This Old [or New] House

[Hamartia Antidote]

This thread will be about the physical characteristics of homes along with the property it is on in the USA

5 Popular Trends in New-Home Construction

http://www.anothersweetsale.com/2017/06/16/5-popular-trends-in-new-home-construction/
Posted on June 16th, 2017

What building materials are trending in new-home construction? The latest Annual Builder Practices Survey, conducted by Home Innovation, reveals what buyers can expect to see in the new-home market.

1. Garages: The garage door is getting more enhancements, including windows, insulated doors, and doors made of composite or plastic materials. In 2014, 32 percent of all new single-family homes had bays for three or more cars—the most ever recorded in this study’s history.

2. Flooring: Carpeting continues to be the most popular flooring option for new construction, with about 83 percent of all new-home bedroom installations having carpeting. However, only about 40 percent of living rooms now have carpet. Hardwood flooring – both solid and engineered types – is the second most popular type of flooring, and is included in 27 percent of all new-home installations. Ceramic tile (which appears in 72 percent of all bathroom floor installation) follows in third place, making up 20 percent of all new-home floor installations, according to the survey.

3. Countertops: For kitchen countertops, granite continues to reign at 64 percent of new-home installations. Quartz/engineered stone is gaining popularity while laminate, solid surfacing, and ceramic tile are losing appeal.

4. Appliances: Cooktops and wall oven combinations are gaining in popularity and make up about 24 percent of the market, compared to freestanding ovens (at 45 percent). Freezer-on-bottom refrigerators are gaining in popularity at 19 percent, while side-by-side has fallen to 28 percent of the share.

5. Kitchen sinks: More buyers are paying attention to their kitchen sink, with the single basin kitchen sink making a comeback, growing from 5 percent to 20 percent of all new single-family homes in the past decade. Also growing in popularity are granite/stone kitchen sinks (at 8 percent). One-piece cultured marble lavatories are continuing to decline in demand, according to the survey.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

http://www.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_55d0dc06e4b07addcb43435d
The American Lawn Is Now The Largest Single ‘Crop’ In The U.S

Americans’ lawns now cover an area three times larger than any irrigated crop in the U.S.

According to a new study from NASA scientists in collaboration with researchers in the Mountain West, there is now an estimated total of 163,812 square kilometers, or more than 63,000 square miles, of lawn in America — about the size of Texas. Here’s the map:

MILESI, ELVIDGE VIA ISPRS

The study was not about the growth of lawns, however. Instead, it focused on their impact on the environment and water resources. The researchers found that well manicured lawns can act as carbon sinks — meaning they would help mitigate climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

However, maintaining a well-manicured lawn uses up to 900 liters of water per person per day and reduces sequestration effectiveness by up to 35 percent by adding emissions from fertilization and the operation of mowing equipment.

“If the entire turf surface was well watered following commonly recommended schedules there would. . . be an enormous pressure on the U.S. water resources, especially when considering that drinking water is usually sprinkled,” the researchers found. “At the time of this writing, in most regions outdoor water use already reaches 50-75 percent of the total residential use.”

The study comes as Californians wrestle with how to care for their lawns in the midst of a four-year drought. Southern California’s water district has begun a “cash for grass” system that’s proven highly effective, with all $340 million initially set aside to convince homeowners to replace lawns with desert landscaping getting used up.

And Los Angeles city officials have begun sending out complaints to the “top 1 percent of water users” urging them to change their watering habits.

“It was a wake-up call,” Warren Dern, a Sherman Oaks resident with a 7,000-square-foot lawn, told the L.A. Times’ Matt Stevens in June. “I was like, ‘Wow, maybe we’re part of the problem.’”

The NASA researchers did not address the drought in their paper, but did find that it will likely be some time before we see a significant decrease in lawn acreage.

“Because of demographic growth and because more and more people are moving towards the warmer regions of the country the potential exists for the amount of water used for turf grasses to increase,” they write.

And Euromonitor’s Ryan Tuttle has projected U.S. lawnmower growth is on track to recapture its pre-recession levels thanks to the housing recovery and what he said was a “continued emphasis on a well-manicured yard.”

FUSION, DATA VIA EUROMONITOR
While the overall volume of mowers could come down moving forward thanks to younger adults’ preference for living in denser areas, as long as there are “older and better funded consumers” in the market sales will continue to be steady.

