Fall Landscaping Tips to Prepare for Winter

There is no better time to take stock of your lawn and landscaping needs than during the shorter days and crisp temperatures that herald the beginning of fall. Not only can it help you have a great-looking lawn next spring, but it can save you money on your utility bills during the winter.    

Assess Your Lawn

Fall is a great time for new grass seed to take root, especially in cooler climates. Even with meticulous care, lawns can thin out and lose color due to excessive thatch buildup, hard or compacted soils, or periods of high temperature, high humidity, or drought. Compacted soils slowly reduce the amount of oxygen contained in the soil, delaying the penetration of water and nutrients and impeding the lawn growth.

Aerating and over-seeding is an effective treatment to control thatch, reduce compaction, fill in bare spots and revitalize growth. It also reduces water runoff, increases the lawn’s drought tolerance and improves its overall health.

Lawn aeration allows air, moisture and fertilizer to penetrate down to the root zone. It involves removing small soil plugs or cores typically 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter from the lawn. Lawns composed of cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass are best aerified in the fall, when there is less heat stress and danger of invasion by weedy annuals. On the other hand, warm-season grasses are best aerified in late spring and summer, when they are actively growing.

Consider also reseeding your lawn in areas where the grass has gotten sparse. First, rake leaves and debris off your lawn so the seeds can penetrate the soil. Then fertilize your lawn one last time with a high nitrogen fertilizer to encourage root growth. Make sure you get a lawn fertilizer that is labeled “winterizing.”

Energy-Saving Planting

Fall is also the best season for planting trees, shrubs and perennials. Plants planted in the fall benefit from cooler air temperatures, not to mention soil temperatures still warm enough to support good root growth. After a winter of dormancy, fall-planted trees and shrubs practically shoot out of the soil the following spring. 

Plant deciduous trees that lose their leaves during the winter in front of windows that receive significant amounts of sunlight. This helps block solar heat in the summer and lets it in during the winter when you need it most, which could help reduce your heating and air conditioning costs.

A six-foot to eight-foot deciduous tree will begin shading your windows the first year and your roof, depending on the species, within five-10 years.  In regions with year-round sun and no significant winter, planting evergreen trees or shrubs limits sunlight entering your home and serves as a windbreak. 

Winter sunlight is a welcome heat source, but the wind that can accompany it can reduce its positive effects.  A natural windbreak will reduce or redirect wind speed.  Evergreen trees and shrubs planted on the side of your house that receives winds will help reduce the wind effect.  Teaming evergreen trees and an earth berm, a natural or man-made wall, will direct wind over your house.  Additionally, in snowy climates windbreaks will help keep snow away from your home’s foundation.

Contact The Home Builders Association of the Grand Traverse Area at 231.946.2305 or go to www.nahb.org for more information on lawn maintenance and home care.

Homeownership Tax Change Would Harm Seniors

By Marc Burkholder

President

Home Builders Association of the Grand Traverse Area, Inc.

For many Americans, getting married, buying a home, having children and providing them with an education, then being able to retire comfortably without financial worries is the embodiment of their American Dream.

Homeownership has long been the foundation of a family’s ability to achieve their American Dream. For more than a century, Americans have counted on their investment in their homes to be able to pay for their children’s education and to enable them to live where and how they want to after they retire.     

But those expectations are in jeopardy for the nation’s 75 million home owners. Policymakers seeking to reduce the federal deficit are considering eliminating or reducing the mortgage interest deduction. Changes to the deduction would not only harm home owners who currently rely on it to manage their household expenses, it would also hurt millions of seniors who no longer claim the deduction but still depend on its existence to secure their future.

According to most economists, eliminating or scaling back the mortgage interest deduction would trigger a drop in home values. This would cause more home owners to be saddled with mortgages that are larger than their property’s value, which would lead to even more foreclosures and place even more downward pressure on home prices.

Seniors looking to use the proceeds from the sale of their home to relocate to a different part of the country, to move into a retirement community, to help defray health care costs or to fund other long-term obligations would find they have a much smaller retirement nest egg than they’d planned on. They may be forced to keep working for many more years, or to postpone or cancel moving to a new home because they can’t afford or are unable to sell their current home.

