Episode 5 | Building "A Pretty Good House" with Dan Kolbert

Discover how to achieve the perfect blend of design, performance and affordability in home building with insights from Dan Kolbert, co-author of “Pretty Good House: A Guide to Creating Better Homes.” Explore the concept of the “Pretty Good House.” A practical alternative to pursuing home certifications like Passive House, LEED, and Energy Star.  Learn how this approach, originating from a building science group in Portland, Maine, defines sustainable building by not only the construction details but also on other crucial aspects like house size and budget constraints, offering a balanced framework for better homes.

Learn more about Bensonwood by visiting our website: bensonwood.com

Chapters

• 0:04 Building a Pretty Good House
• 12:08 Prioritizing Comfort and Performance in Construction

Transcript

Alison Keay: 0:03

welcome back to a new era of home building, where we explore sustainable home building, high performance design, innovative off site construction and groundbreaking practices that are transforming the home building industry. This podcast is produced by bensonwood. Thank you for listening to another episode of a new era of home building. I'm your host. Allison Kay, Sales Lead at Unity homes,

Mark Hertzler: 0:25

and I'm your co host. Mark Hertzler, Director of unity homes. Today we are talking with Dan Colbert of Colbert building. Dan is an experienced builder from Southern Maine and co author of the book, pretty good house, a guide to creating better homes. Dan wrote this book alongside Emily macram, Michael Maines and Christopher Briley, a pretty good house is associated with a whole idea around looking at design, high performance, building science as well as budget to create the pretty good house. So Dan, thanks for joining us today.

Dan Kolbert: 0:58

Thank you for having me

Mark Hertzler: 0:59

So Dan, in a previous episode, we talked about certifications, things such as passive house, LEED ENERGY STAR, and in some cases, there may be some rebates or incentives associated with those home certifications. But in your book, you specify that pretty good house isn't a certification, but it takes a lot of the same concept. So tell us about the general idea of a pretty good house and what to trying to do that the certifications are not doing.

Dan Kolbert: 1:31

Yeah. So a brief history. We've had a building science discussion group in Portland Maine for It started about 15 years ago, and in a session about a decade ago, maybe, you know, we always come up with an idea at the last minute and send out an email blast. And one of them was that, you know, this was right around the time when I think Passive House certification was getting very big in New England, and I was just trying to think about certification systems and my experiences with them. And I said, Well, what if you just want to build a pretty good house? And that was the title of the title of the session. We had a great conversation. And then Mike mains wrote it up for green building advisor. And there was a fantastic conversation there, you know. And it was one of those stupid lines that just sort of hit the zeitgeist, right? You know, just became sort of shorthand for me. I don't really know people use it for shorthand for all sorts of things, which is one of the downsides of it, I guess. Which is why? Which is why? When you were earlier calling it a movement before we started, it makes me nervous, because, if anything, it's sort of an anti movement. So our response certifications is complicated. I think we all I'm not passive house certified, but the other three are, or have been in the past. I am very involved with our local passive house. You know, we have a non profit Passive House main that does a lot of great educational stuff, and I'm very involved in those classes. I think Passive House is wonderful. I think leads for home did a huge job. You know, I don't know if you guys are old enough to remember, but, you know, when we from first came out, we thought, well, maybe this is the thing that's finally going to break through to the mainstream and actually, you know, have an impact on the market. It didn't really quite get there, but it certainly helped move things forward. All the certification systems do a great job of saying, This is what's important, you know, focus on these things. So one thing is just that it add costs, right? I, you know, been to passive house conferences where basically presenter after presenter would say, Yeah, this house would have been certified, but we didn't want to spend the money on it. So, so that's part of it. The other is, you know, sometimes what they focus on is wrong. I think, like the fact that with pretty much every certification system, there's no penalty for big right? In fact, it's easier to hit a lot of these numbers, a lot of the target numbers with a bigger volume than a smaller volume. And so that was one, you know, that's one thing we stress a lot in the book, is size, and then another thing is cost, right? None of these talk about money, particularly, and that's a huge issue. You know, I am just consistently blown away by what I have to charge and, you know, certainly since COVID, but even before that, just how expensive it all is. So to pretend like that's not a limiting factor. To pretend like that, you know, it just means whatever we're building a luxury product, right? And to pretend otherwise, I think, is dishonest, and I think that it prevents us from looking at it and actually trying to move in a different direction. I will say, also, it's also, you know, I'm somebody who builds single family homes. I think the most exciting path of house stuff is in the multi family market. I'm consistent. I'm just knocked out by by what they're able to achieve in multi family. So that's the short version,