That's nice but they are using gasoline powered...

Problem solved. Battery operated lawn mowers.

Or just have a robot do it

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Windows in the US are typically double hung sash windows (vs tilt&turn) with argon filled double (or triple) pane glass with a screen on the outside.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Vehicles per household

https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/publications/passenger_travel_2015/chapter2/fig2_10

Vehicles per household

Number of household drivers = Number of vehicles in household
1 driver = 1.2 vehicles in household
2 drivers = 2.3 vehicles in household
3 drivers = 3.2 vehicles in household
4 drivers = 3.9 vehicles in household
5 drivers = 4.6 vehicles in household
6 drivers = 5.2 vehicles in household
7 drivers = 6.2 vehicles in household

https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch6en/conc6en/USAownershipcars.html

Percentage of Households by Number of Vehicles

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/remote-workers-work-from-home.html

Out of the Office: More People Are Working Remotely, Survey Finds

More American employees are working remotely, and they are doing so for longer periods, according to a Gallup survey released on Wednesday.

Last year, 43 percent of employed Americans said they spent at least some time working remotely, according to the survey of more than 15,000 adults.

That represents a four percentage point increase since 2012, a shift that meets the demands of many job seekers.

“Gallup consistently has found that flexible scheduling and work-from-home opportunities play a major role in an employee’s decision to take or leave a job,” the polling agency wrote in a report on those and other workplace findings.

“Employees are pushing companies to break down the long-established structures and policies that traditionally have influenced their workdays.”

Employees and some employers view the practice as broadly beneficial, saying that remote workers are more productive and that the additional flexibility can help to close the gender gap.

Here is a look at some of the report’s findings.

Those who work remotely do so for longer periods
It is not just that more working Americans are working off-site; they’re doing so more often, too.

The share who said they spent a day or less a week working remotely shrank substantially from 2012 to 2016, falling to 25 percent from 34 percent.

At the same time, the share that reported working remotely four to five days a week grew by nearly the same amount, rising to 31 percent from 24 percent.

The Time Employees Spend Working Remotely
Americans who work remotely are doing so for longer periods of time.

Not all industries embrace remote work
Although widespread, the shift toward remote work is not universal.

Remote work was less common last year than in 2012 for Americans employed in the fields of community and social services; science, engineering and architecture; and education, training and library.

Most Industries Embrace Remote Work
Share of workers who spend some of the time working remotely.

Source: Gallup
Most industries, however, have embraced the idea — none more rapidly than the finance, insurance and real estate industries. The share of workers in those fields who report working remotely at least sometimes rose eight percentage points, to 47 percent, from 2012 to 2016.

In the transportation, computer, information systems and mathematics industries, well over half of employees work remotely some of the time.

But even in industries where the practice is popular, companies have struggled with how much to embrace remote work. In 2013, Yahoo received a lot of attention when it sought to bring workers back to the office. Last October, Aetna, the insurance giant known for its embrace of remote work, did the same.

The remote working sweet spot
In 2012, the workers who said they felt most engaged while working remotely were those who spent the least amount of time off-site. By 2016, that was no longer true.

The Remote Work Sweet Spot
Employees who spend three to four days off-site report feeling most engaged at work.

Source: Gallup
Workers who spend none or all of their time out of the office reported feeling equally engaged last year. Those who spent 60 percent to 80 percent of their time away from the office had the highest rates of engagement.

“In spite of the additional time away from managers and co-workers, they are the most likely of all employees to strongly agree that someone at work cares about them as a person, encourages their development and has talked to them about their progress,” Gallup reported.

Those who spend three or four days a week working remotely were also the most likely to report thinking that they had a best friend at work and had opportunities for professional growth.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Why Smart Homes Will Be A Million Times Better Than 'The Jetsons'

https://www.forbes.com/sites/debora...n-times-better-than-the-jetsons/#10eb5d5975e7

When you think of a futuristic, fully automated home, you might picture several household gadgets working in harmony, like in The Jetsons or Back to the Future. But Gartner Research predicts that by 2020, there will be approximately 25 billion IoT-enabled devices, millions of which will likely be used to help consumers automate their homes. And Icontrol Networks reports that consumers across demographics (especially millennials and Generation Xers) are excited about owning a “smart home.”

