Imber Akse House – Burlington’s LEED home

Our house has taken the final shape and size. Thanks to the fine work of the framing crew and of course the effort of the Branthaven design team, our drawings turned out very true to plan without compromise.

Even with detailed drawings, having time to be on site regularly provided us many opportunities to identify potential issues before they came up. More importantly, spending time in the house at this stage prepares you for more detail at a later date.

The 2nd floor is moving along and the final look of the house is taking shape sculpturally. We’ve dreamed, lived and breathed this house plan for so long now that looking at the structure and walking around inside feels like we are taking a walk inside our own heads.

There are a number of passive cooling and heating methods our house will utilize to reduce the need to mechanically condition the living space. One main passive system is the breeze maker or lungs of the home.

The center main floor of the house is flanked front and back with sliding patio doors that can be opened on nice days when interior temperatures are higher than exterior. In most homes, exhausting this warm air quickly can be a problem. With the design of high ceilings throughout the breeze zone combined with clerestory windows at the 14′ ceiling height on three walls, the rising hot air is allowed to escape which in turn does two things. Firstly the rising air creates a low pressure zone on the cool mass floor, pulling air along the floor from other areas of the house as well as any open doors. Secondly the rising and escaping air creates an interior low pressure that should pull in large volumes or exterior air from the patio doors. Depending on the primary wind direction and which doors are opened relative to time of day and shade, we can create a breeze of cooler incoming air.

Since air movement changes the relative feeling of temperature, we should stay comfortable longer with just cool mass floors and exterior air temperature.

One technology we’re excited to install in the house is a power monitor. We are considering a device from Power Watch – a design and manufacturer out of Oakville Ontario next door to Burlington where we are. Power Watch makes a clever little unit with big results. With a simple power clamp, it hooks into your electrical panel without need for disrupting wiring or any cutting – it reads current through the wiring insulation. After a couple minute install the unit begins to read energy load on all wires coming from the panel and is fed into an IP Based software program on a PC – wirelessly. Slick.

This is where it all starts as you can begin to see what the house is using and log it 24/7. After bench marking the average consumption of the home for a number of days, you can then begin to see what affects consumption, peak activities, appliances, lighting use behavior all are events that can be monitored. Once you are aware of benchmarks you can set goals for lowering consumption and adjusting mindsets on usage – perhaps you’ll see that the savings of a house warmed to only 19º is attractive compared to 22º — you’ll be able to calculate the savings in real time.

John Schroeter of Power Watch tells me that this technology is so compelling that some municipalities are making it a standard in new construction both commercially and residentially. Apparently some regions are installing this type of equipment as part of the service which they control and monitor because they understand that the more we are aware of energy use, the better we will become at reducing our dependency on and waste of cheap energy.

Contact John Schroeter
905.338.2900 ext. 11
www.powerwatch.com

The solution to save thousands of megawatts and carbon output for Canada is at our fingertips, and in our minds, already. It’s simple – change our perspective on comfort. There’s a reason why Canada and the US consume considerably more energy than the rest of the world and it’s not climate. It’s that we’ve developed an overly keen awareness to comfort — we are far more particular than other cultures. We like it warm in the winter and cool in the summer like everyone but consider the energy necessary to keep a house artificially cooled at 24ºC as compared to 26ºC. It doesn’t sound like it should be much but it usually takes a system a couple of hours to shift 2 degrees throughout the home and that accounts for a lot of energy.

But what if we just decided that 26º or even 28º was perfect in summer and 19º in the winter. That’s it. Then for most of the summer or winter the house would only require venthillation and little conditioning. Then also the system in summer could run the condensor on a low fan speed to remove humidity to make the air feel cooler in a relative sense. Nation wide this would be a major savings.

Using this perspective how would we judge other mechanical systems that require energy? Say lighting? Well we could consider a slightly darker room romantic, especially if we used accent and task lighting instead of a center of the room high wattage bulb trying to do too much. And then there’s our thirst for cold water compared to room temperature – image if we just unplugged all water coolers concluding that room temperature water was just as refreshing.

In the end we pay, as does the environment, for our desire for perceived comfort – for our perspective that’s unrelated to need, health or even average human comfort.

That being said, how will we change or relate our comfort consumption to cost especially when it’s an individual, house by house case scenario. I believe the start is knowing what the real cost is and that’s with a Power Monitor. Over the next year you will be hearing a lot about these devices and ideas. More.

Our feeling is if you’re going to do it, do it well. So when we decided to maintain a romantic throwback to a less efficient era of home, the wood burning fireplace, we agreed to look for the best of both worlds. The criteria was beauty combined with quality and of course efficiency. Beauty and quality are subjective and relative to one’s current condition but efficiency is a standard that is quantifiable.

