Hovis Custom Builders

Active Solar Water Heater: Heat from the sun is absorbed by collectors and transferred by pumps to a storage unit. The heated fluid in the storage unit conveys its heat to the domestic hot water of the house through a heat exchanger. Controls regulating the process are needed.

Advanced Framing Techniques: Also called Optimum Value engineering (OVE) it is a methodology of construction designed to conserve construction materials by using alternate framing methods. www.toolbase.org

AFUE: Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. The higher the percentage the greater the efficiency of the appliance. Standard efficiencies run in the mid-70% range, Higher efficiency furnaces run between 82 and 90+ % AFUE.

ASHRAE: American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers. This organization writes many of the accepted requirements for installation of these fuels.

Alternative Fuel Vehicle: Vehicles which utilize fuel other than petrol or diesel fuels.

Brownfield: Abandoned, idle or underused industrial or commercial buildings where expansion or development is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.

Building Envelope: Everything that separates and protects indoors from out, including exterior walls, insulation, roofing, foundation, and flooring, windows & doors.

Cellulose: The fibrous part of plants used in making paper textiles. Most building products with the word cellulose imply that paper was used in the production.

Cellulose Insulation with Borates: Cellulose insulation is made from recycled newspaper. The borates provide fire and vermin protection. Most cellulose insulation now uses chemical fire retardants as opposed to natural borates. Environmentally sensitive persons should avoid cellulose insulation that contains newspaper ink, which can cause allergic reactions.

Cementitious foam insulation: A magnesium-oxide based material blown with air to create an inert, effective insulation. It is especially good for people with chemical sensitivities.

Certified sustainably managed: Some certifying organizations have been established that oversee the harvesting of wood for lumber. The underlying guidelines are for preservation of a diverse sustainable forest that exhibits the same ecological characteristics as a healthy natural forest.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's): A family of chemicals used in refrigeration, air conditioning, packaging, insulation, or as solvents and aerosol propellants. Because CFC's are not destroyed in the lower atmosphere they drift into the upper atmosphere where their chlorine components destroy the earth's protective ozone layer.

Composite materials: A complex material made up of two or more complementary substances. They can be difficult to recycle. Plastic laminates are an example. Composite materials are best applied in situations where they can be removed for reuse (not requiring remanufacture).

Composting: A process whereby organic wastes, including food wastes, paper and yard wastes, decompose naturally, resulting in a produce rich in minerals and ideal for gardening and farming as a soil conditioner, mulch, resurfacing material, or landfill cover.

Cool Roof: Specialized roofing materials designed to reflect the extreme heat of the sun away from the building thus reducing the cooling load and associated air conditioning costs.

Daylighting: A method of illuminating building interiors with natural light so that the use of artificial lighting is reduced in the daytime. Common daylighting strategies include the proper orientation and placement of windows, use of light wells, light shafts or tubes, skylights, clerestory windows, light shelves, reflective surfaces, and shading, and the use of interior glazing to allow light into adjacent spaces.

Deciduous: Trees and plants that shed their leaves at the end of the growing season.

Demand control ventilation: Ventilation provided in response to actual number of occupants and occupant activity.

Domestic Hardwoods: Deciduous trees that grow in the US; this is the only type of wood in the US where on a general scale the growth of new trees easily exceeds the removal rate.

Dual Flush Toilet: These are toilets that have two different settings, usually 0.8 gallons for liquid removal and 1.6 gallons for full flush solid removal. On the average they use about 2500 gallons per year compared to a 1.6 single flush that uses about 4500 gallons per year.

Electromagnetic fields (EMF's): Electric and magnetic fields are common in nature and in all living things. Electric power produces fields that have a possible association with health risks.

Energy Heel Truss: An engineered roofing truss with an elevated portion at the wall plate line to provide for full depth insulation.

