Better Homes for Lower Cost How You Live Matters

00:00:03:15 - 00:00:36:07
Mike Collignon: All right. Hello again everyone. It's international stress Awareness Week week stressed out there this week maybe anyone. If not well look at you today. We're talking about two wonderful topics community and design. And we'll delve into some of the financial benefits of those two facets of housing 2.0. We're also going to be joined by Ben Miller of Genco Solar, who will be discussing how to integrate solar into your housing designs.

00:00:36:08 - 00:01:05:18
Mike Collignon: Now you know who's not stressed, Sam Raskin, because he's retired and he's the former chief architect of Doe's Building Technologies office, and he's now focused on creating teaching the content for the housing 2.0 program. The content is based largely on Sam's latest book, housing 2.0 A Disruption Survival Guide. The full program was established to help empower you, our building professionals, to design and construct higher performance, healthier, more sustainable homes at a fraction of the cost.

00:01:05:20 - 00:01:34:03
Mike Collignon: Sam's going to lead us through today's seminar. Also, address your questions at the end. Now, before we get started, we have some sponsors that would want to alleviate your stress. The first is Schneider Electric, who is driving the digital transformation of modern homes with smart and sustainable energy solutions for ultimate comfort and energy efficiency. Their connected home ecosystem of smart energy management solutions provides digital control of energy use throughout a home from the grid via their smart electrical panel to their connected wiring devices.

00:01:34:06 - 00:01:59:26
Mike Collignon: Next, we have Genco Solar. They are leading PV module manufacturer and energy storage system integrator. The company has deployed more than 100GW of their Eagle modules in 160 countries globally, including more than 17GW right here in the United States. Eagle storage brings together the best energy storage technology for turnkey hardware and energy storage services. We also have Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions.

00:01:59:26 - 00:02:23:00
Mike Collignon: They are helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and cost effective indoor air quality solutions that provide a safer environment for home buyers. And finally, our newest sponsor is LG. As a leading proponent of the electrification movement, LG is proud to pave the way with arguably the broadest portfolio of home electrification products from air to air and air to water.

00:02:23:00 - 00:02:49:08
Mike Collignon: He pumps for HVAC, water heaters, clothes dryers and washer dryer combos all the way to advanced energy storage systems, EV chargers, and super efficient appliances, including the industry's first Energy Star certified induction Cooktop. LG's innovation and technology will help us promote decarbonization and collectively create a better life for all. Now, during the course of today's presentation, you can submit questions for Sam.

00:02:49:09 - 00:03:06:18
Mike Collignon: Simply use the questions box inside the Go to Webinar Control panel. I'm going to review those and pose those to Sam after the seminar. All right. I think we can all relax for the next hour or so as we listen to the calm, cool, and collected voice of Sam Raskin.

00:03:06:20 - 00:03:31:00
Sam Rashkin: Thank you so much, Mike, and welcome everyone like Mike. So grateful to our sponsors Panasonic, Schneider Electric, Genco Solar, and LG Conditioning Technologies. This program is so unique and it takes very special sponsors to recognize the importance of this work and are so helpful bringing it to you. Today is a special topic that's near and dear to my heart.

00:03:31:00 - 00:03:58:18
Sam Rashkin: How you live matters. How you live in your community and how you live at your home. And so we're combining two topics normally would do in two separate sessions into one, which means today may run a little bit longer, but this is, for me such an important topic. Often I speak to high performance homes professionals and we have to remember people don't buy homes just for how they perform, for how they live.

00:03:58:19 - 00:04:29:25
Sam Rashkin: So we're going to jump in today and have three topics for us talk about optimizing community, then optimizing design. And then share how when you combine all the optimization, in fact, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars, a cost of that you can provide. And in a time when there's an epic affordability crisis in the housing industry, hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost of vantage is just something that you cannot leave on the table.

00:04:29:26 - 00:04:53:17
Sam Rashkin: So let's move forward and jump right into optimizing community and recognize that for decades and decades, we've been building often so many new neighborhoods where essentially we're almost like warehousing people. There are so many aspects to what creates a great community. We all probably know them intrinsically. I want to try to kind of bring them to the surface today.

00:04:53:19 - 00:05:21:08
Sam Rashkin: The basic framework from housing 2.0 about how you make great communities is first, recognize the why place really matters. Place matters matters so much. It's why in real estate the mantras location location, location not house, house, house. And so place matters in terms of how you can connect the environment and the investment you make. Because often the property by is the biggest purchase of a lifetime.

00:05:21:08 - 00:05:43:29
Sam Rashkin: So what and how we do are the goals and strategies for how we get to a great place. First, we optimize opportunities for interaction and we do that with open spaces. Then what we do is we optimize appearance, and we do that with attention for quality features aligned with the budget for the community. And then third, we optimize persistence.

00:05:43:29 - 00:06:11:05
Sam Rashkin: And we do this by ensuring all aspects of the community and how it's developed are also going to ensure enduring value. And a lot of decisions are made from the very planning stage to how it's set up to operate, have impacts on what the value will be moving forward. So let's jump in right away and you'll notice again, as I usually do, I have a community here at the top.

00:06:11:05 - 00:06:34:08
Sam Rashkin: And then we have the tabs, open spaces quality features and during value just to help you kind of stay kind of anchored in how we're moving through this kind of framework. So here's a picture of a typical beautiful old town and its traditional main street. And we often know that we love these spaces. We don't understand why.

00:06:34:09 - 00:07:04:16
Sam Rashkin: Well, the secret sauce or the best practices are you want rear parking or parking in pockets where it doesn't dominate your experience on the street? Then you want limited street parking so that people, for convenience can park there at a adequate amount of parking. And then you want outdoor spaces where again, you like to hang out. Could be for outdoor dining or sitting, whatever it may be.

00:07:04:17 - 00:07:20:09
Sam Rashkin: And the right touches with heart scaping and landscaping are really critical to creating the ambiance for the community.

00:07:20:11 - 00:07:44:11
Sam Rashkin: And then excuse the interruption. And then we have high density, high density housing when it's integrated, also creates the whole field of traditional main streets. So moving forward, this is what we've tended to do for the past decade after decade after decade, is create these strip shopping centers with huge parking lots in front and the stores around the perimeter sit back from the street, and we think this works.

00:07:44:11 - 00:08:04:28
Sam Rashkin: And this is kind of the outcome when we we've kind of used this new design we've been using for decades. And it's just visually, we know it doesn't work. It's not a great user shopping experience, and there's very little interest in dining next to the big parking lot. So these, you know, the spaces in front of the stores have no value.

00:08:05:05 - 00:08:26:01
Sam Rashkin: You want to get in, get out. This is not a great shopping experience. And it's so easy at no extra cost to create a great user shopping experience or can experience. You move the stores when you have a pedestrian friendly street to the street, just like we showed you in traditional main count traditional downtowns. And then you move the parking to the back.

00:08:26:02 - 00:08:52:00
Sam Rashkin: And then a special secret sauce is if you can create a little pedestrian space, then everything's really special. So here's an example where that's been done. This is Murray Schultz in Oregon. And you have really basic tilt up construction. This is tilt up concrete with the imprinted bricks. And you add some awnings and hard scaping. You had places for dining in front of restaurants.

00:08:52:00 - 00:09:17:04
Sam Rashkin: And the whole value of this town center goes up manifold. So it's incredible how it works so much better. And again, showing how it works from the air. You see basically that corn I just showed you you have parking the rear sometimes some parking pockets even that has landscaping. It creates a completely different town center experience than the old strip shopping.

00:09:17:06 - 00:09:40:02
Sam Rashkin: Now when you have a non pedestrian friendly street, these arterial streets with lots of traffic. Obviously it's inconvenient for parking with all that traffic and you don't want to walk and hang out there because of all the noise and the traffic right adjoining. So what we do instead, we move the parking to the corners and we create this little pedestrian friendly space in the middle.

00:09:40:02 - 00:10:08:17
Sam Rashkin: So everything changes by when we have non-production streets moving parking to corner. So this is an example near me. This is showing in Virginia. You have incredibly busy streets here on the south, on the next side of the property of busy highways, just off to the side. No, it's a very tough space and it was amazing how beautiful it is by design there, the parking lots in the corners, most of them are garages.

00:10:08:17 - 00:10:35:06
Sam Rashkin: Some of them are street. And then you create this pedestrian friendly street, buffered from the busy streets and the highways. And it's beautiful. It's just amazing what happens and the value, the experience, the amount of use and the and profitability of the whole shopping center goes up many fold just by design. No extra cost, just thoughtful design. It's a place you want to hang out.

00:10:35:07 - 00:11:05:19
Sam Rashkin: Dining in the streets, everything flips, so you just have to be thoughtful about that. In the same way, open spaces that create parks have immense value. So here, going back to the 1780s, you have a city planned at that time called Savannah, Georgia. Many of you may recognize it. Been there. And you know why it's special. If you look to the right, you see an aerial view with all the parks highlighted in green that were laid out every third or fourth, every six block or so.

00:11:05:19 - 00:11:26:24
Sam Rashkin: There's a park and a big park in the center, and the community is beautiful. Now, what's amazing about open spaces is unlike buildings that over time get worn, parks just go up and value because all the landscaping and the trees grow and become more lush, and the whole value of the space then goes up and up and up.

00:11:26:29 - 00:11:48:25
Sam Rashkin: And so you have these spaces and the housing adjoining these spaces. The whole community goes up in value. One study shared that there was 45% greater value for property sold in the historic district adjoining these parks, in the sample of homes in the in the largest city. Just the journey. So it's almost a 50% increase in value by leading.

