Village Builders has a home featured in the 2016 Ski Season issue of Our Homes Magazine. It is the magazines 10th anniversary issue.
www.ourhomes.ca/uploads/pdfs/OH_SGB_SKI16_H_B.pdf
The home is built in Grey Highlands and is built to be a minimalist home.
The home is designed by Stark Architecture to the exact specifications of the homeowners. The home has a standing seam steel roof and steel siding making the outside of the home completely maintenance free.
The inside of the home is finished in white and has the minimum amount of trim around the doors and baseboards, the windows in the home are all drywall returned.
One the most unique features in the home is that it has a Tesla charging station in it for the electric Tesla car. The charger is actually able to handle charging multiple electric cars at once.
The subtle and unique details throughout the home make a warm and interesting home.
A lot of care and detail was put forth towards the energy efficiency of the home so that overall caring costs of the home are quite small.
Take sometime and read the article and see what a truly custom home looks like.
Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.
Showing posts with label Energy efficient homes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Energy efficient homes. Show all posts
Monday, February 1, 2016
Monday, February 17, 2014
What is a home energy audit?
Q:
What is a home energy audit?
A:
Home energy audits have become popular as homeowners seek ways to lower their home energy bills. A typical audit, performed by a trained and accredited local professional for a few hundred dollars, will test the energy efficiency of your heating and cooling equipment and water heating system, identify leaks or other inefficiencies in the building envelope and ductwork, and suggest ways to reduce your energy use with lifestyle changes and home improvements.
A lot of mortgage companies (especially when dealing with first time home homebuyers) will require you get a home inspection. A home inspection is different then a home energy audit. A home inspector has nothing to do with a home energy audit, sometimes you will find a home inspector that does home energy audits but don’t think that getting one qualifies you for the other.
In the province of Ontario when you resell a home you must have a home energy audit completed. This is suppose to help the potential homebuyer to understand how much energy the home uses.
In Ontario when a home energy audit has been completed the inspector will place a sticker with the rating and the inspectors name and number on the hydro panel. This slicker should never be removed unless a new energy audit is done to the home and a new slicker is to be applied in the old ones place.
The rating on an energy audit will depend on the heating, windows, insulation and the overall air tightness of the home.
Custom homes always rate higher on that scale then track built homes, the level of care and quality of materials that are used in a custom homes make the home extremely more energy efficient.
For the cost of the energy audit when buying a home it’s well worth it, it will save you money in energy costs in the years to come.
Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.
What is a home energy audit?
A:
Home energy audits have become popular as homeowners seek ways to lower their home energy bills. A typical audit, performed by a trained and accredited local professional for a few hundred dollars, will test the energy efficiency of your heating and cooling equipment and water heating system, identify leaks or other inefficiencies in the building envelope and ductwork, and suggest ways to reduce your energy use with lifestyle changes and home improvements.
A lot of mortgage companies (especially when dealing with first time home homebuyers) will require you get a home inspection. A home inspection is different then a home energy audit. A home inspector has nothing to do with a home energy audit, sometimes you will find a home inspector that does home energy audits but don’t think that getting one qualifies you for the other.
In the province of Ontario when you resell a home you must have a home energy audit completed. This is suppose to help the potential homebuyer to understand how much energy the home uses.
In Ontario when a home energy audit has been completed the inspector will place a sticker with the rating and the inspectors name and number on the hydro panel. This slicker should never be removed unless a new energy audit is done to the home and a new slicker is to be applied in the old ones place.
The rating on an energy audit will depend on the heating, windows, insulation and the overall air tightness of the home.
Custom homes always rate higher on that scale then track built homes, the level of care and quality of materials that are used in a custom homes make the home extremely more energy efficient.
For the cost of the energy audit when buying a home it’s well worth it, it will save you money in energy costs in the years to come.
Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
When you renovate you should set aside money to increase the energy efficiency of your home.
When you renovate you should set aside money to increase the energy efficiency of your home.
A recent study of Canadians showed that 4 out of every 10 people want to renovate their home to increase the energy efficiency of it.
Increasing the energy efficiency is actually a lot easier than it sounds. Here are a couple of things that you can do in an older home to help lower your heating/cooling bills;
• When taking on a bathroom or kitchen renovation remove the drywall on the outer walls and add insulation. You can spray foam the walls solid or add foam on top of the studs before you install new drywall.
