Yes, I was one of the original swappees, if I remember correctly I brought hot chocolate. I'm very proud that the Mid-Atlantic Swaps have continued to grow without needing the founders' guiding hands - it is a real success story.

ncamy, I'm not sure you're still looking for Energy Star information, but I too am building in Asheville and am going to have it energy star certified. It does not matter about your stove. Apparently there aren't any energy star stoves anyway (per appliance salesman). Just stick with all energy star appliances you can get and you'll be fine. It's really a simple process. Other than making sure you have the correct appliances and a high enough rated HVAC system, you're good to go. You just have to make sure your builder is doing his job right more or less. We're going with low-e/argon windows (a cost of $500 total extra) and an additional $1000 for our heat pump (it's going to be dual zoned and 14 seer i think). other than that it's $900 for a third party to come out and inspect (i think 3 or 4 times) and do one of those blower tests and that's it. You don't even need to do argon gas, we just opted for it. so really it's only costing us $1900 to have it certified and trust me, it's well worth it for your monthly bills and when you go to sell. Which street in montford are you building on? I know the area like the back of my hand. My wife and I both went to UNCA. We just sold (i close tomorrow the 8th of Aug.) our montford house (it's on the out skirts of montford down Hill St.). It was an Energy star house built in 2003. We break ground on the 15th of Aug. in West Asheville. We're sort of doing this as an investment so we can afford another house in the Montford area again. We're looking at two lots right now on West Chestnut. I'm assuming you know that street, eh? Feel free to ask any more questions.

Ok,..as I'm in my usual hurry, I haven't read ALL the posts so if this conflicts with any you will have to weigh that.Here's my 2 cents. I DO like cellulose,..it prevents many bugs and saved one of my buildings from burning down (also said by the state fire marshal) Superhot fire in the attic caused by an electrical mistake was so hot that copper wire melted.Huge beams too. (blast furnace effect because we hadn't done walls at that time and the races allowed this effect) However only 2 inches of the 15 inches of the cellulose burned off You can stop it from settling by adding 10% of blowing in fiberglass when doing it,.. You can generally stop moisture by a good moisture barrier paint on the inside of exterior walls. OK,.here is an old post of mine from a Landlord board so parts might not totally apply. ************************************************************ Here are a few more considerations. Yes if you can afford to do your units with a good color thermal camera and have someone come and do properties with a blower door, it would be better but you can come pretty close to finding out a lot about your property without them. We still have half the heating season to go,..and they seem to come around again pretty fast esp if you are paying for heat. I find that tenants appreciate units that are not energy inefficient and EZer to heat,and a selling point tp prospective tenants these days. Go to my picture page and see pics of the way we add another layer of "glass" (plexi) to windows.The upper sashes,if they can't easily be accessed from the outside, we fit them in by holding them in with spaces made from foam 1/2 inch weather striping and then further holding them in with Daps clear Alex Plus. (so that you can still raise the windows up) We also add "pulls to the bottom sashes so that you have someplace to lift up same,.. A thermometer left on the still measuring the cold air falling from these windows are very close to new Anderson,Harvey etc window temps. You will also see examples of what missing insulation looks like from the steam test. The colder areas of the walls have moisture condensed on them and show up darker. Here's the old post: Ways to reduce heat loss in homes/apartments. First find the air leaks in your house. Air infiltration is a major source of heat loss, often surpassing the effect of good insulation. First of all consider there is an inner and an outer seal of the envelope in your house. Both of these are important to seal. Note: despite what some people will tell you, it is extremely hard to get an older house too tight. Most that think they have done so have been shown to fail miserably upon testing. To find the inner leaks you can place a HIGH capacity fan (about 50-60 dollars at HD ) in a window blowing air OUT, best place is a hall window on a first floor but any window will do. Make sure its secure (bungees, whatever) and then put polyethylene over it, secure that with either tape or staples. Cut out an area very slightly smaller than the cage of the fan. At this time make sure the furnace is shut off and fireplaces are long out and flues tightly shut. Turn off any fueled hot water heaters. If you can, plug the exhausts of these with fiberglass insulation and make a big note to unplug them before you turn them on later! If you cant, you can still run the test pretty well. In furnaces you can usually do this by stuffing the fiberglass in the barometric damper toward the chimney. Now turn on the fan set on high. If its set up on the first story, go outside and feel the air leaving your house. SOMEWHERE its coming in just as fast! This amount of air comes pretty close to the amount of air that presses in your house and comes in on a cold day! Your job is to find out WHERE. Have a friend open a window in the house. Can you feel much of a difference if they open/close the window? Probably not very much. Now go back inside and close all interior doors that connect to the rooms that the fan is pulling from. That is, if its in a common hall, all the rooms that branch out from the hall. The whole house is connected in some way, think how the air flows to the fan. Now crack open one door at a time. Feel the air coming out of that room. Note which has most of the air coming out. Go back to that room and feel around, the windows, the base moldings, electrical outlets, etc. find out where its coming in and fix them with appropriate caulks, insulative ropes, Weather stripping. Check that room/door again. When you feel a lot less air coming out of that door go to the next room. After you get the rooms done be sure to check the basement. This is very important. Often people will say they dont have a leaky house because they do the check for cold drafts on a cold windy day thing. This isnt really a good test because of the cold air pressure on a house causes a "chimney effect" That is, air coming in from the lower floors, will push out the air of the upper ones. That pressure is substantial so the warm air will always go OUT. You wont feel cold coming IN from those areas but cold air IS coming in from micro and not so micro cracks in the lower levels and pushes a lot of hot air outside! Like pushing an inverted glass down in water, the fact that the glass doesnt let any air out, no water can go IN. You try to seal the top floors leaks that you NOW can find because of the fan to causing a vacuum. Now after this is all done, Go outside again and feel the amount of air coming out of your house again. Do the open and closed window thing again. There should now be a difference. You might still have a lot of air coming out, remember that it still is coming in somewhere. Can you see if you can find any more? Now it would be good if you can do the outer envelope test. To do this see if you can get a theatrical smoker , this gives off a LOT of non toxic "smoke" They are real cheap from Walmarts at Halloween. It also comes with a optional switch that will keep it going w/o having being in the room pushing the button each time its ready for the next cycle. Now you do the same fan thing but have it blowing IN. Start the smoke. You might call the fire dept to let them know you are doing a smoke test in case someone sees smoke leaving your building and calls them. Turn on the fan and go out, maybe with a video cam and note where the smoke is coming out. This is the outer envelope you should try to seal. Once you do this, with good caulk its should be a one time thing. It will pay you year after year. Another way is a "poor mans" infrared test. Its an easy way to point out weak/no areas of insulation. Let temp in unit go down to around 60 degrees. On a very cold day, all you need to do is to boil water on all the stove burners. Add hot tap water as needed. It make take an hour or two. Use a few fans on high to circulate the air in the unit. You will find that the coldest surfaces will have moisture condense on them. In a while you will see windows condense first. Note which condense first,. Use a non flash camera to take pictures as you may not remember exactly where later and it limits the time you have to boil the water. After the windows,. generally parts of the exterior walls will get wet. Once in a while you might see an exterior wall condense. If so you may have a race in the wall open or a connection to a poor top seal in the attic. The pattern is very similar to what you may see on an infrared scan costing (in this area) hundred s of dollars.