00:11:48:27 - 00:12:14:12
Sam Rashkin: So some open spaces the net benefit to tax revenue. The next the net benefit to the homeowners. Everyone winds up better and the city attracts so much more visitors because it has such appeal. This is just a win win win at every level. Another big type of social space I've been advocating for decades, based simply on the data, is spaces for pets.

00:12:14:18 - 00:12:44:27
Sam Rashkin: When you look at the numbers, they haven't changed much over the past decades. Right now, we're about 70% of households have pets, most of them dogs. And so we know people have a really need for space for their pets. So that's obvious. And then when you look at the actual survey data, it's even fully verified. Almost 90% of millennials who bought a home own a pet, and 80% of the pet owning home buyers would pass up and otherwise perfect home.

00:12:44:29 - 00:13:08:29
Sam Rashkin: It didn't meet the needs of the pets. We love our dogs. We love to take them out. And so it's an easy fix. There's always space that's not optimal for building homes that can be set aside for a dog park, a little cranny space adjoining a busy street, a low lying area. There's so many low value or sites that are not worthy of building.

00:13:08:29 - 00:13:35:11
Sam Rashkin: And a dog park is such a great asset and immediately you become a must have or a you don't get filtered by the pet owning buyers out there that just you're creating so much value for another course. Obvious one we've known for a long time benefit is having trees, neighborhoods with trees, and this is one study I found that was able to put some numbers together.

00:13:35:11 - 00:14:00:11
Sam Rashkin: So ranges from six to almost 35% the extra value, you know, just tree covered neighborhoods or neighborhoods or mature trees are 6 to 15% more value. If you're building in lots with a lot of tree cover, it's almost 20% extra value. And if you near preserves or greenbelts again, it's 19 to 35% added value. So anything you can do to preserve trees that are there plant trees.

00:14:00:11 - 00:14:31:06
Sam Rashkin: Early in the process of developing a community. All of that has impacts on value, and not only value has impacts on wellness. This is a study done by Louisville, Kentucky. And they found that there's a 13 to 20% lower level of blood marker for general inflammation in underserved neighborhoods planted with trees, compared to other neighborhoods where there was no greenery.

00:14:31:06 - 00:14:56:13
Sam Rashkin: So you're almost up to 20% improvement in a significant health factor. And but we all know that we hang out in neighborhoods with trees. The blood pressure goes down. We feel better. We breathe better. This is just something we don't even need. The data we know just from experience. And the other thing, again, that's so significant in communities as wellness and connection is a huge part of wellness.

00:14:56:13 - 00:15:32:08
Sam Rashkin: When we're connected, there's again, studies by the World Health Organization that is able to identify all these benefits relative to disease prevention, lower rates of anxiety, stronger immune systems, improve cognitive function. And additionally, another study done says there's a 50% better chance of staying healthy and having increased longevity. And that's included 300,000 participants in that study. So just huge benefits for creating connection.

00:15:32:08 - 00:16:10:21
Sam Rashkin: Not that's forcing people to get together, but providing the opportunities to have the connection they want and to get there again. It's a matter of design. No connection is not hard. The street and the left obviously is shutting every neighbor off from each other versus the one on the right creates all sorts of opportunities for people connect at the level they're comfortable with, and the basic practices, best practices for how we get there are first and foremost the garage, either putting it in the rear, which is the best, or they're going to have it in the front, make it recessive so that again, it doesn't dominate.

00:16:10:22 - 00:16:35:24
Sam Rashkin: Front porches are amazing, and the views of the front street, all those things create connections. So very simple. Best practices. Then another way to make neighborhoods have longer enduring value is to make them appropriate to where they're built. Here's Barstow, California. Remember driving through there when I first got to California to go to a dedication for a solar power plant.

00:16:35:24 - 00:17:01:26
Sam Rashkin: And it was stunning for me on a 110 degree day to drive through this city. And everywhere I look, I see buildings like this. And, you know, a couple things. One is that every window has the blind shot, and you can bet dollars to donuts that they're shut virtually all day. People tend not to want the burden of opening and closing based on the time of day when the sun is coming and not just leave windows closed.

00:17:01:28 - 00:17:31:06
Sam Rashkin: Windows have three functions. They have a view. The function is provide daylight and fresh air when they're opened. And so that's how we put windows in. And now we're basically blocking the reason they exist because we don't consider orientation. And these are the typical kind of neighborhoods you built in these incredibly hot climates and even southeast climates. This is just insanity because it's a flat piece of land, and we could build it any way we want.

00:17:31:08 - 00:17:58:13
Sam Rashkin: And the outcome for designing for comfort is we get glare free views, free heating and cooling, about 25%, far superior comfort, much more natural light, access to cooling breezes, fresh air and resilience. Our homes will be more comfortable longer during a power failure or just in general. We just they swing longer before they need or heating and that costs nothing.

00:17:58:19 - 00:18:47:12
Sam Rashkin: And that represents tens of thousands of dollars of added value. And here's a neighborhood that shows how it's just a matter of being thoughtful in design. This neighborhood is right over here. This is Village Homes, Davis, California. It was developed in the late 70s, and essentially every street runs east west, so every home faces north south 100% homes faces north and south, with the roofs also facing south for solar for those that want it and compare it to the adjoining neighborhoods, where there's virtually no focus on trying to get south facing streets, and this neighborhood has had much higher, increases in property value over time than the neighboring neighborhoods.

00:18:47:12 - 00:19:15:04
Sam Rashkin: And you can see this is a 1970s vintage home. I think these homes are almost timeless, but it's all designed to get sun shaped in the winter, to shade it in the summer, to reach it deeper into the spaces. We'll talk more about how we do that in the design module for the home itself. The outcome note when we apply optimization is we can create so much stronger value communities.

00:19:15:04 - 00:19:36:22
Sam Rashkin: In the parlance of developers, you know, in a location close to an economic center where their jobs and as you move further and further away, you go to be and see locations where you drive to qualify. And we can convert see locations to allocations with good design. I'll show you one example. Out of many I have just because the time constraints combining the topics.

00:19:36:22 - 00:20:14:00
Sam Rashkin: But essentially Surbhi forms for me is like an incredible example at the highest level for what happens when you do all the best practices and the outcome is 75 to 100% increase in lot premiums compared to the adjoining communities. So this is the basic plan for the community, and they only use 30% of the land. Of course, they use the land that was easiest to develop in a site that had a lot of rolling topography and hills, and what they did was, as a result, create all these open spaces, parks and town centers and trails and gardens.

00:20:14:03 - 00:20:41:02
Sam Rashkin: The quality features, the landscaping are amazing and for enduring value. There are so many lots with incredible views loaded with trees, rear garages. So the streets are just incredibly beautiful and neighbors connect and front porches and gray governance that protects everyone's interest. So, you know, this is how again. The park is used to the maximum. Almost every home has beautiful views.

00:20:41:04 - 00:21:08:07
Sam Rashkin: You have small homes and you have big homes. And they all are beautiful. They all are facing the street and creating connection. And then you have these beautiful little town centers. Today you don't need much of a town center, you know, with all the online shopping, a coffee shop, a bakery, a hairstylist, a dry cleaner, you don't need to much to create an incredibly functional town center.

00:21:08:08 - 00:21:32:20
Sam Rashkin: Again, you notice the outdoor dining and just the connection that happens. This is another one of the town centers in Serengeti Farms. And what is the signature feature in Serengeti is the farm itself. It's a huge farm with a farm master, amazing farm to table products for both the local restaurants and the residents in the community. It's just incredible.

00:21:32:20 - 00:21:58:13
Sam Rashkin: And again, the trails are just stunning because the landscape is naturally beautiful. So again, this is one of the most successful communities in the country. It's 40 miles outside of the Lanka, and it's one of the most highly desired places to buy a home just by design. Moving on to another example, I always want to make sure people understand this is not just for high income neighborhoods.

00:21:58:13 - 00:22:33:21
Sam Rashkin: So here's an example of converting affordable housing into sustainable communities. I spent my whole early childhood driving from Long Beach, Long Island, to Brooklyn through Far Rockaway, where all these public housing projects were built, and they had no sense of optimization for how people live. And like a few decades later, they're just torn down. There's no sustainability. There are such horrible living environments, and we have to even the affordable housing level almost be even more dedicated to good design for how people live.

00:22:33:22 - 00:22:59:22
Sam Rashkin: So here's an example of a massive planned community for people who are chronically homeless. And it's stunning what they did. These are the concepts. And it's under development now. And again, I, I hope that most of this was able to be integrated, but it starts with just the core reason they exist are just all about nurturing. People love, family, hope, accountability, growth.

00:22:59:24 - 00:23:34:07
Sam Rashkin: All these things are just the underpinnings for doing it right. But the key part of implementing it is the best practices for good design open spaces, town center, trails, parks, recreation gardens, quality features, landscaping and during value views from porches. Governance. The same things I just showed you for ceremony. And here's a community. These are all drop in small, modular, tiny homes where the residents can live and you can see by the layout all the open spaces.

00:23:34:07 - 00:24:01:09
Sam Rashkin: It's got trails, a town center, just concepts again of how it's configured. These are the small drop in homes. These are examples how they set up for interaction with trails, with landscaping. And people can come in and just really connect and also feel like the part of something bigger. Again, it has the concept of the of the area for, for growing food that has the town center.

