Merlin Custom Home Builders’s Remodel Division Upcoming New Website
Remodels, remodels and more remodels. An updated kitchen, remodeled master bath, new office, whole house renovation, new pools, spas and landscaping are taking up more and more of Merlin Custom Home Builders’s time, energy and talent. For the past twenty-three years, the vast majority of Merlin Custom Home Builders’s remodel work focused on renovating homes we previously built or remodeling our clients’ extended families’ homes, but not today.
Now we get calls or emails almost daily requesting a consultation for remodel work from new buyers of existing homes, high-rise condominium owners and homeowners who have decided to stay in their current homes and just make them better.
We redirected some of our most experienced project managers to Merlin Custom Home Builders’s remodel division and over the past two years have set up whole new systems to evaluate, estimate, team up and create wonderful new spaces in existing homes and structures which exemplifies Merlin Custom Home Builders’s craftsmanship.
We will be launching our remodel web page in order to highlight, acknowledge and promote Merlin Custom Home Builders’s quality craftsmanship connected to our remodel division. We hope some of these examples (always being updated, and with many more coming) will give our readers an idea of the possibilities for their homes. Stay tuned for next month’s article for updates on the launch of our Remodeling Website.
After a 40-year hiatus, solar energy is cool again. Two of the homes Merlin Custom Home Builders competed last year included solar panels accompanied by state of the art electronic monitoring. They were not those old bulky aluminum frames awkwardly balanced on the roof, they were rows of sleek, low profile space age panels that were 25% less expensive and provide higher performance than those available just twelve months earlier.
As a professional builder, we keep a sharp eye on products and systems that are getting the public’s attention so we can intelligently advise our homebuyer clients about their validity and proper use. Today’s solar energy systems — for both domestic hot water and electricity — have made significant strides that, in the right circumstances, can reduce a homeowner’s monthly energy bills.
The first thing to remember is that solar energy systems are most effective and only worth the investment if you add them to a house that’s been designed and built to reduce its energy consumption from the get-go — in other words, a high-performance new home. No solar panel or thermal collector will offset the ills of a poorly-insulated, drafty house, and it is a waste of time and money to consider it.
Also, solar panels work best if they face south/southwest and are in full daylight; any shading from trees or adjacent buildings (more so than clouds) render them far less efficient at converting enough solar energy to offset their cost. That’s one of the first things we consider when a homeowner asks us about adding solar to their new-home project.
The good news about solar is that today’s photovoltaic or “PV” panels (for electricity) and thermal collectors (for hot water) are more efficient at capturing and converting the sun’s energy while reducing their visual impact on the roof.
A relatively new breed of so-called “roof-integrated” PV panels are so sleek that they lay almost flat on the roof; some are even formed to look like and run flush to roof shingles and concrete barrel tiles to better integrate into the roof finish. And, because modern solar cells are more efficient at converting solar energy into electricity, a house needs fewer of them to satisfy its solar energy needs.
In addition, most modern residential PV systems are designed to offset only a portion of a home’s electrical needs, not 100% like the old-school, off-the-grid designs of the past. In fact, the panels are connected to the home’s electrical service box and meter, and any surplus energy they create is credited by the local power utility, a cost-efficient practice called net-metering. In short, PV arrays are designed to capture the most solar energy that’s reasonable for their optimal location on the roof, available sunlight, cost, and return on investment.
In addition, federal energy tax credits for the purchase and installation of residential solar energy systems are available through 2016, perhaps supplementing state or local rebates or other financial incentives to deliver an even faster payback.
Solar energy isn’t limited to rooftop panels. Landscape lighting, attic fans, and other products can be powered by the sun, as well. Though not connected to the grid like larger PV arrays, their use offsets demand for utility-provided electricity to further reduce monthly energy costs.
Warm Regards,
Steve Jones & Bart Jones
Merlin Custom Home Builders
6408 S. Arville Street
Las Vegas, NV 89118
702.257.8102 – Phone