and Retrofits of Existing Structures"

Many of us will not be able to afford to build a new home in the foreseeable future. Some of us don't want to. There are strong arguments for not throwing an existing home away...or abandoning it and its problems to someone else. Sometimes we're just invested in the dwelling, neighborhood or community and want to stay, but would like it to function better...more efficiently...and we'd like to accomplish that with affordable, environmentally responsible natural building systems.

Some of us want to buy historic structures, keep their time-honored appeal, but go to work on their sustainability. Novelty structures like railroad cabooses and touring cars, grain silos, caves, water towers, shipping containers, recreational vehicles, trailers, and the like can make great starter structures for creating interesting and affordable living spaces.

One great advantage of using what already exists is that often times it can be lived in while its retrofitted...sometimes a confusing and gritty approach to building....but often times the solution to high rental costs and limited construction budgets.

Natural Building (and other) Methods for Remodeling/ Retrofits

Insulation: Modular homes, trailers and most old homes are severely under insulated for this climate. As explained in the section on passive solar design...in order to get appreciable advantage from the free energy of the sun, we need a very well insulated building.

The first thing to do with one of these structures is to beef the insulation. Walls can either be stripped of exterior siding or interior wall covering, insulated and recovered...or the stud cavities can be drilled and blown full of rock wool or cellulose (or isocyanate foam) . Advantage of this last system is that it leaves the wall covering in tact...needing only patching once insulated. The best (and priciest of these systems) is spray isocyanate foam...which will produce an R-25 wall when blown into a 2x4 cavity.

Next in performance is blown cellulose...producing about an R- 18 wall. Blown rock wool will deliver an R-14 system.

Attic and crawl spaces are the easiest places to add new insulation.

The killer in floor insulation, crawl space temperature and comfort for your feet in contact with bare floors is in an uninsulated foundation. The optimum solution is to excavate the outside perimeter of the stem wall and footer and blow 2-3" of isocyanate foam (r-14-21) on the surface, recoat it and rebury. Next in preference is applying rigid foam insulation (blue-board)

The foundation can be insulated from the inside, but you have cut off a huge amount of interior mass (the concrete in the foundation itself) from its positive effects on air temperature stabilization and crawl space cooling (described later)

These aren't natural materials, but if the house is to have its exterior walls left intact, they must be insulated.

Another approach is to simply cover the interior walls...especially on the North, East and West walls with rigid insulation and refinish them...plaster, sheetrock...whatever. This involves retrimming windows and doors...but saves a lot of messy demolition and reconstruction on certain projects.

Warning: often times, trying to avoid demolishing wall interiors in a remodel turns out to cost more than it saves. Determine early in the game whether wiring and plumbing in these walls will have to be replaced or brought up to code. If so...demolish it, insulate the cavity when you rework these systems...it'll save you time and money.

A more farsighted natural building approach to beefing insulation...though it might sound crazy on the outset...has worked great in at least a couple of projects here. If you know you want to convert your existing home to adobe or strawbale...simply build the new natural building shell outside the existing one and dismantle the old one when you're done. Don't laugh...think about this...we've seen it work.

It's also possible to "reside the exterior(or interior) with adobe or straw...watch out for how much space you'll be using.

Orientation: Optimal solar design depends on a house that stretches along the east-west axis, and has its primary heat demanding rooms and functions on the south side...accessible to direct solar gain. Old or tract houses seldom match this description. Trailers are an easy fix...move them. The houses can be moved too...rotated on the lot...but often at a $5-10-maybe $15,000 expense.

A neat trick is simply to redistribute or replan the functions in a home...move your breakfast nook from the north west to the south east corner...move the living room to the sunny side of the house... Often, knocking down a couple of walls, opening the structure up and relocating your rooms will "reorient" your pad to near optimum solar orientation without touching the outside shell. You might need to add some windows and patio doors on the south, but invariably, this will produce astounding changes in providing day lighting and opening up that claustrophobic feel of conventional boxes.

With a good design involving additions, the redistribution of your floor plan can be augmented by the addition, if properly placed and sized to produce a decent shell. By doing these additions out of straw or earth technologies...you can move the house toward natural elements without sacrificing what already exists.

Massing: The next thing missing in old or conventionally built homes is mass. Mass stabilizes internal temperature swings, stores excess solar daytime energy and provides comfortable evening heat as it reradiates after sunset. Living with a well-massed home is a dream...you'll freeze going back to the transparent flimsiness of sheetrock walls once you're exposed to mass.

