Imber Akse House – Burlington’s LEED home

Last night I had the opportunity to present an overview of our home and our experiences of building LEED to the Burlington Sustainable Development Committee. Steve Stipsits and myself had 20 minutes to cover subjects that could have been days worth of discussion but as an overview, I think it was informative. It was also a very good sign that there are people surrounding the city with progressive ideas. I applaud them.

There were some very good and telling questions – many of which were impossible to answer however in such a short time. For example, we are often asked “what does building LEED cost above building regularly?”. A good question but a philosophical one as I’ve highlighted in previous posts. See Rationalizing Building Sustainably or Sustainable Building is Upside Down.

Another great question was were there any hurdles or impedances with the city? Ikes. Again, the answer is deep but in short – some very small practical issues. Yes there were a couple of situations which were unusual and unreasonable. For example when we submitted our finished plans to the city for approval, we were told we couldn’t use cork flooring in the kitchen…

When we asked for a reason, we were told that it wasn’t durable enough for the kitchen — no further explanation. No consideration that it is recycled, recyclable or even that the subjective judgment didn’t take into account the user and their habits for wear. Never-the-less we adjusted the plans to not show cork and resubmitted. Now this seems like no big deal. But think this through. How much time did this cost us and how much money aside from time delay — Branthaven had to do the paperwork to submit twice, go down to the city twice, and have an architect redraw the plans for us and reprint multiple sets, twice. I would estimate that this arbitrary and uneducated off hand conclusion by the city cost us $1000 or more dollars.

So what. In the grand scheme of things this issue is tiny – compared to the mounds of paper and plans, compared to the overall budget. But, if you consider that every dollar we have to make has an exponential negative effect on the ecology and resources than it was more like tens of thousands or piles of carbon footprint. But I think the greater issue is in what the situation represents.

What it represents is a general lack of understanding or engagement by the city. That this person practices in the city without an education on sustainability in even a basic sense is challenging. That this person, independent of the standards within the city, can affect a project that is looking to make change and improve our community is addidng difficulty to an already tedious endeavor. And also that their is no process internally at the city to connect planning, engineering and permitting to understand the needs and differences in LEED or Green builds so that they can have a more communicative and proactive involvement with this leading form of construction within their own fence. This is the real issue – the city is not engaged and doesn’t yet have a process for change management with regard to LEED or sustainability. They suffer, like most of the industry, from ignorance and a passive resistance to change – leaving it for someone else to deal with, the next shift, on another day.

To reach sustainable goals, we all have to get involved, all absorb the R&D costs and do our part. This can’t exclude the city, or any of us.

Most, if not all of the conversations we have about our home centres around the choice to go sustainable and inevitably the costs associated with this choice. How much extra does it cost to build sustainable or LEED?

Well, presuming those are both the same thing and I don’t believe they are entirely, you have to decide first on your philosophy around EXTRA cost. Oh no you say, here he goes. Wait. I’ll break the argument into multiple parts over a series of posts.

Part 1 – Quality vs. Sustainable

Really, this is a good question. I’ve known many people who’ve either had a custom home built for them or have purchased a new production home and have in all cases been at the helm of the selections of materials from the guts to the finishes. The burden of choice.

In all cases they had to come to terms with the level of perceived quality that they wished to balance — costs versus return of enjoyment. This can be apposing scales where you pay too little and there is product failure or you pay to much and there is buyer’s remorse. However, in most cases, they chose perceived quality and they paid. That said, and cynicism aside, was there a possibility that the products were actually of good quality? Of course. In any product is there a guarantee that it is of best quality? No. But chances are that the highest quality is also the most costly to produce and therefore the most costly in market. So if you combine perceived quality with price…

If anyone has been through the selections process, they’ll know that there is no shortage of choice out there. All choices come with differentiation; imported, efficient, trendy, inexpensive, beta, designer, sustainable etc. — all are attributes associated with the product or the buyer but not what defines its use. Sustainable is only an attribute in the end no matter how intrinsically important we may believe it is.