• Whenever you expose a ceiling check to make sure that the rim joist are insulated, if there not then add insulation to them. Simple fiberglass insulation will do.
• Add insulation to your attic, this can be either bats or blown in loose cellulose. Make sure if you add insulation that you are not blocking the air flow from the soffits. Moore vents might be required.
• Insulating the walls in your basement will go a long way to lowering heating bills and it will also give you more livable space without adding any additional square footage to your home.
• Upgrading your furnace to a high efficiency model if it is gas or switching to geo-thermal or an air to air heat pump if you live in the country.
• Change your hot water tank to a tank-less. This kind of unit only heats water when a tap is turned on instead of heating water all day long when no one is home to use it.
• Add an HRV to your home. This will cut down on how hard your furnace will have to work when bringing in air from outside.
• When replacing your appliances in your kitchen look for models that use less energy. Look for the energy star symbol.
• If you are replacing or repairing outside siding, add foam insulation to the building. This will stop the heat and cold from escaping through the studs.
• Have new windows installed that help regulate the amount of solar rays that come into the building. This can help you regulate your home from being too hot on the south side of the building and to cold on the inside. This will lower the demand on your furnace as well.
• If you are re-trimming windows take the time and address the gap around the windows with spray foam. If it is already spray foamed then add where needed.
• Caulk around all windows and doors, caulk not just the outside but the inside trim as well. This will cut down on the amount of drafts if the insulation is compromised around the window.
• Make sure doors have proper seals on them; if they leak air then you should repair the seal or replace the door with a newer one that has a magnetic seal.
Doing a lot of these things while you are renovating will not just help you lower your heating and cooling bills but in a lot of cases raise the value of your home. With new rules in Ontario about getting an energy audit every time you sell a home, it makes sense to do these things so that your rating is higher at test time, making the home more attractive to potential buyers.
Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.
A recent study of Canadians showed that 4 out of every 10 people want to renovate their home to increase the energy efficiency of it.
Increasing the energy efficiency is actually a lot easier than it sounds. Here are a couple of things that you can do in an older home to help lower your heating/cooling bills;
• When taking on a bathroom or kitchen renovation remove the drywall on the outer walls and add insulation. You can spray foam the walls solid or add foam on top of the studs before you install new drywall.
• Whenever you expose a ceiling check to make sure that the rim joist are insulated, if there not then add insulation to them. Simple fiberglass insulation will do.
• Add insulation to your attic, this can be either bats or blown in loose cellulose. Make sure if you add insulation that you are not blocking the air flow from the soffits. Moore vents might be required.
• Insulating the walls in your basement will go a long way to lowering heating bills and it will also give you more livable space without adding any additional square footage to your home.
• Upgrading your furnace to a high efficiency model if it is gas or switching to geo-thermal or an air to air heat pump if you live in the country.
• Change your hot water tank to a tank-less. This kind of unit only heats water when a tap is turned on instead of heating water all day long when no one is home to use it.
• Add an HRV to your home. This will cut down on how hard your furnace will have to work when bringing in air from outside.
• When replacing your appliances in your kitchen look for models that use less energy. Look for the energy star symbol.
• If you are replacing or repairing outside siding, add foam insulation to the building. This will stop the heat and cold from escaping through the studs.
• Have new windows installed that help regulate the amount of solar rays that come into the building. This can help you regulate your home from being too hot on the south side of the building and to cold on the inside. This will lower the demand on your furnace as well.
• If you are re-trimming windows take the time and address the gap around the windows with spray foam. If it is already spray foamed then add where needed.
• Caulk around all windows and doors, caulk not just the outside but the inside trim as well. This will cut down on the amount of drafts if the insulation is compromised around the window.
• Make sure doors have proper seals on them; if they leak air then you should repair the seal or replace the door with a newer one that has a magnetic seal.
Doing a lot of these things while you are renovating will not just help you lower your heating and cooling bills but in a lot of cases raise the value of your home. With new rules in Ontario about getting an energy audit every time you sell a home, it makes sense to do these things so that your rating is higher at test time, making the home more attractive to potential buyers.
Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)