How To Build The Most Energy Efficient Home

How to build the most energy efficient home

I’m going to explain how I would build the most energy efficient home possible, to do this I will not be working off a budget and I will only be using products that are readily available to me. I also will be only using products that I have used before on other homes that I have built. As a company we have been building custom homes for over thirty years and have found the best ways to build homes and some of the products to avoid. I will be relying on this expertise while I explain how to build the most energy efficient home possible.

I will be doing this in parts, breaking down the actual home piece by piece so you understand why I am doing it. I lot of the times it is the little details that make the biggest difference.

Let’s start with how the home will be built.

BASEMENT

Exterior Walls

I would build the basement out of ICF (insulated concrete forms). This is a product that is 2.5 inches of foam on each side of a concrete core that is poured in place. I will be using these walls throughout the entire home, from the footings all the way to the roof line. The standard ICF wall for residential houses has the foam on the outside and inside and then a 6 inch concrete core; I would use the ICF that has a thicker core at least 8 inches. The reason that an ICF wall works so well is that once the concrete core is either heated or cooled by the heating system inside then it stays that way and radiates the heat/cold back into your home. ICF walls resist what is called wind wash; this is when a strong cold wind lowers the temperature of the interior of the wall cavity, this change in temperature affects the inside of your home by making the heating system work harder to keep the temperature up as this new colder air starts to penetrate the walls into the home at a faster rate than usual.

The ICF walls do not require another wall to be built on the inside of them, the foam blocks are all the insulation the walls require, because they are poured concrete you don’t even have to install vapour barrier over them like a traditional wood framed wall. There are also plastic webs that are embedded in the foam block that allow the drywall to be hung off of them.

Because we are using ICF forms we will not even have to worry about having the rim joist of the home sprayed as there is no exposed rim joist on a home that is built with ICF.

Floors

Under the concrete floor of the basement I would place 2 inches of polystyrene foam that is t&ged, this will help stop the cold in the ground from cooling the concrete slab and thus keeping the basement warmer. I would place heating lines in the floor that would be fed from the furnace so that the basement is always warm, once the concrete floor has warmed up to the appropriate temperature it will continue to radiant heat even after the heat lines have been turned off and are not hot. Over top of the polystyrene you would then place your vapour barrier to help keep the moisture out of the concrete floor.

Walkout

The home would have a walkout basement as this allows more livable square feet thus allowing me to have less square footage above ground. It is easier to heat and cool a walkout basement then trying to heat/cool multiple stories above ground that don’t have the luxury of the thermal mass of the ground around them. The walkout would have a lot of windows and doors in it to allow as much natural light in as possible and the home would face as south as possible.

The walkout basement would have frost walls that would be made out of ICF that would give it adequate frost protection and make it easy to heat.

Sump pump

Every home needs a sump pump. Sump pumps can use up a lot of energy if they run all the time. First thing that should be done is there should be a gravity drain installed so that the water that collects in the weeping system has a chance to flow away naturally without the use of electricity. The gravity drain is easily installed with a home that has a walkout as most homes with walkouts are built high on a hill which is the perfect scenario for a gravity drain.

As a backup or as the primary source of power to the sump pump I would install a solar panel on the outside of the home that would power the sump pump. This would allow the sump pump to continue to move water even when the power has failed in the home.

Above grade floors of the house

Exterior walls

All exterior walls in the home would be the 8 inch ICF forms. The outside of the building would be covered in a sustainable product like natural stone. Natural stone as long as it is installed properly will last a life time and also should protect your home because of its hard surface from flying debris, natural stone also has the ability to help keep a home cooler and also cut down on wind wash. Natural stone has no nutritional value in it, this means that bugs do not eat it or wear it out by tunneling into it.

Because the exterior walls are ICF the electrical boxes that are placed into the walls do not expose the wall to letting air penetration in like wood framed walls do. There is no reason to worry about light or electrical plugs needing foam or tape they will never allow a draft into the home.

Roof

I would build the roof so that it is high and steep, this will allow the snow to slide off the roof. I would build large overhangs on the roof. Large overhangs help shade the house against the sun and the harmful UV rays; it also sheds snow and rain water farther from the foundation of the building. I would keep the amount of hips, valleys, dormers and eyebrows to a minimum only having them were needed and not just to make the roof look more aseptically pleasing. I would not have any flat sections or low sloped area’s that will affect the longevity of the roof.

Soffits

I would install aluminum soffits because they will not fade and they have less chance of having
animals or rodents chew on them as there is no food value in them. They are also able to withstand strong winds and flying debris.