The long point I’m heading to is that one of the key features of a sustainable product is in its quality. Sure, measuring sustainability is a complex matrix that includes cost of manufacturing on the environment, human health, geographic location relative to build site, economic disparity and so on. But a big component is still quality in performance and longevity of use. So, if quality accounts for a large part of the cost of a product or material, how much of the cost of the material is locked up in the purely sustainable portion. As likely none as much as it may be all.

In all practicality, I’m guessing next to none. My guess and philosophy is that beyond quality, the cost impact on sustainable goods is being absorbed by the manufacturer and our economy for now, perhaps not purely altruistically but rather in a muddle of  R&D minus grants plus pollution controls less tax breaks plus worker safety and process reporting etc. minus cheap fuel and money. In the end, the most practical cost basis for pricing sustainable goods is cost of material in, plus, labour and overhead — the same as making any decent quality product in a domestic market.

So, to sum up, we believe that because our house is built of quality and long living products and materials first, with a focus on sustainable best practices as a decisive differentiator between a myriad of product choices, sustainability had little bearing on final cost. Choice and an open market based on competition regulates this naturally.

Leslie and I have been long time supporters of local — local organic food production, local manufacturing, local labour, local products – we live and work local. It isn’t always easy but typically, when you really look philisophically at the reason for any difficulty, it’s related to the desire for choice, perceived quality and price. I’m not about to yank the lid off this can of worms but local makes a lot of sense when you consider the cost of distance of goods travelled on the ecology, the erroding strength and depth of our economy, and our own health with regard to food. Regardless of good intent, many industries have found themselves reliant on distance for materials and manufacturing and this is an uncomfortable reality for them.

In any event, one industry that has thus far maintained a high level of local in its diet is home building. As a matter of cost, labour practicality and standards, the majority of a home is or can easily be quite local.

But, just how local does local have to be? For us consciously, we want to support our community first; hiring a Burlington builder with families in this town that use an extended team of local contractors was important. Materials are also often local too, at least in highlight, such as drywall from CGC Inc. of Oakville, lighting from Contrast, metal products from Bailey and KN Crowder, wood products from Goodfellow or Turkstra with local mills, concrete from local manufacturing and the list goes on. But as holes develop we begin expanding out from there so taking care of Canada makes sense to us. Canadian white cedar and other woods from Quebec, stone from local and northern Ontario quarries and so and so forth outward.

The issue is that to be sustainable, we need to encourage or support a local economy, design to consume conservatively and use restraint over the urge to pursue choice before common sense. Strangely though, to qualify for a category of LEEDs, the pinnacle of sustainable best practices, much of the materials we choose have to be sourced within a few hundred miles so as not to negatively effect the environment via a high carbon cost. The balance is tricky. It may be closer to source from a US firm in NY State than from a company in Ontario, and in fact, it is reported that sometimes less fuel is consumed in the transport of some foreign goods to our market by ship than via truck a province away. This adds complication to the decision for sure as it pulls us away from the Canadian community.

In the end though, with a little homework, a protractor and your concious you can make a good decision on what products and materials will best suit your sustainability philosophy – to be pramatic or dogmatic is up to you as long as the winner is a sustainable outcome that benefits the ecology and future generations.

Small irony in all this. We recently bid on a large interactive project for a leading Niagara home builder. In the end, we lost the job on cost, with the labour going to India. Apparently, much of the costing decisions home builders have to make these days is no different than other categories — downward cost pressure from consumers and their lack of awareness of the inherant benefit of supporting community is chasing even this last vestage of local, off shore.

We’re now currently in the later part of the build of our home that is aiming for LEED Platinum in the Canadian LEED for Home Pilot Program. As designer and eventual home owner I’ve played a large role in sourcing qualified sustainable materials and technologies for the home and have made an effort to compare costs with legacy materials and services along the way.

Though the top of mind costs do appear to be significantly higher from the invoice – 10% to 25% for LEED qualified materials and technologies, my observation and experience is that in general these solutions are also significantly better – quality + performance + longevity — and I believe this is worth weighing.

