Smart(er) House

Circular Homes

Following up on my previous dome home post, there are also circular homes available from Deltec Homes.  One of their key features is hurricane resistance.  Here’s a quote on their website: “Since 1968, Deltec Homes is proud to say not one of our homeowners have lost their home to high winds. We are talking over 300 hurricanes and tropical storms and the most our homeowners have lost are a few shingles.”

They are also advertised as having great views and being easy-to-build, energy-efficient, and durable.  A virtual tour is available here.  I really really like this design…amazing views, lots of open floorspace, and great weather-resistence features.

Metal Cabinets

I’ve had wood cabinets at home all my life, but I use metal cabinets at work.  I really like them because they’re nearly indestructible…not rot, no chipping, no warping.  I thought that would be great to use in the home, especially with some kind of veneer to make it look not so industrial.

I ran across Lasertron Stainless Steel Cabinets in my searching, which fits the bill nicely.  One of their products is indoor kitchen & bath cabinets.  They have some nice features:

• Stainless-steel construction
• Artwork-fronted cabinets available (wood, glass, patterns, artwork, etc.)
• Customizable (both drawers & cabinets)
• Competitive pricing
• Finished with no sharp edges

Pre-made Kitchen Cabinets

I came across Cliq Studios Cabinetry online while researching kitchen cabinets.  They use hardwoods and plywood (no particle board) and ship fully assembled, ready to install.  The shelves, doors, and drawer frames are all 3/4” thick.  They have a ton of options including wood & painted finishes, decorative hardware, soft-close doors, crown molding, and a huge variety of cabinet options like tilt-out trays and wastebasket cabinets.

Dome Homes

I’ve been doing some research on dome homes (my neighbor has one for his guest house) and came across American Ingenuity.  They make the best dome homes I’ve seen to date.  The basic kits come in 22’ to 60’ sizes.  While they don’t fit my dream home design requirements, I do think they would make excellent vacation homes - high efficiency, low maintenance, and a high-strength design.

Ice Melting Systems

Bylin Engineered Systems makes really neat heated cable systems for melting ice & snow off your roof and driveway.  And because it’s an electric system, it only runs one-third the cost of a traditional hydronic system.  For roofing, they make both an eave system (for icicles) and a zig-zag system that covers, and for sidewalks & driveways, they make a driveway-integrated cable system.

The biggest downside is the installation & operation cost: even with the electric system, a 1700-square-foot area (a public walkway plaze in Michigan, in this example) costs $27,000 to install and $1,224 a year to run.  A quick google told me that an average 2-car driveway is 20’ x 20’, or 400-square-feet, which is approximately a quarter of the sample data above, which would give an installation cost of about $6,800 and a yearly operational cost of about $300.  That’s more reasonable…kinda.  $6,800 pretty much pays for a lifetime of service from the plowing company, haha.  Might help to install solar panels in the backyard to get the power for free!

LED Lightning

LED lighting has finally hit the point where I feel it’s usable on the interior of my home.  My major complaints in the past have been the clinical-white color of the light and the extremely directional (i.e. spotlight) nature of the bulbs.  However, my opinion changed when I picked up a 60w-equivalent LED bulb by Philips:

This is a “warm white” bulb, which was the most yellow color available on display at Home Depot.  I got it on sale for $15, which is pretty good for a bulb with an advertised 22-year life and requires less than 13 watts to operate.  The brightness was just as good as the CFL bulb I replaced, and as advertised, it was dimmable and had no hum.

My only real complaint is that it’s not fun to look at directly (way too bright), so you’ll want to use these either in a frosted enclosure or in a non-direct mount.  It uses a split head (basically cuts the head into 3 angles), which eliminates the directional quality of the LED and acts as a nice fill light.  These are standard A19-socket bulbs as well, which is nice…I think I’d like to design my entire house using A19 sockets so that everything is interchangeable and “standard”.

Strand Bamboo flooring

I’m not a big fan of hardwood floors, but I am getting sick of dealing with both carpet and laminate in my current home, so wood looks appealing from a durability & maintenance perspective.  I’ve been hearing more & more good things about bamboo flooring, especially strand bamboo flooring, which is advertised as “twice as hard as oak”.

Morning Star Bamboo is one company that makes strand bamboo flooring, and you can even get it pre-finished in some nice colors.  One nice thing is that it doesn’t have to look like “bamboo”, it can be finished to look like traditional wood, so it doesn’t stand out as an oddball home feature.

Distributed Fireplaces

Going along with the theme of “no single point of failure”, I really like fireplaces and there are a lot of great types of fireplaces available for both heat and aesthetics.  There are 3 kinds that pop into mind:

1. Traditional wood-burning fireplaces
2. Gas-powered fireplaces
3. Electric-powered fireplaces

The traditional wood-burning fireplace would be both for comfortable fireplace usage and for an emergency heat source.  I’ve had good luck with Duraflame firelogs in my current log fireplace, which are sealed in a wrapper and are much nicer to work with than real wood logs.

The next type is gas-powered fireplaces (available in vented and vent-free), which typically work off a natural gas line that goes into your house (propane also works), similar to a gas cooktop.  These are nice because although you have a fake wood display, you get real flame as well as heat output.  Napolean Fireplaces makes some really nice gas fireplaces, including ones that have electric ignitions (with battery-backup for power outages) and wireless remote controls.

The last type is the electric-powered kind.  Although they do come in heat-free versions (for display purposes only, like artwork), there are forced-air models.  Dimplex makes some really nice models.  My only complaint is that most of the models have really fake-looking fire.

Outdoor fireplaces are also pretty cool…they have enclosed patio models, fire pits, and actual outdoor mantles if you’re so inclined.  Check out Green Scene Landscaping for lots of cool ideas.

Modern HVAC System

A friend of mine recently installed a split-ductless heating & cooling system from Mitsubishi called the Mr. Slim.  It’s similar to the idea of a swamp cooler for A/C, but also does heating (it’s sometimes called a ductless heat pump).  It consists of an interior unit, an exterior unit, and a remote control.  All you need is a 3” hole between the two units - the exterior unit doesn’t need to live in a window.  Here’s a link to a nice brochure.

Unlike a traditional HVAC system, you don’t need to heat or cool the whole house just to change the temperature - just the room(s) that you want.  It’s sort of liked zoned HVAC, but with as many zones as you want.  I see 3 immediate benefits:

1. You’re not paying to heat or cool your whole house - just the rooms you want
2. You’re also not paying to heat or cool dozens of feet of ductwork
3. Everyone gets to choose the temperature of their own room

The outdoor units come in different models and can run up to 8 interior units.  They also have models with Hyper-Heating INVERTER (H2i) technology, which can pull heat from the outside air as low as -13F (75% capacity), and will give you full heating capability at 5F.

The other benefit I really like is that there’s no single point of failure…you can use multiple outdoor units in your home, so even if one dies, you’ll still have others available for HVAC purposes.  Mitsubishi also offers the Mitsubishi Electric Zone (meZO) app for iPhone for controlling the temperature from your iOS device (requires central controller hardware for network control), which is pretty cool.  You can also get a wall-mounted controller if you’d prefer a traditional interface for your HVAC control.

Glosswood Ceiling Planks

One of the more interesting ceiling-finishing products I’ve come across is Glosswood of Australia, a pre-finished cedar lining board product for indoors and covered outdoor areas.  I’m not typically a huge fan of wood, but I really like how this particular product looks.  I like it a lot better than Armstrong’s wood ceiling offerings, as well as popcorn ceilings, ceiling panels, etc.