Roofing materials

You might wonder why when talking about an energy efficient home I am talking about the roof, well if you were to stick to just asphalt roofing this could limit what you want to do with insulation and air flow as asphalt shingle degrade faster without the proper ventilation below them. Other products like steel or Enviroshake are more forgiving and will withstand a hotter sub structure on the roof.

Home with Enviroshake Roofing

The roofing material itself would have to be Enviroshake or steel depending on where you were building your home. Enviroshake is a product that is made from recycled materials and ethanol waste from the making of ethanol fuel factors. The product looks like cedar shakes but has a 50 year warranty and has the ability to shed snow well. Steel has the same kind of warranty but will shed snow easier then Enviroshake, also if you live in a place with extremely high winds both of these products will stand up to the challenge with steel being a little better. The colour on new steel roofs will last the lifetime of your home not like old steel roofs that were installed on barns that rusted.

Under steel roofs there is a reflective foil product that I would install on the roof; this product helps deflect the heat that can build up under the steel from the sun, allowing the home to stay more of a balanced temperature throughout the year.

Insulating the roof

Insulating the roof/attic space is an art in itself. If you have parts of your home that are cathedral then they should be spray foamed solid between the roof rafters. The amount of insulation that you will be able to install between the rafters will be dictated by the depth of the rafters.

If you have an attic space then I have a very specific way that I would insulate it.

I would not install a vapour barrier on the bottom side of the roof trusses (which is usually a standard in most homes), I would install the drywall first, then on the back side of the drywall (the attic side) I would install a layer of spray foam 2 inches thick right to the back of the drywall covering the whole attic space. Doing this qualifies as a vapour barrier and also acts as an air seal that is far more effective than any other type of insulation. On top of the 2 inches of spray foam I would install blown in cellulose insulation, I would add it till I reached about R-70.Depending on the type of insulation that you use for your blown in will determine the depth of what is required to reach R-70. This exact process of spray foam and blown in will limit the air flow through the attic from the house to the outside world. This has the ability to save you more money on heating and cooling than all the other insulating you can do combined.

Windows

Windows are a huge heat loss to any home. I would install windows that where aluminum skinned on the outside and wood on the inside. The aluminum outside will stand up to the harsh eliminates and having it transition into wood on the inside (I just like the look of wood it being a natural product).

The windows should also be triple pane windows, triple pane will greatly reduce the affect of hot/cold temperatures from transferring inside. On the southern sunny side of the building I would also have solar limiting glass in the triple pane windows and on the northern shadier side I would have solar gaining glass in the triple pane windows. This will help balance the temperature of the house and allow the heating system an easier time at heating and cooling the home.

The windows would be installed with spray foam installed around the window. Because of the depth of the ICF walls it allows me to install double the normal spray foam insulation around the windows insuring the maximum amount of air leakage protection.
One other trick to stopping future drafts around windows is to caulk the trim around the window to the drywall. This is the last measure to stopping drafts from penetrating the home.

Having as may windows as possible that face where the sun will be able to shine in is good because it reduces the amount of energy you have to use with lights but if an area of the home will not receive a lot of sun light then making the windows smaller in that area will help with the heating/cooling demands.

Window coverings

Blinds, drapes and curtains should be used for every window; this is a simple technique to help keep the temperature regulated in the home. If you have windows that are high up and you have trouble reaching them then have them wired for an electrical motor, this will allow you at the push of a button to lower or raise the blinds. The savings on heat/cooling loss will out way the cost of the electricity that is required to run them. A lot of the time windows coverings are more about the comfort of the people in the home then the actual temperature in the home. If you feel colder in a certain room because of the amount of windows then you are more apt to turn on the heat, window coverings limit that problem allowing you to keep the thermostat at a more consistent temperature.

Heating systems

This is the big one, spending the appropriate amount of money on your heating system will save you more money over the long run (using less energy) then everything else I have talked about.

I would install a geothermal heating system. The geothermal heating system would be a dual system that would allow it to supply in-floor heat and also air heat to the duct system. Geothermal works by absorbing the heat/cold from the ground and transferring it into the home. I would install either the ground loops or install the loops right into a large body of water (lake, river, and ocean). If I didn’t have the room then I would opt for the drilled well (vertical loops) variety.

All the floors in the home would have in-floor heat; every room would be on its own zone. This would allow me to turn down the heating in any room that I wasn’t using saving on energy. This would require thermostats in every room of the house.

