Page 26 - Green Builder Magazine March-April 2018 Issue

Resilient paint.

The Sherwin-Williams
exterior acrylic latex
paint provides extra mold
and moisture resistance,
even in freezing weather,
as well as an added
layer of environmental
temperature control.

Déjà new. Cambria quartz countertops, Marmoleum flooring, Energy
Star-rated appliances and sustainably sourced wood cabinetry give the
home an updated yet classic look.

the picture here,” Sloot says. “So to get it to net zero, we had to try
really hard to get as much as we could from the performance of the
structure and the production.”
The Case for ‘Remuddling’
Structural difficulties started with the roof, which had been
“remuddled” in 2005. The previous owners extended it by 15 feet, but
not in a good way. “Instead of having the new roof seamlessly match
the original roof, the pitch of it was off by about 15 degrees, and it was
down a few inches,” Sloot notes. “There was a few inches of transition
between the old and new roof. Can you imagine putting shingles on
a roof like that? They just rolled the shingles down over that edge.”
The remuddling continued. The interior, which also held mold
and moisture within the walls, simply wasn’t engaging, Sloot says.
“You’ve got the original house with its classic trim and windows,
and the addition’s got a big box store look—the cheapest stuff you
could find. Things like that took away from the appearance and
functionality of the house.”
The floors were a basically a replay of the roof. “You go from the
existing house on the first floor, to the floor where the addition
comes on, and it steps down 3/4 of an inch,” Sloot describes. “Again,
why would you do that?”
Ditto on the upper level, where “you go from the existing part to
the new, and there’s a six-inch step up, because they wanted to use
different sized lumber that was probably cheaper,” Sloot says.
“Some of those things we could easily fix. In some cases, we had
to strip it down to the studs and start from scratch,” Sloot says. “For Glass act.
other ones, we had to get creative in how we designed around them.”
Andersen triple-pane glass, which helps
Aging in Place manage the amount of heat generated
An example is the insulation used for the foundation. The lot’s by solar energy, is featured on windows
narrow clearance from neighboring properties made using and doors throughout the home.
conventional installation equipment like a back hoe impossible.

24 GREEN BUILDER March/April 2018 www.greenbuildermedia.com

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