Energy Star: Introduced in 1992 by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a voluntary labeling programme designed to identify and promote energy efficient products to help reduce greenhouse emissions by identifying energy efficient products. Originally designed for computers and monitors, it has now expanded to include office products, major appliances, lighting, home electronics, and more. New expanded programs include complete buildings such as homes, commercial and industrial buildings. www.energystar.gov

Energy Star programme for Builders: All participating builders must construct their homes to be at least 15% more energy efficient than current state building codes.

Energy Star PARTNER programme for Builders: All participating builders construct their homes to be at least 50% more energy efficient than current state building codes.

Engineered Lumber: Generally engineered lumber is construction materials designed to reduce the aggregate of material needed for framing a building.

Engineered Studs: A little different than engineered lumber, usually smaller diameter stock is shredded and reassembled by forming them into nominal sized framing materials. The absorbent material is combined with a binder and compressed into large billets that are then cut to dimensional size. An advantage of engineered studs is that they are dimensionally stable and less susceptible to warping. These studs are considerably heavier than sawn wood, cost about twice as much and may be subject to water damage.

Environmentally preferable: Products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose. This comparison may consider raw materials acquisition, production, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, reuse, operation, maintenance, or disposal of the product or service.

Energy recovery ventilator: A mechanical device that draws stale air from the house and tranfers the heat or coolness in that air to the air being pulled into the house. This can help reduce energy costs and dilute indoor pollutants.

Exterior grade plywood: Uses phenol formaldehyde (a volatile organic compound) as an adhesive that is released in much smaller amounts compared to urea formaldehyde used in interior grade plywood and particleboard.

Fly ash: The ash residue from high temperature combustion processes. Electric motor plants using western coal produce a non-toxic fly ash because of its very high calcium content can be a substitute for Portland Cement (the common material in concrete).

Formaldehyde: Colorless, pungent smelling, toxic material used as an adhering component of glues in many wood products. It can cause respiratory problems, cancer, and chemical sensitivity.

FSC Certified Wood: The Forest Stewardship Council is a non-profit organization that certifies various forests around the world exhibiting good sustainability and management practices based on a specific management criteria. The wood from these forests are often quickly renewabe often using hybrid timber and advanced forestry methods. Other forests are simply carefully managed by limiting the impact on both the environment and the people and demonstrating a social benefit in the process.

Fuel cell: A technology that uses an electrochemical process to convert energy into electrical powe. Often powered by natural gas, fuel cell power is cleaner than grid-connected power sources. In addition, hot water is produced as a by-product that can be utilized as a thermal resource for the building.

GEOTHERMAL Heat Pump: An electrically powered heating & cooling system that transfers heat between your house and the earth using fluid circulated through long loops of underground pipes. How it works: An indoor heat pump uses a basic refrigeration cycle - evaporation, compression, condensation, and expansion - to capture and disburse heat from and to the ground to warm the house in winter and cool it in the summer. Cuts heating bills up to 80%. Eliminates noisy outdoor compressors & fans. Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of planting 750 trees or taking two cars off the road. www.geoexchange.org/local/manufacturers.htm

Green Building: Green building is a design and construction practice that promotes the economic health and well-being of your family, the community, and the environment. A smart step toward personal economic rewards, Green Building also has positive social & environmental ramifications that assert your commitment to the future and the way we live for years to come.

Green Power: Generally this is the production of electricity from environmentally friendly sources such as photovoltaic, geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass, hydrogen fuel cels, ocean energy and wind power. As with all forms of electricity generation, there are significant costs involved and in some cases undesirable byproducts such as vane noise and unslightly appearance or diversion of wild waterways.

Green Roof: Essentially this is a growing roof system utilizing a specialized undercarriage for the waterproof membrane and excess water removal. Various types of vegetation are set into aspecial growing media and help to replace displaced vegetation in the buiding footprint as well as greatly reduce the heat island effect of a roof, especially in hot climates. Depending on the species of pants chosen, significant increases in watering requirements may be required.

