My Take on the New Economy

When a person is in an industry long enough, they often recognize trends and will adjust their business for these trends. Well, at least that is how it is supposed to be. I have related business to perch fishing in the Great Lakes on more than one occasion. In short, it is easy to see where the perch are biting on a lake because that is where all the boats are parked and the area becomes crowded and the perch either move on or are fished out. Who found the fish first? The word must of gotten out that the perch were in a certain location, otherwise no other boats would have been parked in the location where the perch are. It’s important to keep ones lips sealed when it comes to fishing but inevitably, people will find where the productive areas are simply by watching. Business is no different.

Call it envy, call it drive, call it what you will but the fact is, people want to be as successful as other people. In the building business, the large suppliers take years to adjust to the trends and that is currently happening with Andersen Windows Corporation. I have insisted on using Andersen windows for many years and not just because they offer a great product that compliments the types of homes that we build. For years, I and a few others have tried to get Andersen to focus on sustainability and there seemed to be a refusal to do that. Andersen Windows brought me and others up to their Bayport Minnesota ‘hub of operations’ for meetings on sustainability and also to have me tour their facilities to see how they could get the word out about what makes them sustainable in their business practices.

I would get frustrated because Andersen would get this information and never seem to do anything with it. There was a big management change at Andersen and everyone I knew there moved on and my involvement in their sustainability practices no longer mattered to the new leadership. Andersen was very generous to me and my team and helped us spread the word about sustainability as best as they could at the time. I remember what my rep from Andersen would say, “..You have to understand that getting a large company to change is like steering an aircraft carrier with a trolling motor..” This is very true. Now, I see that Andersen is putting its full focus on Net Zero and is very excited about sustainability, which is a great thing….but several years behind, as the trend and economy has once again started an inevitable change.

I am not trying to pick on Andersen Windows, especially after what they have done for me personally and after the people that were let go from the company did to spread the word about building earth friendly homes. I am using my relationship with Andersen Windows as an example of how the industry works. I used to get an email from time to time asking me what I was doing next and what I thought that the industry was doing. I remember taking a ride on the Andersen Corporate Yacht on the Saint Croix River with Andersen executives and being shown the reports of what the building industry was going to do in the future. I am amazed at how spot on those reports were for looking five years into the future. I remember seeing a report that Grand Rapids Michigan was going to be a top location in the country to live and that report and the other information that I had access to is what lead to us buying our farm just outside of Grand Rapids. Recognizing trends and being fluid enough to make the changes in real time is one of the keys to keeping the schedule book full.

It seems like there are plenty of builders who are building energy efficient homes now, mostly because our building codes require it. The question is, “what is trending now in the building industry and should we forget everything we have learned along the way?” Great question, I am glad you asked!

Sometimes it seems like humans forget about the things that they experienced along the way and other times it seems like you meet a person who uses everything they experienced, good or bad, and have found a way to use those experiences to differentiate themselves from others. The latter speaks to part of the question above, “Should we forget everything we have learned along the way?” The answer is, “NO!” don’t ever forget what you did or what you have learned. That is a very important part of the puzzle in what is trending right now or will be trending in the near future. Before, a different age group with different motivations was what was keeping the building industry alive during the downturn. Now, those same motivators are a ‘given’ with the new group that is starting to be interested in building. There are still plenty of people for everyone to build for, and the leaders of the pack are still attracting the people who are not finding companies that fully understand exactly what certain homeowners are looking for.

Where do I think things are going in the building business? Well, to answer that, I will have to say this. I can think about what directions the industry is going and I can know which way we are going to go in the industry. I am not much for sticking to any one thing, and I find myself being like a glacier, where I keep moving and gathering things along the way. That means that I am still taking the company that I am a part of and building extremely energy efficient houses, but, that is the baseline. There are many things that matter in a house that is friendly to all the stakeholders with the inhabitants and The Earth being the biggest focus. These many things change and evolve or devolve. The ‘Things’ that I am aware of are more than Geo Thermal or insulated concrete forms.