Mark Hertzler: 4:42

and that's an interesting observation about the size, and that is one thing that kind of comes out in the book is not only a pretty good House is looking at the performance, but it's looking at the design and the overall impact. And so I think that that comment there about the size that to the certification. And it doesn't really matter. And like you said, it's almost, it's easier to get a blower door number with a bigger house than it is a small house.

Dan Kolbert: 5:07

That's why we set, you know. I mean, that's why we cut, you know, our targets. I don't even, I can't even remember if we put a blower door target in the book, but, I mean, I do blower door tests. I think they're great, but I don't really care that much about my number. I mean, I care if it was three or four or something, but if I hit two or one and a half or one, I'm perfectly content. I just don't see that. I don't see the evidence that there's a significant performance difference once you get down to a certain level. So anyway, I think some of these target numbers don't help us. I guess the other thing I'd say is just, you know, I am worried as these things do gain acceptance, and especially now that they're in the code, I am nervous about how homes are going to get built if people don't understand the science, right? And I think that, well, I'm sure I don't need to tell you guys, you know, a tight but poorly built houses has a good chance of rotting out very quickly. So if you just sort of hitting the numbers in the energy code without really understanding why you're doing it, that's counterproductive. That was an impetus for the book as well. Was to say, All right, this is the basic building science that you, as designer, a contractor, or particularly a homeowner, need to understand, and if you if you want to build a good house.

Alison Keay: 6:23

Another thing that I enjoyed about the book is that it's educating on the importance of that integrated team. And you know, so everyone in your team should have that level of infirm of knowledge, rather and the team approach. So you're how you're bringing together a number of different people that are bringing their own expertise, but this general understanding of what's important to get right in the project.

Dan Kolbert: 6:45

Yeah, and I think that, like, right? Like, I mean, Unity homes obviously, is sort of front loaded all that, right? They've sort of the Building Sciences is, is baked into the product. But if you're doing a custom project, then, yeah, you need to, you need to get on the same page early in the process. Building Science goals need to be part of the design process,

Mark Hertzler: 7:04

right? Yeah. And I think another, as Allison touched on, the good thing about the book is that the educational aspect of it. So as you mentioned, Unity homes, we sort of front load that building science, but having people understand the why behind that, even though it's not going to change how we build it. It's going to change how they live in that house, you know, going forward as well, understanding about the air movement, about the moisture management, and those sorts of things. So whether someone is kind of DIY a little bit, and they want to know what they're doing, or they just want to know, okay, this high performance house that I'm living in, it's important to just understand that why

Alison Keay: 7:43

it also plays into their ability to see value in high performance and not have it looked at as something that costs extra, that it's actually paying for itself over time. It's paying for comfort. It's paying for durability and resilience, and separating that from this idea that I need the largest house I can get for the lowest cost, the there, really, we're looking at a market shift in that everything else that we want quality in, like our goods or our services that we that we look for. We're looking for high quality. And this book, I think, helps identify what quality is also for people and where they should be spending their money in lieu of square footage.

Dan Kolbert: 8:27

Yeah, right. I think people often, especially, you know, people often just throw square footage rather than solving a design problem, they just throw more square footage in. We could do several episodes on my thoughts on what's wrong with housing market in the US. But let's just say that I think housing is wealth is a terrible, terrible model, you know. And I think that the numbers on length of home ownership seem to be shifting, which is good too.

Mark Hertzler: 8:50

Yeah, we're seeing that shift as well, which is a good thing. And just want to circle back so something you said in the beginning about the certifications, tying that in with with the cost. So there is a cost to that certification, and some people may want that because it's verification that their house was built to what they were expecting. But I guess, really, the point of the pretty good house is that you can still get that kind of high performance without having to pay that extra for either for the certifications or, you know, something specific that that particular organization is looking for. And so that's really where it's at, is, how can we maximize or, or, you know, optimize this design to be a high performing house, but not cost a fortune?

