Keeping Leucadia Funky

The Avocado Street Beach Homes are moving along and they are bright! We are in various stages of installing countertops, finish hardware, and landscape irrigation for each home.

The importance of insulation

Someone once told me that trying to heat or cool your home without proper insulation is like running your a/c in the car with the windows down. Proper insulation is absolutely key to building an energy-efficient home. We have a third party perform Quality Insulation Installation inspection, or QII, to ensure that insulation touches all 6 sides of the interior walls and there are no gaps or indents.

QII improves Title 24 score and is required by both GreenPoint Rated and LEED. Those rating systems also give credit for recycled content and low emissions. The Owens Corning Propink EcoTouch Insulation has 47% post consumer and 18% post-industrial recycled content. As the names imply, post consumer material has been used and disposed of by consumers (such as glass or aluminum), and post-industrial is process-waste (like cuttings of jean material). This insulation is also is GreenGuard Certified, which ensures no formaldehyde and low emissions for better indoor air quality.

Construction Best Management Practices

Cover vents during construction to prevent dust in the HVAC system. Also insulate DHW pipes to save energy on water heating costs

Seal all penetrations with foam before blown in insulation. This will prevent moisture from entering the home as well as improve the effectiveness of the insulation

Protect storm drains from construction dirt and debris

Framing update

Concrete driveway poured for Home 1. There will be two stories above this

One of two bioretention pits that will filter stormwater from the site. This helps filter the water before it reaches the ocean and reduces runoff in the street

Non-load bearing door and window headers are sized for loads. This reduces the amount of lumber used to build a home while maintaining the structural integrity and increasing the insulation value.

Ladder blocking is another optimal value engineering technique. It allows for more insulation in the walls while reducing the amount of framing

No wood-to-concrete connections. Here you can see a layer between the concrete foundation and the wood framing. In traditionally-built homes, water from the ground evapotranspires through concrete and eventually reaches the wood which weakens it. By separating the two, the wood remains durable.

StegoWrap and foundations

How this site has transformed! Foundations 2 and 3 are poured, and 1 and 4 are scheduled for next week. The yellow sheeting under the sand is Stego Wrap Vapor Barrier, which is used as a below-slab vapor barrier. It also protects against radon, which is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that is poisonous to humans.