Mass is simple and cheap...but a little work. Good massing mediums are concrete(not a natural material...but if it's there or necessary, use it) adobe, cob, brick, water, stone....masonry. Where can we use them?

If you're planning additions, make them solar and build them with lots of mass...adobe insulated exterior walls or plastered strawbale.

South side additions might accommodate trombe walls (see the solar design section) Retrofitting trombe walls into existing frame structures has been done...tear out sections of the old wall, build the mass unit and glaze the exterior.

A sure-fire bet in a retrofit, especially if interior walls are coming down or being rebuilt is to do them out of pressed earth block...maybe sourced from your site. They're cheap, fire-proof and sound proof besides adding tremendous mass. You might want to partially or completely gut all interior walls and do the whole house that way. Warning: These walls weigh a lot. Make sure the floor you're building them on can handle them.

In sunny solar exposed areas, overcoat the floor with thin pour concrete, poured adobe or masonry (brick or stone). A great technique on a south facing room in a conventional structure is to tear the frame floor out, pour a new slab(or brick it) on grade in the crawl space...you gain a step-down room with a couple of extra feet of ceiling height...lots of light and automatic increase in mass.

Just doubling the amount of sheetrock on conventional walls will help their massing performance significantly...just sheetrock over the existing stuff and refinish the room.

Ceilings...interestingly enough...are widely becoming recognized as the optimal place for mass, especially in south-exposed rooms. Getting mass to stick up there is a gimmick. I'll leave that one to your imagination...free lollipops to the craftiest techniques you come up with this year.

Sun spaces: can either be added by changing the layout in an existing structure or with an addition. They serve a multitude of natural building functions and are well worth the cost if done properly. They can make an unlivable home livable...even appealing and have a huge effect on resale value/appeal.

Sun spaces work best when recessed into the structure midway on the south wall. Do not glaze the roof...this produces a bake oven. Isolate the sun space...which has lots of glass on the south wall...from the rest of the structure with glass sliding doors, operable windows or standard doors. Line the entire interior of the sun space with massing medium. Make a water proof floor. Ventilate it profusely with exterior operating windows...both high and low in the structure (summer cooling) . Plan it for growing vegetables, herbs and house plants...even if you think you won't.

The temperature swings in this space will be radical. That's why it must be isolated from the house. 120 degrees in summer, 15 degrees in winter aren't uncommon. Don't try to fix that...it's a characteristic of sun spaces. But they will supply a ready source of free heat in winter and extend your fall and spring "sunshine / suntan" seasons at least two months in both directions...having a tremendous effect on your attitude.

The wall between the sun space and the house must be insulated.

With a little playing around you will find out how to use the "sun-tempered" air in this space in your house. They're great clothes line driers in winter. Pets love them. Put a drain in the floor for hosing down.

Day lighting: This can be tricky in existing structures (any structure for that matter). The introduction of natural daylight to dark rooms not only saves on electric bills, it's healthier light for your eyes (it doesn't flicker at 60 cycles per second). and is the antidote for SAD Syndrome...a form of metabolic depression documented in cold weather climates due to prolonged deprivation from direct sunlight.

The aesthetic effects of introduced day lighting are tremendous.

A great trick, which augments you passive solar design plan is to jerk out a ceiling on the north side of the house, sheetrock the roof rafters (you now have a cathedral ceiling) and pop up a clerestory window into the roof,letting light into the back of the house. Beef up the mass on the north wall, to stabilize gain and you're cooking. Watch out...this light can be bright.

Light tubes are now available which install by cutting 1 ft diameter holes in ceiling and roof and inserting a tube with a dome light collector on top and a diffuser at your finished ceiling line inside. They read like a light fixture in the daytime...but use no power and emit to electromagnetic fields.

Skylights are a common solution. Use them sparingly...they lose tons of heat and regain it like crazy in the summer (when they should be insulation covered).

A warning about day lighting...the human eye doesn't do well with direct daylight or diffused bright light on frosted glass...too much glare. Let light into a space, then before it can strike you, reflect it against a ceiling or wall above eye line. This produces an exciting, bright, but non-straining level of illumination.

