A no-photo update! The builder filed the notice of completion to the bank about a week ago and we received our appraisal and energy audit yesterday. Fortunately it's all good new!
The house appraised for a couple grand more than we're spending. The appraiser also noted that there simply aren't any comparable houses existing in Fairbanks, even including most of the borough in his search. One of the comparables is a house we had considered purchasing but weren't able to pull the trigger on before it went off the market and in his opinion ours is better built and better finished. So we're feeling pretty good about that.
The energy audit went better than we expected. We easily received our 6-star energy rating with a score of 97.4 (out of a possible 100), meaning our house is almost as efficient as it is possible to build. Our floor and ceiling R-values are R-60, and our walls/doors/windows rate at ~R-30. Estimated energy costs for the year, with electric at $0.22/kwH and propane at $3.99/gal (we paid $3.39 for our first fill up) is... $3300 per year, or ~$275/month. [i]We were spending more than that in electric in winter at our previous rental.[/i] Much success!
The other crazy stat is our blower door test. Most "tight" houses are rated at 5-6 ACH (air changes per hour) at 50pa of pressure, leaky houses at 20+. Ours rates at [b]0.88[/b].
So we're pretty happy and so excited... all of the paperwork is in and we're hoping to close next week, moving in the weekend before Christmas!