The house I bought a couple years ago (and have yet to move into) was painted top to bottom, recarpeted in the bedrooms and completely and heavily staged for sale. The house was first renovated for sale in 2007 and I guess because the market dropped they kept it off the market. But the house was not really lived in for three plus years. In 2007 new cheap replacement windows and a new cheap kitchen and bath went in. When I bought the house in 2011, there were still packing materials in the DW and oven. Prior to the 2011 placement on the market the entire house was painted a dark khaki with a orangy brown undertone, and the trim painted a dark khaki with a slightly pinkish undertone. (?) And carpeted in decent quality dark khaki carpet. Then it was heavily staged with dark transitional microfiber and espresso-stained furniture. I don't know if it wouldn't have been better to paint the entire inside off-white and call it done. It was neutralized, it was furnished inoffensively, but it was all rather depressing anyway. It did cover a lot of previous sins, I guess. The owner was "artistic" and one room had been Yield sign Yellow, with Stop sign Red trim. Another pale green faux finish with french blue trim. Hideous. But the staging, although neutral, didn't really showcase the house. And, when it came time to rent it, the tenants asked that I change the depressing brown color and depressing brown carpet. The carpet stayed, it literally still smelled like new carpet, but I did paint their bedrooms since they supplied the paint. I actually thought the house looked better empty, and cleaner than it had been, once I covered some of the khaki. I know staging is considered important in some regards but I am not sure it affected my decision to buy the house, and the tenants didn't like it either. (although their furniture looks an awful lot like the staging furniture, generic transitional).