Toxicity Issues: So many of us who've worked with formaldehyde based building problems in the building profession...even including designers are now affected by Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. So are people who've repeatedly lived in new homes in the last 20 years. They may not know it. 90% of environmental illness originated or aggravated cases are misdiagnosed...often as attention deficit disorder, Epstein Barr, chronic fatigue, candidiasis, multiple sclerosis, asthma, allergies...the list is long.

The danger in manufactured homes especially, but all new construction in general is that the carpets, paints, insulation, drywall, chip board, draperies, furniture and cleaning products included in them are outgassing toxic fumes. Some people have low thresholds for developing problems with them...some don't. In the long run...all are affected. EI (environmental illness) is a cumulative/threshold disease...your body fights as long as it can to mask reactions...then boom...one day you're sick. There is no turning back.

Most people who start developing symptoms already own the house and can't get out of it...especially modulars..which are mass produced with the cheapest products available.

Here are some solutions. Warning: they may be only band aids. If they don't work and your symptoms worsen and you know instinctively that you react at home and not in other non-toxic environments...it is your house that's making you sick and unless you find a non-toxic living environment, you're very likely to find that your condition will worsen over time.

"Baking Off" can help drive some of the toxins out of an interior. Close the house up, turn up the heat and leave for three days...bake it as hot as you can...definitely over 100 degrees. Come back in, open up all windows and doors and ventilate it for three days. Repeated applications will continue to drive off toxic gases.

Repainting all walls with non-toxic- low VOC paints can help immensely. Glidden 2000 is a bet. Almost all the major paint companies now have low VOC paints...don't use anything else.

Get rid of wall to wall carpeting....9 times out of 10...this is the culprit. A couple of thousand dollars to dump the toxic rug and refinish in wood, linoleum, poured adobe overlay...something else can mean the difference in whether you keep your job or not...really.

Old duct and forced air systems are a nightmare...cleaning them helps..eliminating them is better.

Mold or mildew in any crawl spaces or cavities must be remedied...chlorox sprays, ozonators, isolation...there are several procedures that work.

EMF- Electromagnetic Fields: Old houses (and definitely new ones) can have extremely high toxic fields...typically associated with the service entrance cable, transformers, service panel, electric hot water heaters, three-way switches, fluorescent ballast lighting, outlets near beds, refrigerator motors, tv's, micro-waves and computers.

Watch out for these sources...especially in your sleeping area.

The effects of EMF can be subtle...but debilitating and dangerous over prolonged periods of time. Reactions include...anxiety levels, uneasy sleep, irritability, headaches, mood swings, sinusitis.

A cheap, quick way to see if this might be affecting you is to find out which circuit breaker on your breaker box powers your bedroom circuits...turn it off when you go to sleep. Do this for a week. The next week sleep with it on. Was there a difference...pay attention now....keep track.

If there was...have the fields measured in your house. The power company will come and do that for free (usually-in most areas). The power company, however, is in the business of selling power...the more the better (from their point of view). They will measure only magnetic fields (the electrical fields are the mind altering ones) and then will report to you their findings on the basis of power industry generated safety standards. These standards are next to a joke for those of us who know we're EMF reactive and to what levels we can sense that reactivity.

Your best bet, if it appears you may have a problem, or if you want to be safe, is to have your home (especially your bedrooms...where you spend a third of your life) tested by a trained independent EMF specialist. They exist in this area. Contact Smart Shelter for recommendations.

Highly sensitive meters can paint a vivid and accurate picture for you of what this "invisible" pollution source may be doing in your home as well as ways to counteract that.

Some solutions are as simple as eliminating or moving appliances. Some are costly and involve tearing out faulty wiring. Repeatedly we see effective remediation of unexplainable home-related symptoms relieved with EMF studies and actions. Especially regarding sleep disorders and allergy reactions.

Water Catchment: Retrofitting existing structures to catch and store non-polluted rainwater can be a challenge...especially with steep north-facing roofs which become ice-sheaths in winter. However, simple addition of gutters, downspouts and freeze-protected storage reservoirs on south exposure roofs is very viable and often cheap. It may not be a high priority, unless you want a source of free water, non-chlorinated water or are concerned about water availability in the future.

Catchment water is healthy for plants. Simple systems are good for irrigation, toilet flushing, etc. Any metabolic use means you'll need a filtration/purification system.

A great solution to existing or new flat roof systems is to do an isocyanate foam overcoat to seal it and taper the drain grade into an interior drain (instead of scuppers that cast rainwater over the outside of the building. Route the catch water into freeze protected reservoirs and you'll solve your roof leakage, water shedding and agricultural water supply problems all at once.

