Humanity Homes Model, Case Study Example

Designing a house requires appropriate architectural techniques and quantitative comprehension of measurements and the costs of the house. In essence, house design procedure depends on the preference of the owner, the amount of resources available, the landscape of the building location and the type of soil in the site. Designing a house on a piece of paper requires the application of certain relevant architectural and engineering skills to enable the builders perform easier work when doing the construction. Designing humanity home calls for deeper understanding of house designing procedure and skills. In this paper, the report on the design of a three bedroomed humanity home for Murray, Kentucky. The house construction will be under the LEED for Homes program, that is, the construction engineer will must enquire and get certificate from the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) before venturing into the construction process.

The Habitat for Humanity will serve several purposes, the main one being a home for needy families that are in need of quality housing. The goal will be creation of a community by building good relationships with the needy families. The aim of Habitat for Humanity is to strive and ensure creation of a community through the provision of families with housing services at reasonable prices. Habitat for Humanity works in a manner that it partners with families that are unable to provide quality housing at their own expenses. The home to be built will be used as a domestic residence family the family members. Therefore, it will need certain basic things such as good water system, electricity, a living room, a kitchen, three bedrooms, toilets and washrooms and a dining room. The home will consists of many rooms but what will matter most is how the design will work. How the arrangements of various rooms will be done. This will be important in order to save the cost as well as make the house more orderly.

First before doing any model, the LEED program requires that the builder follow a particular procedure. First, the area of the home to be constructed will be a 20m by 40m home. The scale of the model will be 1:100 meaning 1 centimeter on the paper will represent 100 cm on the ground. From the measurements, the home will cover an area of 3200 m², which is approximately 0.48 hectares. The house will have three bedrooms in total. From the Threshold adjustment table, a three bedroomed home will require about 1900 sq. feet. Since the LEED Gold will construct the house, the house will require a minimum of 70 points as revealed in the threshold adjustment curve. After meeting all the procedures for the LEED, a well-written innovative design project is presented to LEED for homes provider and the USBGC. It should explain the merits of the project as well as its relevance to the purpose it is meant to serve. The design, which will be used, is below. Subsequent pages give description and report about it as well as how important it will be based on the role it is supposed to play.

The above site is designed in a manner that it will capture 100% of the rain falling on the property. The pieces of demolished concrete in the form of drive-away from the neighborhood will be diverted from the landfill and will be consequentially laid down as pavers in order to make a permeable drive-away. Permeable drive-away will be necessary in the home to ensure that nothing like waterlogging takes place in the compound whenever it rains. Furthermore, it will create a good ground for movement by the occupants. Based on water efficiency, the landscape will also the application or usage of turf. It will utilize the uncommon low water use native desert planting which will be coupled with the important drip irrigation system. The drip irrigation system will enable the home dwellers to plant some flowers in the compound. Making flowerbeds will require some sorts of drip irrigation. As revealed in the design, it is important to note that a flowerbed will take about 7 cm x 8 cm. water system running throughout the structure is necessary. Therefore piping and will be done early enough during construction. Most piping systems are made underground, that is, pipes are made to pass underground. Therefore, after the foundation, piping will be done early enough to ensure that it does not interfere with the common or normal construction procedure. Since the whole process is carried out under the LEED, energy and atmosphere are crucial aspects that must be taken into considerations. The home’s envelop will be built with iron stud Styrofoam and SIP Panels, high efficiency windows as well as insulated attic space. The installed system will include a simple 17-seer heat pump in the form of a speed split. It will also involve solar hot water heater light bulbs (100% CFL) as well as a 5-kw photovoltaic system. From the plan, the SIP panels will minimize the unnecessary waste order factor. In addition, the diligent recycling will convert an estimated 74% of the total construction waste material and take them away from the landfills. Still in the emission of toxins and wastes, the indoor toxins will be minimized significantly by exposing the concrete floors. Toxic minimization will also take place through the lower VOC sealants as well as the adhesives. Based on the outside appearance, the site or the home is situated within the near vibrant neighborhood that has walk-able transit as well as community resources.

