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Miranda Homes and the Woodside Group have broken ground in Newport, OR. The project, called Wilder, will feature several homes, the first of which will be part of the Sunrise Cottages. The project is located in the South Beach area of Newport, next door to the Oregon Coast Community College.

The cottages, ten in total, will feature two and three bedroom models. They will boast the gold level standards by Earth Advantage, using over 55 percent less energy consumption per year than a home built to code.

Miranda Homes and the Woodside Group are happy to be breaking ground after working with the project’s founders for nearly two and a half years. Wilder is spearheaded by Will Emery and Bonnie Serkin.

“Bonnie and Will have put a lot of work in to making sure that Wilder has the look and feel that adds to the uniqueness of Newport while bringing community, sustainability and livability at an affordable price. The Woodside Group and Miranda Homes are excited to be a part of this project,” said Miranda Homes President Rob Boydstun.

You can read more about how the project came to be on OregonLive.com by clicking here.

Miranda Homes has recently changed their engineering software to Revit Architecture 2011. This advanced program allows for the home builder and buyer to explore a wider range of customization for their home. The engineers at Miranda are excited about what this software has to offer.

“From inception our goal was to incorporate software that would give us the ability to allow our customers to visualize, in 3-D, their dream home in detail and then turn that into deliverables,” said president Rob Boydstun, “Revit, coupled with the Struc Soft program, customization from Miranda’s engineers, and other component manufacturers improve our process to construct the home as ordered and on schedule.”

Revit has updated its software to enhance the needs of efficient builders like Miranda. New features include estimates on total energy and carbon emissions annually, monthly and even hourly, estimates on water usage throughout the house, and calculations of heating and cooling loads based on occupancy. All of these features collectively work to simplify the process of designing a house.

Revit also supplies a panoramic 3-D view of the home allowing each room to be seen as it will look structurally in detail. Think of it as an in-depth version of “The Sims” architectural video game series, except you can actually have it built.

To ensure that the buyer has a greater chance of getting the exact product they want with their home, Revit provides the “family” feature. This takes the parameters and dimensions of a product – say, a bathtub – and fits it into the architectural drawings allowing the designer to see what that product will look like in the home when it is built.

The buyer can choose from thousands of household items such as bathtubs, windows, cabinets and appliances from many businesses, such as Andersen Windows, who have pre-made product files ready to be downloaded.

“Because there’s so many architects and structural engineers using it there’s a large library of components already available,” says Hanson (right), “The point of having the geometry already created is a big head start.”

These products can be grouped together so that the engineer can simply pick the product and drop it into place in seconds, instead of repetitively putting in dimensions each time, which will save hours over the overall building process.

With requests growing for Miranda custom homes, the Revit Architecture 2011 software is leading the way in providing the home buyer with a more enjoyable and stress-free experience as they begin to construct their dream home.

John and Susan Colby Ribbon Cutting

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Mark Mecklem - Miranda Homes

Scott Caufield, the Building Codes Administrator for Clackamas Couny has recently had a new book published. Miranda Homes is honored to have one of our homes featured on the cover and several places throughout the book.

The book is written for anyone wanting to build a green home but many of the principals described in the book can be applied to all types of construction.

From the Preface:

Whether you are considering green construction from the perspective of a home-owner, a builder, a design professional, or a code official, this text will provide valuable information to assist you in that quest.

Scott begins by explaining the code and the role of the code official. It is written to be understood by readers who have little or no experience with building codes. He also describes alternative means and methods (AMM) and how they can be applied to residential construction.

The second section of the book goes into identifying key areas where green decisions can be made in a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the code. The organization of chapters is laid out in much the same way as the International Residential Code (IRC) making it easy to follow.

Miranda Homes appears in the book several times with photographs highlighting our foundation and floor joist system, steel frame construction, spray foam insulation, water distribution manifold and rainwater harvesting system.

For your own copy of Going Green with the International Building Code click -HERE- or go to www.delmarlearning.com and keyword search “Going Green.”

When you talk about building a house, the crawl space may not be the most discussed feature. Generally, building codes require the bare earth of a crawl space to be covered with a 6 mil thick poly sheeting which acts as a vapor barrier. The goal of the vapor barrier is to keep moisture from moving out of the ground and into the crawl space thus preventing mold, mildew and condensation. Additionally, the under floor of the house must meet insulation values laid out in the residential energy code.

You can enhance the crawl space area by pouring a 3-4″ concrete “Earth Slab” under the entire house. The main purpose of the Earth Slab is to allow us to create a conditioned crawl space. It also acts as a radon barrier which, in some locations, can be a significant concern. And of course, it keeps out insects and rodents. Because the slab is not structural the rules for it are not very stringent. They don’t require any reinforcement or great attention to the surface finish. In some locations, a vapor barrier under the concrete is required by code. Regardless of code, it’s a good idea to lay a vapor barrier down before pouring the slab. The plastic sheeting will reduce any wicking of moisture through the concrete.