A smart, or connected, home is defined as one where the lights, heating/ventilation/air-conditioning (HVAC), security alarm and other household devices can be automated and remotely controlled by a smartphone, tablet or computer. The key drivers in smart home adoption are home security, energy efficiency, entertainment, convenience/productivity, connectivity and health monitoring

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Smart Thermostat

Smart Refrigerator

Smart Washers

Smart ovens/microwaves where you scan the barcode and it follows the instructions.

Smart robot vaccums

Smart Shades

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

http://www.dimensionsinfo.com/average-lot-size-in-usa/

Average Home Lot Size in USA

~2200 sq ft home on 8750 sq ft lot.

2014: The median average lot size in the USA is 8,750 square feet [1/5 acre or 813 sq meters]. The dimensions of the average home in America are 2,330 square feet [214 sq meters]. Lot dimensions have actually gone done from 10,125 square feet in 1976. What is increasing is the demand for larger houses.

Historical Perspective
The earliest homes and lots in the US were small. Most of them were around 450 square feet. By the 1800s however, floors were being added to homes and lot space increased. More than a few homes measuring between 2200 and 2800 square feet started appearing. These houses were remodeled from the smaller, older houses. This is equivalent to the dimensions of some suburban American homes.

The 20th Century
The average lot size in USA began increasing during the 20th century. Homes during the 20th century’s early years were 600 to 800 square feet. The typical home in the US during those early years measured 700 x 1200 sq ft.

During the 1950s the number grew to 1000 square feet. It reached an average size of 2000 square feet by the 2000s. An increase in the house dimensions have led to higher costs. During the 1900s, homes were pegged at $5,000. By the 2000s the cost was $200,000.

Lot Dimensions Going Down
The trend of decreasing lot dimensions is continuing. Most lots in America measured 14,680 square feet during the 1990s. The number fell to 12,870 sq ft eight years later. According to statistics, the average US home has two baths, three bedrooms and a two car garage.

Buying a House and Lot
Size isn’t the only thing that matters. Check the sewer and water connections. If they are not satisfactory, you’ll have to install a septic system. Keep in mind too that some areas don’t allow well digging. Also check the phone and electrical service in the area. Equally important is accessibility. Is there a public road? You should also read the land title agreement.

Make sure you understand the restrictions (if any) are in place. This is very important especially with lots still being developed. Get in touch with the local authorities. Ask them about zoning laws and if any changes are forthcoming. You should also check for the existence of any environmental threats or hazards.

The prognosis is the average lot size in USA will decrease further. The size of homes is likely to go up. However, the demands for large homes will also be dictated by the economic situation.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Private Swimming Pools

http://www.aquaticnet.com/media-statistics3.htm

There are more than 8 million homes with private swimming pools [9.7% of the estimated 82 million homes in the US]

Don't forget the Smart Robot Pool Cleaner

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Vegetable gardens.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/home-vegetable-gardening-zmaz86sozgoe

Home Vegetable Gardening Statistics

Just how common is home vegetable gardening? Who's doing it? Why? And what is everybody raising? Well, if it weren't for the National Gardening Association (Burlington, VT), nobody'd really know. Fortunately, that nonprofit group has been commissioning an annual Gallup poll on the topic for well over a decade on home vegetable gardening. The answers they've received are revealing and definitely worth a look.

Home Vegetable Gardening Statistics
In 1971, the year after MOTHER EARTH NEWS N0. 1 was published, 25 million households, or 39% of American families, were raising some of their own vegetables. That number quickly rose until, by 1981, 38 million — 47%, or almost half — of our nation's households were gardening. Then, however, the numbers started to drop. By 1985, 33 million households — 37% — were growing vegetables.

What happened?

To put the answer simply, the worse the economy, the more people garden. In 1981, interest rates were 20%, the nation was stuck in a deepening recession, and people were growing food primarily to save money. (And gardeners do save money — spending about $32 a year per family while harvesting $356 worth of produce!) Today, the financial climate appears rosier, so the pressure to "garden for greenbacks" has slacked off.

As a matter of fact, in keeping with our increasing national interest in nutrition and health, the number one reason people garden today (30% gave this answer) is home vegetable gardening for fresh vegetables, and number two (25%) is to get better-tasting, higher-quality food. Even gardening for fun (22%) beats out saving money (15%) as a motive.