I have seen a large number of people interested in earth shelters and living off of the grid. Likewise, I have seen many people interested in our way of life on our farm and all of these ‘Things’ are becoming important to people that are hoping to build one day. The biggest ‘Thing’ that I have picked up on (ok, this is the tidbit that you have probably been waiting for) is that the new generation of clients that we have, ninety plus percent of them all mention having a parent(s) living with them at some point during the ownership of their new or remodeled house. Another ‘Thing’ that I see is that multiple family members are buying larger pieces of land and building multiple houses on that land so that everyone can live near each other. I have not heard one mention of LEED for Homes or Net Zero, rather, the conversations get filled with, “..I need extra counter space because I can a lot of food each year..” and/or ..”I would like the kitchen windows to line up on both houses, even though the houses are not very close to each other so that we can make sure mom is doing ok.” Bringing the family back together could be the theme, you heard it first here! Remember though, that the energy efficient, earth friendly, inhabitant friendly home is a given in this equation.

Thank you for reading my blogs and thank you to those who email me, I enjoy the feedback.

AB

Outside of the lifetime design box..

Greetings everyone!

For nearly a decade, one of our five design criteria for the houses that we design and build has been ‘lifetime design’. Lifetime design is the idea that a house is designed for its inhabitants to age in place and includes such features as wider doorways and wheel chair turning radiuses in kitchens and bathrooms.

Recently I was presented with a challenge when one of our homeowners emailed me because they couldn’t tell if their radiant heat system was working or not. I called the homeowner and asked her to explain to me why she thought that her radiant heat system was not working. She told me that the thermostat on the wall said that it was sixty eight degrees but that her feet and legs felt cold even though the floor had radiant heat.

I was baffled after my phone call with this homeowner and I decided that I needed to drive to the house to make sure that everything was working properly with their heating system. One of the first things that I do when I go to check out a radiant heat system is to take off my coat and lay the coat on the floor with the inside of the coat touching the heated floor. After the coat is on the floor for awhile, I will put the coat on and usually the coat is toasty warm if the floor is being heated properly. As soon as I walked in to the house, I took my coat off and laid it on the floor. I could tell right away when I walked into the house that the heating system was working because the house was nice and evenly heated. I wouldn’t need to use the coat test mentioned above to see if the heating system was functioning properly, but I did leave my coat on the floor anyway so that I could enjoy the warm embrace of my radiant heat warmed coat on my way back to the truck when I left.

I inspected all of the pumps and gauges on the radiant heat system to make sure that everything was ok and thermostat and boiler were working perfectly. After I spent time checking everything else, I sat down and asked the homeowner a few questions. During that conversation, the homeowner told me that she had poor circulation in her legs and feet. Sirens started to go off in my head because I had discovered an issue that I had not even considered!

A big selling point in a sustainable home is the fact that the home is designed for the inhabitants to grow old in the house without any need for future modification. Something that is not being considered is the comfort of those homeowners when they encounter circulation problems in areas of their bodies. There is no real answer at this time for how to combat the issue of homeowners feeling cold in their homes even though their heating systems are functioning properly. The best that any of us can do at this point is to be aware that homeowners can and will experience any number of adult onset conditions as they live in the houses that we design and build for them, with access and mobility being most likely the biggest concern.

I brought the issue up to a heating and cooling person that I know and told him that I thought it was interesting that this woman couldn’t feel the all encompassing warmth of her radiant heat system. His reply was, “Why didn’t you just have her reach down and put her hand on the floor to see if it was warm, then you wouldn’t have had to make the trip and the issues would be resolved.” I thought about his point as I was loading our woodstove at home. I have to kneel down to load up the woodstove and just as I was trying to stand up, I was thinking, “I should have had her put her hand on the floor and saved a trip down there”. I mention this, because I had a hard time getting up off of the kneeling position because my mobility is slightly limited thanks to a lifetime of adventure and working hard.

My mind started to wander even more, as I thought about the heating and cooling guy’s comment. We can’t ask someone to reach down and touch the floor to prove to them that their heating system works, especially since I can barely do that!