Dan Kolbert: 9:40

Emily wrote a whole chapter in the book on, you know, commissioning and verification. I mean, we never, we would never want to discourage anyone from third party verification, especially, you know, with mechanical systems or whatever, commissioning is critically important.

Mark Hertzler: 9:56

So in your experience, putting together. A team. So you're you're one part of the team as the builder, and I imagine you work with, you know, designers and architects and trades, giving advice to someone who's looking to build their house. How do they pull together a good team and where areas that are really important and areas that they need to make sure they don't overlook?

Dan Kolbert: 10:18

Man, yeah, that's a tough one, right? Because you won't know. I mean, one thing that we've been doing for the last several years is a more formal pre con process where we, you know, we actually charge for the service, which we didn't used to do. And one of the things I tell my clients is that, you know, it's a good the process is valuable, but it's also will give us a chance to date before we get married. You have to find people you trust. And I don't know how to do that. I think if you look at their projects, I mean, even references are good, but no contractor is going to give you the name of people they have problems with. I don't have any brilliant advice other than to look at their previous work. I mean, when I was younger, I work with more experienced architects. Now that I'm older, I have had several experiences where architects have approached us because they wanted, you know, they wanted to enter that better building market. And so the design side and the build side don't have to have equal levels of experience, necessarily, but they need to be on board with it, right? If one, I mean, there's certainly plenty of builders out there who an architect will approach with these plans, and then, you know, they'll just undermine it every opportunity, right, like ignore critical details and just say we're not doing it or whatever. So they need to be on board, particularly the builder. I mean, architects, I think in general, are more on board with this stuff, at least in theory, if not in practice.

Alison Keay: 11:38

Yeah, it sounds like we give similar advice. It really personality and trust is a big part of building the right team. I

Mark Hertzler: 11:46

think we're seeing a much greater awareness among builders and general contractors about high performance than we used to. We still run into, you know, some that don't really have an understanding and aren't that interested, but, but I would say, in general, most people are becoming at the very least, they're interested, if they're not much more aware of building science and the importance of it, there's a quote in the book that I want to read. It said comfort and performance are closely linked. A big part of what makes a high performance house successful is that it's comfortable to live in. So as we're talking about the pretty good house. And you know what? What goes in there, pretty good house. Can you just talk a little bit about that, that comfort and performance? And what are the key aspects in a pretty good house to getting that comfort and performance?

Dan Kolbert: 12:35

Yeah, so one of the things you know that I'm sure you guys talk about as well is is air sealing is sort of the most critical piece of it all. We, we did not come up with this idea. I don't know who did. But anyway, this idea of, sort of talking about the four control layers that we use in the book, you know, air control, thermal control, vapor control and bulk water or weather control, right? And that we found, is a really great entree into talking about building science. It's something that everybody can understand and and it really does get you a long way toward understanding the things you need to understand that. You know, there's a story I often tell about job. I had some clients I'd done some renovation work for, and they asked me after that to to insulate their attic. And I hired an insulation contractor, and he came and put, you know, put Lucille cellulose in their unfinished attic, and and I get a call, like, the first cold day that winter that I get this freaked out call for my clients about how it was snowing inside of their attic. So I ran over there, and sure enough, there were all these air crystals floating, you know, as I'm sure you guys can guess, the issue was that this guy had not done any air sealing, so the same amount of moisture as always, was passing from the inside of the house up into the attic, but without all the heat escaping with it as well, it was all condensing to ice in the attic and then floating on his ice crystals. So to you know, so that's just a good illustration of what happens. And you know, it happens all year round. If you don't air seal, there's all that vapor transport, and then

Mark Hertzler: 14:08

with that indoor or the air tightness, you can control the indoor air quality much better, which, you know, makes it a healthy environment as

Dan Kolbert: 14:16

well, right? So those of us in northern New England, obviously, you know, drafts are a big issue. So I think that's the so between that and air quality, those, I think are typically the big comfort issues we're talking

