During these cold winter days, I sometimes think back — not fondly — to the place in our home that we called the “warm room.”
We bought our 1942 colonial in Arlington more than 30 years ago. Each winter, to escape the chill that permeated the uninsulated plaster walls, my family retreated to our enclosed sun porch, where we had installed new flooring and windows, some insulation and baseboard heating. My husband, two daughters and I used the cluttered room for just about everything other than meals — watching TV, working on the computer, reading and more — until it was time for bed.
Today, our house has a redesigned interior that is spacious, open and bright — plus full insulation, thermal pane windows, a new heating system and Green Home Choice certification from the Arlington Initiative to Rethink Energy (AIRE), the group that helped to guide us on our energy journey. And once the last bit of work is done, every part of our house will offer year-round comfort in all types of weather.
The transformation from a “warm room” to a warm house began when my husband — who works for the Environmental Protection Agency and is passionate about energy efficiency — hired a company for an energy audit.
We had so many fixes to make that we opted instead for a more expansive solution: a complete renovation of the home’s interior. Through our architects at Paolasquare International, we learned about AIRE and its Green Home Choice certification program. AIRE is a great, free Arlington County resource, and its expertise and certification process gave us confidence that we were going about the work in the right way.
Our new energy-efficient home benefits not just our family, but also the community at large. Homes that achieve AIRE’s Green Home Choice certification are, on average, 40 percent more energy-efficient than the building code requires, and its point-based system for certification encourages recycling and sustainability. In addition, the Green Home Choice certification requirements are much more affordable than those of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes program.
I think most of us in Arlington are willing to do our share to keep our community vital and sustainable; we just need to know the way to do so and get a little help now and then. That’s where AIRE and the Green Home Choice program come in.
AIRE worked with Paolasquare and our builder, Cardinal Construction, throughout our renovation process. During an early walk-through of the project, the AIRE expert checked with the builder and the architect to make sure that specific items would be addressed, and also returned once the home was completed to make sure that all the sustainability features had been implemented.
We ended up with a beautifully reimagined space, including an atrium with an open steel staircase, and a much more energy-efficient and comfortable home. We are using a single boiler for hot water and heating, a Unico duct system with a boiler heat exchange, and eight of our 13 original radiators. In addition, our new appliances — including the quietest dishwasher I’ve ever (not) heard — are Energy Star-compliant.
The work was done in the most environmentally friendly way possible; materials that couldn’t be repurposed were recycled or donated to Habitat for Humanity. With AIRE and the Green Home Choice program’s emphasis on sustainability, many pieces of our old house live on in our “new” one, such as cedar (from the closets) that was salvaged and used throughout the home.
The need for a “warm room,” however, is gone for good.