Home Builders Design

START WITH THE DESIGN!

Designing the environmental home challenges builders.

From the outside in, designers consider siting and use of resources on the site and from off the site. One considers land use, access, energy, materials, landscaping, water use, waste, transportation, fire and other services. Now we must evaluate all these more stingently and with new criteria. But new possibilities arise bringing new benefits. After all, finding solutions to problems is what construction is all about.

A building program encompasses all features, systems and materials. The results of each decision when considered together must be meshed and routed, chosen, located and arranged during the concept phase. The standards are definitely going to change, and they will be higher. Deeply imbedded functions affecting environment and energy now vie strongly with some of the many other criteria such as appearance, style, materials, use of spaces, view from windows, lifestyles. This is a market driven situation, and the market is looking for answers and for product right now, with demand projected to increase wholeheartedly.

This situation puts the onus on individual builders to compete, and on the industry as a whole to provide housing related to Green Built, Energuide and several other standards coming into focus. And it will not stop with these initiatives, we believe, but will continue to evolve at least as quickly as changes to which the industry has had to adapt in the past 100 years. In fact, we envision change so rapid, that it is almost discontinuous with the immediate past, and more relevant to the sweep of history of housing in its entirety. But first things first. Let us examine factors to put these thoughts into perspective.

The Systems Approach goes right to the land with new benefits.

Land development requires infrastructure to service the buildings. Self-sufficient environmental technology can save money on infrastructure like sewer, water, gas and electrical, while cutting costs of construction and operation. Fire-rated structures decrease fire prevention expenses such as water mains, reservoirs and road allowances. Environmental technology can decrease land development costs, and it increases the viability of individual dwellings. That is a win for the developer, a win for the builder and a win for the homeowner, and a win for the municipality. That's a big wholistic win, even without Kyoto.

The concept of distict energy systems will put renewability into the grid on a local scale, and create a situation where the grid becomes lighter and dispersed because of dispersed energy production mated to dispersed energy use. Individual dwellings will contribute energy for district energy systems. The enabling technology is electronic communications which will measure and negotiate energy transactions. Sewer and water systems, electricity, heating and other systems could follow the district services model.

Building environmental homes starts with a firm foundation on the basics.

The building envelope is the single most significant energy related factor in our climate.

* Insulation
* Orientation
* Materials
* Energy Systems

Passive solar: The building envelope makes the most efficient solar collector and heat sink. The building itself can work without added regulators and controls and to provide the lion's share of the heating and cooling requirements if designed and oriented thoughtfully on each site. A common mistake is to place the house and windows in relation to a view, which if toward the west, may cause overheating. Large view windows must be heated at night and covered during the intense setting sun, cutting off the view and useful energy gain anyway. Or venting of heat is required or air conditioning is specified. One must consider where one requires a view, and how much of a view. The building must be oriented properly to work properly.

Orientation:

This leads to strategic placement and sizing of view windows (the Zen window), and the appreciation of more than one type of view and of natural lighting possibilities which save on electric lighting.

* East windows in the morning light will wake up the occupants and remove the chill from a building. Doors may open to a small courtyard or breakfast garden, for those with morning time available.
* South provides the main firepower needed to maintain significant solar heat gains. Openings to the south can integrate the home with the landscape.
* North, one would like to place a buffer from the harsh North Wind, such as cooler bedrooms, garage or other lesser used part, depending on use. Perhaps the garage is much used and would benefit from solar heating.
* West gives a burst of energy for the evening under Chinook cloud while west access gives the evening's agenda a relaxed and happy flavour, especially in summertime.

Materials Can Save Energy

Massive materials incorporated into a building carry heating and cooling loads passively - without energy charges for heating or air conditioning. These materials have an effective R value owing to their ability to retain heat, and to absorb and emit energy from radiance, convection and conduction, and from tidal fluxes of air/energy/vapour passing through partially porous systems in which they function best.

The technique of using natural, more massive and monolithic constructions contrasts with the "light and tight", highly sealed home environment advocated within the present general market, which relies on complex assemblies of wood structure and various petroleum based membranes mated with fibreglass and styrofoam insulations. Here the battle is always against cracks and infiltration and exfiltration of air, and the problems accompanying these situations, such as condensation within the cavities, and air quality within the structure.

There are remedies and adaptations for the wood frame structure, which could extend the present standards and practices for the immediate future. These adaptations are well known, though not extensively used. Builders will have to adapt a pragmatic energy efficient construction strategy while continuing levels of production their market requires. Ultimately the potential super efficient level of performance permitted by new methods and materials will evolve into the market in our opinion.

Energy Systems

Energy systems are inseparable from other aspects of design. Energy systems are sized based on loads, such as heating loads and electrical loads. These loads can be reduced extensively. This makes renewable energy systems and conservation systems able to carry much greater proportions. Once a threshold is reached in efficiency, costs decrease because systems become eliminated or become very small and simple. Conserving energy and using natural energy opens the door to self sufficiency and extremely low energy costs.

Water and sewage requirements - Use of water and processing of sewage are expenses and impacts which can benefit from careful consideration based on requirements of the people and of the site. Collecting water, low water use, and waste and gray water systems can reduce the ecological footprint and therefore the cost of operation of a building during its life cycle.

Deciding What to Include in a Home

Rely on Your Energy Company to assist in design and project coordination. Discuss how designs can be optimized and refined to take advantage of environmental construction techniques. Contact us with your requirements.

Navigating the amount of choices and information available can be a challenging task when it comes to knowing the right choices to make. Then one must implement the actual construction and procuring of the technologies so they work the way intended. Simpler is better. Your Energy Company Inc. can assist clients to become informed of the practical implications of their choices, based upon the extensive and broad experiences of our team. We can inform, recommend, design and implement the building's core factors and systems as they relate to the unique requirements of any project: industrial, commercial or residential.

The pricing for Environmental Options Series One for custom home builders offers typical prices. Where a price is not mentioned, the option could be quoted upon request, and all options are subject to revision to suit the client as we discussed. Custom systems can be designed and engineered, then installed to suit.

In terms of the thermo solar systems, these can be sized and configured to give a portion of the heating requirements in addition to domestic hot water and in fact this has been done successfully with most systems installed to date by Your Energy Company Inc. In that case, the heating/ventilation system design, engineering and installation would be accomplished by Your Energy Company Inc. to the customer's requirements. Our customers have had excellent experience with these systems, both commercial and residential. It is possible to arrange a visit and discussion with some of our customers.

We design and install renewable electric energy systems such as photovoltiac grid tie and self-sufficient battery systems and we are very interested to install wind turbines.

Your Energy Company Inc. also offer other waste systems, including low flush/composting toilet systems from SunMar for up to fifteen people. Have a look at our SunMar compact composting toilet demo.

Ventilation ensures good air quality, while circulation improves heat transfer.

We will assist in evaluating any environmental option with you. Its your call.