00:24:01:09 - 00:24:26:12
Sam Rashkin: It's just stunning how you can apply this, and I'm so confident they're able to execute these concepts in in its final development. This will be a incredibly lowest, lowest end of the economic bracket, a homeless community that will stand the test of time. And one more example of affordability is the city of Vienna.

00:24:26:14 - 00:24:50:00
Sam Rashkin: I love this article about the world's most livable city has a proven 100 year old approach to affordable housing. You know, we're kind of just going back and using things that worked a century ago, and they have open spaces and green spaces and playgrounds, access to services, quality, quality, materials, optimized design. These are the tenants of how they have decided to build affordable housing.

00:24:50:08 - 00:25:20:20
Sam Rashkin: The Venice government chose maintaining well constructed buildings rather than doing, as I experienced firsthand, watching Rockaway, New York, demolishing and rebuilding every 30 to 50 years. It's a stunning difference. And so just great design, good leadership, and we can get there. And one final word. Many of us are aware of this concept of blue zones. There are parts and regions of the world where people not only live past 100, but their health.

00:25:20:20 - 00:25:51:21
Sam Rashkin: Living past 100 is incredible. And so everyone's intrigued by the blue zones and and just how they happen. And analysis has come up with four main concepts moving naturally walking. Gardening. Low intensity physical, physical activity. In other words, open spaces. Positive outlook comes from connections to purpose in each other. Again, social connection, eating wisely. Plant based diets, diets, eating in moderation.

00:25:51:21 - 00:26:17:11
Sam Rashkin: Fresh foods from the source. Again, herds and all those concepts are directly aligned with blue zones and the value of connection overall. Family first and relationships. This is basically in lockstep with everything we're saying about how to build amazing communities that will stand the test of time and also make people so much healthier. The wellness benefits are huge.

00:26:17:12 - 00:26:47:03
Sam Rashkin: Doing this okay if we build and set up communities for really living better now, it's the responsibility of the home design process to kind of close the deal with really optimized design homes. So how do we do that? And again, we have the framework. Why the core purpose what the goals and how the strategies. And so why again for home design is how you live matters outside the home inside the home.

00:26:47:03 - 00:27:08:07
Sam Rashkin: And details are incredibly important. So what we do is first we optimize location, and there's a whole array of fit to site best practices for how we can do that. Then we optimize nature. We do that with natural comfort, which we'll talk about, and then we optimize space. We do that with right sizing and then we optimize form.

00:27:08:13 - 00:27:39:00
Sam Rashkin: We have to start recognizing simple is our friend in housing. And finally we optimize function by integrating systems with huge cost savings by doing so and better functionality. So the this is the basic kind of framework. And we'll go through as many of these as I can in the time I have today. But the first and most important thing I do whenever I see a piece of land and I'm interested in developing it, is I'm going to take and do two things.

00:27:39:00 - 00:28:03:11
Sam Rashkin: One is optimize the site so the most number of homes have access to the natural views that are available. And the second thing which comes up, we don't have time for today's optimized topography. You have to respect the contours of the land and design the community for the topography as well. Now a big question comes up is what do you do for the home sites that don't have natural views?

00:28:03:11 - 00:28:32:06
Sam Rashkin: And this is where I'm uniquely kind of almost pleading with the industry to integrate design views. We too often want to give people just a house and say, go at it. I hope you can figure out what to do with the rest of the property just bought. I think we need to be more proactive, ensuring that properties will be landscaped and developed so they have great design views for the occupants looking out on the property.

00:28:32:08 - 00:28:52:17
Sam Rashkin: So this is an obvious one I don't need to talk about if you have a great view, water, vistas, green spaces, cityscapes and you're building a house, you have to do everything to maximize that view. That's that's a no brainer, but there's no natural view. Now we have all these windows looking out. What are we going to do.

00:28:52:21 - 00:29:20:10
Sam Rashkin: And so the options number are two one. We could offer a landscape upgrade to make sure we have a great view or two to help increase the probability of a great view is provide expert landscape plans. Knowing that most people tend to just throw stuff together themselves where things usually don't go very well. There's some people are great at it, but by and by, the vast majority of homeowners are not expert landscapers.

00:29:20:10 - 00:29:46:27
Sam Rashkin: And the difference between expert landscaping and just DIY is is vast. So we here's an opportunity to make sure your homes have so much more value and speak better to your company and what you build and develop. If you just follow through with a property outside view as well. So again, you can offer say if you buy your house, you'll give you this landscape solution.

00:29:46:27 - 00:30:26:02
Sam Rashkin: Or in in very arid climates have experts develop zero scaping solutions that are beautiful. It's a it's a very special skill and it's a transformative difference when you integrate expert versus non. And if you and and if you can't afford to offer those landscaping and most builders don't want the burden and the and all the extra business responsibility, then have landscape architectures configure a whole array of solutions for properties people can choose from that are expertly laid out.

00:30:26:04 - 00:31:00:25
Sam Rashkin: Now the the the the knowledge you need about turf type and amount. Shrub type and spacing. Groundcover type appropriate to the region, tree type appropriate to the region and droppings and other annoying factors and spacing, hard scaping, outdoor living and how to how to maximize it given the plans and let them. Now they have a resource to over time, as they have more and more funds to execute a optimized outdoor living experience with optimized use.

00:31:01:00 - 00:31:30:11
Sam Rashkin: Here's an example where we have challenges with the basic home configuration because of how it's how it works out. Townhomes usually have a long, narrow configuration with the backyard, so I draw it up. Here's your long, narrow townhome and here's your postage stamp backyard. So a number of things are challenging with townhomes. One is you have to get circulation from back to front, which is quite often more hallway.

00:31:30:17 - 00:31:51:24
Sam Rashkin: You have very limited access to the backyard in terms of you because of the narrow footprint on the back side. So you have limited outdoor linkage, you have limited access and you have limited daylight and you have limited privacy as one unit looks into the other at the second floor. So it's a very challenge building type to create a really good back view.

00:31:52:00 - 00:32:18:23
Sam Rashkin: And this is a typical outcome. There's one photo I took about 1010 house project near me, but you can see there's hardly any view. There's hardly any linkage. There's hardly any access. The daylight to the interior space is very limited, and particularly if these are not faced in the optimum orientation and it's very low privacy from one unit to the next, as you can look in from one units second floor to the next units backyard.

00:32:18:23 - 00:32:46:05
Sam Rashkin: So that just places just to leave things and hardly ever use. It's almost wasted space. Now you could offer some landscaping choices that are optimized, and that will create a view for whatever portion of that marrow footprint that adjoins the backyard. But you still left with minimal linkage to the outdoors space, minimal access, minimal daylight, minimal privacy. So what can we do with the ten house by design to transform it?

00:32:46:05 - 00:33:11:11
Sam Rashkin: And so I'm going to suggest the L-shape. A townhouse is a unique ability to do that. You get rid of the backyard space for those postage stamp backyards that have so little value and repurpose it. So when I went from 6 to 4 townhouse units by going to an L-shaped, I now have this landscapes I think can get you two additional units by good design.

00:33:11:11 - 00:33:23:08
Sam Rashkin: And what's so great about an L-shaped is you have optimized view. Now you have, you have.

00:33:23:10 - 00:33:49:15
Sam Rashkin: Because, well, first of all, you have the privacy because this wall doesn't have windows looking into your courtyard, then you have the optimum view because you have an active side that's adjoining a tremendous proportion of the footprint of the home instead of just the back. And then you have the secret sauce of its center entry. So you have a full front room and a full front porch.

00:33:49:17 - 00:34:13:21
Sam Rashkin: So this is a completely different living experience with an L-shaped versus a straight, narrow townhome. And again, you can get the full number of units in the same piece of property by using the backyard space properly to gain the units that you lost by going to and L-shape. And I found a project to actually executed this. This is all the waters in Pike Road, Alabama.

00:34:13:21 - 00:34:34:07
Sam Rashkin: And you can see the shape is just as we showed you. You have you come in and you go in the middle. You have a front room, a front porch, all these spaces adjoining it. This is what it looks like. And how lays out unit to unit. And recently there was a home for sale. I was able to find on Zillow.

00:34:34:07 - 00:34:58:28
Sam Rashkin: And on the left you see the picture where I was really disappointed that they didn't use expert landscaping for the courtyard, and I don't think they did a great job on the home design. So the linkage to the courtyard space was maximized or optimized. In contrast, compared to this other townhome in Philadelphia during a courtyard. And just see the transformative difference in expert landscape design makes.

00:34:58:28 - 00:35:23:10
Sam Rashkin: So again, it's always my encouragement to invest in experts and the features that are transformative and extract the savings from the other best practices we keep covering. So moving on to natural comfort. The best example goes back over a thousand years that cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colorado, and what the Indian tribes at that time would do is stunning.

00:35:23:10 - 00:35:47:25
Sam Rashkin: They would look around for in that region to find caves that were oriented to the south with the cliff, and they knew that the sun would come in in the winter and hit up their their homes. The Adobe would store the heat, so it would come at night when the nights are getting cold in the winter and in the summer, the cliffs would shade the sun from coming in.

00:35:47:26 - 00:36:16:04
Sam Rashkin: The cold night air would be stored in the thermal mass of the Adobe construction and provide cooling temperatures day and night. And so year round, without any fossil fuels, any electricity, any brute force power, you had year round comfort with virtually no energy outside energy required. That was stunning. Use of leveraging the free resources of the sun and the wind to provide comfort.