High Quality Duct System: This option avoids the potential of significant heating and cooling losses, as well as avoiding potential health threats caused by depressurizing or pressurizing a house. All ducts are sealed using a fibrated latex mastic and fibergass tape. Inner and outer linings of the duct are both sealed. The air handler, support platform and return plenum are sealed air tight at the joints. Duct tape is not used in any part of the system. No ductwork is run inside of the building envelope walls. The system can be performance tested to ensure proper installations.

Heat Recovery Systems: Building mechanical systems that capture waste heat from another system and use it to replace heat that would otherwise come from a primary energy source.

Hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC): HCFC's are generally less detrimental to depletion of stratospheric ozone than chlorofluorocarbons. HCFCs are generally used to replace CFC's where mandates require CFC's to be eliminated. A total ban on all CFC's and HCFCs is scheduled effective 2030.

Hydronic Radiant Heating: This is a system of heating a building by using a central boiler or hot water heater to distribute heat under a floor through a system of tubes just under the flooring surface. A single heater may be zoned to provide independent heat to different parts of a building as needed. The heating system is efficient and provides a comfortable conditioned room.

IAQ: The acronym for Indoor Air Quality. As buildings become tighter, indoor air quality suffers unless specific measures are taken to improve the exchange of fresh air without sacrificing heating/cooling economy.

Insulated Concrete Form (ICF): Expanded polystyrene foam (EPS), high density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polycarbonate (PC) is cast or injection molded in various panel shapes and form the permanent forming method for reinforced concrete walls. These highly insulated forms have various thermal resistance values (R-values) ranging from R-22 up to R-50. In hot or cold climates, these forms can significantly reduce heating and cooling loads. The panels are usually pre-engineered and produce a fire resistive barrier up to 4 hour rated.

LEED: Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design. The LEED program was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council as a system for rating new and existing commercial, institutional and high rise residential buildings. It evaluates the overall environmental performance during the lifecycle of a building and provides a tangible methodology for analyzing the standars of a green building.

Life cycle cost: The amortized annual cost of a product, including capital costs, installation costs, operating costs, maintenance costs, and disposal costs discounted over the lifetime of a product.

Manufactured Locally: Generally this refers to products that are manufactured within a relatively short distance from the job site. Depending on who is making the definition, this can be within 100 to 1000 miles. The main intent is to be cognizant of long distance shipping and the energy expended and pollution created to move a product from greater distances.

MDF - Medium Density Fiberboard: An engineered panel product that can be used for suh things as cabinets and wall panels while other MDF products can be shaped into moldings, ceiling tiles, flooring, interior doors and a variety of other uses. Exterior grades of MDF can be made into garage doors, sheds, and other outdoor applications. A middle grade called "moisture resistant MDF" can be used externally but must be protected from water intrusion by sheltering.

Oriented Strand Board (OSB): A manufactured wood structural panel generally cut to the size of standard plywood sheets and in various thicknesses. It is made by chipping very specific species of wood from smaller growth trees and "orienting"

the grain of these chips into a pattern that provides optimum strength in the panel. The chips are then saturated with glue and pressed into production sizes.

Permeable Paving: Pavement that allows the passage of water into the ground. There are a variety of permeable pavement methods including spaced pavers with soil infills and newer specialized asphalt and concrete applications that actually allow rainwater to pass through the surface and help to keep the water table from being depleted.

Photovoltaic Panel: These panels that are either roof or ground mounted that collect solar energy and through the use of special solar voltaic cells, convert the energy to direct current electricity. A special controller then converts this electricity to alternating current, making it usable in most residential and commercial applications. Electricity made in this fashion can be stored in batteries for later use, consumed as it is made to help offset the overall electrical use of a building, or placed into the commercial electrical grid for use in other locations. These panels only work when there is light, but surprisingly produce electricity even on cloudy days.

Radiant Barrier Roof Sheathing: Usually a foil faced plywood manufactured with proprietary methods that is used as the roof sheathing under the roofing material itself. The reflective surface of the material actually reflects heat back away from the roof back through the shingles without significantly increasing the thermal load on the material, usually only 2 to 5 degrees. Other methods are rolled materials that are applied after the regular plywood or OSB sheathing is applied. Both materials can reduce attic and subsequent living area cooling loads significantly. Some manufacturers claim up to 97% effectiveness.