Steve Ferris (Castle Valley) has a great passive solar (no power involved) gutter freeze protecting design for very low angle north facing roof drainages. He builds a metal plate which rests in the gutter and stands up high enough to catch mid-day sun...it keeps the shaded gutters flowing in winter...at least in Moab.

Gray water: Gray water is problematical in Colorado because of exorbitant restrictive standards in the State- run plumbing and sanitation inspection system. Lots of renegade systems exist where people have gone back in after an inspection and rerouted sink and shower drains into interior planters and grow beds. If you do this...make sure you know how to distribute the water...that it stays always below the solid surface and has overflow provisions.

Of course, as a responsible, law-abiding Network, we would never think of recommending or encouraging that you would do something so reasonable, yet illegal, as reusing the single most valuable commodity we have in Western Colorado.

Interesting that Denver...steals our water and then insists that we not reuse what little they've left us. Is this democracy?...let alone reason.

Feng Shui: This is an ancient Chinese interior(and exterior) design philosophy which is based on an entire energy system not widely recognized by Western cultures...although mapped and measured repeatedly by science. It posits that "Chi" energy is alive and well and circulating (or not circulating...as it should) in everything. There are elaborate systems resulting from that theory which allow analysis and tuning of how this subtle energy is working or not working in your house. I thought this stuff was new-age whacko, until I read the book, rearranged my interior and saw the results. It can be stunning and I'm not the only 53 year old skeptic who thinks so. Practitioners and books are where to start.

Renewable Energy Retrofits: Lots of people are adding solar hot water assist systems, to power in floor radiant heat and domestic hot water heaters, photo-voltaic collectors, grid-tied PV systems and even wind generators to existing homes. Recent developments with the power companies and PV systems manufacturers have made it possible for you to install solar-electric collectors, an inverter (to convert sun power to power-line power) hook that up to your regular breaker box and turn your meter backwards when the sun shines. Systems for emergency back up power run as little as $2000...the big ones get into the $16-30,000 range.

Russian Stoves: These puppies are a dynamite wood heat retrofit move for remodels. They compose of a fire box and convoluted flue system built of fire brick. Then the whole system is over coated with adobe clay...often in sculptural forms forming beds, benches, reading nooks and the like. A small amount of wood is burned very efficiently, the heat is captured as it wanders through the huge mass...which then reradiates it for 8-10 hours. They feel wonderful. They do, however, have to be designed and built by trained and experienced technicians who know how to size the ducting and ventilation to get them to draw properly.

Passive/Active Cooling: Once a house is super-insulated...it seldom requires any cooling at all in this climate...another argument for starting your remodel with an insulation program.

If you do need cooling...the best cheap quick fix is evaporative systems...swamp coolers which operate by blowing hot air across water-saturated pads...providing cooling, humidification and filtration all in one whack. They work great in warn dry air. Problem is, in the summer monsoon season, when air is 100 degrees and 70%humidity in Montrose...they don't work.

Electricity driven Air Conditioning is not recommended at all. Its mechanical, produces horrid air quality problems and consumes enormous amounts of energy.

A good passive/active system is to route cool crawl space air up into the living space and/or then force it into the hot attic to cool the ceiling and roof surface. Cool air falls...this has proven very effective and can involve as little as adding another switch to an existing forced air furnace and a couple of vent openings in the right place.

Indoor ponds, fountains or other water bodies can really help cool and stabilize interior summer temperatures, especially if the water runs across evaporative rock or glazing surfaces. The esthetics of these retrofits can be wonderful.

Solar Ovens: These sun-driven bakers can be built (a couple in the North Fork does Workshops) or purchased...even to be installed in a kitchen with their collector outside...they can read and work as a regular oven...with the window door on a south facing kitchen wall. If you're baking with electric ovens now...check this out.

Ground Sourced Heating and Cooling: Ponds, collector pipes buried underground or deep wells can now provide both heating and cooling sources when used in conjunction with a heat pump...which can extract heat (or cooling) from liquid at any temperature. Deep water or soil stays steadily at around 50 degrees here regardless of season. Both the power companies (DMEA at least) and private contractors can retrofit circulating hot air furnace system with these units and get you off of natural gas. Note: experience with these systems is new...so check out previous installations and talk to the other owners before you spring.

......Well that ought to keep you existing home owners busy for a while.....