Residential

Sand Hill Farm Ground Breaking Ceremony

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The Town of Culver and their Workforce Housing Committee have been working on solutions to workforce housing for the past three years. Housing was the centerpiece of our Stellar Communities plan the last two years. As the culmination of this hard work, Easterday Construction Co., Inc. and the Town of Culver are excited to announce the ground breaking ceremony for the Sand Hill Farm Apartments on November 8th at 3:00pm. The ground breaking will be at the site, 540 West Jefferson Street, in Culver.

Sand Hill Farm apartments will have a mix of one, two and three bedroom apartments totaling 24 units. The development is geared towards the goals of increasing housing opportunities, attracting new families, increasing population and increasing school enrollment.

This will be a great kick-off to our Stellarbration at the beach lodge immediately after this. Hopefully you have that event on your calendar as well.

Thank you to all that helped make this possible! We hope you can take the time to help us kick the project off right.

The Benefits of Building a Custom Home

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The Benefits of Building a Custom Home
When it comes to choosing your next home, you may be torn between buying an existing home and working with an architect and builder in order to build a custom home. While pre-existing homes offer the ability to move in right away, they may contain hidden costs, like the need to upgrade appliances, renovate or build additions. Custom homes, by contrast, are completely move-in ready with all the features and square footage you need to make your home comfortable and functional.

1. More Home for the Money
Custom homes can offer more home for the money. When home buyers purchase preexisting homes, they often need immediate maintenance and upgrades. At a bare minimum, you’ll probably find yourself gutting the kitchen and the bathrooms and completely replacing them, which adds to the overall cost of the home. Likewise, the existing home may contain features you don’t want and exclude features you do want.
When you build a custom home, you are only paying for the square footage, features and customization you want in order to maximize the home’s flow and function.

2. Built to Your Specifications
Custom homes can be built to your specifications and your family’s needs. Most preexisting homes include one or two bathrooms and two to three bedrooms. If you have a large or growing family, own your own business or work from home, an existing home may not be able to meet your space needs. Custom homes can be built with as many bedrooms as you need, modern kitchens with all the right materials, home gyms, offices and great rooms and/or gathering rooms that are large enough to entertain friends, family members and clients or coworkers.

3. Better Energy Efficiency
Older homes are not as well insulated and do not typically contain as many green  features, unless the previous homeowners have performed extensive upgrades. By contrast, custom homes can be built to your energy-efficient standards. Instead of fiberglass insulation, you can request spray foam insulation. You can request energy efficient windows, doors and roofing, and you’ll be able to choose between standard hot water heaters and tankless hot water heaters. In some instances, you may even be able to install solar panels on your new energy-efficient roof in order to further reduce your new custom home’s ecological footprint and save money on your energy bills.

4. Appliances Included
Custom homes include the appliances, and you can negotiate with the builder to include upscale or luxury appliances instead of the standard builder-grade appliances. When you purchase an existing home, if the appliances are included, they are often several years old, outdated and may not include the features you desire.

5. Better Privacy
When you decide to build a custom home, you can choose your lot and the style and orientation of your house. This gives you more privacy options than purchasing an existing home. With a custom home, you have the option of setting the home further back on the lot, orienting the home’s design and layout and customizing your landscaping in order to maximize privacy.

6. Move-in Ready
Custom-built homes are ready for you and your family. Once they are finished, you do not have to worry about making upgrades or repairs for several years, and many new, custom homes come with home warranties so that you can have increased peace of mind.

Solar Eclipse

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As the hype grows, I’ve been thinking about the solar eclipse on August 21st. Thanks to Waffle House, I found this handy map (see right) in case you want your eclipse viewing “Smothered & Covered”. I heard on the radio that Krispy Kreme was planning competing events. Chocolate Glaze! Unfortunately, Indiana will be mostly bypassed for the total eclipse. We’ll only get a side view. That should still be cool and weather permitting, I’m sure I’ll step out side to check it out.

Picture of Sanford Stadium from ajc.com article

My friends around Atlanta are planning parties and events. Any excuse for a party and a day off work, right? The University of Georgia is planning a party in Sanford Stadium. (Article here) Do you tailgate for an eclipse? Knowing the Bulldogs, the answer to that will be a resounding YES! Ha!

Nest Thermostat asking to activate their eclipse rush hour savings

One of the other interesting tie-ins I saw was with the Nest thermostats. I’ve talked about them before here. They’ve been through a few updates since then and I chose to install one in my home. So far I’ve been pleased. More than similar devices, I have observed Nest really trying to make the green connection and not just personal energy cost savings. They send out a report on how many “leafs” you earn each month for energy savings along with a comparison to other Nest owners. There is a running total on their website showing their estimate of how many Kwh of energy that has been saved by their devices.