And fear not — gardeners are hardly an endangered species. Indeed, that 37% of households raising crops in '85 made vegetable growing the second most popular outdoor leisure activity in America. Actually, if you include the flower growers, gardening rises to the most popular form of outdoor recreation.

Here are some more fascinating facts about vegetable gardeners: 73% of them are married. An equal percentage live in suburban and in rural areas. Gardeners break down pretty evenly by sex: 48% male, 52% female. And an impressive 53% of the backyard crop raisers have been gardening for 10 or more years!

Surprisingly, only 29% of the gardeners are getting their know-how from books or magazines. Instead, the number one source of gardening information — 73% of growers rely on it — is seed packets! (That's kind of humbling for us writer types.)

The top gardening problem? Insects (35% of those polled mentioned it). That's followed by weeds (23%) and water shortages (16%). By the way, according to the 1984 poll, 47% of gardeners used an insecticide. That news may depress some organic gardening enthusiasts . . . until they turn it around and realize that over half the gardeners did not resort to such preparations.

The most popular homegrown vegetable? The winner — far and away — the tomato! It's followed, in order, by peppers, green beans, cucumbers, onions, lettuce, summer squash, carrots, radishes, and — way down in tenth place — sweet corn.

Well, that about wraps up the facts on gardeners. What about non gardeners? Why aren't they growing crops? The leading reason people don't garden (35% of respondents) is lack of space. Lack of time comes in second (28%), and then in third place (a mere 13%) comes the opinion that it's too much work.

And actually, 19% of the non-vegetable-raisers — an estimated 10 million households — did grow a few vegetables for their dinner table, either in containers, alongside some flowers, or in a border planting.

One thing for sure: No matter how many millions are raising vegetables or why they choose to do so, we here at MOTHER EARTH NEWS resolve to do our best to provide them with the best and most useful gardening information we can.

That is, if we can get them to stop spending all their time reading seed packets!

Flower gardens.

Front yard flowers

Backyard flowers

Don't forget the orangey-red mulch!

 

[Deidara]

http://www.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_55d0dc06e4b07addcb43435d
The American Lawn Is Now The Largest Single ‘Crop’ In The U.S

Americans’ lawns now cover an area three times larger than any irrigated crop in the U.S.

According to a new study from NASA scientists in collaboration with researchers in the Mountain West, there is now an estimated total of 163,812 square kilometers, or more than 63,000 square miles, of lawn in America — about the size of Texas. Here’s the map:

MILESI, ELVIDGE VIA ISPRS

The study was not about the growth of lawns, however. Instead, it focused on their impact on the environment and water resources. The researchers found that well manicured lawns can act as carbon sinks — meaning they would help mitigate climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

However, maintaining a well-manicured lawn uses up to 900 liters of water per person per day and reduces sequestration effectiveness by up to 35 percent by adding emissions from fertilization and the operation of mowing equipment.

“If the entire turf surface was well watered following commonly recommended schedules there would. . . be an enormous pressure on the U.S. water resources, especially when considering that drinking water is usually sprinkled,” the researchers found. “At the time of this writing, in most regions outdoor water use already reaches 50-75 percent of the total residential use.”

The study comes as Californians wrestle with how to care for their lawns in the midst of a four-year drought. Southern California’s water district has begun a “cash for grass” system that’s proven highly effective, with all $340 million initially set aside to convince homeowners to replace lawns with desert landscaping getting used up.

And Los Angeles city officials have begun sending out complaints to the “top 1 percent of water users” urging them to change their watering habits.

“It was a wake-up call,” Warren Dern, a Sherman Oaks resident with a 7,000-square-foot lawn, told the L.A. Times’ Matt Stevens in June. “I was like, ‘Wow, maybe we’re part of the problem.’”

The NASA researchers did not address the drought in their paper, but did find that it will likely be some time before we see a significant decrease in lawn acreage.

“Because of demographic growth and because more and more people are moving towards the warmer regions of the country the potential exists for the amount of water used for turf grasses to increase,” they write.

And Euromonitor’s Ryan Tuttle has projected U.S. lawnmower growth is on track to recapture its pre-recession levels thanks to the housing recovery and what he said was a “continued emphasis on a well-manicured yard.”

FUSION, DATA VIA EUROMONITOR
While the overall volume of mowers could come down moving forward thanks to younger adults’ preference for living in denser areas, as long as there are “older and better funded consumers” in the market sales will continue to be steady.