Mark Hertzler: 14:28

so you talked about those, those four layers, the thermal, the air, the moisture, the bulk water. And then we talked a little bit in the beginning about, you know, design choices that help add to the overall pretty good house. Another quote from the book that I wanted to just touch on says Every house is ultimately a study in compromise. How many of your priorities can you fit in your budget? What are you willing to sacrifice? And that, I think it's a tough thing for people to accept when they. Start building house, because many people are thinking, this is my dream house, or this is my forever house. I wanted to have everything, but there's implications to you know, you can't have everything. So how do you manage those conversations with clients, and how do you help them navigate picking between priorities we

Dan Kolbert: 15:16

had in our in our building science discussion group years ago, we had a session on selling high performance, and we had a great conversation. And sort of, at the end of it, the one thing that we all seem to sort of agree on as a good idea was just take the shell off the table. Basically, you know, the shell is ours. You don't, you know, we we presented to you as a package. You don't get to touch it, right?

Alison Keay: 15:39

If you're interested in high performance. Here's how we're going to deliver high performance, and it's in that building shell, and that's it. You

Dan Kolbert: 15:47

can pick your kitchen, you can pick your flooring, you can pick, you know, the size of your windows if you want. You can pick all sorts of things, but the shell design is off limits for negotiation. If you want us to build a house that is going to perform like you want it to, then you need to trust us to put this together, right? And

Alison Keay: 16:05

that's the last place where you want to be influenced by budget cuts.

Dan Kolbert: 16:10

And that's an argument you make too, right? That that you're not going to get short of something horrible happened to the house. You're not going to get another chance to insulate it, for instance, right? And

Mark Hertzler: 16:21

you can always replace the kitchen at some point, but you can't replace your the envelope of your house.

Alison Keay: 16:28

I think that that one thing that I've identified about pretty good house is that it implements the idea of budget a lot more, like you said, earlier than any certification programs and things like that, and does provide a little bit of guidance on how to think through that?

Dan Kolbert: 16:44

Yeah? And I think that, I mean, I kind of like the way that money is one of the dials you have to turn when you're doing a House Project, a big mistake not to talk about money often and frequently.

Mark Hertzler: 16:55

Yeah? And it's just a reality for most of us that you know, the budget is a driving factor. It's going

Alison Keay: 17:01

to be a shock either way. So let's focus the identify, I think priorities, about space, types, esthetics, things like that, and not compromise on the things that are ultimately the long term investment of the building envelope. Yeah.

Dan Kolbert: 17:18

And I think, you know, in the pre construction process, I think that's where the contractor really has an important role to play, because they can say, we got a choice here, which road are we going down, even if you don't have a number that you can put out, you can say, this one's going to be more expensive than that one. And maybe the client doesn't care. Maybe the designer doesn't care, particularly which way they go, but knowing that one is pricier than the other will help,

Alison Keay: 17:42

and that is something that designers and homeowners don't know.

Dan Kolbert: 17:46

Yeah, it's not their it's not their job to know that stuff. So if you're presented with a set of plans, and it's only then that you can have input on choices, that's, you know, that's a lot of money down the drain because they come up with a number, the client will be so dispirited and to give up,

Alison Keay: 18:01

yeah, and the integrated team process involves everybody a lot earlier to try to avoid things like that. So we've had a lot of clients that come to unity homes after they've paid an architect to design a custom home that ended up being too much, but they don't know that it costs too much until they have their builder price it because the builder wasn't involved in any of the design considerations early on. So that integrated team pays off there as well.

Dan Kolbert: 18:29

I mean, we're definitely, we're thinking about a lot of audiences, but homeowners were certainly, you know, a big part of the people are thinking about building. I wrote a whole article for Journal of like construction years ago, on on why I thought competitive bidding didn't didn't get anyone what they thought they were getting. If you're so concerned that your contract is going to rip you off, unless you're get two other bids, then you may not be the right person to be building a house in the first place.

Mark Hertzler: 18:52

Yeah, that's a really good point, and that trust is so important. Building the trust with the team and knowing that they have your best interests in mind,

Dan Kolbert: 19:01

right? It's early enough in the process. These bids are going to have no relation to reality or each other. So how do you make an informed decision? There's some line in the book about you know your choice is either to budget to a design or design to a budget. Kind

Alison Keay: 19:15

of on that on that thread, what would your advice be to an owner who is interested in G seeing their own project.