What has kept the costs per LEED point down however has been the design. Instead of looking at sustainability as something we can buy our way through using LEED as a structure, designers should first review the power of good, simple and logical thinking as a first go to solution. To the credit of the LEED program in recognizing this, many points can be gained by utilizing intelligent design solutions in the home in lieu of tech to reduce everything from excess materials dependency, energy waste, material redundancy and material waste – all equating to less costs at end of build and over time.

With this in mind I feel the cost of build for LEED is and can be lower than often quoted. If anyone is considering a LEED build, I believe it’s worth the extra costs for LEED certification because if you are building for a sustainable goal independent of LEED, the $2+K for process is essentially the only additional cost, and for some, possibly well worth the label that defines the result.

As part of being enrolled in the LEED Home Canada Pilot, our builder and perhaps us, home owners, will be asked to comment on the sustainable build process as well as the practicality of LEED in Canada. In general, most of the comments are straight forward but there is one big thing which I believe the industry has overlooked, or, overlooks on purpose.

The issue is that when building a sustainable home, rather than conventional, the sustainable model is upside down in the order and cost of the build process. Really, it is. I don’t mean that you put the roof on before the walls but I do mean that all materials and systems have been stepped up in quality and complexity, require more attention and a particular order of completion that is somewhat different than typical.

Take heating for example – and I’m over simplifying for sake of argument. In a typical house the order is the foundation followed followed by walls, sub floors, roof deck, electrical, insulation, roof shingles, drywall starts, venting and ducts, drywall finishing and painting, flooring and lastly don’t forget to pick up a furnace on your way home honey. Done.

Now take a sustainable home – like in our case a high performance one. The first thing is to plan the heating, followed by foundation, followed by heating dig/drill, followed by walls and sub floors, finished roof system (no temporary), install heating GSHP units and HRVs, ducts, electrical, insulation, radiant floor system embedded in concrete finished floor, drywall and finishing and paint.

Subtle difference I know and in some cases this can be adjusted but the big thing is it’s different and the weight of the costs are in those few items that got loaded up front. So big deal – what’s the problem. Well the problem is:

1. Trades are used to the traditional order of things so a floor that goes in early get’s damaged – so you have to cover the floor with costly plywood coverings – wasteful too

2. Banks are used to the traditional order for their financing draws on a point system so a cost weighted toward the beginning leaves everyone scrambling to pay for the heavy upfront outlay before the bank catches up on the paperwork

3. Many systems are attached to each other determining installation order, or require trades working in isolation without overlap in the home so adjusting the order is complex or impossible – ie. insulation is a vapour until expanded so nobody but the installer is in the house – means more time, or radiant floor that will be embedded in cement requires testing during install to the subfloor and prior to concrete pour therefore the whole Geothermal (GSHP) system must be operational – not thrown down there at the last minute after the house is done when you find one on sale

In the end the outcome is a highly efficient home that looks like all the rest – it’s in the order of build and restrictions of install that can cost more due to timing and damage from trades not used to working with the new sequence.

Let’s get complicated for a minute. Insulation. What’s complicated about insulation – throw some in the walls and ceilings to meet code, seal it up and you’re good to go right. Wait. Firstly, insulation may be one of the most important components or systems in the home but unfortunately it is behind the walls so you don’t get to stare at it when the house is done, nor do you get to see how it was done…

There are lots of useful website resources to explain insulation types and applications but there are some important concepts that are sadly missed or difficult to locate. Starting with the current and legacy system of insulation in the market – typical pink fiberglass batt and the R-Value.

Idea 1 – R value
Current code in our area requires at least R20 walls and R40 ceilings that will be exposed to the exterior. Traditionally insulation was measured with an R value – the result of a test where a sealed box without studs is lined with insulation and tested to see how long it takes for the temperature inside to change to a warmer or colder exterior temperature. Simple.

