Project Spotlight: The Callaway House When Catherine Callaway, a LEED AP certified architect with BNIM Architects, and her husband first purchased their 1,000-square-foot home in a historic neighborhood in Houston, they embraced it for its legacy and the fact that it was something of a blank slate. So as the couple anticipated changes, including the addition of a 400-square-foot master bedroom and bath, Callaway got out her sketch pad and began a series of renderings aimed at incorporat- ing their needs—and a desire for green—into an 80-plus-year-old framework.
By the time she handed the project off to Michael Strong, a
like-minded member of the local green building community, the project had grown to include the remodeling of the kitchen and the complete resealing of the building envelope. “For this remodel, we followed a performance, rather than
prescriptive path, where our primary concern—along with meeting their need for more room—was reducing the overall energy usage in the house,” Strong says. Strong’s team reinsulated the walls, replaced all the home’s
windows, insulated its pier and beam foundation, sealed the attic, replaced the home’s HVAC and water heater (going with a tankless
26 GreenBuilder September 2010
The Callaway residence (photos above and small photos right) is 1920s pier and beam home in the Historic Heights district of Houston to which green builder Michael Strong was asked to add a master
bedroom, storage, and a fully remodeled kitchen. The new building envelope features Pella E-Star windows, three different types of insulation, a tankless water heater, and a sealed attic. Inside, Strong installed
water sense plumbing fixtures, VOC free Sherwin William’s paint, and cork flooring in the master bathroom.
model), and switched out all the plumbing features. “In many respects the
Callaways were great clients: they’re young, they’re technical, they’re savvy, they’re smart, and they are green,” he says. “But even in their case they still needed someone with a building back- ground to say, ‘You can’t do this. This is why,’ and, ‘Here’s what we recommend as an alternative and this is why.’’”
Strong notes that on this
project, there are two elements of green construction he’s particularly taken with: an insulation inspec- tion regime that ensures you’re
meeting your performance goals before sheetrock is installed, and the ease with which many initiatives can be adopted without hav- ing to retrain one’s labor force.
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