High Performance Spec Home in Lakewood Heights

I am delighted to be surrounded by green practitioners that are patient enough to share their advanced building techniques with me and translate complex terminology so that I can pass them to you.

RobRaymond has been exceptionally helpful by allowing me to pick his brain about multiple green philosophies and concerns. Rob has graciously given me copies of his notes and resources to enlighten me with the knowledge he has gathered through the years.  Rob Raymond has spent “20 years working on big buildings — hotels, hospitals, office buildings, and schools”.  He transitioned to residential design ten years ago and started his own company, Raymond, and designed and built a house for his family.  Not too shabby for his first house! Its a 5,000 square foot gorgeous property on White Rock Lake.

In RobRaymond’s own words:

“Many people have horrible experiences with their builder or architect or both. Often the architect just doesn’t explain things clearly. Or the builder doesn’t understand what the client really wants.  Big decisions based on poor communication can lead to big problems.

I want my clients to be satisfied all the way through…from design through completion, and beyond.

I educate them on every part of the project – the design process, the building process, materials, fixtures, mechanical systems – so they can make decisions based on the best information available.

Sustainable doesn’t necessarily mean solar panels and wind-generators added to a preconceived design. The key is to make smart decisions early in the design process by respecting the site characteristics, the solar orientation, the prevailing breezes, and so on. Once the building plans and massing respect these conditions, then you can enhance the basics with appropriate material choices, well-insulated and air-tight wall and roof systems, energy-saving appliances and optimized mechanical systems.”

Rob is so easy to like and takes such a great approach to his business.

Rob Raymond is currently working on his next venture, TERRAPRINT Homes.  Thank you, Rob, for allowing us to publish a story about you and your company!

TERRAPRINT Homes is preparing to build High-Performance Spec Homes In Lakewood Heights.  Im looking forward to also documenting the build of his first speculative home in Lakewood heights in the coming months…  Financing has really put a damper on spec homes so Im thrilled to see this happening.  I suspect, this house will be sold before its completion!

This home will be a 3,250 square foot house in Lakewood Heights, in East Dallas.  The house has a large Living/Dining/Kitchen area and a Study on the first floor, with an attached Garage. On the second floor, there are four bedrooms plus a Playroom/TV/Study space. The Master Bedroom has a large bath and closet suite. The exterior is a mixture of stucco and lapped siding composed to mix traditional materials in a moderately contemporary way. The exterior also features thoughtfully-detailed wood and steel sunscreens. The entry/drive court utilizes crushed granite instead of concrete paving in order to maximize water permeability…and features drought-tolerant plant species in a contemporary setting.

The majority of sustainable, high-performance homes being built in the U.S. today are built on a custom basis for specific clients. TERRAPRINT designs and builds for these clients, but they have also created a series of home designs that incorporate high-performance features and are competitive in the speculative home-building market.

Rob explains “TerraPrint is designing and building homes that use 25%-40% less square footage than the standard builder houses in the area, but contain the same number of rooms and amenities.

We start by following fundamental principles of site design, building orientation, and resource planning.  Then we creatively fine tune the plans to make use of every square inch of space and use good design to make each space feel much larger than it is: simple room shapes, fewer interior partitions, strategically placed windows, proper proportions of width and height.  Thus, while the houses are physically smaller, and thus less expensive…they don’t feel smaller.  A more efficiently designed house can thus save costs from the very beginning.  But the next part of the story is the resultant savings of energy and resources. By far the biggest factor in being “green” is saving energy.  We understand building physics and we design the exterior walls and roof (also known as “the building envelope”) to control solar radiation, temperature, and air infiltration.  By working smarter, not harder, we can create a house which uses significantly less energy without paying a construction cost premium. To make sure customers have confidence in what they are getting, our houses are LEED-certified and EnergyStar compliant. “