00:36:16:04 - 00:36:37:22
Sam Rashkin: And that's what natural comfort is now. Most people know it by another name passive solar. The word passive is kind of pejorative. It's lazy, it's not active. And so this is an amazing. And then we look fast forward a thousand years and we look at City Center in Las Vegas and you go, you would die in these buildings that we built.

00:36:37:25 - 00:37:12:18
Sam Rashkin: If the power ever shut off the full glass in brutal 100 degree temperature for 12 hours a day, and you just would die if you didn't get out of these buildings somehow we've forgotten how to leverage the sun and the wind. And so the best practices for natural comfort are basically orientation shading, thermal mass, prevailing breeze orientation, prevailing breeze capture, and a cool roof, and then mixed and match and combined to deliver each of the.

00:37:12:20 - 00:37:48:00
Sam Rashkin: Desired outcomes natural heating, natural cooling, natural pressure and lighting. So orientation storage gives you heating, all six gives you cooling. The orientation to prevailing breezes and capture gives you fresh air and natural lighting. Some orientation shading that's the way it works is pretty much again, leveraging nature. We know the sun comes up in the northeast and sets in the northwest, and it's going to be much higher in the sky in the summer.

00:37:48:00 - 00:38:16:16
Sam Rashkin: So we know in the winter it comes up in the south east. It sets in the southwest, much smaller or much shorter day, and it's much lower in the sky. So south orientation optimizes access and control, East and west minimizes access and control. And the north is basically diffuse light. So good natural comfort optimizes south orientation to get the most access and most control.

00:38:16:18 - 00:38:39:02
Sam Rashkin: And so we can do this. This is again I showed you an example with village Homes. Basically this is the concept we just create East West Street. So all the homes or as many homes as possible face north south. Always respectful of topography. You know the topography doesn't allow it. That trumps. Remember the two top priorities are views and topography.

00:38:39:03 - 00:39:06:10
Sam Rashkin: Comfort comes next. And when we have landed allows us to go east west streets. Do it and you have cans of thousands of dollars of a superior user experience, zero extra cost and the utility savings over a 30 year mortgage just from the free heating and cooling will be tens of thousands of dollars. And the the design solutions are readily available to use cost no more.

00:39:06:16 - 00:39:28:14
Sam Rashkin: They're easy. If the house is facing south on the front side of the home, you can use like the scissor design is one option to get sunlight deep into the space. Again, the overhangs block the unwanted high summer sun, but let in the low winter sun. Thermal mass stores it all the same things that we saw in the cliff dwellings.

00:39:28:15 - 00:39:54:06
Sam Rashkin: And it's just it works over and over. If the backyard is facing south, I might want to raise the height of the room there. So we get some deeper into the living space and we have, again, overhangs blocking the high summer sun. Living in the low winter sun, we have at a height of a high wall to make sure the lower windows are also protected, as you can see on the right, and we have thermal mass.

00:39:54:06 - 00:40:22:16
Sam Rashkin: It's the same basic toolkit being used over and over, and in absence of doing this again, the home or the blinds are drawn. The sun's too brutal to leave the windows open and we lose the three core purposes of windows daylight views and fresh air. So here's a friend of mine who has a house in Connecticut, works in a national lab, and you can see in the winter all living spaces on the second floor.

00:40:22:16 - 00:40:44:08
Sam Rashkin: And it just all this free heating and daylight comes through all winter. In the summer, when you get plenty of diffused light, you have the shading to block the unwanted solar heat. And it's just so simple and it works. We know the path of the sun. Here's a house I design in Chico, California in 1982. Again, you see all the windows are shaded.

00:40:44:09 - 00:41:22:20
Sam Rashkin: These are not skylights on the roof. Those are patched solar heaters doing an amazing job providing free hot water with no pumps or controls. And you know, just solar systems just are there for the taking. Solo resource. Remember how much civil mass is important to this concept because it's like a thermal battery that makes sure even in the winter, when collecting a lot of solar heat, you don't get too much heat and it stores a heat, so be released at night, normally about five square feet of thermal mass per square foot of south facing aperture is a good rule of thumb, and it's easy to get.

00:41:22:21 - 00:41:50:03
Sam Rashkin: You have floors, you can do masonry, fireplaces, it counters, you can even do masonry veneers and walls. A lot of ways we can get thermal mass and it transforms the space so the outcome is free, glare free views compared to no views. If I don't worry about orientation and I have to block the windows all day long, I get 25% for heating and cooling.

00:41:50:03 - 00:42:21:01
Sam Rashkin: This is a study done in California just looking at orientation even without shading. And in coastal climates that are light blue, you get almost. We get 47% free cooling versus 25% inland. And again free heating as well. The thermal mass with high temperatures on a cold day are like a cozy blanket around you. The surface temperatures a 40% greater impact on comfort than the ambient air temperature, and then the wellness benefits of natural light.

00:42:21:02 - 00:42:47:28
Sam Rashkin: The vitamin D boost as boosted off in the sun come in the wards off seasonal depression and for sleep and productivity, and then natural light again is shut down when you don't do orientation like on the left. And it's just abundant when you do it on the right, and then you get the views as well that are missing when you down 98% of home builders, almost 100%.

00:42:48:02 - 00:43:26:27
Sam Rashkin: Designers and architects scored natural light, the top home feature in 2022. It's just insane. Free gift waiting to be taken. So there it is, tens of thousands of dollars of user experience as we talk about at no extra cost. And builders often say, don't do it because I don't know what lots I'm getting. My answer is, well, you know, by probability, 25% of your lots have lots where the rear facing south and 25% have lots where the front facing south have designs ready for those 57 lots that will have the right orientation ready to go.

00:43:26:29 - 00:43:37:07
Sam Rashkin: Okay, I'm going to stop here. And Mike, do we have been ready to go.

00:43:37:09 - 00:43:42:19
Mike Collignon: We I believe we do. Ben, you on there?

00:43:42:22 - 00:43:47:15
Mike Collignon: Oh no. We lost Ben coming back in right now. Good job.

00:43:47:18 - 00:43:49:11
Mike Collignon: Good job.

00:43:49:13 - 00:43:57:10
Mike Collignon: I I'm going to make myself the presenter so that.

00:43:57:13 - 00:44:00:25
Mike Collignon: I can.

00:44:00:27 - 00:44:05:27
Mike Collignon: Move some slides for Ben. Ben, can you hear us?

00:44:05:29 - 00:44:07:23
Ben Millar: I can.

00:44:07:26 - 00:44:12:20
Mike Collignon: All right, I've got your slide up on the screen and right on cue, you are.

00:44:12:20 - 00:44:14:27
Mike Collignon: With us.

00:44:14:29 - 00:44:59:27
Ben Millar: Well, we're good, very good. Well, thanks for having me. My name is Ben Miller. I'm the head of business development for Genco Solar, which is the world's largest solar manufacturer. And we also manufacture battery storage as well. I wanted to chat with you today. For the people that are thinking about integrating solar into their homes, about the top three kind of mistakes and or good things to do when you're when you're integrating solar into your into your homes and into your design, you just go ahead and go to the next slide there.

00:44:59:29 - 00:45:27:28
Ben Millar: So there's there's three things that I kind of outline from working with builders for products 7 or 8 years, and also working inside of a builder for a builder for a few other years as well. When people start thinking about integrating solar, one of the top thing I think builders don't do well is they don't claim enough credit for what they're doing.

00:45:28:00 - 00:46:11:26
Ben Millar: It seems silly, but oftentimes what they do is say, hey, this is a home. When they're talking to a homeowner, this is a home, and it also has some solar on it. And the solar is great. You should get this home. Or they say, hey, we have solar. And by the way, you can add solar to it. But the fact of the matter is, is that there is some intrinsic value in owning a home that is a solar home, and you should claim credit and market the home as such, meaning the value derived from the energy savings somebody may receive should be attributed to the fact that you guys built a solar home.

00:46:11:28 - 00:46:41:11
Ben Millar: As a builder, that's incredibly important to do. Do. And when you sell your home like that, you've got to make sure that you're marketing your sales team. Your realtors and your appraisers are all in line with that to make sure, again, that your home is receiving the full value of the value that you're actually providing. And that has been some trouble for builders to do as they think of solar as an add on.

00:46:41:11 - 00:47:06:00
Ben Millar: But if they think it again as a system or a feature of the home, it works out a lot better that way. When you're training your salespeople, we don't want them to be solar salespeople. We want them to still be home salespeople. And again, they're just at this point selling a feature of the home and what the home can do for a hallmark.

00:47:06:02 - 00:47:43:02
Ben Millar: Second, what happens is oftentimes because builders think of solar as a bolt on that we put on at the end, but they don't start thinking about solar in the early design process. And so what should happen is you should engage a solar professional early, and then you should provide that that professional with your kind of engineered trust drawings and help them understand the roofs that you're building so they can create master plans and designs that match the design of the neighborhood, and or designs that will look good for your homes.

00:47:43:07 - 00:48:07:14
Ben Millar: It'll also help them figure out where there may be design decisions or equipment decisions to make. For example, if you've got a wood slate roof, that attachment point is very much different than if you have a single roof asphalt shingle, and so you want to bring them in early in the process so they can work through those things.

00:48:07:14 - 00:48:35:27
Ben Millar: Similarly, if you've got flat trusses on a part of your roof, meaning that you've got a two by four turned on its side, that attachment point may be different as well. And again, that should be thought of all up front. And it's something that's very easy to do. The third part that you want to do, or one of the things that you want to make sure you're doing is early communication in the field, particularly around the trades that need to kind of work together.

