab, with water. He drinks so much water that it gets old lifting up the big bowl and having to fill it up. This actually has a little lever on it that we can tap with our feet and not even bend over. Ahh, laziness!

The third photo is from the same 1st floor 1/2 bath. The whole room is clad in this whimsical and wild spanish cedar curved strips that Devin designed. We wanted the fixtures to lend that same flavor, so Joey picked out simple old fashioned brass water spigots that come out of the wall. The bowl sink sits on an old letter press cabinet we picked up secondhand.

- Jeff

This Christmas I traveled once again to the Mexico-California border with One Small House. The project for the holiday season, with the help of a donation from Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, was ten houses for ten different families.

This year would promise to be very different. The trip would have to overcome the absence of beloved founder and friend, Dr. Robert Katz, who could not steal time from being a real doctor, even though he would’ve loved nothing more. Little did we know, the guidance of trip leader Craig Ness proved to be everything we had dreamed of and more…

We arrived on Christmas Day in San Diego, and crossed the border the next morning with tools and snacks in tow. The trip was guided by a handful of One Small House veterans…

Sterling Plenert, the group’s architect, had been craving real tacos since October, and was the first one in the car. Joe McBride, eager to get his hands dirty, was curious to see if the taco record would finally be broken this year (more on that later). Dave Kinnoin, affectionately known as the “Tool Boss,” drove down from LA in his van, which for those of you who don’t know much more accurately resembles the Titanic than an automobile. Gail Saetta was determined to prove that her fingers are made of steel (she did succeed), Eric Katz (yes, the same Katz family) was ready to wear both his builder and electrician hats simultaneously, and Sushmitha Reddy and Erica Torres were crucial in documenting and organizing the trip in addition to being on site.

Volunteers this year included family members Kyle and Kurt “Kujo” Ness, Elizabeth Saetta, Micky Katz, and the Campos family…actually if you think about it…the trip simply would not have been possible without the Katz, Ness, Saetta, and Campos families, who made up half of the team. The rest of our talented crew consisted of Joey Steele, Joe Iannucci, Lauren Napolitano, Waichak Luk, Kevin Bell, Bobby Schulze, Amy Durning, Brian Giannone, Erica Lai, and Alan Ehrlich.

With the help of our brilliant, local contractor Oscar, we were underway immediately. Craig and the OSH leadership were kind enough to let me design a home for the Lorenzo family – Rossi (26), and her two daughters Cinthia and Paola (6 and 7 respectively).  The three of them had been living in an old, borrowed motor home. The work was a welcome challenge that I hope left them happy. I have to admit I was fighting back tears when the two little girls handed us a handwritten thank you note on the last day…

In addition to the hard work, there were plenty of nights spent playing card games, and drinking lots of Tecate. I succeeded in breaking the taco record of 8 by eating 10 tacos, only to have my record broken fifteen minutes later by Kevin, who consumed 11; I guess it’s true what they say about your fifteen minutes of glory…And for those who had not left yet (and those who did not go to sleep early…you know who you are), New Years Eve was spent at the hotel bar in San Diego. It was a night that will not be forgotten…

I was truly impressed by everyone’s work ethic, and there are many families whose lives have been changed by this remarkable group of people. Stay tuned for more from OSH as they head to Haiti this spring, building only a short distance away from the Building Goodness Foundation. Sign up now…

-Tommy

Not that there is currently a good system for comparing houses with green features to really determine how they affect value. Nationally, the USGBC LEED and EnergyStar green certification programs are sometimes used by lenders/insurance providers to give a discount or additional coverage. For appraisers, the market is extremely local. First off, the MLS system is regional and the database is created for/by locals. We are starting to get to a point where CAAR is looking at introducing more environmetal features to their listing database, which would allow an appraiser/realtor to look up comps. The regional EarthCraft program is a an easy check-off feature to compare home sales. However, this is not yet clearly available to consumers looking for environmentally-conscious or energy efficient homes. Thus, even if “green” features, eg reduced energy bills, legitimately affect the value of a home, it is not always calculated into the valuation.

Now, I am sort of confusing two issues. One is value for appraisals that leads to financing. The second is value that consumers place on a property. However, in both cases, I would like users to be able to make better comparisons to other properties.

One new step in this direction is an addendum (Residential Green and Energy Efficieny Addendum) released this year by the national Appraisal Institute to help appraisers better value green features. I am glad they have initiated this, and that they are now offering classes for appraisers looking to learn more about these valuations. I have MANY edits that I would like to see incorporated into this document (honestly, I’m not sure how it got made), but it is a start! I am now going to fill out this form for our house, pass it on to the appraiser (luckily someone local), and see how she uses it in her valuation.