I would also install ductwork throughout the entire house for the furnace to supply cooling throughout the home as in-floor does not have the ability to supply cooling. This duct system would also be used to supply heat when needed; in-floor heat can take a while to warm up a large slab of concrete to radiate heat, this way you would have a way to immediately heat an area up. This would require that all the thermostats in the home are smart ones and be programmable. I would then install electronic low voltage dampers; these will allow the furnace to only heat individual rooms instead of whole areas of the house. This really comes in handy when cooling the home, the southern side of the house will be hotter than the northern side so using more energy on one side and less on the other will help balance the environment of the home. Less energy is used for the overall heating and cooling this way and the house is kept at a perfect temperature everywhere you go in it.

The thermostats in the home would all be linked through the internet so that I could adjust the home temperature from my phone or computer anywhere in the world allowing me to lower energy use when it isn’t needed.

I would have multiple hot water tanks installed; the great thing about geothermal heating is that it supplies you with almost free hot water. The first hot water tank would be pre-heated (for free) by the geothermal system and then the second hot water tank would keep it at a constant residential appropriate temperature until it is used.

An HRV in the home is a must; this recycles the air in the home reducing the need for a lot of air to be constantly brought in from the outside. I would install what is called a complicated HRV system. This is a system that has ducting running to all bathrooms in the home, not just the normal furnace returns. The ducting that is run to the bathrooms will remove the moist hot air from the bathrooms and feeds it through the HRV system instead of the typical ceiling fans that are usually installed. This limits the amount of penetrations through the outside walls and is also more efficient then using the fan system in each individual bathroom. The bathroom fans only have a small piece of metal between your home and the outside world, with enough air pressure from outside cold air can penetrate into the home.

Auxiliary heating

I would install at least one fireplace, they should be wood burning. The most efficient fireplaces are hand built Rumford fireplaces. These allow you to place wood vertically inside the fire chamber and also will allow you to have a fire in above zero conditions. If you don’t have the room for Rumford’s then sealed fireplaces should be installed. These will have doors on them so that there isn’t any way for a cold draft to work its way into the home.

Having fireplaces can cause a little bit of heat loss when they are not in use but the benefits far out way the negatives.

Having fireplaces allow you to warm up an area of the home without having to use the heating system. Burning wood is a natural thing and is not harmful to the environment, especially if you are not heating your entire home with it. It is also a great backup if the power fails and you require immediate heat, it doesn’t need gas or oil to keep going and will work no matter what type of weather is outside. A fireplace can keep your home warm and safe for as long as you need it too.

Lighting

I would install low voltage LED pot lights throughout the home. These lights use such little power that all the low voltage LED pot lights in a large home equal out to a couple of normal halogen pot lights. Any other lights that you install should be at minimum some form of LED lighting.

Lighting should all be wired to smart controls, this will allow you to access the lighting via internet so that lights do not have to be left on at all times. This will also allow you to control all the lighting when you are in the home, when you go to bed you can hit the command to turn off all the lights and any light you forgot to turn off does. This is a great feature if you have children who like to leave bathroom or closet lights on after they are done using them.

Dimmers should be installed on all lights, this limits the amount of power that the lights will used especially if you are using them as a night light or accent lighting or for security purposes when you are not at home.

Ceiling Fans

In any room that has high ceilings you should install a ceiling fan, this will help the heating system reuse the air that can get trapped in the high ceilings of the home. It also helps in the summer to move air helping limit your need to run the air conditioning.

Appliances

All the appliances should be energy star or better rated appliances. You should only have as many appliances as you require. For example: if you have two or three refrigerators and they are all partly full then you are wasting energy by having all of them plugged in and running.

You should have a cold storage room in the basement that will be cooled naturally requiring no electricity for those types of goods. The wall between the cold room and the rest of the house will require an ICF wall and an insulated steel door to keep the cold from penetrating the home.

Well and water

Your well pump should be a constant pressure pump. This kind of pump keeps water pressure constant in the line from the well to the home all the time. This allows a smaller pressure tank and also for the pump to work less frequently saving you money on electricity.

All taps, toilets and plumbing fixtures in the home should be low flow or low water use. Modern plumbing fixtures that use less water are engineered in a way that you should basically not notice that less water is being used. It will save on your well pump being used and the amount of liquid your septic system would be required to handle.

Options for you

You could install small scale wind and solar panels to offset your electricity use. I would not try to rely only on this power source to run a whole house, the electricity needed to run the heating system will probably be more then the renewable energy generators are able to create without taking in the need of the rest of the home. What you can do is have a transfer switch that you could flip when the power goes out and you would be able to power parts of the house without using a generator.