We found Stüv a few years ago and fell in love. The short list of benefits are:

+ high end of efficiency at 80+% (measured by energy converted from material burned)
+ air tight – for a long hot burn that doesn’t suck your heated home air out the chimney or cause your HRV to cycle to keep up with pressure loss
+ fresh air intake – ported from an outside intake, the combustion air is brought in from the exterior, burned and exhausted through the chimney
+ air to air heating – the interior air is pulled (optionally from the cooler basement) into a heating chamber (not combustion) and blown back out optionally into your ductwork or into the room without pressure or energy loss to your home

The North American distributer, Stüv America is in Montreal which is a plus when dealing with import furniture like this – a Canadian distributer has a smaller market and is often more approachable and inspired by love of the product. Stüv America are great to deal with and delivery is quick with a variety of models in stock. Depending on your area they have set-up a number of dealer installers so check the site. And it has a BBQ on some models but don’t tell the code officials. Recently reviewed on Treehugger.

Not every decision we make can be related to sustainability but this one is easy. In our last home we used sinks and a shower base from WetStyle out of Montreal that we discovered at a design show and have been hooked on ever since. Beautifully quiet styling that is an instant classic. Oh yah, the sustainable part:

+ timeless design and quality means enduring
+ wear resistant and repairable surfaces provide longevity
+ truly recyclable or cross-cyclable material – WETMAR
+ domestically made

Our experience with the product is that it holds heat well – it’s warm to the touch like a wood rather than porcelain or metal surfaces making it a very comfortable. Apparently WetStyle claims the material is a great insulator and holds water to temperature longer than other materials.

An important factor in the decision for us is the domestic story. This product was designed and developed in Canada and is still manufactured here. This means not only 2 weeks delivery from a close locality – it means a sustainable industry that supports our economy, maintaining a sound and responsible relationship with domestic labour at dollars that are relative to our standard of living. Idealistic understanding our dependency on foreign imports of style but a great start at regaining control over our economy.

Our builders, Branthaven Homes and Mike Leyer, have been working with suppliers to source as much FSC Lumber materials as possible. Much of the framing and sheathing comes from FSC mixed sources while other materials are made primarily of recycled chip. Rona, Canada’s largest Canadian distributer, has been a large source for this material and the local store has been paying special attention to the build.

See more on FSC materials at the Canadian site or our post on FSC.

Mike Leyer and crew worked hard today to get the floor deck and walls in place to complete the first floor shell. Space is really starting to take shape and it is the first reality check to remind us that it’s a cozy, not palatial space.

It’s also a good reminder to us that we have designed a conservative floor plan in today’s standards but not in tomorrow’s standards. As energy will inevitably become more dear, if not scarce, space and our perception of it will be the visual sign of cause and effect. Like the energy crunch in the ’70s brought on smaller cars, this energy crunch will also bring on smaller, more efficient homes. As we’ve been hearing, homes and buildings are the largest source of greenhouse gas and consumption in our society — fuel to build, heat, operate and fill with consumables and fixturing – all related to square footage. So, our thoughts are that in order to be sustainable, marketable and relevant to the next generation, we should build somewhat conservatively now.

One of the ways we’ve chosen to relieve the feeling of tight space is by designing with taller ceilings and increased light access through ceiling level windows — tall and bright. This solves other issues by reducing the load on land and lessoning the need for artificial light. Also brighter spaces increase enjoyment and improve health of the interior environment.

The framing started today. Yes framing and not ICF, straw, or otherwise. These and other technologies all have their merits, as well as faults if only by lack of practicality to our situation. Our situation being that we are building a house in a market where sustainable suppliers are currently hard to locate and far and few in between compared to the suppliers lined up to provide legacy ideas. We’re lucky, we’ve found a sustainably sympathetic building partner but what about everyone else?

It’s worth commenting that sourcing green materials and sustainable products is still too difficult. Not because they aren’t available; literally thousands of options abound on the internet and in every consumer mag you pick up today. It’s that the end suppliers haven’t picked up those magazines yet – the trades, renovators, supply companies, builders, wholesalers – the supply chain – and it’s here where the greatest influence lays, with the expert and the ones you trust with your home and your wallet. They are undoubtedly aware, but like most industries it’s easy to dismiss impending change or the demand for change as, impractical, or not relevant to the existing consumer.

I’ve read a number of articles by suppliers and builders that say the average consumer doesn’t want to pay for green building – and they can’t afford to carry the burden for the consumer. Meanwhile the consumer is looking for these solutions in ever increasing numbers but meeting resistance. It sounds like there must be a lot of pressure in the middle somewhere. As a business owner I understand the pressures of change and change management is a major concern and investment in any business – but it’s just that. A responsible investment in your business is education toward change, change in processes and procedures. In the case of building, change will be mandatory and waiting until regulation comes means suicide for business and unfortunately the ecology.

So this disconnect is very hard to manage for consumers and sustainable minded people who wish to build responsibly. We received a note from a reader preparing to build in ‘09 who concurs – feeling that already the weight of responsibility to source materials and provide green ideas will rest on them. I hope they can manage to inspire their contractor to learn and change and go along for the ride with them, it will be worth it for everyone.