The Most Significant Home Improvement Project of 2009

Here is a link to a good article on the increasing demand for energy efficient home improvements, and how the government plans to help.  Give us a call to learn how you can benefit from the new stimulus plan, and how we can make your home more energy efficient and healthy.

Cherry Cabinet Sale!

From now until March 31st, all Bertch and Legacy cabinets are discounted 10%. If you are thinking about updating your kitchen or bathroom, and have always wanted Cherry cabinets, now is the best time to start your project.

The Payback on Green Improvements: Is it worth it?

With the explosion of green awareness and products, many people wonder if investing in a green remodeling project makes financial sense.  Personal preferences and project specific variables affect cost, but many people would still prefer to generally quantify the payback period of potential green improvements.

A tool is available to help assess the financial costs and benefits of several green projects.  GreenandSave.com provides an ROI (return on investment) table that lists the added costs, annual savings, projected savings over 10 or 20 years, and the ROI for a given improvement.  Improvements include Tune-Ups (small projects or changes that can be made to green up a home or building), Remodeling, and Advanced (larger projects or decisions for a new building).

Hopefully this gives you one more tool to help make an educated decision on whether to upgrade to that new high efficiency furnace when building your new addition, or any other green improvement you might be considering.

The Rains have Ended!!!

I am sure if you are anything like us, many of you in the Chicagoland Area spent much of the last weekend monitoring your basements and making sure your sump-pumps were working properly.  We at Callahan & Peters hope your basements stayed dry this weekend, and there was no damage.  If, however, you did have some damage, we would be happy to review the damage, design a solution that will eliminate future flooding, and make all necessary repairs.  If you are thinking about finishing a basement in the future, we can design and build a basement that is integrated seemlessly into your home, but will not have any of the common moisture related problems. Please call to discuss any questions you might have.

Looking for Your Feedback!

Hello Everyone,

In an effort to provide information that is both interesting and useful, we are constantly looking for feedback from you, the public, on potential topics.  What remodeling projects are you interested in?  On what subjects would you like to have more information?  Please leave a comment or email us to provide your feedback, and we will definitely work hard to incorporate your ideas into future posts.

Thanks,

The Callahan & Peters Staff

Keeping your Home Clean and Free of Dust: An Introduction

One of the biggest concerns for our clients during a remodeling project is keeping the job site clean and the house free of dust and debris.  To address this issue, we developed strategies to isolate the dust to the portion of the house under construction and to limit the amount of dust created at the source.  Here is a list of some of our standard remodeling procedures, which you should expect from any contractor with whom you work.

1) Protect the Floors

• Before we protect the floors, we try to clear the work area of any items that do not need to be there.  Any items that remain are covered with thick drop clothes to prevent dust from accumulating on them, as well as preventing any dmage.
• For carpet we place self adhesive carpet protector over all work areas.
• For hardwood or tile flooring we cover the work area with thin hardboard sheathing, such as masonite, which is placed over a thin foam laminate floor underlayment. We then tape the seams to prevent any debris from working its way underneath.
• We designate one door to be used by employees and subcontractors, and lay down heavyweight drop clothes, that overlap at least two feet, that run from the door to the work area.

2) Seal the Work Area from the Rest of the House

• Once the floor is protected, we seal the work area off from the rest of the house.  First we seal all doorways except for the door used to enter the work area.  Special care is taken to seal all the gaps around the door with blue painters tape.
• It is easy to isolate a room with walls and doors, but when a room does not have existing walls, we put up temporary plastic dust partitions to prevent dust from escaping.  The temporary walls are taped to the floor and ceiling to eliminate any path for dust.  An entry to the area is created in the plastic wall using specialized zipper doors.

3) Using a Good Vacuum is Key

• Tools have come a long way, and now the majority of tools that produce dust come with an integrated dust-containment system.  We like to take this one step further by attaching the vacuum’s hose to a specially designed port on the tool to capture the dust at its source.  If the tool does not have a port, like a drywall saw, we hold the vacuum up directly to the tool to catch as much debris as possible.
• At the end of the day we clean up the work area by putting away all tools in a predetermined area as well as vacuuming the whole area, rather than just leaving it broom clean.  All of the vacuums we use are equipped with a HEPA filter so no vacuumed particles are allowed back into the air.
• If the remodeling project is particularly messy, we make it a point to vacuum our clothes before exiting the work area.

4) Additional Items

• If your house has forced-air heating or cooling, it is best to shut down the system for the length of the job.  If that is not possible, we often seal the vents.
• Placing a fan in the window blowing out creates negative air pressure which keeps any airborne dust from escaping the work area as you enter or leave the room.

Providing excellent dust control requires a modest amount of time, but it pays big dividends in the end for you and your home.

Custom Woodworking with Bamboo

We recently had the exciting opportunity to build custom bamboo doors for a home. Bamboo has been used as a building material for over 5000 years in Asia, but only in recent years has it been used in the United States. Builders and remodelers in the United States began using bamboo primarily as a green option for wood flooring. Due to the increased appreciation for bamboo’s unique appearance, however, homeowners have come to value bamboo for fine woodworking applications as well. With this increased interest in bamboo, lumber products, such as bamboo plywood and veneer, have become increasingly available, offering homeowners a wealth of creative opportunities.

In this particular project, the homeowner had designed doors to serve as the focal point of the home and determined that bamboo would best complement the door’s unique design. Since so few woodworking shops create anything with bamboo, much less custom doors, we jumped on this opportunity. The weight and density of the wood made constructing the doors a challenge, but also made them extremely durable, and resistant to twisting or warping. Below are some pictures of the construction process and the installation after the doors had been professionally stained.

Bamboo Doors Near Completion in our Shop

After Installation

After Installation

Increasing the energy efficiency of your crawlspace and basement

A past client called CPI hoping we could remedy two problems he was having. The first, and biggest problem, was that his library was located over an uninsulated crawlspace, resulting in cold floors in his library. The client’s second problem was that rodents were coming in through the siding at the top of the basement wall. After inspecting the crawlspace and the basement, we were able to devise a solution that would not only provide needed insulation, but would also prevent the infiltration of air, moisture, or animals.

Our inspection revealed that the crawlspace walls were not insulated and the spaces between the floor joists in both the crawlspace and the basement, which were against the exterior walls, were only marginally insulated or not insulated at all. To address the client’s issues, we suggested he insulate the crawlspace walls with rigid foam insulation, while insulating the spaces between the joists with a closed cell polyurethane spray-in-place foam. Each product, apart from insulating the client’s home, also specifically addressed the client’s two problems. The rigid insulation would reduce the heat loss from the cool walls, and spray foam, unlike normal fiberglass insulation, will expand into any hole or crevice, eliminating any path for air. By spraying foam into the remaining outside spaces between the joists, we also eliminated the path for mice to get into the basement. In addition to the insulation we also added a 6 mil polyethylene vapor barrier to the floor of the crawlspace to prevent any water vapor from rising from the earth and finding its way into the home. Once we were done, we had turned the crawlspace and basement into an energy efficient space, eliminating the cold library floor and providing a barrier to any rodents.

The Callahan and Peters Weblog is Officially up!

Hello everyone,

This is our company’s first foray into blogging!  We are a design/build firm on the North Shore of Chicago that specializes in residential remodeling.  Our hope is that this will be a place where current and perspective clients can come to understand who we are, and what we do.  We will be updating the blog frequently with news on what’s going on with our company, as well as posting articles on home remodeling subjects that might be of interest to homeowners.  Please check back frequently for all the latest information.

Best Regards,

The CPI Staff