Hi. I’m in the midst of planning renovations to a modest 2300sq\/ft cinderblock mixed use building and would like to make it as efficient as possible within a reasonable budget. So far I’ve met with a Passive House Consultant and was loosely quoted 200-300k to get a high performing building (basically to gut the place, reframe to get rid of thermal bridging, etc.) This seems way too excessive for the building and even my energy use goals. I would love a passive house, but I’m pretty sure they are ways to get about 80% of the way there, for about a third of the cost. The scope of the work will include:<\/p>\n
-8 new triple pane windows
\n-6 hefty insulated doors
\n-double framing some walls to increase the insulation amount
\n-trying to get rid of all glaring air infiltration
\n-blowing dense-pack cellulose
\n-sheet-rocking with acoustic glue
\n-Pouring new concrete floor
\n-re-doing 2 modest bathrooms
\n-1 new decent kitchen
\n-build a double walled, decoupled sound room (for audio mixing).
\n-new tankless hot water heater
\n-a mini-split system w\/ 3 indoor units
\n-an HRV or ERV
\n-new roof (with a green roof)
\n-some small combo of PV or solar hotwater<\/p>\n
The level of finishes will basically be raw\/industrial, with nothing too fancy (besides a nice-ish kitchen\/appliances). The layout won’t be radically modified. I guessing I could get this done for about 100-150k. Is this crazy talk? Also does anyone have recommendations for contractors\/low-ego architects that are nit-picky enough to do a good job? Most architects I’ve dealt with don’t seem to understand that perfect is the enemy of really damn good! Thanks in advance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi. I’m in the midst of planning renovations to a modest 2300sq\/ft cinderblock mixed use building and would like to make it as efficient as possible within a reasonable budget. So far I’ve met with a Passive House Consultant and was loosely quoted 200-300k to get a high performing building (basically to gut the place,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68491,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"schneps_byline":"","schneps_post_style":"","schneps_post_source":"","schneps_syndicated_read_more":"","schneps_post_source_sitename":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_html":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_src":"","schneps_post_source_shortname":"","schneps_post_source_url":"","schneps_post_source_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"districts":[],"class_list":["post-55359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-renovation"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2011\/04\/energy-efficien-3\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Energy Efficient Renovation Recommendations??","url":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2011\/04\/energy-efficien-3\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2011\/04\/energy-efficien-3\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"Renovation","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Wilhelm"}],"creator":["Wilhelm"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Forum Archive","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2011-04-19T12:16:52Z","datePublished":"2011-04-19T12:16:52Z","dateModified":"2011-04-19T12:24:11Z"},"rendered":"