The problems with this system as it relates to the use of insulation are many but here are a few main that make the test useless when gauging insulation performance in a practical context; the box doesn’t account for air movement caused by wind or air pressure differences between in and out, introduction of lesser R-value materials like wall studs, leaks or openings in the box envelope to the exterior such as around windows and doors or the biggy, insulation settling over time. It just looks at insulation in a perfect and isolated context.

Idea 2 – Application
Like many materials, the issues with performance can come down to the details of installation and use. That doesn’t apologize for the material in this case however because in reality – this material is designed to fail because it’s a terribly outdated system. During install, the format standards associated with the product have it fit into the gap between studs as we all know – and this fit is relatively snug, enough to support the material most times but the flexibility of the material and lightness means it doesn’t really hand on and is to some degree supporting itself like a post using whatever tensile strength it has. The ends are cut by the installer and are sometime short or long – they are working fast. In the end the batts go in nearly even and almost the right length but there are gaps, lots and lots of gaps. Remember your R Value was 20 in a perfect sealed box – what do you think you have now.

Next remember that the insulation is trapped between studs that are approximately 2” thick and depending on construction method, 6” deep and extend all the way to touch the uninsulated external wall’s interior surface. This means that these studs will be making a conductive connection to the outside world. Studs when measured for R value are said to be approximately R 4 though I’ve seen estimates as high as R 7. None the less, when you add up the amount of studs per square foot, as well as account for all the gaps – between studs and around windows and doors – you end up on average with R 10. What? R 10? Yep.

Idea 3 – Settling and performance
So the vapour barrier goes on and next the drywall and you move in. Over the next few years, the insulation settles. You may have done a reno or two in your life and have seen this big gap at the ceiling when you ripped the drywall off the walls. Yes, a big 12” gap where the insulation sagged from it’s own weight and shrank to reduce the coverage in the wall by as much as 1/8th on an 8’ wall. But does this mean this reduces the performance of the insulation by 1/8th? No, a 1/2” hole in a 10” balloon doesn’t reduce it’s effectiveness proportionately – it fails badly and lets all the air out. And this is what happens to your house – the balloon lets out all the heat from where heat rises – to the ceiling where the walls intersect the ceiling.

Idea 4 – Health
Why is this always last – why does health not have an ROI? Well for us it does and this is why. Once fiberglass insulation starts sagging and air starts passing through the envelope in both directions due to warm air trying to get out or external air being sucked in to replace air whipping out your ceiling or out your hood fan – dirt, dust and organics move through the insulation in both directions – trapping these organic particles not to mention pulling free glass particles into your breathing air. Eventually tears and gaps in your semi permeable vapour barrier (clear poly) allow moisture to enter and get trapped, condensing in cooler areas and when mixed with your dust and organics, creates mold and lots of it. Next, you breath the mold spores which leads to one of the largest interior air quality issues of homes today.

So, not so simple after all. And worth considering. There is a great solution and that’s blown foam. Now nothing is without disadvantages but that’s for another post. Concentrating on only the advantages – blown closed cell foam solves all those issues. In brief the R Value is measured the same but in reality it can be measured using a performance value as a percentage of R. to illustrate, pink insulation has a performance of 40% – it sagged, installed poorly, was porous, had gaps and arrived at less than half of the rated R value. Blown foam is rigid and stays inert for the life of the home while also sticking to and filling all gaps, expanding into any place a vapour of the insulation can get to before expanding. The subsequent finished performance is 95+%, for good. What this means is that if you believe R 20 is an acceptable value to achieve an R 10 in practicality – than in foam the equivalent R 20 depth of insulation will have and R 40 practical relative performance rating. It’s twice as good.

Following that, the foam is a vapour barrier once hardened if not scraped so once a 6mil poly is applied on top, there is very little moisture passing in either direction. Also, since the foam makes a mostly air tight seal, little to no air moves reducing the chance of organics contacting your drywall and creating mold situations – foam cannot support mold growth.

Other benefits are the high acoustical insulative properties that make a home simply the quietest on the block improving your enjoyment and sleep – oh, and did I mention you’ll save a lot of energy. The no VOC after curing, inertness of the material and high energy rating also make it qualify for LEED points.