The other thing you could do is have the wind and solar energy feed the grid (you being compensated for that) offsetting any electricity costs that you use and still use it as a generator when the electricity grid goes down.

You can also install a system that in low electricity times of the day or year will run your entire home off the solar and wind, it then kicks back to the grid when you require more electricity as your usage and demand throughout the day changes. This would also help offset your electricity bills.

In conclusion

You now have the most efficient energy saving home possible, all of what I have mentioned is being used today in residential construction, like I stated at the start I have designed and built this house using no budget. A lot of the items that I have mentioned are expensive but they do work as energy savers. You do not have to use them all to save energy (because of the cost most people do not) but using some of them will help you save money in the long run and help keep those energy bills and your consumption of resources to a minimum.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Roofing trends in 2014 for custom homes

Roofing trends in custom homes 2014

Here are some of the trends that have come about this year of 2014 on the roof of custom homes.
Some of the trends have been consistent over the last couple of years and they are considered long running trends. There are other trends that have come about to be more popular in the last calendar year or less and are considered to be newer trends.

Roofing applications in today’s Custom Homes

Here is a list of the trends that have stayed the same over the last several years;

• Large peaked roofs that are now prevalent in most architects plans have brought about the need for torch down roof membranes on the top of houses because of height restrictions that leave the home with a flat top.

• Asphalt shingles are still the most common and prevalent material installed on all new homes. The ease of installation and the price point make them the simple choice for homeowners even though they have the worst durability.

• On houses with steep roofs steel roofs are a normal trend because of their durability and their ability to shed snow.

• Grace Ice and Water Shield is installed on the first 2 feet of all roofs starting at the eves and up the valleys.

• Dark asphalt shingles have and are still the most common shingle installed.

• Black valleys are still the most common because they go with any kind of dark roofing material.

• Enviro-shake has all but eliminated the need or wants for homeowners to have cedar-shake roofs installed, with the composite material looking so close to real cedar plus giving a lifetime product, something cedar cannot accomplish.

• Strip ridge venting is on almost all new asphalt shingled roofs, giving the clean look and helping maximize air flow through the roof cavity.

• Standing seam steel roofs has by far become the most wanted and installed look when talking about steel roof choices. The standing seam gives a richer look to the roof, making it look less like a barn steel roof and more like a luxury material on a custom home.

Here is a list of the trends that have started this year and are growing in popularity;

• Asphalt shingles that have fibreglass backing to help with their durability in high winds are growing in popularity as homeowners try to find a way to get longer life out of their shingled roofs.

• Heavier duty and multiple ply asphalt shingles are growing in popularity for their longer life spans and warranties.

• Using multiple materials on custom homes is slowly gaining in popularity as people attempt to find a way to maximize parts of their roofs that receive the most wear and tear but saving money on the parts of their roofs that do not. Installing asphalt shingles on a high steep roof and then installing steel roofs below on porch or lower sloped roofs helps the longevity of the lower roofs and can also be very appealing to the eye. Or a section of the roof done in steel to help move heavy snow loads off the roofs.

• Composite roofing materials are gaining popularity as homeowners look for alternatives to asphalt shingles but the higher price point is slowing the popularity of it and keeping it to a slow growing trend.

• The colour silver is fast becoming one of the most popular choices for steel roofs as people look to make their roofs stand out instead of disappearing.

• Custom homes are being designed with multiple pitched roofs with flat roof sections that are built lower down to give the roof lines are more dramatic look. These flat roof sections are being waterproofed with a commercial grade roofing membrane that gives a home lifetime of waterproof protection.

One of the biggest debates that people have with their contractors is how much to spend on their roofs. That debate sets the table for the material that you can pick from, the better the roof and the longer it is slated to last the more it will cost. The fancier the look of the material the higher the overall cost of the roof will end up costing.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

From asphalt to Enviroshake, here are the main options to choose from when looking for a new roof

If it’s raining while your reading this and you keep looking up at the ceiling expecting to start seeing water drip down on your face, that is usually a good sign that you need a new roof.

These days there are a lot more options for your roof then just asphalt shingles. Here is a list of some of the products available to you:

-          The traditional asphalt shingle has not changed much, sure they are using different materials in them like fibreglass backing, but the actually shingle has not changed much. It is still basically an oil based product. Asphalt shingles are becoming increasingly less reliable. It has gotten to the point were a lot of shingle companies will not even honour there warranty if and when the shingles fail. The average asphalt shingle will be lucky to last 15 to 20 years these days. Because of the changing weather, acid rain and heavy UV light, asphalt shingles curl and fall apart. It has gotten to the point that roofing companies are now installing waterproof products like “Grace ice and water shield” that are installed under the asphalt shingles directly on the plywood sheeting of the roof. This is so that when the asphalt shingles fail you have protection from water penetration into the inside of your house until you can get shingles repaired or replaced. High winds are also hard on asphalt shingle roofs, after a couple of years asphalt shingles stick together so in high winds not just one shingle comes off. The high winds lift and rip the whole large sections of shingles off the roof. Usually when this happens the whole roof needs to be re-shingled. The reason that asphalt shingles are the most widely used roofing product out there today is simply because they are the cheapest. In other words YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!