How can we help people with our houses? Before, the question would be, “How can we help people lessen the load on the planet by having their houses use less energy.” Don’t get me wrong, this is still a very important and valid question! For those looking to the future and as green building continues to grow by leaps and bounds, I think it is time to put a tighter focus on what the house’s inhabitants will go through in their lifetime in the house. That would help to better direct and define ‘lifetime design’.

AB

What's new with me?

Hey everybody!

If you are on Facebook and follow what I do or post, then you will have noticed that I am no longer on Facebook. The biggest reason for this, is that I want to get back to the basics. Facebook is fun, but I also find it invasive. I used to use it for marketing and for a way to broadcast the videos that we shoot on our job sites. I found that Facebook is also a place for people to say vicious things because they don't have a life. My advice to most people on Facebook, is (and you can quote me on this), "GET A LIFE".

I keep reading reports that say Facebook is becoming a bad thing for people and their lives. Why would I run to the computer on a Sunday afternoon to see if someone commented on a post I posted instead of hanging out with my family? I don't think Facebook should be considered part of a sustainable life.

Enough of my rant. To view the videos that we shoot, simply go to my website: www.adambearup.com and click on videos on the home page. From there, you will find the earth shelter videos and anything else that we shot on video. The videos will no longer be on Facebook.

Will I ever return to Facebook? The book people will no doubt want to use social media to sell my book. At that point, you will be able to like me, but not be a friend. I think this is non-invasive. I can go for that.

If any of you are on Facebook, please post the link to this blog so that the word can get out on why I left Facebook. After you post it for a day or two, then I suggest that you also get off Facebook. Facebook was nice to keep in touch with people, but, let's be honest, how many of your friends on Facebook really are your friends?

Put your attention to your family and friends in real life! I have decided to spend time with people in real life and to stop staring at my computer. I will update this blog more often if you are interested in what I am up to.

Have a great day!

A Healthy Sustainable Lifestyle

Time and time again we have heard this saying "We are what we eat". In fact, I do not have enough fingers and toes to count the articles that start with this saying like I have. However, the statement, "We are what we eat", is very scary even if a person has only a spec of knowledge about the food industry. Because of this and recent health scares, I have decided to devote an incredible amount of time into not only helping people build a sustainable home, but now, helping people build a sustainable lifestyle.

Let's rewind time back a few decades. When I was a youngster growing up, my family was all about eating healthy back then. We didn't eat out at restaurants very much because we didn't have the money to do so. My mom prepared all of our meals from scratch and we took a steady stream of vitamins. I grew up in Montague Michigan and while I was growing up, Hooker Chemical was in full production of over 100 deadly chemicals. My mom recognized back then that the ground water could be contaminated, so we never drank one drop of the city water or well water from Montague's wells. Instead, my family would get ground water from my Grandmothers house so we wouldn't have to be subjected to potential contaminated ground water. As it stands, Hooker Chemical destroyed the area they are located in and around, and even though the Montague Plant has been closed for years, the area still is affected from the storage of those chemicals. Each time it rains heavy, over 800lbs of contamination flows into White Lake which touches the old Hooker Chemical land. When we were kids, we would go play at this "hidden lake" which was actually green or orange depending on the time of year. We saw frogs with 3 eyes in there regularly. If my mom knew that we played on that lake, which is now part of a super fund clean up site, she would have been fit to be tied. What lasting health problems could be a result of the exposure to those chemicals....I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Many of our friends parents from Montague who lived around Hooker Chemical have developed cancers that are no doubt related to the toxins that have leached into the ground water. This is horrible, but, not what this blog entry is about.

This blog is about what is in our foods or what is being used on our foods. It is not my intention to sound radical in any one direction or on any one subject, it is to report what I have been researching. This need to know recently lead me to the Acres Organic Farmers Conference in Indianapolis Indiana to learn more about the food industry. Many of us have seen the DVD Food, Inc. and other related movies and it helped us to change the way we eat. Believe it or not, even with my strong beliefs about saving the environment, I never really watched a show or read a book and immediately jumped on any band wagons. I would gather all of the pros and cons of a topic and then I would investigate issues until I formed a solid opinion about a topic. When I watched Food, Inc. I wasn't disgusted because I already knew how bad the food industry was. Food, Inc. helped me to direct my research more towards foods that lower income families were eating solely because of economics. What concerns me is that a family can get $1 double cheeseburgers at SickDonalds and that they could not get good quality foods for the same price, even at a garbage depot like WalMart.