In our homes, the rat slab is one component of our conditioned crawl space, which in turn is just one component of our energy compliance package. The major concern when designing a crawlspace is to keep the area dry while also minimizing infiltration of outside (unconditioned) air into the house. This requires some type of ventilation and insulation. Typically, the approach is to vent the foundation by placing rectangular vent channels in the foundation as it is poured and insulating the underside of the floor joists for energy efficiency. This approach contributes to the “Stack Effect” (Read more about the stack effect by clicking HERE and HERE)

We take a different approach and stop the stack effect by eliminating the static vent channels and by sealing and insulating the foundation. (using ICF block – which allows us to eliminate the under floor insulation) Then we’re adding a crawlspace ventilation system that pulls in a small amount of conditioned air from the HVAC system. That air conditions the crawl space and is passively exhausted to the outside.

Stopping the stack effect is important because it allows us to control the fresh air that is introduced, and filter it before you breath it. It improves indoor air quality, and according to Mike O’Brien from the Portland Office of Planning and Sustainability, it will add 100 years to the life of a home.

By Lisa Pickert

Previously I talked about how green building programs differ from code built homes (see Blog May 20). Now I’d like to go deeper into their methods and value.
Every green building program requires extensive third-party verification that a home built to their standards (typically higher than existing building code) indeed meets those standards. Most green building programs have their own employees who go on-site to provide actual testing and an independent rating of various aspects of the home’s actual achieved (vs. modeled) energy efficiency. These include testing for things like unplanned air infiltration, HVAC duct leakage and carbon monoxide leakage. For example, Earth Advantage technicians came to our Riverview model home and used a blower door to test to identify that our home had less than 0.6 air changes per hour vs. the required maximum allowed 7 air changes per hour.

Another method of third party verification is through compliance forms that are required to be signed off by suppliers or installers. This ensures that what is specified for the home during the planning stages actually gets delivered during the construction phase. For example, at Miranda, we use a hardwood flooring called Tigerwood. When this wood is delivered to our site, we look for a stamp on the bundle from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The Forest Steward Council has specific criteria that describe how the forests have to be managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations

So what does this mean to the buyer of Miranda Homes? It translates to money back in your pocket when you pay smaller utility bills for our homes as opposed to the cost for the same square footage from builders who don’t subscribe to these higher standards. Third party verification means you can count on actual health benefits in a Miranda Home because the conditioned air you breathe inside the home will be planned and filtered at all times. See Rob’s blog on May 26.

Best of all, buying a home that is third party certified “green” is proving to provide better resale for our homeowners when they decide to sell. See this recent study in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce entitled, “Green Homes Outselling Rest of Market” for more details. http://www.djc.com/news/en/12015059.html

We have a newly completed home available for sale. This is the home you’ve seen featured recently in our Blog. We had the blower door test done and scored an amazing 1.67 ACH. That translates to huge energy savings for the future owners.

The home is located at 14009 SE Sierra Drive in Clackamas, Oregon and features a classic look with a covered front porch and craftsman style posts. Despite its classic look it has modern features like year-round climate control, under and over cabinet lighting, and Hardie siding with a 15 year paint guarantee.The floor plan has formal and informal dining areas adjacent to the kitchen making everyday living and entertaining easy. The main floor ceilings are 9′ high to enhance the open feeling of the great room and kitchen. The main floor also includes a centrally located powder room. As you’ve seen from earlier posts we’ve installed solid Tigerwood hardwood floors and a gas fireplace with a mantle and marble surround.

Upstairs are four bedrooms including a master suite with a vaulted ceiling, double doors, walk in closet and master bathroom with granite counter tops and two sinks. The laundry room is also conveniently located upstairs next to the second full bathroom.

If you’ve been following our Blog you’ve seen all of the methods and materials used in this house (and all Miranda homes). The Earth Advantage Certificate for this house will be posted soon, as well as our Energy Performance Score.

If you’d like to come see it for yourself, give us a call at 503-208-4663. We’ll also have it open on weekends from 11:00 am until 6:00 pm.

Mark Mecklem – Miranda Homes

Until now, we’ve been building a library of home plans for buyers to choose from. We’ve selected floor plans that we feel will satisfy a range of customers while incorporating all of the features you’ve been reading about here.

Only if it is improperly designed. To give you a comparison, can you imagine if the drinking water that came out of your faucet came from under your door jams, dirty window sills, off of your garage floor, down from your roof with bird poop on it, without going through any filtration process before you drank it? Your water is filtered and goes through a controlled process before you drink it. Why do you allow the air you breathe to be handled any differently?

Consumers today confuse a tight house with a house that doesn’t breathe and thus would get stale and moldy. If the builder doesn’t mechanically ventilate the house, then they’re right.

Air entering a tight house with a fresh air intake, high off the ground, going through a filtration system and then being forced out of the house mechanically is the key. It removes dust, allergens, and other pollutants before you breathe them. The tight house closes off the passages that allow dirty air in. Just as you wouldn’t drink dirty water, you shouldn’t breathe dirty air.