Category — Quality

Minimizing noise transmitted from various rooms is an often overlooked component of construction – whether a new home or a renovation.  Theaters, bathrooms, laundry rooms, family room and offices all emit a potentially significant amount of sound.  For the most part, home-owners hope to keep those sounds within each room and minimize the amount of sound that travels to other rooms.

The construction industry has a standard to measure the effectiveness of a wall partition or assembly in reducing sound transmission to an adjacent room.  The Sound Transmission Class (STC) is a numeric rating of the sound reduction for a given partition type.  In general, the higher the STC rating, the more noise or sound is eliminated from room to room.  For example a typical 2×4 wall with 1/2” drywall on both sides has an STC of approximately 25 – 30.  By simply adding batt insulation in the wall one can increase the STC rating of the wall by about 5 rating points to 30 – 35.

A 5 point change in an STC rating will be clearly noticeable. A 10 point change in an STC rating will drop the sound transmission through the wall by about one-half.

In sensitive areas, one should try to get an STC rating for a wall between 40 and 50.  An easy way to accomplish this uses a 2×6 wall plate and 2×4 wall studs staggered on each side of the wall. Fiberglass batt insulation is then woven through the staggered cavities of the wall studs.  This wall configuration, which is easy to construct with common framing materials and standard insulation, produces an STC rating close to 50.

Sound travels easily through the weaker structural elements like doors, windows and electrical outlets.  Builders should focus on ways to add additional insulation or separate the structural components wherever possible.

In one of my next posts, I’ll describe how to achieve a similar if not greater STC rating in a ceiling at very little cost.

I enjoy hearing from my readers.  Feel free to contact me at bob@natellihomes.com or visit our website at www.natellihomes.com

We have all been in homes in winter months, perhaps our own, when we feel a bit colder than the temperature seems to indicate.  The wood joints have opened up in the mouldings, doors, cabinets and furniture.  Interior doors and cabinet doors don’t quite close or lock as they did a few months ago. We generally shock one-another or objects when we touch them.  Our skin gets rough and itchy, our eyes are irritated and our throats and noses are dry.  Those homes are begging for more humidity.  Winter dries everything out in a home because the relative humidity is low and our furnaces are blasting hot air needing a healthy dose of water vapor.

A given volume of air can contain a fixed amount of water, but when that same volume of air is heated up it can contain a greater amount of water.  So when our furnaces crank out heat in the winter, the potential amount of water contained in the air is increased.  If we don’t add water vapor to the heated air the relative humidity goes down and we feel cold.  Our bodies are very sensitive to relative humidity.  A temperature with only 10% relative humidity feels colder to us that the same temperature with 45% relative humidity.  For example a heat index table tells us that a 70 degree temperature with 10% relative humidity feel like 65 degrees, but if we increase the relative humidity to 40% it feels like 68 degrees.  That is a 3 degree increase in comfort by just adding water to the air!

With that in mind, we need to ensure we give our homes the ability to add humidity properly.  One should carefully evaluate whole-house humidifiers in a new home or renovation.  Humidification is not always one of the top boxes to check in a home project but one should know the benefits and work diligently to include the proper equipment.   A typical evaporative humidifier is attached to the ductwork near the furnace as shown in the adjacent photo on the right.  These humidifiers are effective but require periodic maintenance because they remove particulates and minerals from the water.  These evaporative humidifiers are used in the vast majority of homes in the Washington, DC area, and perhaps nationwide, but there are other cost-effective options.

I prefer a steam humidifier (shown in the photo on the left and installed by Tri-State Home Services) which is dedicated to a zone or individual furnace in a home.  These steam humidifiers are incredibly effective and have the ablity to increase the relative humidity measurably in a home.

Steam humidifiers , as opposed to units that operate by evaporation, have several advantages including lower water consumption, much higher capacity, and increased flexibility in installation.  While a typical humidifier might have a capacity of 8-12 gallons per day, depending on how much the furnace runs, Residential Steam Humidifiers can have capacities of as much as 50 gallons per day, independent of the furnace operation.

Steam Humidifiers operate by heating a container of water causing steam to be formed, which is then distributed into the home. Most units can be mounted directly onto the ducting like standard humidifiers, and in the case of units like the Honeywell TrueSTEAM or the GeneralAire Elite Series they can be mounted remotely with the steam delivered to the forced air duct system via a hose, with a nozzle installed in the duct system.

Humidity is important to your home and your health in the winter months.  Make sure you consult with your building professional or your trusted Heating and Air Conditioning contractor.  I have several that I recommend – feel free to contact me.

I enjoy feedback from our readers.  Please contact me at bob@natellihomes.com ,visit our website www.natellihomes.com or go straight to our blog.

I am getting a lot of calls from friends who know I am a builder asking about the water leaking through their ceilings and walls.  With all the snow in the Washington Metropolitan area over the past weeks, homeowners might be seeing problems that they have never encountered.  What is occurring is a phenomenon called an ice dam.   As the snow goes through a melt and freeze cycle, the ice that is formed creates a dam and pushes the water back into the home.

Interestingly ice dams are caused by too much heat in the attic.  The heat causes the snow on the roof to melt, which freezes up again when the water travels beyond the heated attic space.  The water freezes at night in colder temperatures and melts again during the day.  When the ice and snow melts there is simply no where for the water to go except back into the home.

There are two conclusions I can make about ice dams that are within your control.  (1) make sure your attic ceiling is properly insulated.  If you have an older home, call an insulation company or Natelli Homes and evaluate adding more insulation in the attic to keep the heat in the living spaces, not in the attic. (2) make sure your attic is properly ventilated.  Air needs to travel from outside through the attic and then through a gable or ridge vent.  The attic temperatures need to be cold if not the same as the outside temperatures. Most homes have a perforated vent in the cornice – you know, the ones that are filled solid with paint.  Those need to be perforated to allow lots of air to flow in and out of the attic.  So if yours are painted shut and have no visible perforations, call Natelli Homes or a siding contractor to replace or correct those vents.

Ice dams are not always preventable but a well constructed home, such as a Natelli built home, would normally not be subject to this issue.  Click on the following link to State Farm Insurance which gives a couple of good sketches, explanations and things to might do to prevent ice dams.  http://www.statefarm.com/learning/loss_prevent/learning_lossprevention_icedams.asp

As always, feel free to contact me at bob@natellihomes.com or visit our website at www.natellihomes.com

There are many fine contractors in the world, but what separates a good builder from a great builder is service; and service starts with communication.  When a building agreement is signed with a client, we ensure that the client knows what he or she is getting.  We even provide a detailed list of exclusions, almost as a reminder of items they might have considered so there are no mis-understandings.  Natelli Homes goes to great strides to ensure the client has written specifications, an understanding of the variables (allowances) in the contract and clear knowledge of the materials we will use and the length of time the project will take.

It is important that the client knows what his / her decisions will be, the timing for those decisions and the budget for any remaining variables.  Natelli assists the client to make complete decisions at the beginning of a project so we can execute sub-contracts earlier, build the project quicker and coordinate the myriad number of items with more accuracy.  No matter how large or small a project may be, if a client can focus on the details and decisions early, the project’s success based on building quality, coordination between the trades, minimizing errors and speed of construction will grow exponentially.