For our home we chose to go with closed cell blown expanding foam – R 28 in the walls and R 40 in the ceilings. The application is now almost complete and we’re ready for careful vapour barrier application and drywall next week.

Supplier – Jarvis Insulation
The Jarvis team has operated in our area for a couple of generations and has a solid reputation for all types of applications in commercial and residential. Though they would be primarily using traditional insulation, Dave Jarvis has studied insulation methods and materials extensively and tries hard to convince customers that blown foam is where it’s at for all the reasons above. He admits that the price is a barrier of entry for a lot of people but that more and more are making the informed switch. While evaluating contracts from various suppliers, we heard more than a few times that Jarvis was the most knowledgeable and qualified to blow foam in our high performance house and would provide the best guidance and value. This has indeed been our experience.

Typical house designs treat the interior environment as one single climate zone when considering heating and cooling loads. This legacy was necessary out of lack of understanding of the interior climate but also due to limitations of heating and cooling equipment and pure cost considerations. However today there remains no logical reason to continue with this legacy idea.

The problem is that it ignores imbalances in temperatures from one end of the home to the other as well as possible passive methods for mitigating temperature fluctuations within the interior. The idea has been overcome the elements with more power – put in a large Heating and Air Conditioning system to ensure everyone is comfortable at least part of the time, in the majority of the home.

Modern house and building design looks at the house as a system or organism – using technology and design to solve inequities or imbalances in heating and cooling needs for the building. These new ideas also consider the occupants and their desires for comfort, at different times of the day, in different locations of the home by function as well as the external pressures on the interior climate which can differ from the North or South sides of the building.

From considering the home as a system – including zones for climate and passive means to control temperature – the house can achieve exceptional energy efficiency as well as occupant enjoyment.

We designed our house to accommodate various comfort zones in two ways. 

First, using radiant and ground source we have zoned different areas of the house for efficiency eg. cooler bedrooms than activity spaces. But secondly and most important, the house recognizes the different climate zones created by a North and South side. 

By locating bedrooms on the cooler North side within which occupants are naturally more forgiving of cooler winter room temps and more appreciative of cooler summer room temps and separating and insulating these rooms from the south facing windows with a hallway allows us to mitigate the interior temperature fluctuations using windows to the exterior as well as interior windows to the rooms. 

The windows to the rooms from this hallway carry natural exterior light into the spaces without the heat. A white TPO roof membrane also reflects a tremendous amount of light into the rooms but without heat gain – reducing energy load of cooling and also desire for artificial light by day. 

The heat gain in this hall during winter and shoulder months can be used to load the concrete floor, charging the radiant, as well as transfered into the rooms when necessary via their transom windows and redistributed using ceiling fans. 

In the end, controlling the house climate with a system of passive techniques and mechanical technologies will achieve a high level of efficiency and comfort for the long term  - for sustainability and the ecology.

We were recently introducing our house to some friends and the question of power source — or alternate power source — came up. When we explained that we had chosen Bullfrog Power over an “alternative” at site energy source they smiled patronizingly, adding that we should know that Bullfrog Power doesn’t provide clean power to your home when it comes via the grid silly.

I asked if we invested in an alternative power generation like photovoltaic roof panels or wind in our back yard, and generated in access of what we could use, what would happen to the over production? And if they considered that our power was arguably clean or carbon neutral, would it be possible that our neighbour might, if only for a moment, be using clean power from us? Hmm.

Well this is essentially what Bullfrog Power has to offer. We chose to use or invest in Bullfrog Power, if at least in the short term, as a alternative to investing in non renewable power generation supplied by Ontario Hydro and the local Burlington Hydro provider. Bullfrog Power invests in renewable and arguably clean energy sources, much of which in our area is wind, and channels it to the established grid.

Customers then chose their power provider to be Bullfrog Power and buy electricity from the grid. Bullfrog in turn invests profits back into supporting and creating more alternative and renewable energy production – in our back yard – so to speak.

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