-          Steel roofing materials have been around for a long time. They have been traditionally used on agricultural buildings and commercial buildings. But with new products and almost an unlimited number of colours to choose from steel roofing has become extremely popular on residential houses. Steel roofing usually comes with a life time warranty not just on the steel but also on the colour. So gone are the days when you have to call a roof painter every 10 to 15 years to repaint your steel roof. Steel roofs are ideal for places that have high winds and extreme weather conditions. Steel roofs when properly installed can be rated to withstand hurricane level wind and rain. With today’s installation methods and insulation you do not here the rain on a steel roof like you used too. If you have a lot of trees with low hanging branches steel roofs are great because it is strong enough to withstand large branches scrapping against and even falling on it. Dirt, leaves, pine needles, branches and anything else that collects on a house roof will not rust or corrode a steel roof. In heavy snow country steel roofs outperform most of its competitors. When snow builds up enough it slides off the roof onto the ground. This is a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because it doesn’t allow snow to gather, melt and allow water to backup and create a leak. The down side is that if you want to have rain gutters they might get ripped off the house when the snow slides. Also you have to be careful that you do not end up with large snow loads building up above your main entrance door. This can injure people if they slam the door and the snow comes down on their head. Not all roof pitches and configurations lend themselves to have steel installed on their roofs. Depending on the style of the house, steel might not look appropriate. Steel roofing is more expensive then asphalt shingles but it will be the last roof you ever install on your home.

-          A classic product that has been used for generations is cedar shake shingles. They are what they sound like; they are made of cedar and cut into a varying array of widths. Usually there are 3 or 4 different widths that are installed randomly in straight horizontal lines on the roof. After less than a year cedar shingles fade from there light brown colour to a silver colour. Cedar shingles are a wonderful classic look on a house and can give a house a real cosy cottage feel. Cedar shingles used to be the thing to install on your roof for long life. They used to last up to 50 years on house roofs. Not anymore, in today’s weather, UV and acid rain cedar shakes usually don’t make it to 30 years. Also all cedar shingles are cut from new growth tree’s not old growth trees. The belief is that this is a big contributor to why cedar does not last as long.  With dormers and fancy roof lines dirt and leaves can build up and rot the cedar shakes creating leaks. Cedar is prone to mold, mildew and insects. Cedar shake is labour intensive to install; it requires that you put a layer of felt paper between every row of shakes that you install. The product is also expensive to buy. Cedar shake shingles are more expensive then steel and asphalt shingles as a roof system.

• Enviroshake is a product that is new to the roofing world. It has only been around for about 20 years. Enviroshake is made from recycled materials, such as recycled tires, waste plastics and waste products associated with making ethanol from corn and wheat. Enviroshake is manufactured with a grain stamped into its face that looks like cedar shakes and comes in different sizes just cedar shakes. They are also installed like cedar shakes; the only difference is that you have to cut them with a power saw instead of hand knives or hatchets. Enviroshake has a lifetime warranty and is said to last 50 years when installed properly. Enviroshake comes black but fades to silver in 6 months and looks just like cedar shakes. Enviroshake will with stand winds up to 110 mph and water pressure infiltration resistance in wind velocity tests of 105 mph.  Enviroshake is actually rated to withstand a level 1 hurricane. Enviroshake is an extremely slippery product like steel, snow does not sit on it for very long. You have to take the same precautions that you do with steel roofs related to gutters and snow slides. With the world moving toward sustainable products that are easier on the environment and your conscience, Enviroshake is the roofing system that will be that one more and more people turn too. Enviroshake is more expensive then asphalt and steel roofs, it is even more expensive then cedar shakes.

There are many other different kinds of roofing available, but these are the most popular in Canada and the northern United States on residential houses.

So whatever roofing system that you choose, remember that there are a lot of different products out there to choose from, the best way to choose a roof system is with a qualified contractor that can give you proper quotes and install the roof with the appropriate warranty.

If you are looking for a new roof or you need help picking a new roof feel free to email us at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village Builders Inc.