As I mentioned above, I was raised to eat a certain way and to live a certain lifestyle. I have been a certified personal trainer, natural bodybuilder, and have a fair deal of training in nutrition. I have studied many areas of nutrition, including, the relation between High Fructose Corn Syrup and obesity in this Country. I have also studied about the relation between the weed killer 'Round Up' and birth defects. It's all scary, but my intention is only to report on what I have been up to, so you will have to research things for yourselves, with your own motives. You would think someone that does research like this would be healthy for their entire life, but it goes back to my first statement above, "We are what we eat". Perhaps a better statement would be, "We are what we consume". I prefer to eat Venison that I collect and fruits and vegetables from a garden or a local farm that I know produces products free of pesticides and herbicides. This doesn't always happen for me thou, so I needed to know if I could truly trust the word 'Organic'. Much like 'Green Washing' in products and materials, could there be such a thing as 'Organic Washing'?

I went to the ACRES Organic Farming Conference to seek answers about organic farming, and also to learn about growing plants naturally with no chemical fertilizers and no genetically modified anything. My motives were simple. I wanted to know how plants grow, what criteria the organic farmers had to follow, and how effective is bio-dynamics on growing plants. I did not go to Acres to jump on any band wagons or to get involved with any groups looking to change how things are done. What I found at Acres was incredibly passionate farmers and gardeners who were there for the same reasons as me. The group of people that I went to ACRES with all attended classes, as did I, to learn about the current food industry, what organic farming really was, and ways that people could be more than organic with their crops. I was at ACRES to learn more about what we, as a society, were consuming in our daily lives.

Have you ever heard of genetically modified foods? Most of us have. These are foods that are designed in laboratories where scientists manipulate the DNA of a given plant or food to resist pesticides and/or to get higher yields on their crops. The biggest problems with these "GMO's" is that the human body reacts differently to the breakdown of these foods and it causes problems for humans. Of course, there is so much more to it, but it will be something that you can research if you are curious about these foods. Can organic labeled foods be GMO's? Yes. This is why I am concerned. I have ate organic foods and drank organic milk since they first showed up on the market and most are great for us! My goal was to find out if they were safe for me, and the jury is still out on that subject.

When Team Hybrid set out to change building as everyone had known it, we were looking to change specific areas of a home to help its inhabitants live a long healthy life. We addressed areas of the home like indoor air quality, lifetime design, passive solar, and many other areas. To my delite, many of our homeowners took this even farther and have gardens, recycle their waste, and try to live every part of a sustainable life. That is awesome, I applaud that! This got me thinking about a sustainable life being more than just the home. As simple as it seems, many people continue to focus on just one or a couple of things that make for a sustainable life. If someone can't really be sure as to what they are putting into their bodies for food, than how can we really guarantee that we will all live a long healthy life? Lets look at the dictionary definition of Sustenance (food):

Definition of SUSTENANCE

1: means of support, maintenance, or subsistence : living b : food, provisions; also : nourishment

2: the act of sustaining : the state of being sustained b : a supplying or being supplied with the necessaries of life
3
something that gives support, endurance, or strength

I yell, WHAT?!!

Have you ever given any thought to the word 'sustenance' and then thought about the food you eat, or how often you eat? I kept the word 'sustenance' on top of my mind while at the ACRES conference because I wanted to see what went into food that I was consuming to supply myself with the necessaries of life. Should we be concerned about putting bad food into our bodies? Absolutely! Should we immediately change what we eat? It would be a great idea to, but not many people are able to. Growing a garden or buying produce from a farm market or natural food market is a better idea than buying produce from WalMart because the nutritional value of the homegrown stuff if so much better. No one can expect to change their lives or habits at any given moment. Those types of life transformations come over time and I encourage everyone to start thinking more about what they are eating.