00:48:36:02 - 00:49:14:00
Ben Millar: It's incredibly simple for them to do. It's, you know, it's really a conversation between a few trades to make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. You can have one meeting and review where modules will go on each home, review where plumbing penetrations might need to come out of the roof. The roofer may want to talk to the solar contractor about flashing, but essentially all of that discussion can be essentially one line on each of these trade scopes to make sure that they work well together.

00:49:14:02 - 00:49:33:06
Ben Millar: And again, it's very simple. It's just making sure that you do it with that. I'll then kind of move on real quick. We're going to talk about some innovation. I think this is where solar is going for many, many home builders.

00:49:33:09 - 00:50:06:13
Ben Millar: So there's a couple of things that I think are really important here for builders. One of them is that we're reaching a stage where storage, battery storage has become much more affordable, and particularly in places where resiliency is important. Then we want to make sure that storage is available as either an option or maybe even standard. That's particularly in communities that have resiliency issues.

00:50:06:15 - 00:50:38:16
Ben Millar: So if you're building in a hurricane prone area, you may want to push storage up to the front of the option list. Or again, as a store as a as a standard, simply because many homeowners moving into hurricane prone areas, particularly if they're out of state, they are concerned with how their home will perform through a storm and after the storm, and giving them the ability to have storage where they don't have to go and run and get gas because they have solar and storage.

00:50:38:19 - 00:51:04:16
Ben Millar: Gives them a level of comfort that they'll be able to make it through the storm. Fine. And we know that many homes are built to hurricane standards, and the ones that do typically have done very well through through hurricanes. The second piece, there would be community level storage again, resiliency at the community centers or even for the whole community, I think is very important.

00:51:04:18 - 00:51:32:20
Ben Millar: It gives a feel, a good feel to homeowners when they feel confident about their community. And it also could be a revenue generation possibility, particularly to combine and speak to your utility. That could be revenue generation possibility for the homebuilder or community developer. And we can you can possibly add some of the costs of community level storage to the whole or CBD.

00:51:32:24 - 00:51:56:15
Ben Millar: And the last thing I add there in terms of innovation is that I do see builders who build with solar leases where they don't have to pay anything up front. I see now, though, that builders are starting to look to simply implement solar and put it inside of the mortgage. As the market has become more and more used to having or valuing solar.

00:51:56:15 - 00:51:59:18
Ben Millar: And then second.

00:51:59:20 - 00:52:05:25
Ben Millar: The cost of implementing solar are much less.

00:52:05:27 - 00:52:29:26
Ben Millar: With that. That is. That's all I have to say there. Again, I've worked in the industry for many, many years and with many, many builders. Solar is actually a pretty easy thing to implement for a builder, and it will provide the most amount of benefit compared to other forms of solar when built into the home in the beginning.

00:52:29:29 - 00:52:33:02
Ben Millar: Any questions from that?

00:52:33:05 - 00:53:06:01
Mike Collignon: Thanks, Ben. I'm going to I'm going to put the slides back to your name and your email address up there, in case anybody does have any specific questions that they don't want to ask in front of the group, I had one question for you. Have you seen examples of neighborhoods where instead of encouraging homeowners in the neighborhood to put solar on their own roofs, to instead say, hey, we're going to put up a kind of a community array that will benefit the entire neighborhood?

00:53:06:04 - 00:53:30:21
Ben Millar: Yes, I have. So one of those communities is called Babcock Ranch that is in Florida, and that has community solar storage. And during Hurricane Ian and multiple hurricanes, they've never lost power as a community. And so they've gone through multiple major hurricanes and not lost power.

00:53:30:23 - 00:53:59:21
Mike Collignon: Okay. One of the things that Sam talks about in housing 2.0 is how, you know, it can be problematic to have solar on your roof because of the punctures in the, in the in the roof itself. He has a great slide that he talks about, putting it on like a roof of a porch instead. But I also knew that obviously community solar is something that can benefit many people and just eliminates that potential water issue.

00:53:59:24 - 00:54:14:01
Mike Collignon: And so I'm glad that there's some kind of example that people can look to. And Babcock Ranch is obviously a very famous and notable development, so I appreciate that.

00:54:14:04 - 00:54:19:03
Mike Collignon: Sam, did you have any questions for Ben before we let him go?

00:54:19:05 - 00:54:44:14
Ben Millar: I was going to speak to that for just a second. It's important to note that a long time ago and not that actually long ago, but a while ago, people who were in the solar industry who are just now starting the solar industry read. Get up onto a roof, try to find a truss, throw some ceiling on to something and add an attachment point.

00:54:44:16 - 00:55:19:08
Ben Millar: And there wasn't a full industry around kind of flashing and attachment points and different types of flashes for different roofs that is progressed significantly. And so I have a I had a solar company for two years. We installed quite a few solar systems, and we have not had a leak from one of those attachment points. So with that being said, you're also when you're billing as a builder, you can have the roofer retake a look at that flashing point.

00:55:19:08 - 00:55:34:12
Ben Millar: But it has not become a major issue for most home home buyers when implemented into the home. And it's not really a major issue even on the retail side when dealing with a professional installer.

00:55:34:15 - 00:55:35:07
Mike Collignon: Gotcha.

00:55:35:09 - 00:56:00:14
Sam Rashkin: Yeah, I agree Ben. I think a lot of the issues on were there was less, there's less rigor about in existing homes putting these systems on as carefully as, as it can be done in new construction. And as you're saying, even now in existing homes, I think the industry industry is really figuring out how to do the mounting details.

00:56:00:14 - 00:56:24:20
Sam Rashkin: But I still like the opportunity when it presents itself. It may not be a high percentage of times, but if you can integrate it into a front porch, you still have the opportunity to not the collectors directly and framing and eliminate the cost of the roofing, the underlayment, the sheathing, the mounting rack. There's real significant cost savings where you can.

00:56:24:23 - 00:56:50:03
Sam Rashkin: I shouldn't say it should dominate your design priorities, but if a situation is there, you should recognize that solar can be also serve as your roof and then also provide some diffuse light to these spaces below. So just something to think about. They're out there. But I'd like to maybe to help. Just one question before we have to get back to the finish.

00:56:50:03 - 00:57:11:00
Sam Rashkin: The seminar today is some people would be worried that I don't face exactly due south or I'm slightly amiss from West. So maybe you can speak to how much your system size is impacted by being 1520 degrees off of South either direction?

00:57:11:02 - 00:57:39:03
Ben Millar: Yeah, that's that's really important point, right? There was a time where the solar modules were inefficient enough that, you know, you really had to make sure you're facing due south in order to get enough power today. What I would say is that the, the, the modules and the inverters are so powerful and efficient that if you are facing West, that's good.

00:57:39:04 - 00:58:12:11
Ben Millar: If you're facing east, that's good. And it's amazing if you're facing south. But the the type of power loss that you might see in the southern region might be 12% difference between facing south and facing west. Typically with new homes, there's still enough roof space that you're still able to provide enough power for the home. But I would instead of trying to max that out and say, hey, we always have to hit this 100%.

00:58:12:15 - 00:58:38:08
Ben Millar: You also want to make sure that your design looks good. And if you get somebody 90% savings on on 90% of their energy, that's good too, right? And so, I think you do as much as you can with the, with the space that you have without being too worried about adding more in order to get to 100%.

00:58:38:08 - 00:58:50:24
Ben Millar: But very much there is a difference. Then it's typically about 12%. It could be more if you're further north and you've got a very steep roof.

00:58:50:27 - 00:59:05:18
Sam Rashkin: In our safe travels, so glad you can make the time to join us today. And and people have your contact information. Really appreciate, you know, you being part of the program.

00:59:05:20 - 00:59:07:13
Ben Millar: Yeah. Thanks, guys.

00:59:07:15 - 00:59:14:08
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Thank you much Ben. Really do appreciate it. And safe travels, sir.

00:59:14:10 - 00:59:16:00
Ben Millar: Thanks, guys.

00:59:16:02 - 00:59:18:26
Mike Collignon: All right, Sam, back over to you.

00:59:18:28 - 00:59:46:04
Sam Rashkin: Hey, thanks so much, Mike. And so, moving forward, we talked about a little bit about fit the site natural comfort. Now's where there's a huge potential for saving substantial cost to agree that you're not already right sizing. So to some extent, a lot of people have been pressured to get their homes tighter and tighter. But there's always the opportunity to just optimize and get more and more out of the space.

00:59:46:04 - 01:00:11:12
Sam Rashkin: So there are two strategies here for how we do that. One is to take the space we have so it works better and the other and optimize it. And the other is to use details that create a perception that a space lives bigger. So what we do to get more out of a space is geometry really optimizing the floor plan, eliminating or combining rooms, minimal but generous circulation.

01:00:11:20 - 01:00:53:03
Sam Rashkin: I don't know any homeowner that wants more hallway. So when you're paying three, 4 or 5, seven, $800 a square foot and I'm shifting hallway space to storage or space for a bedroom or living space, that's a that's like thousands and thousands of dollars of savings right there, or added value and then indoor outdoor linkages or really optimized space and built in furniture via what I want to mention when we at the a little bit later on and then the details like changing ceiling heights and trim, hardware finishes, color and lighting have a huge impact on the perception of space.

