Should North Texas Homes Be Built For Single-Digit Weather?
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I grew up west of Chicago on what was once raw prairie land and cornfields. The area was later filled in with housing stock after World War II.
Nothing fancy: a 1950s bungalow with two bedrooms, one bath, living area, dining nook, kitchen, and a porch where my mother had a wringer washer when I was very small.
Chicago winters are brutal (my cousin says it’s currently 20 below) but I just don’t remember ever being cold in that little house.
Our next house was a tri-level with a finished concrete crawl space where I played, even in the middle of blizzardy winters. I think the furnace was down there; I was never cold. These homes were vintage ’40s and ’50s.
So why, then, are some North Texas homes so cold when the mercury drops below 50 degrees? And can they withstand these single digit, almost sub-zero numbers?
Poor Insulation
“Older houses are colder because of two big reasons: warm air wants to get out, cold air wants in,” says John Hawkins, the “Hawkins” of CandysDirt.com Approved Builder Hawkins-Welwood Homes. “Warm air rises and most older homes are poorly insulated in attics and ceilings. Cold air comes in through uninsulated floors and poorly insulated windows. Over the last 40 years, windows and insulation have improved 1,000 percent over prior years. Double-pane, insulated windows prevent both heat and cold transfer in your home.”
You should see what builder and remodeler Stephan Sardone of Sardone Construction sees — or doesn’t — when he gets inside many older homes: failed or non-existent insulation.
“Many houses we’ve remodeled have either wood slats in the walls, zero insulation, or what little insulation they have has been compressed and is worthless,” says Stephan, also a CandysDirt.com Approved Builder. “Side note: the regular pink insulation you see everywhere is actually fine, but if installed improperly is not effective.
Old windows and doors are simply not as energy efficient as newer, energy-engineered ones. Also, older homes shift, creating larger or new gaps for heat to escape as well as seals needing to be replaced.
“A lot of wood floors that we end up redoing in 1950s pier-and-beam houses don’t have moisture barriers or an additional layer of sub-floor like we install in a new flooring system,” says Sardone.
Hawkins says the advent of foam-insulated homes has been the biggest and most economical energy benefit of the last 15 years. The entire envelope of the home is sprayed with foam after framing, creating an insulated box with very little heat loss. The homes are so air-tight, contractors have to provide fresh air to the furnaces.
“With these changes,” says Hawkins, “a home can withstand below-zero temps for a long time.”
Basements are Warm
When we first moved to Dallas, we were shocked by the lack of basements. Shifting clay soils, agents told us — can’t build ’em, they flood.
But now I see basements being built as parking garages. Is the lack of basement building what keeps our homes affordable? Up north, you need a basement to put the plumbing below the freeze line. And they seem to keep the home warmer.
“Basements that our grandparents had were built in a time when labor was very cheap,” says Hawkins. “Many homes in northern states had basements because they were easier to keep warm than an attic. In Dallas, where we tend to have a higher water table, basements were used more for storage because they were wet after a rain. My grandmother’s house on Miramar had a basement and she stored everything on bricks to keep it dry. Today when we build a basement, we go to great expense to waterproof it.”
Basement building adds two to three times to the cost of building as a pier and beam foundation.
I reached out to our staff to find out how their homes, ranging from an original Hollywood Heights bungalow to new construction, are holding up during this arctic blast and keeping them warm:
Karen Eubank: “My bed is the warmest place. I drove to the Oak Cliff Home Depot yesterday to get stuff to fight the cold. Foundation vents covered, attic vent covered, hot water heater wrapped. All my taps inside and outside (walls) are dripping. Towels are stuffed in every window. 1927 homes are just not built for this cold.”
Of note: When her home got to 40 degrees Sunday night, Karen moved to a friend’s house.
Joanna England: “Our home was built in 1952, but we had a lot of work done to make it more energy-efficient, including spray foam and attic insulation. Planning to replace the windows this year. We have been OK! We keep the thermostat at 68 and the drapes pulled closed to keep the heat from escaping. The coldest spot is definitely the mudroom, which was enclosed back in the ‘70s and doesn’t have any real insulation. It’s also next to the garage, which is also freezing and only partially insulated. Feeling warmest on the couch underneath two puppies.”
This reminds me of our old home on Park Lane, R.I.P. It was built in the ’30s and added onto in what I called a “re-muddle”. Most beautiful lot in Old Preston Hollow, though. The funny thing is the older part of the house actually stayed pretty toasty during freezes, except the old wood sash windows sweat and peeled and had to be re-painted annually. (Yep Karen, towels.)
It was the addition that was most problematic: the Skinny-Girl metal windows in the north-facing breakfast room froze over; we’d have to tape up blankets and cross fingers they didn’t bust. Then one year we discovered that my office, lined with bookshelves, had once been the original kitchen and the genius remodelers had left the water pipes in the walls, capped. They froze and bust behind all those books. That night I took a Zanax.
So when we built 20 years ago, I was the insulation Nazi and watched it installed, adding extra here and there. We overdid the HVAC zones. Foam was not yet in vogue, but our attic is flush with pink insulation. We chose insulated glass low E Marvin windows. The only place I feel cold air coming in is through exterior doors and a few electrical outlets. Note to self: seal them next house.
The warmest place in our house when the sun goes down is the top of the stairs.
Still, four years ago a fire sprinkler pipe froze and burst upstairs because ceiling insulation had shifted during a re-roofing. I’m hearing tales of this happening across the Park Cities and North Dallas. My washer leaked the moment I turned it on: the drain froze. And this storm (and lack of heat) cannibalized a hybrid water heater.
Why don’t we build our homes in Texas to be more cold-proof?
We get these arctic blasts only sporadically, but building or retrofitting older homes can save on cooling costs as well. We should also take a long, hard look at building restrictions in historic and conservation districts that put onerous, costly design restrictions on owners who find they cannot afford them, and then sell. That’s often when charming, older homes succumb to bulldozers.
“My first home was in the M streets, built in 1929,” says John Hawkins. We had to open the cabinet doors and let the faucets drip on bathrooms located on exterior walls during extremely cold weather. That is no longer necessary with the foam insulation in the walls.”
This is a good time to be grateful for new home construction techniques and technology, IF it is well done.
“Materials, in a lot of ways, are better (but not always),” says Stephan Sardone, “but overall there is a lot of construction science that isn’t being applied consistently. I see a ton of stock housing built poorly all over town.”
Both builders agree: your best bet for having a very well built house is to remodel an older one, or have one custom built.
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