Changing the rules now by eliminating or curtailing the deduction would be unfair. It would take money out of the pockets of those home buyers who counted on the deduction being there when they needed it, and it would penalize millions of baby boomers nearing retirement and seniors who own their homes outright.

Seniors have played by the rules and made sacrifices to get where they are, and they don’t deserve to have the rug pulled out from under them. Learn more about the threat to the mortgage interest tax deduction and find out how you can take action to protect it at www.SaveMyMortgageInterestDeduction.com, or contact the Home Builders Association of the Grand Traverse Area, Inc. by calling 231.946.2305

GREEN BUILDING 101

Blower Door Testing

Some of you may have heard of a blower door test but most have not and few have ever seen one done.  My goal with today’s column is to explain what a blower door test is, why it’s important to home owners, how a test is performed and what the test results mean.            

What is a blower door test?

A blower door is a large powerful variable speed fan that is installed in an adjustable fabric frame designed to be installed in a residential door opening.  The fan sucks air out of the house, essentially depressurizing it. The door is equipped with a gauge (manometer) that displays the difference in air pressure between outside the home and inside the home (50 pascals of air pressure differential is typical for testing, equal to a 20 mile per hour wind blowing on all sides of the home) and the cubic feet per minute of air being exhausted from the home (CFM/50).

Why is a blower door test important?

Air flow through a building can have a powerful impact on comfort, indoor air quality and utility bills.  Blower doors provide a way to quantify air flow and the resulting heat loss, along with a way to pin point specific leaks.  There use in retrofit work allows both instantaneous feedback and quantitative inspections. Uncontrolled air loss from a home can have a significant impact. Typically air leakage can account for as much as 25% or more of a home’s heat loss, i.e. higher energy bills.  Nearly all government and utility founded energy saving programs require a blower door test.

How is a blower door test performed?

The blower door is installed in an exterior door opening that allows the greatest air flow from the rest of the house.  All other doors and windows are closed and locked.  All interior doors are opened so air flows easily thought the house.  If the basement and/or crawl space is within the thermal envelope (directly or indirectly heated) all openings to those spaces need to be opened.  All intentional openings are to be left in their normal operating condition (bath fans, range hoods, furnace/boiler chimneys, dryer, etc.  All fires must be out in fire places and wood stoves and all fireplace openings are sealed to prevent scattering of ashes throughout the home (I learned this the hard way). All combustion appliances are adjusted so they don’t turn on during the test.  The blower door fan is turned on and adjusted to 50 pascals of pressure differential between indoors and outdoors and the cubic feet of air per minute (CFM/50) exhausted from the home is recorded. 

What does the blower door result mean?

 When the blower door test is completed we take the data from the gages together with the homes information (volume, floor area, surface area, number of bedrooms, number of occupants, wind shielding and weather conditions at the time of the test) and enter all this data into a computer program which provides us with a Building Air Tightness Test Report.

    

Below are listed three of the reports with a description of what they represent and what the number would be for a tight house, a moderately leaking house and a very leaky house.  Keep in mind that the leakiness numbers listed should only be used as a guide and may very greatly depending on many specifics of the house being tested.

CFM/50:  The flow, in cubic feet per minute with a 50 Pascals of pressure difference between inside and outside the house.

     Tight houses tend to be less than 1,200 CFM/50

     Moderately leaky houses 1,500-2,500 CFM/50

     Quite leaky houses over 3,000 CFM/50

ACH/50:   The air changes per hour at 50 Pascals of pressure difference between inside and outside the house.  Air changes per hour, a description of leakage as compared to house air volume.  The number of times each hour an amount of air equal to the volume of the house leaks out.  Used for both blower door measurements and estimates of Air Changes Per Hour @ Natural (ACH/N).

     Tight houses ten to be less than 5-6 ACH/50                                                                                     

     Moderately leaky houses – less than 10-15 ACH/50

     Quite leaky houses – over 20 ACH/50

ELA:  Effective leakage area.  The area in square inches of a hole which, with 4 Pascals pressure difference, leaks the same amount as the house.  In other words if all the air leaks in a house were put in one place the hole would be the size of the ELA.