Rastra®: Rastra is a commercially manufactured insulated concrete form (ICF). It is manufactured from re-cycled, post-consumer plastics and according to the manufacturer offers the structural strength of concrete paired with high insulation values, sound attenuation and fire resistance.

Reclaimed Lumber: Exactly as the term implies, this is lumber that is reclaimed by "deconstruction" of a building or structure. This lumber can be used for non-structural applications such as paneling and flooring and if re-graded can be used for structural applications. Major advantages include usually higher quality surface characteristics (it often came from tight grained old growth lumber), less cost than new lumber and reduction in landfill wastes (although it can be easily mulched). Major disadvantages are that it is fairly labor intensive to "clean up", is often very hard to nail after many years of drying and may need to be pre-drilled, increasing installation costs.

Recycled Concrete Aggregate: Often concrete salvaged from demolition projects can be crushed and reused. Some can be introduced as a percentage of the aggregate in new concrete, while some can be used for roadbed underlayment. The actual use of the product is limited to imagination and the structural requirements of the project. Use of the material also reduces the amount of new aggregate that must be mined from quaries and the associated environmental concerns associated with the operation.

Recycled Content Material: As the name implies, many products can be manufactured using "post consumer" materials such as plastic, fiber, wood, glass and so on. Deconstruction of various structures can also produce a variety of "raw" materials to create new products from, everything from tiles to carpeting to composite flooring materials and beyond. Recycled content materials help to reduce the need for new raw materials and accumulation and manufacturing processes involved.

Recycled Content Steel Studs: Most new light gauge metal studs are manufactured from a combination of new and recycled steel. About 66% of the total make up is recycled content. Considering that the production of new steel is one of the highest embodied energy manufacturing processes, the use of recycled steel not only redirects a virtually ever reusable resource, but significantly can reduce the impact on other environmental concerns. The use of light gauge metal studs on interior infill and demising walls lessens the amount of wood studs needed for construction, however more specialized skills are needed to install the material properly.

Roofing Materials - Safe & Durable: This can have a variety of definitions depending on one's point of view but essentially these are roofing systems designed to last a significantly longer time to delay having to remove them and sending them to the landfill. Modern fiberglass roofing materials now carry warranties between 20 & 40 years. Of course slate, concrete & fired clay tiles can last significantly longer. Additionally, a safe roof generally refers to a fire safe roof and with modern roofing systems, various degrees of fire resistance ranging from class C to class A define the fire retardance of a roof. A class C rating is the industry's best rating for fire retardance.

SEER: Most air conditioners use electricity to produce cooling. The efficiency at which they produce cooling is referred to as a SEER or EER number. SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio, and is a ratio of the amount of cooling produced (BTU) divided by the amount of electricity (watts) used. The higher the SEER, the greater the efficiency.

Solar Water Heating: Generally, this is a method of heating domestic water by allowing ground or rooftop mounted panels to collect solar rays as the water flows slowly through a series of small tubes. The heat transfer is then stored either in a potable drinking water vessel (your water heater) or introduced into a closed loop transport system to provide environmental space heating.

Straw Bale: This is a methodology developed to us special tightly bound straw as either bearing or infill walls in a variety of structures including homes. The straw bale system was an offshoot of the Nebraska straw house where their construction over a hundred years ago solved the basic problem of no lumber. The bales provide a substancial increase in insulation value but their installation can be rather labor intensive.

Structural Bamboo: Bamboo as aconstruction material has many uses. Because the material is very hard it has recently found a niche as flooring material. However, the material is also very strong and with new methods of handling the material, structural uses of bamboo are finding their way into the construction industry. They can be derived into trusses, supporting poles and simple beams. However most building departments are not fimiliar with the capacity of the material and builders will have to supply significant engineering and detailing to satify plan check requirements.