01:00:53:03 - 01:01:23:02
Sam Rashkin: So let's just talk about the concept of rightsizing. And one industry has just crushed it the automobile industry. When you look at it, the products they built decades ago, half a century ago, and today, it's amazing what right sizing has done for them. So you can see side by side here. The 1970 versus 2027 power. The new Impala may be over two three feet shorter, and yet it has the same usable space no leg room, trunk room headroom.

01:01:23:02 - 01:01:54:20
Sam Rashkin: With all these additional user experiences, lower gas bills, longer life car, amazing improvement in comfort, handling amenities from stupid things like cup holders to all sorts of features for cameras so you can see where you're backing up. Smart convenience and quieter ride, smoother ride, safer ride. This is just in every way of vastly transformative user experience in the car.

01:01:54:21 - 01:02:18:00
Sam Rashkin: Smaller, less materials, less weight. It's less products going to make in the car. So it's just stunning what they did in that industry. And I'm suggesting we need to kind of look at those same strategies and housing. And just let me give you an example just how geometry alone makes a big difference. So I have a two examples.

01:02:18:00 - 01:02:48:06
Sam Rashkin: Just footprint of a 1500 square foot house and a with a long narrow configuration, 60 by 25 and a square configuration almost square, 37.5 by 40ft. Both are 1500 square feet, but the long, narrow configuration has 170 linear feet of wall and foundation versus 155 for square. So I'm paying for 15 more feet of wall foundation. If it's two stories, it's two stories of walls and foundation.

01:02:48:06 - 01:03:20:09
Sam Rashkin: And I'm getting no more square footage. And so just that is almost a $2,000 cost saving with some old cost numbers. So if I use a little more current numbers, I'm pretty sure it's getting closer to 2000 just by geometry. And I have twice the view to the backyard, and I have 10% energy savings. Now in longer presentations I do about community, I show how you can configure communities with square versus rectangular lots and get the same density.

01:03:20:11 - 01:03:45:17
Sam Rashkin: Just it's a matter of whether you know the depth of the lot and how you do things to do that. But essentially, geometry alone is a big way to save money and then open layouts and eliminating or combining rooms, going from a dining area from a separate eating area off the kitchen and separate dining room. So it just makes a house feel bigger.

01:03:45:17 - 01:04:13:10
Sam Rashkin: As you can see from this image, it's just open layouts field bigger. Now during Covid, there's a lot of forecasting that we're going back to compartmentalize designs. I've never agree that that was going to happen at the time when I'm inside. The home was a value during the epidemic that's gone away. I don't believe I'll compartmentalize Lance or any hard trend for the future.

01:04:13:16 - 01:04:40:04
Sam Rashkin: And so that's just a huge way to save space. The other is also when you have a space adjoining a view, you again, not have the ability to have large openings to it because it's it's an attractive feature and it makes it just the space feel bigger. 87% almost 90% of homeowners surveyed want to invest more in outdoor living.

01:04:40:04 - 01:05:05:11
Sam Rashkin: And then so having the connections to that outdoor space just makes the space feel bigger. And you can see in this smaller room over here have having the opening to the outdoor space is great. And then having the outdoor space creates extra living space that's a tiny fraction of the cost of building a typical indoor space. And yet it's value and it's enjoyment can be as much or greater.

01:05:05:14 - 01:05:47:07
Sam Rashkin: One of the favorite spaces I have in my home, adjoining the woods in Northern Virginia, is just a simple screened porch, and I think that's where we hang out most of the time in the swing seasons. The next thing about rightsizing to understand is that built ins are this amazing opportunity to get rid of clutter. We just don't think about storage and optimizing storage, because when we build homes and build models and stage and they look great, but once homeowners get in and they have all their furnishings and toys and equipment and everything else they put in a home, unfortunately you have to think about all the needs for that.

01:05:47:07 - 01:06:20:24
Sam Rashkin: And the stresses increase. Cortisol levels that can become chronic, reduces productivity by minimizing focus. Again, clutter is a huge experience killer inside homes. So I'm a big advocate for built in furniture. The business case to me is pretty significant. One is new buyers don't want to own stuff, so they don't want to have all this furniture like a ball and chain that they have to carry around with them, their sharing economy, the minimalists, they want less stuff.

01:06:20:24 - 01:06:43:29
Sam Rashkin: So put in the built in furniture and it they don't have to have this again extra furnishings that they have to move around with them. Then this is the insanity of moving. I watched my kids move a few times, and the cost of moving far exceeded the value of furniture they were moving. It's what I call the insanity of moving.

01:06:43:29 - 01:07:06:27
Sam Rashkin: And the home will live bigger, I believe. More often than not 30% or more equivalent sense of space. Once you use built ins effectively and then by third year financing the furnishings, by having them built in, you remove the financial stress of buying it and you reduce the cost of owning it, of just having to save up money for it.

01:07:07:00 - 01:07:35:13
Sam Rashkin: Lots of options for built ins, window seats and detainment centers, shelving decks, dressers, closet storage hutches, drop zones or we come in the house a space to put all your your your wallets, your your, your mail, all the things that you have when you come in your home. Hutches and dining rooms, mudroom, storage, garage storage. This is like a sure thing.

01:07:35:16 - 01:08:11:24
Sam Rashkin: All these things will be immensely loved by your home buyers. Now here's the basic concept of built ins making a space bigger. If I have an isolated hutch in a dining room, I got dead space from where it ends to the wall on either side. I have this airspace behind the hutch because it can't get to the wall because of the molding and trim at the bottom, and and I often lose the floor to ceiling space above whatever furnishings against the wall.

01:08:11:24 - 01:08:38:19
Sam Rashkin: So look at this hutch in this dining room. And you see, I use all the space I've got like triple the storage. I got floor to ceiling shelving, the just the ability to get rid of clutter, the ability to use space that has no other purpose. And then I also notice the window seat has a place, maybe for big tablecloths or blankets for the great room next door.

01:08:38:21 - 01:09:01:17
Sam Rashkin: All these things that you don't realize people have to have have a place when you have built ins. So it's a huge way to make a space of 30% bigger. And here's an example. In the bedroom with just a freestanding bed and a free standing desk, versus on the left versus the built ins on the right. And it's again, it's like five x more storage, more useful space.

01:09:01:17 - 01:09:23:25
Sam Rashkin: It lives bigger. Same thing with office space. And just buy a freestanding desk or have it a built in office. And again it's five x more storage functionality. The room lives bigger. Built ins are just this huge resource waiting to be tapped to make homes look better. So we know everyone wants better closet storage, so we could do on the left.

01:09:23:25 - 01:09:50:27
Sam Rashkin: It's just just put the single hanger across across the closet and the shelf above it. Or we can just put a little bit of thought into for another few hundred dollars. I can do this and you know, your buyer will love it. It's not it's no question that this is what they want. Or you can invest a little bit higher quality furnishings, but we have to start thinking about storage as this kind of sure thing.

01:09:50:27 - 01:10:18:09
Sam Rashkin: Way to just win customers over. And I mentioned the built ins for just room. But here I can apply a built in office as a solution for a dead space below a stair. I've taken that $1,000 maybe space of value, a little bit of storage below a stair and converted it to maybe like a $15,000 value. Work at Home center, $20,000 work at home center for for less than the cost of that.

01:10:18:09 - 01:10:45:10
Sam Rashkin: To build this building I've had $14,000 of value. So buildings are a huge way just to make spaces bigger. And then again, details matter to them. Need to be curated for your customers, right? Trim types at the right budget for each buyer working it out. It doesn't have to be expensive. You can have just the way the car industry has an LA and and a limited edition package.

01:10:45:11 - 01:11:14:20
Sam Rashkin: You create all the packaging and the appliances to have the right matching amount of, of, of kind of quality. So the home just looks right. And I love simple details like this little corner piece that mitigates the miters that often crack over time. So another way of adding value is just color. Zillow looked at 32,000 photos to see if they can correlate the value difference.

01:11:14:21 - 01:11:41:00
Sam Rashkin: When spaces had and didn't have color and came up with 5000 plus value based on having the right color. And then there are ways experts know how to use color to get the most out of that value. So this is a 6310 rule. A lot of expert use 60% of the space uses the bulk color 30% to a secondary color, and the 10% is for an accent color.

01:11:41:00 - 01:12:10:29
Sam Rashkin: And applying these concepts to get more and more value out of a space. And it doesn't cost more except for the cost of the expert. Lighting is transformational. New LED lighting is offering so many design capabilities for for geometric shape of the bulbs, for different colors, and for dimming capabilities. Often the experts can just again transform spaces knowing how to use events lighting.

01:12:11:02 - 01:12:37:15
Sam Rashkin: So when you apply all this, you know you're basically creating value by leveraging space. In this example, the open plan, eliminating combining rooms, minimizing circulation, built in furniture and you're enhancing the space. You have drop ceilings and varied ceiling height. We have indoor outdoor linkages, varied selling heights, quality trim, finish and hardware. Align with budgets, expert colors, expert lighting.

01:12:37:15 - 01:13:06:12
Sam Rashkin: So that's what rightsizing can do. And here's a plan I did in the 80s for a set of builders working with the utility company on a concept project, and this 1400 square foot home again, open layout kitchen, great room, huge master suite with big closets and storage and Taub and shower and double sinks and separate room for the commode.

01:13:06:13 - 01:13:35:03
Sam Rashkin: Separate bathrooms split so two users for for the for the bath area and the sink area. Bedrooms with built ins with dressers and desks like I showed you earlier and an office space. And so this 1400 square foot space, I'm going to submit lives like an 1800 square foot footprint. And if it's $250 a square foot, hard cost times 400ft², that's a $100,000 savings.

