It's the Economy

Business is generally good for me despite the economy.  I have work enough to keep me busy but I do get nervous.  Right now I have four houses on hold for one reason or another.  If everybody calls and says "go" next week, I will be in big trouble. Also, if nobody calls in the next few months I will be in big trouble although the phone does always seem to ring.   I have a colleague working on getting Vermont Simple House up and running. (Vermont Simple House is my fledgling and not yet up-and-running stock plan business with huge potential)

Cotton Mill Office in Brattleboro

The new office in the old Cotton Mill has proven to be an asset.  It is a much better place to meet clients than the cafe. It is very quiet and has very few distractions.  The building is filled with industry, artists and dogs but is amazingly peaceful and quiet.  My office is good for one person but may feel tight for two.  the windows are big and face west and north to Mount Wantastiquet.  We (my wife and I) are busy writing a business plan, partly because we need to and partly for the yearly business plan competition put on by the BDCC. it concerns the question of the growth of my business and how to structure that growth.  big scary stuff.

trending modern

I have been noticing a trend in my contact with clients and potential clients in the past several years.  the statistics mean nothing due to the small numbers involved. It seems that older people are often more adventurous and less conservative than younger people when it comes to architectural style.  young couples send me messages from thier I-phones while driving around in their Prius's saying " eek! - too modern looking" and the older folk are saying " what if this wall were entirely glass?

New Office

I have been absent from the blog for a few weeks as life got even busier.  I am setting up a small office in Brattleboro at the old Cotton Mill. The Mill is filled to capacity with artists, musicians, woodworkers, massage therapists, dogs, a circus school, a jazz center and other similar organizations and businesses - a very fun place.  This working out of the (not so) spare bedroom in my home has its advantages and drawbacks. I cannot meet with clients here and I am finding it increasingly difficult to put in the hours getting work done.  As my business grows I need to feel and act and be more professional.  That was the plan for my barn but the barn seems to be on the slow track as I have very little time to work on it.  Moving my operations is a pain but exiting as well and I have a rediculous number of new projects. In this age of connectivity I can get help with my work from architecture school classmates on an as needed basis and this will be the first step in the growth of my practice. The next step will be hiring an intern next summer.  I already have someone lined up and needed a place for him.  I am a bit scared and very exited to think about where I will be in two years or five.  The response to this blog and my website, both of which are less than a year old, has been very positive. I think I'm onto something and after years of doing good and plentiful work in relative obscurity in the local economy, it seems to be time to step out on a bigger stage.

My ideal heat/ hot water system

Okay, here is my ideal system to eliminate fossil fuel and maximize the use of the sun for heat and hot water: solar hot water panels on the roof with a photovoltaic pump. A marathon 80 gallon hot water heater in the basement. This is an expensive, well made ard very well insulated electric hot water heater with a lifetime warranty and a good reputation. Beside this I would put 700+ gallon round water storage tank from Tarm to provide a heat dump and heat storage. This would allow me to go many days with no sun and still have hot water. Alternatively I could build a storage tank out of insulated concrete forms and a pond liner. ( the tarm system uses a pond liner) Into this tank goes several large coily loops of copper for heat exchange. The water in the tank is just a heat storage medium, not drinking water. I could then run a loop off this storage tank to radiant heat where I wanted it, a loop for domestic hot water, and I could even use a garage slab or a hot tub as additional heat dump capacity if the panels on the roof are collecting too much heat. The large storage tank gives me a large float time for when the sun is not out for many days and should allow me to get 100% of my hot water from the sun. It also should allow me to have fewer panels on the roof. The electric element on the Marathon is a last resort to add heat to the hot water if necessary. I am not an engineer with the skills to calculate whether and how well this system would work but hopefully I will get a client soon who is willing to look into it.

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Head Scratching -vs- Choreography

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The scratching of one’s head goes on a lot on a typical job site. More than most people realize, more than the future homeowners would like to know, even those doing the scratching. When I was a carpenter, I did my share. I also realized that a lot of it could be avoided. I learned that promoting “flow” on a job site was a way to keep costs down. With one-of-a-kind custom homes there is a lot the architect can do to promote flow. A good job foreman or lead carpenter needs to have an understanding of the overall flow of materials, subs, timing, sequences, what the other carpenters are doing or should be doing… choreography. Anything the architect can do to promote this beforehand will pay for itself many times over. A set of plans is not only for the clients to understand the room arrangement. The plans must solve or avoid or even simply provide a “heads up” to the builders of issues that they need to incorporate into their choreography. Value added is a term often used to describe the benefit of hiring an architect but a good architect can also save a lot of money in the overall scheme of things by providing a set of plans that promotes flow.

VT Architect may survive ice storm... and moose

bob swinburne field

Here I am at a coffee shop in Williamstown, MA checking my e-mail, charging my laptop batteries and waiting for some folks to arrive for a meeting. My home has no power or phone and I will be surprised if we get either by the weekend. Cell phones don’t work within miles of my house. Such is Vermont. So I really have been incommunicado since Friday except for these forays into town. Perhaps a generator would be a good Christmas present after all. I noticed more neighbors have them this year. The folks down the road have solar photovoltaics and micro hydro so they’re fine. We’ve all been through the drill before. Candles, a woodstove to cook on and heat the house with, hauling water from our spring, lots of chainsaw work. The neighbors on our road were all out Friday morning clearing the road with chainsaws and plows but the power lines are all over the ground under trees and propped up with sticks where they pass over roads. The hardest part, really, is the food in the basement freezer. It is too warm to put it outside so I chopped some ice out of the pond and put it in the freezer. We freeze a lot of food in the fall, being the dutiful homesteaders and overzealous gardeners that we are. My two year old daughter is way into headlamps so she is fine. Yesterday, we visited friends with power (FWP) to take showers and do a load of cloth diapers. (yes, we really do practice what we preach eco-wise although no prius yet) We really should (and do) consider ourselves privileged to have electricity and telephone 97% of the time.

bob swinburne\'s driveway

Random note along the lines of why I live where I do and work from home: Last week I put on my lightweight winter boots (there was snow on the ground) and took the dog for an afternoon jog out to South Pond which is a few miles on trails through the woods behind my house. On the way we encountered the local female moose who seems to be getting rather used to us by now. I had my head down as I ran and nearly ran right into Ms. Moose. Peter Q Puppy enjoyed the chance to bark at her and send her on her way but she hardly seemed intimidated and just sort of wandered off. Mental note: moose are big. I returned home, split a little wood and returned to my work. Good day.

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ART TEC - Guy Marsden

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This is what the web is all about.  Guy Marsden has a sprawling website (over 200 pages)  that I highly recommend only if you can relax for a while.  Guy is everything from an artist - he worked on "Star Wars" - to an inventor/engineer.  Much of the site is related to trying to be realistically self sufficient. I found lots of low-budget-do-it-yourself information as well as things for the more engineery types among us (of which I am not one of) (yet) such as his conversion of his gas lawn mower to solar charged DC batteries. ( my solution is simply to not mow the lawn)  I found lots of good materials and product resources as well.  This is something I'm always looking for as much of my work is very budget oriented and I am faced with questions such as " should I spend twice as much on triple glazed windows or is there a shade or window quilt or storm window or panel that could do the job for 1/4 the cost?"