     Tight houses tend to be less than 144 sq. in. ELA (12”X12” hole)

     Moderately leaky houses have less than 324 sq. in. (18”X18” hole)

     Quite leaky houses are over 576 sq. in. (24”X24” hole)

Max Strickland has been involved in the construction industry for 44 years.  He is currently a principal with Strickland Ewing & Associates providing Building Performance Consulting, Green Building Program Verifications, Energy Star/Hers Ratings, Infrared Imaging, Energy Auditing, Energy Code Inspections and Building Forensic Investigations. Questions and comments can be directed to max@stricklandewing.com or you can visit his web site at www.negs2.com to view previous Green Building 101 articles.

2011 HBAGTA Fall Showcase of Remodeled Homes

For Immediate Release

Home Builders Association – Showcase of Remodeled Homes 2011

Contact: Marsha Stratton, Idea Stream, 231.933.6635

Traverse City, MI September 14, 2011 – The Home Builders Association of the Grand Traverse Area (HBAGTA) is hosting the 3rd annual Showcase of Remodeled Homes on Saturday, October 1^st, 12-6pm and Sunday, October 2nd from 12-5pm. Seven of the area’s finest builders will have remodeled homes open to the public during the two day event.

Over the 22-year history of the Parade of Homes and most recently with the addition of the Showcase of Remodeled Homes, HBAGTA has contributed a total of $253,000 back to non-profit host organizations in the Grand Traverse region.

Tickets are $10 at the event venues or $8 in advance at Oleson’s Food Stores, Floor Covering Brokers, Traverse City Visitors Center, and the HBAGTA office, located at 3040 Sunset Lane in Traverse City or on line at www.hbagta.com.

HBAGTA is a professional trade association encompassing Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Leelanau counties.  For more information about the Showcase of Remodeled Homes or HBAGTA, go to www.hbagta.com.

Remodeling Vs. Moving

If you want to change your home, your other option besides remodeling is to find a new one. But more and more American families are deciding to stay put and improve their existing home. Here are some of the reasons:

• Remodeling allows you to customize your home to meet your needs and desires. The only similar, but much more costly alternative, is to have a brand new custom home designed and built.
• Remodeling means that you don't have to give up a familiar neighborhood and schools.
• Remodeling is a more efficient use of your financial resources. According to the American Homeowner Foundation, selling your home and moving typically costs about 8-10% of the value of your current home. And much of this goes into moving expenses, closing costs, and broker commissions - items that have no direct impact on your home's quality.
• Remodeling can be stressful, but few experiences are more stressful than moving.

While there are many reasons that people choose to remodel, the bottom line is that remodeling makes your home a more enjoyable place to live. The intangible value of this pleasure needs to be considered, along with any resale value you hope to gain.

But there is no doubt that, as far as improving the sale of your home, all remodeling projects are not created equal. The general rule of thumb is that any remodeling project that brings your home up to the level of your neighbors' is a worthy investment. But it doesn't pay to be the most expensive house on the block - real estate experts recommend that a remodeling investment should not raise the value of your house to more than 10-15% above the median sales price in your neighborhood.

Remember that potential buyers will compare your home to ones newly built. Therefore, you'll want to look at the design trends and amenities being built into new homes. Great rooms (open kitchen/family room arrangements), master bed and bath suites, and higher ceilings are a few of the features sought by today's home buyers.

Each year, Remodeling magazine conducts its "Cost vs. Value" report to assess which remodeling projects create the greatest return on investment. Not surprisingly, kitchens and baths regularly come out on top. These are two of the most used rooms in the home, and they receive the most scrutiny from potential buyers.

2012 NAHB International Builders' Show Kicks Off Registration with Special Offers Available Through September

Washington, Sept. 1-- The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today officially opened online registration for the 2012 NAHB International Builders' Show (IBS), the largest annual light construction tradeshow in the world. Considered the premiere building industry event, the 2012 show, to be held in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 8-11, features impressive deals for both members and non-members who register before the end of September on things such as registration fees and education sessions.

