Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by Austin Architect Cindy Black. Cindy Black is the Principal of Hello Kitchen, an architectural firm specializing in kitchen design. She also collaborates with her husband at their firm, Rick Black Architect, and together they are recognized for modern, sustainable projects in Austin and the Texas Hill Country.

Before owner meets architect, there is that hazy and exhausting period of searching for just the right property to build upon or house to renovate. Austin is not known for its supreme housing stock, and the older, central neighborhoods are full of houses that often require so much maintenance that there is not much left in the budget for design.

When possible, our clients will involve us in the site selection process, and we provide analyses and design possibilities for each property under consideration. The goal is to find a property that has been built upon a history of good decisions; in other words: good bones. So for anyone embarking upon the search for a property to improve, we suggest taking the following into consideration.

The Site

The old realtor notion of ‘location, location, location’ shouldn’t be limited to the draws of a good school district or popular neighborhood. One should consider the specific dynamics of any property, which include proximity, site qualities, and potential.

Proximity to and from:

Arterials: an arterial is a major thoroughfare that connects between cities and suburbs. Examples of this road type are I-35, 360, and FM 2222. Try to avoid properties within view or sound range of these heavily-trafficked roads.

  Bad: Highway in view

Collectors: often used as a route by EMS and other large vehicles, and which usually defines the boundaries of a neighborhood. 15^th Street, Koenig Ln, and Slaughter Ln. are all collectors. I recommend staying at least 1 ½ blocks away from any collector, which means that you can get to and from your property using local roads at rush hour.

Local roads: your address should be on a local road, with a collector within 4 blocks. Too far from a collector and your property becomes isolated, difficult to visit and without the relief of commercial centers.

Green space: a park, greenbelt or playground should be within walking distance (15 minutes or less on foot).

Good: Accessible green space

Public Transportation: what if your reliable car suddenly becomes unreliable? Or what if you want to hop on a shuttle to go to ACL or a UT game? Proximity to a Cap Metro stop is a good idea – within 3 blocks is reasonable.

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My wife and I are traveling to San Francisco this Spring and we’re looking for a modern BnB or Hotel in the South of Market or Union Square area.  Since many of you are from San Francisco, I thought I would ask your advice.

In Austin we have places like Hotel San Jose or Kimber Modern.  If you have any recommendations for Modern lodging in this area of San Francisco please comment on this post or email me: ryan at inspiredaustin.com.

Thanks!

I’ve discussed Energy Monitoring in previous posts:

• Home Energy Monitoring
• Home Energy Monitoring – Update 

I have now purchased and installed my own TED Model 1001 energy monitor so I thought I’d share my thoughts.

Energy Detective Details

The Energy Detective (TED) is a fairly simple device – a measurement unit installed in my electrical panel transmits real-time power consumption data to a LCD display.  The display unit tracks peak levels and can display power in kilowatts (kW) or dollars as well as the line voltage.  Here’s what came in the box:

You’ll notice the USB port on the LCD unit – I paid an extra $40 for the TED Footprints software so I can log and view data on my PC.  More on this in a moment.

Installation was fairly straightforward, as long as you don’t mind mucking around in your electrical panel.  I won’t go into detail – you can read the instructions and muck around at your own risk .  If you’d rather avoid the hassle an electrician could easily install this in less than an hour.

Next there are a few setup steps on the Display Unit – you can enter electrical rate details which allows TED to display in dollars (and $/hr).  It works well with the Austin Energy 2 tiered rate model and seasonal rate change. 

Living with The Energy Detective – My Review

I’m not going to say that TED changed my life, but I certainly enjoy having it.  I’m kind of a data addict and TED allows me to measure and track my power consumption.  The first hour or so after I installed it were spent turning on all of our lights and appliances and monitoring the change in kWh.  Kind of nerdy, but an enlightening experience.

For anyone considering the TED, I would highly recommend the Footprints software.  It allows me to connect the TED display to my PC and log the data.  This has been very useful for tracking the performance of our HVAC system as well as monitoring our use-patterns.

All of the above information has helped me to live more efficiently and consider the costs of leaving a light on, or even baking brownies…

Baking with TED

Last weekend I baked a small pan of brownies in our electric oven.  Brownie ingredients are pretty cheap (chocolate, eggs, butter, etc.), but I was curious as to the cost of the ‘embodied energy’ (at least my oven’s contribution).  So I pulled up the TED data for the afternoon, here is a snapshot:

Here is a PDF of the full-size chart: TED-Baking.pdf

This graph shows a lot of good data.  The TED takes a measurement every second, so the x-axis shows the time I spent baking.  The blue plot is the power consumption (in kW) – this is what we’re after.  The red plot is the voltage (RMS) of the power lines – interesting mainly to see the power quality from Austin Energy and to see it drop as I draw more current.

First – Wow!  My oven takes some power!  The plot jumps up about 5 kW when the oven started pre-heating.  I checked my owner’s manual and it turns out I have a 5 kW heating element – this supports the measurement data.  It’s also interesting to see how the heating element turns on and off to maintain the 350 degree temperature.  This is basically the same control algorithm used by your average thermostat – simple but effective.

Also notice the two ~ 2 kW spikes around 2:40 pm – this was when I used the microwave to melt the butter/chocolate mix.  Here’s a closer look at this section of the plot (oven pre-heat and microwave):

With the TED power measurement for each second, I can calculate the total power consumption for baking the brownies.  This is the area under the blue plot in kilowatt-hours.  To be fair I’ll remove the ~0.6 kW base level as this is due to the lights, computer, fridge, etc. in the house. 

So there you have it – Thanks to TED I know that baking brownies required 1.67 kWh of power, which cost me about 12 cents.

Conclusion

You get the idea – The Energy Detective is a neat way to learn more about how you consume electricity, which should help you to be more efficient in your consumption.  I think installing TED is a great idea for builders – costing less than $200 it’s very affordable feature and it can immediately measure/demonstrate the effectiveness of the home and its systems.  Of course TED can eventually pay for itself by helping to reduce wasted energy. 

What do you think?  Is the TED providing worthwhile data or is this too much information?  Share your questions or comments below.

Way behind on my posting – here’s a quick one that may be helpful for holiday shopping and/or holiday exchanging next week:

Last week there was a neat story in the LA Times about a shopping trip to discount store Big Lots with designer Philippe Starck:

Thrifty shopping with Philippe Starck

Lots of practical advice and examples of design on a tight budget, here’s a good quote:

“You must be very rigorous,” he says, sifting through discounted wares in search of the gems. “Try to find the essence, the most iconic or simple representation of a thing. Look for the bowl that looks most like a bowl. That means we must avoid colors and patterns, and everything that can be trendy.”

Share your ‘discount design’ tips in the comments!

via Dwell Blog.