Imber Akse House – Burlington’s LEED home

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.

You’d never think a hole in the ground was so exciting. Yes, it is. Foundation digging started today and should complete in another with forms arriving sometime day 9. As we expected from the Soil Engineer’s guestimate, there is water sitting on clay. Consequently we will be using a series of technologies to keep the basement dry. First under the slab we’ll use a system of water collection tubes to direct the flow away or toward the two sump pumps. See system plan by AMEC. Next, the walls will be sealed and insulated from cold and moisture using Tremco’s TUFF-N-DRI® Basement Waterproofing System. This system dissuades water from sitting against the absorbent concrete foundation wall and moves it down and under the floor slab into the tubes.

The foundation walls are also sealed with Watchdog Waterproofing making them impervious to moisture. The combined system apparently provides a thermal break of R12 from the grade down. This combination should guarantee the basement is dry for at least 10 years. What? Only 10 years? This is the sad state of basement guarantees – if you believe you’re about to get better, read the fine print.

Imber Akse House is the realization of our dream home. A home that looks at living, sustainability and urbanism in a holistic perspective. We’ve designed this site to engage as many people in the process as possible — so that we might encourage others to take the same steps toward positive change and get there with a little more ease.

Imber Akse House is the home to be of Leslie Akse and Barry Imber, long time Burlington residents and owners of 15 year old design and web firms in downtown Burlington. The house project reflects our philosophies on the environment, sustainability and green living.

We hope you will visit the site often to follow the design through development of the home, learn about the technologies and ideas involved and hopefully find the information helpful or perhaps inspiring. Please feel free to leave comments and ask questions as we’ll do our best to remain engaged through the stresses of juggling work, family and the building process.