Dan Kolbert: 19:23

I, you know, it's possible. I mean, I'm not particularly courageous, but I've been a contractor for a long time before I built a house, and, you know, even then, it was probably overwhelming. If you're an incredibly organized person, you could probably get it done

Alison Keay: 19:36

and with lots of free time.

Dan Kolbert: 19:37

Yes, right? No, it absolutely it's a full time job

Alison Keay: 19:40

and timeline. It greatly affects the timeline. There's no way you know you can accomplish that in the timeline that a general contractor could probably. Is

Mark Hertzler: 19:50

there anything else that we haven't touched on that you want us to know, or you want the audience to know about a pretty good house? Or if people are thinking about starting this journey, what should they. Think about, I guess I just

Dan Kolbert: 20:01

say that, you know, there's a lot of great information out there. One of the nice things about building science, people can discuss it. It's not it's not like discussing, you know, particle physics or something. It's something that that people with a relatively low level of experience can have an intelligent conversation on.

Alison Keay: 20:18

I said earlier, if somebody is interested in a comfortable home, and who isn't interested in a comfort, comfortable home, that's everyone's goal. Then you should be interested in high performance.

Dan Kolbert: 20:29

Yeah, there's just no downside. It's not like you're sacrificing anything.

Mark Hertzler: 20:33

Yeah, we find the people that are coming to us are better educated. They've already done a lot of research. As you said, there's a lot of good information out there and there is some bad information, but I do feel like it's sort of coming together, that there's there's less bad information, and there's coming a little bit more consensus on the good information. There's still multiple ways to get from point A to point B, but everyone's, you know, trying to get to the same place their understanding the building science behind it. And, you know, we have a lot of good conversations with with clients that are said, Well, I've heard about this, or, you know, I'm thinking about doing that, and we can walk them through and explain, Well, here's why we do it the way that we do it, and here's the building science behind it. And so there's a lot of good conversations happening out there, and

Alison Keay: 21:21

we've made many a New Englander a fan of slab on grade, which is something that a lot of people come to the table misunderstanding how and the appropriate way to do that, and if we can do it so. And one

Dan Kolbert: 21:36

thing that's been gratifying I said before that, I involved with our passion house group, and they have this fantastic class they've been offering for a couple of years. And the basic, the basic premise of the class, is that, with the new energy COVID, passive house is basically code compliance in a box, right? That if you build a passive house, you're sort of, you know, it's a prescriptive way to build a house that definitely will pass energy code and will be safe, safely passing it. You know, when they will have hit the building science piece of that, and you won't have to worry about the house. And when I've, I've taught it multiple times at this point, and we often have code officers attending, which I think is great. I mean, they need to see use but so it's good for them too. But I just think it's it's nice that they're coming and they're genuinely interested in the subject, so that gives me some hope.

Alison Keay: 22:27

Well, thank you for coming on our podcast. And we always like to offer people a way to find more about the pretty good house. So how might they do that? We have

Dan Kolbert: 22:41

a website. It's pretty goodhouse.org. We have an Instagram account. And I would also just say, you know, you have to pay to get to it. But green building laser, you know, a lot of the conversations around pretty good house happened there. So I think if you're interested in building a house, it's money well spent.

Alison Keay: 22:58

That's an excellent resource.

Mark Hertzler: 22:59

It is. And if anybody's interested in reading the book, they can pick it up anywhere that you buy books. All right, thanks, Dan, I appreciate you taking some busy time out of your day and talking with us.

Dan Kolbert: 23:10

You're very welcome.

Alison Keay: 23:11

Thanks for listening to this episode of a new era of home building. If you're passionate about high performance homes like we are, be sure to leave a review and subscribe to our podcast. You can also visit bensonwood.com to learn more about our upcoming events. Subscribe to our newsletter. Check out our home plans and get in touch. Thanks to George Peavy, Jason Rhemer and Josh Rhemer of Bensonwood's own Plumb Gable Band for the music you hear on the podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Until next time, here's to better building.