The tie-in to the eclipse is that in their blog, Nest repeats a report that suggests the solar eclipse, as it blocks out solar panels, will reduce green energy production by as much as 9,000 MW resulting in traditional systems coming back on line to pick up the slack. “At Nest, we think of these high-demand times on the energy grid as rush hours.” They suggest that if you opt in, their thermostats will automatically cool your home a little extra before the event so that it can reduce the load during the event. Personally I think that’s as much marketing as an actual need, but it’s still an interesting concept and it’s another reminder of how the Internet of Things continues to find new ways to work for us.

For those of you in Culver, there is going to be presentations this Saturday at the Culver Union Township Public Library at 10:30 and noon talking about the eclipse. (The noon event was added after the flyer came out.) Dr. Angela Meyer from Culver Academies will give the presentation. Those that attend will receive NASA approved viewing glasses for Monday’s eclipse. This should be an informative event!

Maybe I’ll see you out in the semi-darkness on the 21st. That is if I don’t accept an invitation to go to Atlanta and get the full effect! While I doubt this will be any kind of life changing event, it is one of those cool and rare physical phenomenons of which we should all take advantage. Hopefully for most of us it’s not literally a once-in-a-lifetime event, but it is pretty rare… And unlike most astronomical events, you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to see it! Bonus!

Heated Drive and Walk

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FullSizeRenderThis is a project that we completed late last year.  We tore out the old asphalt driveway and apron.  We tore out a couple of walks and stairs.  We replaced the walks and drives with sand set pavers, cobblestone for the drive and brick for the walks, on a 12″ base of crushed limestone.  At the end of the drive at the road, we poured a 6″ thick concrete apron.  We poured another concrete apron at the approach to the garage. The stairs are pavers on a concrete base.  In the sand between the bottom of the pavers and the limestone base, we installed plastic tubing in 150′ to 200′ lengths.  We also ran the tubing through the concrete aprons and on the treads of the stairs.  These tubes were connected manifolds in boxes around the perimeter.  Then home run lines were connected back to the boiler system in the garage.

A glycol fluid mix is used in the system to prevent freezing when the system isn’t running.  Sensors in the pavers turn the system on when they detect moisture (snow, ice, freezing rain) and when the ambient air temperature is below freezing. The pictures here were taken Friday morning after the mix of snow and freezing rain we had Thursday night.  The driveway is in better shape than the State Highway it accesses!

The sensors were strategically (hopefully) placed to account for areas where there might be blowing snow accumulating when there might not be snow on the entire drive.  The system is also laid out in zones for better control.

The boilers are variable speed and can reduce speed and temperature when the load calls for that.  There are two boilers and there is also the capability to shut one off completely if the load isn’t there.

This has been a challenging project and we’re still working a few bugs out.  In the end, this driveway should never see another snow plow and the walks should always be clear.

Additional pictures below.

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Entry Level Housing Update

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Jeff Kenney’s Culver Citizen article on the Entry Level Housing decision by the Town Council popped up on The Pilot News website over the weekend.  (You can find The Pilot News version here or the Culver Citizen version in a previous post here.)  Unfortunately in the interim, the Council rescinded the decision to move forward this year and instead chose to delay our application until next year.  Thus like the wispy home I’ve shown multiple times in the past (see left), affordable housing in Culver has slipped from our grasp until at least 2017.  (Wow, that was one of the sappiest sentences I’ve written in a long time!)

I can’t help but be frustrated by this.  First because we had been working towards the grant deadline of November 2nd for the last 9 months.  Second, after the decision on September 22nd (the meeting in the Citizen article) I was asked to rush around to get the necessary items lined up which included a special Culver BZA Hearing and a tax abatement hearing with the County Council.  Both of which had been arranged prior to finding out that the plug had been pulled.  (The final piece was completed at 4:55 against a 5:00 deadline.  No stress there!)

The abatement hearing has been cancelled.  The developer has been told to cool his heels.  No follow-up meeting for the Entry Level Housing Task Force has been scheduled.  The only thing that is continuing forward is the BZA Hearing.  If the BZA is still willing, I plan to go ahead with that hearing.  I am thinking that it can’t hurt to vet the location ahead of time.  All the neighboring property owners have been alerted.

I hope our development partner hangs with us.  I hope we don’t lose opportunities with our target audiences.  I hope the grant availability is there next year.  I hope the County Council is still supportive next year.  I hope any changes in the Council following the election doesn’t realign the will of our leadership.  I hope the subsequent changes in the appointed boards and commissions doesn’t change their will to move forward.  That’s six “hopes” we now have in trade for the momentum we previously had.  Let me throw in one more for lucky seven and say I hope all this works out.

Image Source:  www.homeloanstoday.com

Image Source:  Unknown (found on Pinterest)