Downsizing your home has become a catch phrase in recent years. We see it as an opportunity to reevaluate and optimize your home and lifestyle! Many families see their children grow up and begin their own lives, either by going to college or moving to a new city. Many of these “empty nesters” question the size of their now mostly empty home and consider tailoring their living environment to better suit their needs and future lifestyles. When approached thoughtfully, downsizing will result in a smaller ecological footprint, since smaller, and constructively superior, homes consume fewer natural resources such as electricity, water, and building materials.

When I look at real estate offerings I often see the term “Curb Appeal,” referring to how a house appears from the street. Curb appeal is of course a valid characteristic of a home, but it is enough? In my experience it means that the designer put a lot of thought into the design of the front, street-facing, facade in order to impress visitors and neighbors with the “stunning” appearance of the home. But wait until you get around the corner to the sides and the rear of the house.

For many years, the construction industry did not care enough about the quality of the windows available. What a mistake! Even the most advanced thermal envelope is useless if the windows are not up to par. Along with general construction leaks, they are a major source of energy loss.

When we bought our current office space it wasn’t much more than a derelict teardown. Our friends thought we were crazy to buy this piece of property with a leaking roof and a foot and a half of water standing in the basement, with the furnace in the middle of that mess…

One of the most common questions we get from clients is whether they can have radiant heat in their new energy efficient home. After all, it’s cozy, particularly in the dead of winter when no one wants to slide out of bed in the wee hours of the morning and traipse across a jarringly chilly floor. The heating process, however, is quite different when it comes to a carefully-designed energy efficient, net zero or net positive home.

What should I be looking for? What size should the lot be? Does it have to be flat or can you build on a slope? And what orientation is best?