Sustainable Deck Materials: Most of us are familiar with the wooden deck. However, new materials on the market are making a dramatic impact in the form of recycled content decking and railing systems. Usually manufactured with recycled plastics, wood chips and binders, the materials hold up well to hostile environments and generally outlast even naturally durable woods such as redwood and cedar. The intent is to select materials that are sustainable or easily replaced with limited effect on the ecology. These new materials are easily worked similar to wood, however are considerably more expensive. The trade off is the longevity of the material. While there are variations to the support structure under these materials, treated wood is still the primary structural system.

Tankless Water Heater: Most of us have a 30 or 40 gallon storage water heater in our house. However, when you are not home or sleeping, that water heater is diligent in keeping your hot water ready at all times. Modern advances in storage tank water heaters reduces the amount of times it must fire to maintain temperature, but the basic operation remains the same. Tankless water heaters are designed to wait until you actually need the hot water and on demand, fire up generally by the time the water clears the heat exchanger inside, it's ready for use. Additionally, these water heaters take up less storage space than a storage tank type, but the amount of fuel needed to reach temperature quickly usually exceeds most storage types, but in a lot less time and a lot less often.

CCA - Chromated Copper Arsenate: As the name implies the chemical used to treat wood to prevent attacks by wood destroying organisms such as boring insects, fungi and dry rot contains arsenic, a rather nasty poison. Since December 31, 2003, the distibution of CCA has been severly limited and is generally not available to the average homeowner anymore once stocks are depleted. It can still be manufactured for very specific commercial applications such as underwater saltwater pilings and cross member materials, but not for decking, above water bracing or railings.

ACQ - Alkaline Copper Quaternary (or Quat): This method of treatment uses copper as the primary active ingredient. While the material is effective for direct contact and above ground protection, it is highly corrosive to fasteners and fittings and special precautions must be taken in the selection (usually hot dipped galvanized or stainless steel)

CA - Copper Azole: Like ACQ, the primary active ingredient is copper. While not quite as corrosive as ACQ, the material does have a tendency to migrate into the soil. Again special care in selection of fasteners and handling is required.

DOT - Disodium Octaborate Tetrahydrate: DOT or simply borate or boron preserved wood is the least corrosive of the treatments. The material is intended for interior or protected use only and must be protected from direct water exposure which can leach the material out of the wood. Protected in dry conditions, the borates will migrate into the wood even deeper than the initial pressure injection application over time. The material is very effective against many wood pests including the voracious Formosan termite.

TXV - Thermostatic Expansion Valve: A TXV installed on an air conditioning system can dramatically improve the efficincy of the unit. When cooling demand is high, the valve opens up and lets more coolant pass through the indoor coils. When demand is low, the valve closes to reduce the refrigerant flow. AC units not equipped with TXV's have either a fixed oriface or capillary tube system.

Volatile Organic Compound (VOC): Many of the products that we buy are made with materials that off-gas VOC's usually in the form of formaldehyde gas, a by-product of hydrocarbon based materials. Building materials such as particle board, plywood, adhesives, paints, varnishes, carpet, drapes and furniture are often made with formaldehyde products. Other sources include some you may not think of like tobacco, burning gas, perfume, cleaning agents, hairspray and even copy and printing machines. Degrees of exposure to VOC's can cause everything from mild symptoms like irritated eyes, ears and throat to more severe reactions like wheezing and lung, memory and anxiety problems. By using low-VOC products, exposures are reduced and indoor air quality is improved.

Wind Power Systems: Wind power systems convert the energy of the wind into electricity. Surplus electricity is often stored in a battery storage system for later use, or the power is passed back to the utility essentially making the meter go in reverse.

Xeriscape: Creative landscaping for water and energy efficiency and lower maintenance. The seven xeriscape principles are: good planning and design; practical lawn areas; efficient irrigation; soil improvement; use of mulches; low water demand plants; good maintenance.