East side home gets green makeover with help of local builders program
George and Jennifer Thornell Timmer bought their first house a year ago, but their dream home soon turned into a nightmare.
The couple's east side home was cold in winter, and heating bills were high. The house was humid. Stormwater flooded the basement, where the clothes washer also leaked. Doors and windows were in bad shape.
But the worst problem was lead, because they have a toddler named Myles, now 2, and Jennifer became pregnant with their second child.
"Myles had elevated lead in a couple of months," George recalled.
The couple had bought an older house because that is what they could afford on what George earns as a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison while he works toward a Ph.D. in chemistry.
"We never had a home inspection," Jennifer said. "That's a lesson we've learned."
There was lead paint on the window frames and a wall leading to the cellar, and some lead dust had fallen onto a carpet. Lead paint had been used on parts of the home's exterior. There was also lead in the glazing of the bathtub.
"Myles does not take baths here," Jennifer said. "George holds him in the shower."
Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, speech delays and behavioral problems. Neurological damage done by lead is irreversible. Children can ingest lead by eating chips from lead paint, but more danger may lie in lead dust being released into the air when windows that were painted with lead-based paint are opened or closed.
The house on Bradford Lane near Milwaukee Street was built in the 1950s, long before lead paint was outlawed in the late 1970s.
George and Jennifer, both 27, didn't know what to do. They were very careful about not opening and closing windows, kept the house extremely clean and washed everyone's hands frequently. They had the tub reglazed, but it chipped again, exposing lead.
Then they contacted Project Home, an organization that provides low or free home repairs and other services to low-income residents of Dane and Green counties, but it did not have sufficient funding for all the work that was needed. The group submitted the couple's name with 15 others to the Madison Area Builders Association as candidates for the 2008 Green Built Home Makeover, an annual project the association launched last year when the house of an elderly woman was remodeled to be energy-efficient.
The young couple's house was chosen, and the association will start the renovation project on Sept. 12, with work expected to conclude about a month later. Association members are donating materials and labor for improvements that would have cost about $40,000, with Madison Gas & Electric covering half that cost, said Abe Degnan of Degnan Design Builders, who is managing the project with AnneMarie Dresen of AnneMarie Design.
Jennifer and George are overjoyed by the selection of their house for a green makeover.
"It was a dream come true," Jennifer said. "All I cared about was taking the lead out, but all this extra stuff is great. It's an extra bonus."
"Things are finally working out for us," George added. "This will make things a lot easier around the house."
Their only concern is for the applicants who didn't get the makeover.
"I hope they didn't need it more than us," Jennifer said.
The list of work to be done to make the house energy-efficient and safe from lead is long.
A tub liner will be provided and installed by Renew-It. Extensive lead hazard removal and stabilization work will be done indoors and outdoors, so that flaking lead paint is no longer a risk.
Wisconsin Environmental Inc., a lead remediation company, and Advanced Health and Safety LLC, which provides environmental health and safety consulting and engineering services, are cooperating to get rid of the lead hazard as well as the asbestos in window glazing, Degnan said.
John Brzozowski of Fond Du Lac-based Wisconsin Environmental said a lead risk assessment done by Assurance and Inspection Services determined that lead paint on window frames, eaves and the board where the roof and house meet had deteriorated, as had lead paint on a wall along the stairs to the basement.
"The windows will be replaced," Brzozowski said. "My part is to remove them in a manner that doesn't generate any lead hazard. I will use wet methods and contain the area. I will do the same on the outside, stabilizing and containing. I use wet scraping and sanding. If you mist things down before you disturb them, there is less lead dust."
Deteriorated paint will be removed and sanded, primed and painted, then enclosed with aluminum trim so it does not deteriorate further.
"We are trying to minimize exposure to the workers and the residents," Brzozowski added. "There will be a clearance test by Assurance and Inspection Services after I finish."
The wall along the basement stairs will also be removed and replaced. New doors will be provided, and the new windows will be triple-glazed to improve energy efficiency. Window blinds will cover the windows.
Duct work will be redone, too. "The ducts were too small, so they were not properly distributing heat and air conditioning," Degnan said. "That left certain rooms very uncomfortable."
The concrete patio and asphalt driveway will be repaved so stormwater flows away from the home instead of into a window well, to prevent more flooding.
An over-the-range microwave with a built-in vent fan will be installed, so the microwave and gas range will vent through the roof instead of recirculating pollutants in the house. An Energy Star washer has been donated.
An air cleaner and dehumidifier will be installed to get rid of excess humidity that condenses on windows and can lead to mold or rot if it gets inside walls; and GraniteCrete, a covering that includes recycled materials, will be laid over the basement floor to replace carpet and avoid mold problems.
Healthy Homes will monitor the green build remodeling check list. Royal Container Service will pick up and dispose of debris and recycle scrap, and Dirty Ducts Cleaning and Natura Clean will clean at the end of the project.
Madison Gas & Electric is the financial sponsor, donating $20,000 to pay for incidental costs and anything that donors do not give entirely free of cost.
"Whatever we don't use from them is held over for the following year," Degnan said. "Last year, everything was a full donation, but because of the economy this year, we had to purchase some things at reduced cost."
It takes a
village
After the Madison Area Builders Association selects a house for a free green makeover and determines what work is needed, MABA members and others interested in philanthropy, environmental protection and energy conservation are recruited to donate services, products or funds.
Donors to this year's Green Build Home Makeover include:
Advanced Health & Safety, LLC
American TV & Appliance/Kennedy-Hahn
AnneMarie Design, LLC
Aprilaire
Braatz Heating & Air Conditioning
Budget Blinds of Madison
Building Services & Consultants
Capital Custom Curb, LLC
Chase Lumber Co.
City Glass Co.
Dane County Green Realtors Group
Degnan Design Builders Inc.
Dirty Ducts Cleaning Inc.
Elite Electric
Energy Federation Inc.
Floor360
Ganser Exteriors
Green Built Home
Healthy Homes
HLW Builders, LLC
LYCON Inc.
Madison Gas & Electric Co.
Natura Clean
PAR Concrete Inc.
Pulvermacher Construction, LLC
Qual Line Fence Corp.
Renew-it, LLC
Royal Container Service
Sergenian's Floor Coverings Inc.
Statz Painting & Decorating Inc.
Twohig Construction, LLC
Window Design Center
Wisconsin Environmental Inc.
Mike DeVries/The Capital Times
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Two-year-old Myles gets showers instead of baths because his parents, George and Jennifer Thornell Timmer, discovered lead in the glazing of their tub.