01:13:35:05 - 01:14:05:20
Sam Rashkin: If the buyer buys based on experience, not cost per square foot. Next concept is simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Europe. When we go there, we're always, I think, thinking the architecture is so beautiful because it's complicated. It's just the opposite. What's interesting and rich is, is the detail of the streetscapes to hard scapes, the use of color and use of details like canopies and and trim.

01:14:05:21 - 01:14:39:13
Sam Rashkin: So Europe is so rich because I use basics and I keep the buildings themselves simple. And so I'm going to suggest this is a secret sauce for tremendous cost savings and home design as well. A simple floor plan, simple exterior and simple interior. And moving to some of the examples. First, just one study found that 80% plus of over 70, or of nearly 1700 American, 1700 Americans both wanted homes that were more simply designed.

01:14:39:15 - 01:15:04:10
Sam Rashkin: Now, I think people recognize one. They have more maintenance with complexity, and two, it's just too much to deal with. And so people want simplicity. And I always said, you know, you can wait for trends to tell you. But I think we've known for decades I've been advocating this is just a better solution. So here's an example of how it just adds cost and takes away value.

01:15:04:10 - 01:15:28:18
Sam Rashkin: So anytime I have, let's say like a recess porch in this project, I have to build this 12ft wall and this 12ft wall exterior wall that I didn't have to build before. And I'm losing about 200 square face, 200 square foot of space for this, for this deck. And what once it's happening is, is 12 by 16 recessed porch with 24 linear feet of wall foundation.

01:15:28:20 - 01:15:50:11
Sam Rashkin: This cost me almost $3,000 for the exterior walls that are extra prepared, a much lower cost interior walls. I can just keep that space and add an outdoor porch off the back. I think it's a better design. You have a bigger porch and some more functional. Everything's better for lower cost. That's always the kind of corollary to what happens when you make it simple.

01:15:50:11 - 01:16:02:11
Sam Rashkin: So here's that floor plan I showed you earlier. That's very simple compared to this floor plan. It's also three bedroom two bath that has nine more corners.

01:16:02:14 - 01:16:34:03
Sam Rashkin: 15 versus six. So it's another $13,000, $14,000 a cost just for the complexity of the footprint. Is that an value? Is it going to translate into what the buyer will pay for. So again simple is is amazing way to improve profits. Here's also just the little details that matter with with functionality in the floor plan. Anytime I build a corner kitchen cabinet and get my cursor moving.

01:16:34:06 - 01:16:53:25
Sam Rashkin: Anytime I have a corner cabinet here, I have either very expensive lazy Susan cabinet that goes here and a very difficult to reach upper cabinet or more often when I go to homes today, I'm seeing builders do this. Make a dead corner in the lower cabinet and a dead corner in the upper cabinet. It's just dead space and I can't use it to prepare food.

01:16:53:25 - 01:17:14:24
Sam Rashkin: It has hardly any value. And so what would be much more cost effective is to take this pantry cabinet on the left. That's kind of an ugly end to the counter and move it over where you have this dead space, get rid of this, and then you gain all that pantry area as extra counter. So you want it with the same amount of counter.

01:17:14:24 - 01:17:36:28
Sam Rashkin: I don't have to have a counter with a seam going from this direction to this direction, so it's lower cost for the counter. It's lower cost for getting this expensive cabinet out of the mix. And it's just a better kitchen. It's simpler and more functional. And the same thing with outside architecture. When you see this image on the left, it's an insane amount of complexity to roof simple.

01:17:36:28 - 01:18:08:23
Sam Rashkin: Roof lines are so much lower to build, more elegant, less maintenance for the owners to have to regroup in the future. Lastly, wrapping up the last part of optimizing designs integrated systems. I see three buckets of systems and infrastructures the MEP, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and the structure itself. Livability is a furniture, the storage, lighting, water protection and technologies, the solar systems and smart homes that have to be integrated.

01:18:08:24 - 01:18:32:11
Sam Rashkin: We have to really think when we design, can there be a solar system? Where will the vents and shafts go through the roof for, let's say, fireplaces? All that has to be integrated. So just building roofs that have 2ft or 4ft dimensions is easy, because the trust manufacturer doesn't care if it's 4.87 or 5 point 1 or 5 and 12.

01:18:32:12 - 01:18:59:05
Sam Rashkin: So if we design a roof for five and 12 and make barely perceptible 4.87 and it goes to a two foot dimension, I've eliminated all this cutting waste and the sheathing material that can be thousands of dollars of savings. Similarly, when I go to more two foot dimensional framing versus 16in in center, I say would. Also I can reduce load bearing walls so I don't need headers.

01:18:59:05 - 01:19:33:12
Sam Rashkin: Here's an example that we show of a project where they got 42% savings in framing material just by optimizing the wood framing. This is a multifamily home project. Then they also got 16% more insulation because they had less framing, and then they had 25% less sheathing, because then you have to cut sheathing as much and less waste. And when you think about structure from the very beginning, when you put pen to paper or start on the computer drafting of a design and you conceptual think, how can I integrate structure?

01:19:33:16 - 01:20:06:16
Sam Rashkin: You can come up with some concepts that are dramatically lower cost and better experiences. So traditional solution always have a in a cold climate, have a basement and then 1 or 2 floors and then then an attic. And if what I do is convert the lower level basement into an upper level by going to it on vented attic, I can effectively trade off the low value basement space that might be worth $100 a square foot, or a few hundred dollars a square foot to the upper level space.

01:20:06:16 - 01:20:31:09
Sam Rashkin: It's worth $400 a square foot, and I wind up with a lower cost, shallow frost, protected footing, and everything else winds up to save tremendous amount of money with a better living experience in a house with all above grade space, with daylight, with views and so forth. So I can say the $6,000 in the Shallow frost Protected foundation, about 1 or $2000 in framing.

01:20:31:09 - 01:21:00:02
Sam Rashkin: I had the three gable walls that we normally build to use for the upper level space I have. I have to put an egress windows, that whole Swiss cheese of openings and penetrations and shafts in the ceiling adjoining the attic. Those all go away. I don't have to build attic venting. I have less waste, less time. And then I have the space above that might be worth 60 to 100,000 more than the basement below.

01:21:00:05 - 01:21:26:11
Sam Rashkin: It's much more valuable space. So by thinking about structure, the very onset that I start to design the concepts for the home, I can extract up to $120,000 of savings. So again, very significant to think about all this at the beginning. Similarly, I can think about my plumbing from the beginning. This is a normal design. This is actually a habitat for humanity project.

01:21:26:11 - 01:21:50:26
Sam Rashkin: And had the water heater in the garage. And you have all this perimeter that you have to run piping. If you, my friend Gary Klein, calls this the plumbing square where you basically essentially you take all the plumbing walls and you basically draw a line. So I have to go here to get to this plumbing wall for the sink, here to get to the plumbing wall for the bathroom and back to the water heater.

01:21:50:26 - 01:22:02:11
Sam Rashkin: So that's about 80% of the footprint of the home. I can realize that down to 8% if I put the water heater in this little.

01:22:02:14 - 01:22:25:13
Sam Rashkin: Pantry closet right here, and then put the pantry in this corner over here. So you see, just by putting all these concepts together, I've drastically removed the time it takes to get hot water. All these bathroom fixtures. Unlike Gary client, I don't care about this kitchen sink having instant hot water and being close, although it's much closer to this water heater here than it was to the garage.

01:22:25:17 - 01:22:48:06
Sam Rashkin: Because when you use a kitchen sink, you're going to turn on the water and you can raise the dishes. And there's no there's no like waiting for hot water. You're able to start washing right away. So I can say maybe up to 1000 or $2000 of plumbing costs, according to get my friend Gary by using compact plumbing. So it doesn't have to dominate your whole design concept.

01:22:48:06 - 01:23:14:07
Sam Rashkin: But this is such a minimal thought to move your water heater to where you really care about it. In this court area where all your bathrooms are located and your and your laundry also plumbing. And you also furnitures a system. You don't think about it, but you have to think about the future furniture to really get your design to be optimized, to minimize wasted space functionality and simplify your construction.

01:23:14:07 - 01:23:41:07
Sam Rashkin: So good friend of mine, the layout for this project. I have a copy of the layout, and when I saw this bedroom over here and I saw this door over here, I said, well, where am I going to put a dresser? Because basically this window doesn't allow it. And so if I just move the bed facing this way, plus the view out to this terrace above the out here, I now can put a dresser here and a dresser here.

01:23:41:14 - 01:24:07:03
Sam Rashkin: So just getting the furniture layout worked out, tell me where this door needed to be upstairs. Similarly in this bedroom, because the door to the closets here, I'm stuck with the undersides dresser here. If I move this door over here now, I get a full size dresser. So I made a big mistake if I just built it as it was originally originally designed, which it was built this way.

01:24:07:10 - 01:24:29:17
Sam Rashkin: It's just crazy not to think about your furniture and optimize everything. So every door location, every window location, everything's optimized. These are this is a storage system. In my car, I made a list of where all the things I can store in my car that were built into the design of the car. I'm not going to go through this list, but it's a long list.

01:24:29:17 - 01:24:56:25
Sam Rashkin: So I did the same thing for homes. Every home should have figured out a solution for the owner to optimize their user experience for bedrooms, cleaning, entertainment, work drop zones, and garden garages. I'm not going to go through all this list. It's in the housing 2.0 book. It's a really great checklist to pull out of the book, but essentially these things make a difference.

