Protecting your home against wildfire

The Wildfire Retrofit Guide, published by the Institute for Business & Home Safety, provides a checklist to assess one's home's vulnerability to wildfires, and a retrofit guide with illustrated and clearly-explained tips on fire-resistant retrofitting methods. The guide is free and can be downloaded [here].

Kitchen living, made easier

Reaching up into upper kitchen cabinets has always been a challenge, especially with tall cabinets extending to the ceiling. Stepstools and mechanical arms have been available for a long time, but now new storage accessories make it easier to reach up and store items above arm's reach.

Here is a pull-down shelving unit made by Rev-A-Shelf--a kind of basket with its own set of small shelves. It is installed inside an existing cabinet, and has a mechanism that allows the user to pull the basket outwards and down, almost to countertop level, for easier access:




A similar product is made by the European manufacturer Häfele:

Häfele also makes a heavy-duty version, installable in almost any size cabinet. It can carry up to 44lbs. of storage:

Working with an architect: human drama

Dan Maginn, an architect in Kansas City writes:

Now that I have been practicing architecture for nearly 20 years, I find myself increasingly drawn to the human drama that accompanies an architectural commission. I have come to realize that, for me, the real varsity-level action--especially in residential architecture--resides not in the bricks and mortar, but in the metaphoric sweat lodge of the architect-client relationship. Although each project is different, I have begun to recognize the same universal themes over and over again: Exhilaration. Fear. Envy. Empathy. Betrayal.

Maginn's first-person narrative of a typical architectural project--as seen through an architect's eyes--is riveting and wonderfully truthful, and feels familiar to this Santa Monica architect. It was published last year in Dwell magazine, and can be read [here].

Hazardous Countertops

Granite countertops for kitchens and bathrooms have been popular for a very long time. They are durable, easy to clean, and maintain their spotless appearance for years. For many homeowners renovating their homes in Los Angeles, the gold standard for countertops is granite.

In recent months, however, there have been reports from newspapers, radon inspectors, homeowners and specialists suggesting that some granites might be emitting significant levels of radon and radioactivity; in some instances with radiation measurements several times higher than normal background levels. Here's the Houston Chronicle, writing on July 25th about a Rice University physics professor's findings in the Houston area:

"Most stones, in terms of radioactivity, are relatively quiet," Llope said. "But there are a couple I have found that are insanely hot."

Using a Rice University spectrometer, Llope has examined 55 stones, representing about 25 varieties of granite purchased from Houston-area dealers. Some, he said, could expose homeowners to 100 millirems of radiation — the annual exposure limit set by the Department of Energy for visitors to nuclear labs — in just a few months.

The New York Times published an extensive article on this issue, as have CBS and numerous other media sources. Many experts, however, disagree--suggesting that most granite types only emit minute amounts of radiation and radon; the head of the Marble Institute saying:

Repeated studies have found that granite is safe. Unfortunately, some recent junk science being reported as fact only serves to panic the public, not inform it.

Junk science or not, an exposure to 100 millirems of radiation over several months from a kitchen countertop is not trivial: passengers on a flight from Los Angeles to New York are exposed to 3 millirems of cosmic radiation for example. And although it is possible to reduce the radiation exposure simply by standing away from the material, there is no known safe level of radiation or radon, so any exposure should be considered with care.

Bottom Line: it appears that most granites do not emit significant radon or radioactivity, but some apparently do. It is probably best to have granite tested before it is installed or even purchased. Information on certified technicians can be found on the EPA's web site, and radon testing info is provided on the web site of the California Department of Public Health. Additional information on technicians and do-it-yourself radon testing can be found on the web site of the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists.

Bringing in the light

In Los Angeles a two-story house will often have the staircase buried in the middle of the house. This spot can be the darkest location, because much of the light normally enters through the front and back ends of the house; the center tends to have more service-oriented spaces, such as closets, storage areas and the like, with no windows nearby.

A staircase provides an opportunity to bring light down into the middle of the house. Because the stair penetrates up through the ceiling and to the second floor, it opens up the ground floor to daylight received from windows and skylights upstairs. Careful placement of stairs, windows and skylights can transform the downstairs experience, and save a great deal of lighting energy besides.

[images from our recently-completed project in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, in collaboration with the talented interior designer Matthew Curry. Please click on photos for larger versions]

Buying Plants

In a city full of greenhouses and nurseries, Rolling Greens stands out for both its high quality and equally high prices. Located on a hillside above Culver City, the nursery is built on multiple terraces and levels, offering spectacular views of the city and of its own plants and gardens. The nursery caters to high-end designers, decorators, and clients with cash to spare.

Excellent quality plants, and a wonderful assortment of accessories: pots, topiaries, benches, artificial plants and flowers, as well as do-it-yourself tools and implements. The nursery itself is a joy to visit, providing a calm, soothing and beautiful environment. Bottom line: great quality, variety, with a price to match.

9528 Jefferson Bl.
Culver City, CA 90232
310.559.8656

Toilets

In the days before water conservation, selection of toilets was easy: look in the catalogs or visit a home-improvement store--then select the one that looks best, or costs least. Today the issue has become far more complicated and important. Saving water is a critical concern. Silent operation is often important, and reliability and ease of repair (with widely available replacement parts) are central issues. Appearance, of course, remains crucially important as well (expected different from an architect?). And, in the age of globalization, product choices have increased enormously, with a huge variety of toilet bowl styles, shapes, heights, mechanisms and operation. Selecting and purchasing a toilet has become a challenging endeavor.

Internet to the rescue:

Toiletology 101 has a simple description of a toilet's basic operation, complete with clear diagrams and graphics. An excellent introduction to the topic.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive review of the history and development of toilets, and explains flushing mechanisms in great detail; highly useful because the choice of flushing mechanism often determines both the cost and water efficiency of a toilet. Although the article descends quickly into "toilet-nerdery" in its detailed discussions, there are few better sources of basic information on the topic.

Terry Love, a plumber in the Seattle area, has the most comprehensive review of toilets, including user reviews, efficiency ratings, costs and personal evaluations. The encyclopedia of toilets, the site includes a highly popular bulletin board with many public forums and hundreds of participants and contributors; topics range from toilets and lavatory sinks, to kitchen equipment and lawn sprinklers.

And for those "aftermarket" bidets which replace toilet seats (originally popularized in Japan), the Magic John web site provides extensive descriptions of the devices, available models, installation methods and much more. Note: this is a commercial web site that sells bidets and--oddly--kitchen range hoods. Not quite sure what they have in common. Another good source of bidet info is an article by HGTV: Euro-style Personal Hygiene With the Bidet.

One more link. The California Urban Water Conservation Council has a lengthy, detailed web site discussing High Efficiency Toilets (fixtures that flush at 20 percent below the 1.6-gallons-per-flush U.S. maximum or less); extremely important in increasing water savings.

Here's my current favorite: an ultra-efficient model by the Australian company Caroma. It has an integral hand-wash sink on top; wash your hands and the used water goes in the tank for use in the toilet (not available in the U.S. unfortunately):

Tiles in L.A.

Finding good tile sources in Los Angeles is no easy task: tile stores and showrooms are thicker on the ground than snow in Alaska, and there are no guidebooks to help navigate the tile maze. To help put some order in the arena, here are several tile sources my firm has used in residential projects [click on image to see full-size list]:

[special thanks to Peter Rittner for his comprehensive info]