According to the measurable results based on energy savings, the home is estimated to have energy modeling software, which will produce about 2400 more kW than its consumption. However, the actual result or outcome on energy saving will obviously vary with the owner of the home on how he or she will be using energy. Through the common net mattering program, the homeowner will earn up to over 100,000 USD each year from surplus electricity. Based on water saving, the home is predicted to utilize about 42,300 per capital less than the normal desert water agency in terms of capita usage. There will be about 50% reduction attained using the desert landscaping compact plumbing, drip irrigation and the low-flow water plumbing fixtures.

Looking at the interior of the house design, there are three bedrooms; master bedroom, bedroom 2, and bedroom 3. The size of the master bedroom is a maximum of 11 by 11 inches. Bedroom 2 has a proposed maximum size of 11 by 9 inches. It will have the same size of the bathroom. The living room will be 13 by 11 inches whereas the dining will occupy a larger space of about 16 by 14 inches maximum. Other spaces in the interior floor will be consumed by the doors and inside or divider walls. The main entrance will be around 5.5 inches wide. Notably, the interior walls of the house will have the thickness of about 2 by 4 inches. Outside the house, the extension will cover up to a maximum of 5.5 inches. The figure below shows the plan of the floor.

The kitchen is equipped with a cooker and other several devices. From the diagram, the biggest object inside the kitchen is the cooker and the rest are some of the items and tools used for various purposes inside the room. The total area covered by the house will be 864 sq. feet.  Another entrance on the side of the living room is 1.1 feet wide. Considering the elevations that will be used in constructing the house, it is evidenced from the design that the design elevation will take the flat format. Elevation is described as the orthographic projection of the building on a given vertical plane. Usually, the vertical plane is considered parallel to any of the sides of the building. From the Kentucky landscape, it is obvious that the elevation of the building will be North and South. That is, the walls facing the north and the south will appear more compared to those that will be facing the east and the west. The other important feature to take into considerations when describing the design is the cross section part of it. A cross-sectional view of a design refers to its appearance in the form of 3-D. the cross-sectional view reveals how the house will appear at its base in all sides. Cross-sections and elevation shows how the bricks will be arranged in the house in a manner that is obeys or corresponds to the common and standard description by the LEEDs group.  The following figures shows the elevations.

It is also important to note that the LEEDs group aims at providing appropriates housing system for Americans who are in need of house but cannot afford it at cheaper prices. According to the LEEDs maximum points will be awarded based on many factors. First, the design should be such that it significantly reduces the local heat island effects. This can be done by locating trees or planting trees in order to ensure provision of shading for at least 50% of patios, sidewalks, as well as the driveways. This should be within the fifty feet of the home compound. From the described design above, it is evidenced that the house will not cover much of the space set for building. Furthermore, there will be a seedbed where trees will be planted and flowerbed for raising them. With this, planting of trees will be enhanced and this will reduce heat loss by more than 50% from an appropriate estimation. Besides, white concretes will be installed in different regions in order to ensure that excess heat from the atmosphere is reflected back and thus no heat from underground is lost through excessive heating on the land surface. This will work using the principle that white surface reflects heat energy whereas black or dull surface absorbs heat energy. Reduction of overall irrigation demand to conserve water by at least 20% will earn the owner of the house 6%. This will be done by planting plants that are drought tolerant in the compound. Drought tolerant plants will lower the level in which irrigation will be done hence ensure that no water wastage take place. With this, the owner of the house will abide by the instructions of LEEDs and earn maximum points.

One of the materials used in construction is a mortar made of cement, sand and other construction materials. It is used in sticking bricks together and ensuring concreteness of the walls. In other words, it gives the house its shape. Other common construction materials include tractors, timbers, wheelbarrows, mixers, gravel, shovel, plumb material, tiles, iron nails, and several others.

The estimated cost of the house will be about $100,000 from the types and sizes of equipment that will be used in building. Tractors cost roughly 14000USD. Cement, bricks, sand, tiles, timbers will cost of about 39000USD based on their current prices at various shops in the US. It is much easier for LEED group to get the materials at cheaper prices since it has contract with several companies manufacturing building materials. However, the cost still will be high due to the current economy of the US. Taxation of many goods and commodities have hiked the prices of many products. From the above descriptions, it is obvious that the house will cost a lot of money but due to the fact that its construction is under LEEDS guidelines, it will ensure that environmental pollution is significantly reduced. Controlling water loss and heat loss from the ground is crucial in reducing pollution.