01:24:56:27 - 01:25:18:03
Sam Rashkin: On the right you see a basic drop zone like your jackets and brothers places for your mail. You know, you just see, these are great spaces putting homes. Where am I going to keep vacuum cleaners and mops and cleaning equipment and supplies? People need space for that. If you don't provide it, they'll muck up the good work you do with your designs.

01:25:18:03 - 01:25:44:00
Sam Rashkin: And in washer and laundry room, you need a place to hang clothes and keep again, cleaning, laundry, cleaning supplies and so forth. All these details have to be worked out and lighting is a huge system. We showed you how important lighting is outside. It's also important on the inside the home earlier. It's also important outside the home. This is about maybe 90W of LED lighting, transforming the experience coming to this house every day.

01:25:44:05 - 01:26:08:21
Sam Rashkin: If you're a builder, your neighborhood with this lighting will have such an immensely greater impression on the value of homes you build. So how does this add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars across of energy? It's just stunning to me. You know, I've been going through all these different cost factors and we have to start really being diligent accounting for them.

01:26:08:21 - 01:26:33:00
Sam Rashkin: So here's the list of benefits in terms of lower cost of ownership, enhance wellness and future value for optimizing community natural comfort member 25% free heating and cooling. One of the things we talked about was sharing sheds that reduce the need to keep extra bicycles or kayaks or lawn equipment or, you know, sharing sheds are a great thing.

01:26:33:01 - 01:27:01:26
Sam Rashkin: Now, I don't have to buy them. As a homeowner, wellness is enhanced by social connection, open space and tree lined streets, and future value is enhanced by open spaces having good programs for governance and maintenance. South orientation again, tens of thousands of value of better experience in the home, and cost savings on utility bills, tree lined streets and value to neighborhoods, views, town centers, landscaping, quality features.

01:27:02:04 - 01:27:28:04
Sam Rashkin: If we assume zero value and don't put them in, we get the wrong answer. If I show you the numbers that I've been showing you very quickly, moving through a lot of slides again, about $30,000 of value and free energy sharing shed can avoid all these extra things that I need to buy in my house. No snow blowers and lawn mowers and kayaks and bikes and all sorts of other toys and equipment.

01:27:28:08 - 01:27:56:22
Sam Rashkin: And that might be worth 10,000. Social connection. Again, all the benefits and wellness trees, benefits and future value of state properties and open spaces. Any value to properties. All these values need to be accounted for and together that's about 100,000. Assuming maybe 60% of these are in play for any one community. Similarly, when I look at design, right sizing is a huge cost savings.

01:27:56:24 - 01:28:29:13
Sam Rashkin: Simple exteriors, interiors, mass customization, using building blocks over and over integrated systems, utility bill savings from having a natural comfort fit to site durability using the right materials. Social connection, outdoor living, daylight use, natural comfort, clutter free living, timeless designs and resilience. All huge value right sizing alone. Just an example I showed you was about $80,000. Simple just can save you tremendously on the cost construction.

01:28:29:13 - 01:28:56:18
Sam Rashkin: Easily all the ones that are showing it up to tens of thousands of dollars. So this is about $150,000. Plus, if I assume about 60% of these will all work on a specific project, this is a significant amount of cost of image. And so my recommendations moving forward is all of us should be optimizing, customizing a framework for UX optimization for ourselves.

01:28:56:19 - 01:29:26:29
Sam Rashkin: I'm not saying you should do all the housing 2.0 best practices. I'm saying look at them and figure out what your tolerance is for. Change your demographics, your your market conditions or climate conditions, and come up with a framework for making your houses more optimized and invest in the experts and make it happen. Extract the cost savings and be diligent to count those cost savings and invest a portion of savings in the experts and features that are transformational.

01:29:26:29 - 01:29:59:16
Sam Rashkin: Open spaces, trees, views, storage, outdoor living just these are going to yield tremendous bottom line results to a business. And one of the things we talked about in the very first seminar of the series was mass customization. And systems built are the future. Now we're over customizing homes and we're we're hitting a tsunami of of trade shortage and skills that have to be addressed by other advanced manufacturing methods.

01:29:59:16 - 01:30:16:25
Sam Rashkin: So all these are your your path forward and optimizing community and design. So Mike, that brings us to an end of another exciting seminar with housing 2.0. I'll let you take it from here.

01:30:16:28 - 01:30:41:25
Mike Collignon: All right. Thank you Sam. And if anyone does have any questions for Sam, please send them in the chat box and I can ask those on your behalf. I did want to bring up one thing, and some of you may have realized that Ben was speaking to us. Not in the most ideal situation. He was actually trying to get on an airplane.

01:30:41:25 - 01:31:05:14
Mike Collignon: So we do appreciate Ben joining us ahead of getting on an airplane. And I wanted to share with the group if I could. There was there was a follow up question that I had for him when he was talking about solar orientation and panel efficiency and the question that I asked him, and I did it by email, and you all can reach out to him by email to he shared his email address with the group.

01:31:05:16 - 01:31:49:08
Mike Collignon: I asked him, I said, does that answer change? When you take into consideration certain places where the homeowner isn't getting credited at retail, but at wholesale by the by the utility? And so I wanted to share with you what his answer was, is the answer was yes. Assuming a homeowner uses energy during the peak utility hours, which are typically, he says, between 4 and 6 p.m., it would be fairly beneficial to have at least some of the modules facing west that would enable the homeowner to use energy during the time the energy is produced, instead of sending the energy back to the grid at a lower price.

01:31:49:09 - 01:31:57:12
Mike Collignon: So I wanted to make sure to share that with our audience. Sam, have any thoughts on that response from Ben?

01:31:57:14 - 01:32:17:24
Sam Rashkin: Well, the only thing I would have to check is I. I thought all the solar power was shunted to the grid. It's pretty complicated. Send some of it to the house and some of it to the grid. So, my understanding of it was that if you're in time of use rates, it's really helpful to have west facing collectors.

01:32:17:24 - 01:32:39:15
Sam Rashkin: That would mean that you're if you're selling back at high peak rates, you might get more, more revenue for the kilowatt hours that you send back to the grid. So but that is the expert. So I think I may defer to him, but my understanding was I thought most solar power just went straight to the grid just for simplicity.

01:32:39:16 - 01:32:46:08
Sam Rashkin: It's just hard to shunt some to the house and some to the grid. But I may be wrong.

01:32:46:09 - 01:33:14:03
Mike Collignon: So yeah, I mean, I can speak to it just a little bit. Sam, since we have a solar panel system on our home and the bidirectional meter, and we get credited at retail and in the state of Illinois, that actually is going to change on January 1st, 2025, at least for our utility. Any new systems that get installed after the after the calendar flips is going to be credited at wholesale, not retail.

01:33:14:06 - 01:33:14:13
Mike Collignon: Yeah.

01:33:14:14 - 01:33:27:22
Mike Collignon: That's a that's a fairly sizable financial difference. And so a lot of solar companies around here are very busy at the moment trying to get those systems connected by the end of the year, but I will say have directional meter.

01:33:27:24 - 01:33:33:13
Sam Rashkin: No. Yeah. Go ahead. That's like one third. The cost of what you're paying is wholesale.

01:33:33:13 - 01:34:02:08
Mike Collignon: So yeah yeah, yeah the credit will be quite lower. And so having the bidirectional meter, you know, the power flows both ways and so on normal days. And again this is my own experience. We've had our system for about seven years now. During the daytime we don't use nearly as much power as our system produces. So we send the bulk of it to the grid.

01:34:02:08 - 01:34:21:02
Mike Collignon: But I say the bulk of it, we do still use a little bit of power. Obviously, I'm on a computer and for purposes of the webinar, I have a light on up above me and you have your normal base loads of things like refrigerators and whatnot. So most of the power we produce does go back to the grid, but not all of it.

01:34:21:04 - 01:34:46:14
Mike Collignon: And so I think in those situations where we're deferring to Ben, I also would defer to Ben on that, but also based on my own experience of, you know, think about traditional air conditioners, right. They're going to pull a lot more when the you start to get to the warmer part of the afternoon, people return home. They want the home to be cooler.

01:34:46:16 - 01:34:57:15
Mike Collignon: And he pumps aren't, you know, they're going to pull too, but they're obviously more efficient. So I do kind of concur with what then is saying as well.

01:34:57:17 - 01:35:05:10
Mike Collignon: Any other questions from our audience before we conclude this particular seminar?

01:35:05:12 - 01:35:26:28
Mike Collignon: Going once, going twice. All right. That is a wrap on this seminar series. If you were able to join us for all four seminars, we certainly hope you enjoyed them. And if you were only able to catch today's or just a couple of them, I encourage you to go back and watch the others on the Green Builder Media YouTube channel.

01:35:26:29 - 01:35:55:27
Mike Collignon: They're there for you to see. Thank you so much for attending today. Thank you once again to Schneider Electric, Ben Miller and Genco Solar, Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions and LG vac for their generous sponsorships. Now we actually have one more housing 2.0 vent before the end of 2024. It's Jean Myers of Thrive Home Builders. He's going to join us in two weeks for a Thought Leader webinar on how to minimize embodied carbon.

01:35:55:28 - 01:36:14:23
Mike Collignon: So that will take place on Wednesday, November 20th at 2 p.m. Eastern time. So don't miss that. It does require a separate registration, so you can check that out on the housing 2.0 website or on the Green Builder Media website as well. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy and take care everyone so long.