Category: custom homes

Harnessing the Sun Solar electric technology is fairly ingenious. With your rooftop tiled in solar panels, you can harness the sun’s radiation to power your home, charge a battery, and even earn a profit. Compared to the conventional alternative, a solar-powered home is not only more ecologically responsible; it’s also more financially savvy. Smart, Economical, Responsible Originally, solar electric was mainly used for spacecraft and satellites, and in the beginning, it was expensive. But that’s changed. With advanced technology, greater demand, and more efficient manufacturing techniques,...


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Saturday, October 20th from 1:00 - 5:00 pm 1510 Portola Avenue, Palo Alto Free! No tickets or reservations needed. Please join us at Palo Alto's new passive home for an afternoon devoted to sustainability and health building practices. Passive home standards can be integrated into a myriad of different architectural styles. In this case, it was a beautiful Spanish Revival, which integrates perfectly into the surrounding Southgate neighborhood. This is one of the few passive homes in the Bay Area and among the highest performing houses in the world. We welcome you, your friends, and family...


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What does it mean to build a green home? What’s the future of passive building? How does Clarum Home fit into the overall picture of home construction? Meet John Suppes (Clarum’s President) and Sean Misskelley (Director of Construction), discussing these and other questions. Clarum Homes is different than other home builders. Our difference is rooted in our core purpose: we work to transform the way you live. While the majority of the building industry continues to do just what it’s done for the last 40 years, Clarum Homes maintains a relentless commitment to lead the way in home...


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Come see the Palo Alto Passive Home! October is a busy month for Passive Homes! Please join us at one of our several upcoming events. All events include our newest Palo Alto Passive Home, 1510 Portola Avenue. Please note that parking is limited; please consider parking at Palo Alto High School on Churchill Avenue. All events are free and open to the community! We hope to see you there! 2012 Solar Homes Tour: The Road to Net-Zero Energy Hosted by Acterra: Action for a Healthy Planet October 13th from 1pm – 5pm You are invited to take a self-guided tour of five local homes including...


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What does it mean when a house is LEED certified? LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is an internationally recognized, third-party rating system for green building design – a standard we're very familiar with here at Clarum. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a non-profit organization committed to expanding sustainable building practices. The LEED certification program is the USGBC’s primary vehicle for promoting sustainable design and construction. The LEED system rates the environmental performance of a building. It is based on accepted energy and environmental...


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High Performance in a Home...What Does It Mean? At present, there is no universal definition of a "high-performing home" in the construction industry. However, there is some consensus in the way that it is used. According to the New Home Stakeholders Group (Colorado), high performance means setting a higher bar for “comfort, durability, indoor air quality, and lower energy use.” Meanwhile, the Appraisal Institute (a global association of real estate appraisers) says the term suggests energy efficiency, sustainability, and the use of environmentally friendly products. Our definition...


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Utilities Add Up By itself, $200 may not sound like much. But if that’s what you’re spending on utilities each month, it’s more than it seems. Utilities add up, and the yearly and lifetime costs are much larger than one might think. At Clarum, our passive and passive-inspired homes lower your utility bills in a big way, dramatically decreasing the lifetime costs of owning a home. Utility Costs are on the Rise In 2010, American families spent between $30 a month to over $400 on electricity, gas and water, with the average family paying around $200. In California, the bill averaged $83 on electricity...


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The definition of sustainable “Sustainable” is an important and widely-used word, now more than ever. On the other hand, it’s also widely misused. So what does “sustainable” really mean when it comes to home-building? Sustainable literally means “able to continue without an end in sight.” Any finite resource which can be used up, or any practice that can’t continue indefinitely, isn’t sustainable. Unlike the word “green,” which covers anything that’s intended to support the health of the environment, “sustainable” is objective and very definable. What, then, is a sustainable...


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Comfort can be subjective, but undefinable? Not at all. Plenty of research is available on the factors of human comfort: conditions which, when present, universally put us at ease and add to our well being. At Clarum, comfort is crucial. It's another reason we love passive design. Passive homes achieve comfort without even trying, because the objective conditions of human comfort are simply a natural side-effect of passive building strategy. General Comfort Factors Comfort starts with fresh air, abundant natural daylight, good sound quality and protection from noise.When these are present,...


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Do you have indoor air pollution? What is that chemical smell? Why am I sneezing, feeling dizzy, or coughing in my brand new home or office? Why is my child’s asthma getting worse? It could be the new carpet, the cabinetry, the paint, or the formaldehyde in the plywood. Nobody wants to have these experiences when they move into their new home. Unfortunately, most construction today is rife with chemicals and toxins that pollute our indoor air quality and negatively impact our short- and long-term health. Immediate effects of exposure to indoor pollutants include irritation of the eyes,...


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