"The NAHB International Builders' Show is the biggest event of its kind for our industry," said Larry Swank, Chairman, NAHB Conventions & Meetings Committee. "I don't know anywhere else where you can find such high-level networking opportunities, a wide variety of education sessions and an unbelievable showcase of the latest cutting-edge products, all in one location."

This year, NAHB introduces several new offers and incentives for attendees including:

· Free Exhibit Pass for NAHB Members-- Register by Sept. 30

NAHB members who register by Sept. 30 will be given the choice of either free admittance to the show floor all four days of the show, or $100 off the early registration fee of $325.

· First-time Member Attendee Registration -- Reduced

Members who plan to attend IBS for the first time are eligible for a reduced registration rate of $125, which enables them to attend any of the nearly 200 education sessions and tour the exhibit floor all four days.

· One- and Two-day Education Passes

Attendees can purchase one- or two-day passes for IBS education sessions, and access to the exhibits on all four days of the show is included. Passes will be available for education sessions held from Wednesday through Friday, Feb. 8-10. All seminars on Saturday, Feb. 11 are free for IBS registrants. To take advantage of these passes, attendees must choose which day(s) they will attend sessions when registering for the show.

· Free Spouse Registration

Spouses of members and non-members can register for free in September.

Attendees can choose from nearly 200 education sessions offered on multiple topics, including building trends, sales and marketing techniques, green building, housing finance issues and the economic outlook. Several pre-show education courses are also available to attendees looking to complete training and earn industry designations such as Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist and Certified Green Professional, among others. The show will also feature a number of special seminars, receptions and a line-up of notable guest speakers.

One of the biggest highlights of the show is its expansive tradeshow floor exhibition. More than 1,000 exhibitors covering 500,000 square feet of exhibit space will display the latest building products and services at the 2012 show. Attendees will get hands-on access to the latest products, and will be able to network and make business deals with top vendors representing more than 250 product categories.

Among the many draws of IBS is The New American Home® (TNAH) 2012, a one-of-a-kind green show home that is being built in a nearby neighborhood and will be open for attendees to tour throughout the IBS. The state-of-the-art home incorporates builders' best practices in energy efficiency, indoor-air quality, safety, convenience and aesthetics.

The NAHB International Builders' Show is not open to the general public. Building industry professionals and their affiliates throughout the housing trades are welcome to register by visiting the show's website at www.BuildersShow.com.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Complimentary registration is available to credentialed members of the working press. Visit
www.BuildersShow.com/Press for more information or to register. For more information, please contact Liz Thompson, at ethompson@nahb.org or 202-266-8495 or Paul Lopez at plopez@nahb.org or 202-266-8409.]

NAHB Introduces New Economic Index Tracking Improving Housing Markets

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1-- The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) announced today the launch of its NAHB Improving Markets Index (IMI), a new monthly economic index showing which housing markets are improving in three key economic indicators.

WHEN: Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011

10:00 a.m. ET

The inaugural index will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011. The IMI will be released on the fourth business day of each month at 10:00 a.m. ET, unless that day falls on a Friday, in which case the index will be released that following Monday.

The release dates for the remainder of 2011 are as follows:

· Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011

· Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011

· Monday, Nov. 7, 2011

· Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011

WHAT:

Beginning Sept. 7, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) will unveil a new monthly economic indicator--the NAHB Improving Markets Index (IMI)--designed to track housing markets throughout the country that are showing signs of improving economic health.

The new indicator will measure three sets of independent monthly data to get a marker on the top improving Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). The three indicators that will be analyzed are employment growth numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), house price growth data from Freddie Mac, and single-family housing permit growth data from the U.S. Census Bureau. A metro area must see improvement in all three areas for at least six months following their respective troughs before being included on the improving markets list.

Full tables and information related to the Improving Markets Index will be available at www.nahb.org/IMI. To sign up to receive NAHB's press releases on this and other topics, please go to www.nahb.org/erelease.

For in-depth analysis of the latest housing statistics and research from the federal government, NAHB and other sources, please visit NAHB's Eye on Housing blog at
http://eyeonhousing.wordpress.com/. You can also subscribe to the blog's free RSS feed, which will automatically alert readers to every new posting.