That's nice but they are using gasoline powered...

Problem solved. Battery operated lawn mowers.

Or just have a robot do it

Having a decent lawn provides a whole different lifestyle here in asia. The typical American lifestyle that is. The cantonment in Mangla here in Pakistan has an offices colony that was made by Americans. Actually this colony was built for the Americans working on the Mangla dam. Later it was converted into military cantonment. So there are all American style houses there will big front lawns and vegetable patches at the back. I was 8 when my father was posted there. So one day we were sitting and chatting on the lawn of another kid. His sister had a crush on me. I think she was a year or two older. One of her jeans was torn at the groin. I don't know how she managed to do that. But she went inside changed into that jeans and came and sat right in front of me cross-legged. Yeah she showed me her thing. And I can't imagine that such a thing could happen anywhere else in Pakistan. All thanks to those American homes and more importantly those American lawns. That sort of setting affects the minds of us Asians differently. One has to be Christan to enjoy those lawns in a cleaner manner.

 

[Gomig-21]

We've switched to Zip-Wall systems from all plywood sheathing & house-wrap on new, residential construction. No more fir or pine plywood that's wrapped in Dupont Tyvek and then siding applied. Now it's straight, 1/2" green Zip-Wall OSB with an applied, protective layer for the walls and 5/8" red Zip-Wall for roof sheathing and the seams are all taped with the special, rubber tape that comes with the system and it's weather/element tight and guaranteed for 6 months before you have to put up the siding. This system put a huge dent on Dupont's Tyvek and conventional plywood since it eliminated the use of the latter and the cost of the house-wrap and the labor to put it up.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Building Materials

We've switched to Zip-Wall systems from all plywood sheathing & house-wrap on new, residential construction. No more fir or pine plywood that's wrapped in Dupont Tyvek and then siding applied. Now it's straight, 1/2" green Zip-Wall OSB with an applied, protective layer for the walls and 5/8" red Zip-Wall for roof sheathing and the seams are all taped with the special, rubber tape that comes with the system and it's weather/element tight and guaranteed for 6 months before you have to put up the siding. This system put a huge dent on Dupont's Tyvek and conventional plywood since it eliminated the use of the latter and the cost of the house-wrap and the labor to put it up.

Yep, I see Zip Systems all over the place now. Unfortunately for me it only got recognition around 2008. Just a few years after my home was built...so I have the Tyvek.

 

[Gomig-21]

Yep, I see Zip Systems all over the place now. Unfortunately for me it only got recognition around 2008. Just a few years after my home was built...so I have the Tyvek.

That's ok, you're still good. As long as it was applied properly and also taped...Tyvek has its own special tape, too, and if overlapped correctly and no water gets behind it, you're fine. We've used it for over 20 years and never had any problems.

There are some guys who still insist on using house-wrap because the Zip System does have one drawback, in that the nails from the nail-guns used to fasten the sheathing to the studs end up counter-sunk a bit, so they puncture that green or red, applied coating and leave the OSB particle board exposed at the nail holes. Tyvek takes care of that problem. So you might have an advantage.... The trick is to set the pressure on the framing nail guns correctly so the nails don't countersink, but that's tough to do when you're nailing hundreds of nails.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Exterior Living

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2016/03/07/decks-vs-patios-which-more-popular

Decks vs. Patios: Which Is More Popular?

Patios are winning. In 2014, a majority of all new homes – 56 percent – were constructed with a patio. On the other hand, 23 percent of the new homes had a deck, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction.

While patios or decks both let you enjoy the outdoors, the differences matter. Patios are like courtyards and can be attached to or separate from a house. They can take any shape and can be built using any type of material. They’re always at ground level so they do not require railings, as decks do. Decks, typically made of wood or composite wood material, are not usually built at ground level so they can be used to enjoy a great view.

While patios are more popular nationwide, geographic preferences come into play when it comes to patio and decks. Patios aren’t the most popular everywhere. For example, patios are less common than decks in the Middle Atlantic, New England, and East South Central regions. But they reign in the West South Central, Mountain, and Pacific divisions.

The map below from the National Association of Home Builders indicates regional preferences for decks and patios.

Patio

Patio lights

Deck

Composite material curved deck

Deck lights

Bug zapper

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Backyard activities for the kids

Swingsets/Playsets/WaterSlides/Trampolines/Sandboxes