–Joey

We’ve had a spate of great fall weather which we’ve taken advantage of by framing up our next house at 123 Riverbluff Circle.  We burned the candle until dark this past Friday night, but we are under roof in advance of a rainy week ahead.

Thus far, the greatest element of this house are the incredible pastoral views out the back of the house. The rear of the house looks out towards an undeveloped part of a cemetery and on towards downtown Charlottesville.

At some point, we hope to find the time to get some out of date sketches and info on this house on our portfolio page, but my guess is it will probably be awhile.

From November 8 – 18 I travelled to Uganda and Rwanda with Building Goodness. The purpose of the trip was to explore the possibility of building a hospital for the Bishop Masereka Christian Foundation, based in Kasese, Uganda. My travel partner for the trip was Martin Quarles, a veteran BGF volunteer and builder with Alexander Nicholson.

The epic trip began in Washington. We took a 12 hour flight to Istanbul, a 6 hour flight to Entebbe, and then an eight hour drive to get to Kasese. Once there, Martin and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of hard-working people and explore a beautiful place. Our hosts were Bishop Zebedee Masereka and his wife Mama Stella, who are founding members of the Foundation. The foundation was initially begun as a program to aid students and children whose families have fallen victim to HIV / AIDS, but it now also focuses on providing medical care to the entire community. We met with Dr. Daniel Sambili, the chief operating physician at the BMCF medical clinic. We met the entire medical and administrative staff at the clinic, all of whom were very optimistic about the work they were doing and forthcoming in their goals for the new facility. In addition to Daniel, the staff includes two clinical officers, ten nurses, a lab technician, a lab assistant, one radiographer, and an administrative staff (30 people total). They have only 18 beds and one operating theater. Their primary focus is maternity and neonatal care, but they provide other services through their lab, which is able to check for malaria, HIV, etc. They offer inpatient, diagnostic, and outpatient care while also placing importance on community consultation for birth control and HIV / AIDS prevention. It is the only care immediately available to the residents of Kasese. However, they are currently operating out of a rented facility that is composed of four small (approx. 20’ x 40’) buildings, which are entirely inadequate. The humble facility restricts their capabilities, and the new hospital will allow them to better serve the town of Kasese and the surrounding area.

In addition to meeting with the medical staff we had many other key meetings with board members and community leaders. Present in all meetings was Leslie Nicholson, a key member of BMCF’s Board of Directors in the United States. We also had the pleasure of meeting three members of MASS Design – Chris Maurer, Andrew Brose, and Commode Dushimimana (all of whom live in Rwanda). MASS Design is a group of very talented designers and builders with offices in Boston, MA and Kigali, Rwanda . Formed as a subsidiary group of Partners in Health, MASS provides high quality design services mainly in Central Africa. We had an opportunity to tour their recently completed hospital in Butaro, Rwanda.  Set on top of a hill with a beautiful view, the hospital is an extremely sophisticated facility that was built over the course of three years primarily with local labor and materials. The hospital is now successfully serving a rural community of approximately 400,000 people.

While we were certainly busy with meetings, we did have a day of leisure spent in Queen Elizabeth National Park, where we were able to see lions, hippos, buffalo, crocodiles, elephants, monkeys, as well as many different kinds of birds, and other animals.

The trip was a success in many ways. Martin and I were blown away by how incredibly dedicated these people are to their work, and we hope to be involved in the project. It remains to be determined exactly who will be involved in the construction of the BMCF hospital, but the preconstruction process is underway and the new facility will greatly improve the lives of those living in Kasese and western Uganda.

- Tommy

Last week I was formally voted onto the Board of Directors of the Blue Ridge Home Builders Association. It should be an interesting opportunity to meet more people in the construction business in Charlottesville and to try to further encourage green building in this area.

The BRHBA combined its annual meeting with a volunteer meal packing event at the Better Living warehouse for the non-profit Stop Hunger Now, which provides meals to hungry people throughout the world. We packed 10,000 bags in two hours! The lighting wasn’t great, we wore hair nets, and the assembly line made me recall a number of cases from my operations classes in business school, but spirits were high and I got to meet some other nice folks. The BRHBA raised $2500 to pay for the food, packaging, shipping, and delivery of the 10,000 meals. If you are interested in hosting a similar event, check out their website.

Please remember those without food this Thanksgiving and give thanks for all that we have. I feel so blessed to be healthy, secure and loved.

–Joey