From a hillside abode constructed with shipping containers to large homes that are situated to mitigage energy use and costs, sustainability is catching on, and it’s bringing some unique housing styles to the Ozarks landscape.
When Marti Montgomery moved in January to a 1,280-square-foot house on 48 acres in Webster County, she fulfilled her longtime dream to build a home on the land she loves and has owned since the 1970s.
She also was able to achieve her goal to build an environmentally friendly home, reusing four surplus shipping containers in the process.
“This land borders on being sacred to me,” Montgomery said, noting that she worked to keep the home’s footprint as small as possible.
“We chose the location so no old and wonderful trees would need to be cut down,” she added.
Montgomery enlisted Springfield design firm Theworkshop 308 LLC to help her work within a $150,000 budget, beginning construction in late 2008. Four shipping containers, each measuring 8 feet wide by 40 feet long, were used for the two-bedroom, two-bath home.
While Montgomery has taken the local lead in repurposing shipping containers that she said are stacked up and unused “a mile high across the country,” she’s not alone in her efforts to bring sustainable homes to southwest Missouri.
Architect Matthew Hufft, principal and owner of Kansas City-based Hufft Projects LLC, said about 50 percent of his residential clients – including Andy’s Frozen Custard Inc. President Andy Kuntz, Studio 417 owner Paul Catlett and Green Circle developer and Dynamic Earth owner Matt O’Reilly – come to him with the intention of building a sustainable home.
“And about half want something more aesthetic, because our look is pretty modern,” Hufft said. “In the end, we try to get both.”
A modern look may lend itself more freely to sustainability, Hufft said, though he noted that more traditional home styles aren’t off the table entirely.
“I would never say you couldn’t build a sustainable home in traditional frame, but I think there’s a lot about how far you can push it,” he said. “Traditional is concerned about symmetry. If you really want to be sustainable, you have to pay more attention to the site and where the sun is. The modern aesthetic is about forms and windows facing the right direction for the right daylight.”
Placement and planning Windows, in particular, were a priority for Montgomery, Kuntz and O’Reilly. Montgomery said windows fit with her desire for a modern house plan with plenty of metal and glass. O’Reilly’s Greene County home, just east of Springfield is scheduled for completion in December and measures 4,000 square feet, including the garage. O’Reilly’s house has plenty of windows overlooking the wooded lot, but he said he and Hufft placed the windows carefully in the design and they will be insulated properly.
“Windows are a liability, because if there are too many, the home isn’t as efficient,” O’Reilly said, noting that his home’s windows are positioned so that the only time the sun shines directly in is during the winter, when it can help provide heat.
Beyond determining where individual features will be placed in a home, space planning in general is a key issue for homeowners who seek sustainability.
“A lot of what we do, and a lot of what quite frankly any of our houses are about, is space planning,” Hufft said. “That’s not about having a McMansion that has about five different rooms, all with TVs … when in all honesty, humans don’t need that much space. There is some efficiency just because the designs are smaller.”
Kuntz said livability and energy efficiency were priorities when he approached Hufft five years ago to design his home, which comprises almost 4,000 square feet and was finished in December 2008.
“Every room in the house is occupied and used every day,” he said. “There’s not a room like a basement that you use only when you want to watch a baseball game. There’s not a dining room you only use on Thanksgiving or Christmas.”
A cost for green? When Kuntz began planning his east Springfield home, he said he priced traditional and more efficient features.
“We certainly priced a little both ways and compared the costs,” he said, noting certain features, such as a geothermal heating and cooling system and cistern tanks that collect rainwater, were more expensive up front but have proven efficient in the long run. “Adding the cistern was 100 percent additional cost, but then you look at the fact that you’re not having to use city water to water the yard,” he said.
Kuntz declined to disclose the cost of his home, but is appraised at $601,200, according to the Greene County Assessor’s Office.
Though he didn’t disclose how much he spent on the home’s geothermal unit, Kuntz said his calculations show it will pay for itself through five to seven years with lower energy bills.
He said his system probably cost about 50 percent more than traditional heating and cooling, but it’s worth it.
“It’s the right thing to do for one,” Kuntz added. “Ultimately, it even makes more sense now because you can get a tax credit for doing it, and energy costs are only going to go up, so it’ll pay off even faster than we expect.”
Simple sustainable choices, including low- or no-volatile organic compound paint or the home’s orientation, should come with added costs, Hufft said.
Certain simpler sustainable choices, such as low-or-no volatile organic compound paint, or the orientation of the house, should not cost more than less environmentally conscious choices, Hufft noted.
O’Reilly said sustainability is a competency, not a cost-driver, and if a homeowner works with people who aren’t familiar with environmentally conscious practices, the homeowner shouldn’t have to foot the bill for the learning curve.
“You used to see people who, when you’d mention the word green, there’d be a cost for that,” O’Reilly said. “Those days are no more. Now, sustainable should be part of the product offering and not a premium.”
Among the sustainable features in Montgomery’s home are a wood stove that helps heat the home during winter and energy-efficient appliances and fixtures. Many of the materials she selected are recycled. Cedar planks used in her living room ceiling come from wood found in Forsyth, and some of her tables are made of reclaimed wood.
O’Reilly declined to disclose the cost of his home, which adheres to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s airPlus program, but he estimated that it probably costs about $250 per square foot. A Greene County building permit shows an estimated cost of $800,000 for the home.
O’Reilly said energy models done on the home’s design indicate that his energy bills will probably be about $100 a month.
Products featured in O’Reilly’s home are EcoTop countertops, made from recycled wood, paper and bamboo. At the high end, O’Reilly said, the countertops cost about $60 per square foot, compared to between $60 and $80 for granite or marble. He’s chosen a stove insert instead of a traditional fireplace, which he said costs about the same, but the insert will help heat the home in winter, burning wood and nearly all of the ash with minimal discharge of pollutants.
His cabinet bases are local and sustainable, and veneers will have the look of exotic hardwoods, which O’Reilly noted are expensive and not sustainably harvested. Board-form concrete, he said, gives the look of a wood or rock surface. Cost-wise, it’s probably more expensive than wood siding, he said, but less expensive than concrete and rock. And, he adds, there is a lot less waste.
“I would say, if you’re smart about how you pick your materials, you could easily save 10 (percent) to 20 percent over the popular must-have McMansion products out there, and it’s far, far cheaper to live in,” O’Reilly said.[[In-content Ad]]