When we set out to build homes sustainably, we never asked people to immediately change their lives, only to give thoughts to the many alternatives there were to conventional ways of building. I am saying the same thing here. Be aware that not all the food that you are eating is good for you and that there are healthy alternatives available that can help you live a longer, healthier life. Find items with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. One example is Sierra Mist that is made with sugar, this is a good alternative to other sodas out there because it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup or any unnatural colors or additives. Again, you don't have to be scared or throw everything away immediately, just make sure you become aware of the healthier options that are available out there. The Organic Stamp on foods are a good step in the right direction in telling if a food is better for you to consume. In our busy lives and poor economy, it is not always an option for people to buy the more expensive organic foods, especially when you can get a McGut Bomb at SickDonalds for a dollar.

I ask you to consider what is happening to your health, especially if you are in the sustainability business. Do you, on your way to giving a talk about sustainability, stop and get a Heart Attack in a Sack? Most do, even I used to from time to time because it is so tough to do anything different than that. After I learned that I had some health concerns due to the lifestyle I chose to live, I completely changed the way I live and eat. I have my cheat days, but for the most part, I watch very closely what I eat to try to get myself healthier. Lifestyle is the leading cause of health problems in this country. I used to think that I could help with that by building sustainable houses, and sustainable housing does help. But there is more work to be done in this area. We can't control gas prices, contaminated foods, idiot CEO's, or lots of other bad things, but we definitely can control WHAT and HOW MUCH we use. This alone can help ensure that the statement "we are what we consume" is a part of a healthy sustainable lifestyle....

A sustainable lifestyle - the Edgewood Project

Where ever I go, I keep my eyes peeled for examples of a sustainable lifestyle. After all, that is what I am all about. It shocked me a week or so ago when I was told that one of our homeowners was called 'crazy' for having a large garden and livestock. Crazy? I thought that was only something I was called a few years ago. The things I would have told that person that called one of 'us' crazy!

I was working with my dad, a.k.a. 'Uncle Rog', this past week on the Edgewood Project, working towards getting the occupancy permit on that house. This project turned out amazing. I am not just talking about the trim, hardwood floors, and how incredibly tight this house is, I am talking about how sustainable the entire property and project is. If you were to drive back to the house, you would be driving across a big field of alfalfa, which is harvested to feed livestock at a local farm. The driveway is made of crushed concrete, which came from local road construction. Instead of piling it in a landfill, we used it for the driveway. Once you arrive at the house, you immediatley see the large gardens that are nearly full of vegetables. The homeowner has local customers who pay her for the freshest vegetables around. The customers show up and the vegetables are picked fresh! That is leading others to a sustainable lifestyle! The garden also produces the homeowner's vegetables that is consumed by her family. That is sustainable! She will not have to worry about what she is feeding her daughters, because all of the vegetables that they will eat come out of that garden. To store the vegetables after they are harvested, there are plans in the works for a Michigan cellar, which is a cool, dark area where the harvest is stored underground.

The picture above is great. I took this picture the other day while on site. Usually, when I tell people I saw a bunch of chicks , they think I mean something else. This bunch of chicks arrived in the mail from Iowa...yes, I said the mail. The homeowner brought them out to the site along with a group of ducklings and all of us gathered around to see them. These chicks will grow up to be egg layers, which the homeowner will sell and use for her family. That is cool! That is sustainable! The ducks will provide the family with eggs and also will be a source of sustanance. Along with the ducks and chickens, the homeowner intends on having goats, pigs, and anything else she sees fit to raise out on her land. I have approached her to raise a pig for me that I will ultimately use to feed our crews. I love it!

The homeowner has had this vision of a sustainable life for a long time. I am happy to have helped her, along with our crews, create a sustainble home that will compliment her incredibly sustainble lifestyle. I applaud her for all she is doing, it is not only 'cool', but it is a great story for others to spread the word about. She is setting a positive example, an example I hope others will follow.

Great job, I am proud of you and wish you the best of luck!!