Second Thoughts

Ha - I was looking at the house picture in the first post, and I thought the following:
Wow, we had a lot of vision when we bought this house because it is ugly!

Wow, that bush in front of the garage needs to go immediately.

Here is the proposed front elevation. This will help make you feel better about the ugly house.

HERS Energy Rating

HERS (or Home Energy Rating) is a measurement of energy efficiency. A typical house built in 2006 would be a HERS 100. In Boulder County, for the level of remodel that we are doing, we have to get to HERS 80. Our 1963 house is probably a HERS 150 or worse! To get a permit, we have to go to an energy rater to complete an energy model of our house. He looks at the architecture plans, number and type of windows, insulation etc to determine what our rating will be.

Since I am a geek about such things, I have actually been tracking our energy usage since we moved into the house. It will be interesting to see how the improvements affect our energy usage and how the improvements compare to the model. Comparing model output to actual output is actually part of my job as an aerospace thermal engineer.

The Start

Well, actually, this is the start of the blog. Eric and I actually bought our house in January 2009 knowing that we would remodel it at some point - there was a whole lot of ugly in it! We started working with an architect in April 2010 for an overall plan. Our house is is Boulder County, Colorado, which has many regulations about energy efficiency in house remodels. So I thought I would talk about some process and some progess as we go.