So you’ve decided to build a new home, or remodel your current home. It’s a big project, but it doesn’t have to be daunting, provided you know the right questions to ask at the start. When a client comes into my office with these five things, I know we’re getting off on the right foot.
I like to think of myself as a guy with a lot of great ideas, some of them have even won awards but even my best idea can be made better with your input. This is your house, your castle. It should be everything you want. It’s okay to bring pictures, magazines, drawings, even video clips you play on your phone. Everything is important when you’re building a new home.
It’s important to know what you want, but it’s also important to know what you don’t want. Think of the home you live in now, or homes you’ve lived in in the past. What works for you in that space? Which rooms are easiest to live in? What doesn’t work? What do you miss about previous houses.
It can be hard to think of these things when we’re in the initial stages of planning for a new house. These are the questions that come to you while driving down the highway, or halfway through dinner that can be so difficult to recall in a builder meeting. Before, and after our first meeting, I like to tell my clients to write these thoughts down so we can address them right away. This can be anything from bike rack clearance on garage doors, to which rooms will have which views of Lake Okanagan.
If you have any specific vendors you want to work with, bring a list with you. Frequently we already have relationships with these vendors, and can work with them to get you exactly what you need for your new house.
We like to think of this person as the designated family representative. They’re the one with all the research. They know about features, materials, measurements, and requirements. They’ve heard all the requests from spouses, partners, children, family and pets, and they know what’s going in the final plans. This is the person we want to be able to get in contact with throughout the build.
Building or remodeling your home is an enjoyable process, one we at Vineyard are happy to help you with.
Give us a call at 250.878.9411 or email me at craigmohr@vineyarddevelopments.com
I love my home. If you’re reading this, you probably love your home too. But chances are, you have a list of things you’d like to change. Most home owners don’t even have to stop and think. The kitchen island is too small, the bathroom counter too low, the sink is on the wrong side of the laundry room, and the closets in the master bedroom can’t fit my winter coats.
You’re not alone. According to the BC Stats, there’s been a more than 15% increase in year to date spending on residential building permits between 2013 and 2014 in the Thompson/Okanagan region of BC. That means that more Kelownans have decided to make 2014 their remodel summer
Don’t you deserve the best possible version of your house? Doesn’t your house deserve to be a showpiece? It’s not difficult to transform the experience of your home without losing any of its natural charm. Below are five popular remodels in our area and why people get them.
1. Kitchen
Nationwide, the kitchen remodel is consistently the most popular. The kitchen is one of the rooms we spend the most time in, and it’s a room we need to be able to navigate easily. A remodel can bring modernity and ease of use to this, the most useful room in your home.
2. Bathroom
The bathroom remodel is the second most popular construction. A lot of older builders made this room for functionality, sometimes at the cost of form and luxury. With the right changes, a bathroom can become the lush, tranquil retreat it should be.
3. Closets
A lot of Canadians get their closets remodeled when they make other changes. Frequently the space in question is next to or adjacent to a closet, and home owners take advantage of this in order to expand their closet space.
4. Room Addition
Adding a bathroom, bedroom, or even a sun room is another popular remodel choice. As families grow, and life changes happen, a remodel can add room for a baby, create a home office, even an indoor pool or game room.
5. Master Suite
Like the bathroom remodel, the master suite remodel is about luxury and comfort. At the end of the day, you want your space to reflect your style, to be a place where you can leave the rest of the world behind. With a master suite remodel, you’ll get exactly what you want. Add a balcony, or an en suite bathroom. Cut bigger windows for better views, or add a sunroof above the bed.
The majority of the work I do is building a new house from scratch, but I also remodel homes for clients who already like where they live, but want the luxury and comfort of a custom built home. Call me at 250.878.9411, let’s talk about how you could be living.
After the record breaking summer we’ve been having in Kelowna, I’ve been thinking a lot about passive cooling. Passive cooling systems use on-site energy, natural resources, and architectural design in order to cool a building through non-mechanical means.
In other words, passive cooling is separate from your regular heating and air conditioning unit. It cools the house without extra electricity use. Some systems, called hybrid cooling systems do use motors, fans and pumps to help the natural cooling along.
One of the reasons I am fascinated with passive cooling from a design aspect is because every house has a different ideal passive cooling program based not only on its location, but also the sun exposure, the wind, even the soil on the lot.
Passive cooling can be divided into two main techniques: preventative and modulation. Preventative, as the name implies, focuses on keeping the house from heating up to begin with, while modulation techniques attempt to dissipate heat that’s already accumulated.
Here in Kelowna, despite the recent heat, keeping warm in the winter is more of a concern than keeping cool in the summer, but that doesn’t mean that passive cooling can’t still be relevant in designing your new home. In fact, some passive cooling techniques, like bulk insulation and high performance windows can do double duty, keeping the house warm in the summer and cool in the winter.
Simple ventilation is the most obvious form of passive cooling. Any home builder can tell you that a well-ventilated house, in winter or summer, is a wonderful thing. Ventilation uses the wind, or the natural buoyancy of hot air to the advantage of the house by moving hot air out and drawing cool air in.
Evaporative cooling, using the process of water evaporation to cool the air in a simple, low power machine that can lower a building’s temperature by nearly 10°C., while radiant cooling uses water or another fluid to absorb heat during the day and dissipate it at night. Radiant cooling systems frequently make use of rooftop ponds the function of which can be reversed in the winter, absorbing heat and drawing it into the building below.
The least practical process, in modern terms, but one of the more interesting in design terms is earth coupling, or using the relative cool of the earth to insulate the building from excess heat or cold. A good example of the simplest earth coupling structures are the dugout shelters that used to cover the Canadian prairies in the 1800s. Being mostly underground, dugout houses were warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Most people wouldn’t want an entirely underground house these days, but there is also indirect earth coupling, which uses underground tunnels to channel air through the earth, where it cools, before being directed back into the house.
These are just some of the ways to build a passively cooled house. Building materials contribute to cooling and heating, as does the basic layout. If you’re interested in passive cooling, give us a call at 250.878.9411 or email me at craigmohr@vineyarddevelopments.com, and we can talk airflow.