Why it pays to build efficiently

16 04 2008

pinkinsulationOne of the things I hear a lot in my new position is that people want to build their new homes energy efficiently but think that they cannot afford to. Whenever I hear this I always say without hesitation “You can’t afford NOT to build you home energy efficiently!”. There are huge misconceptions out there about the costs, methods and effectiveness of building new homes efficiently. Most new home builders do not help the situation and will tell prospective customers that adding more insulation to their house, installing a geothermal or solar heating system or building to take advantage of passive solar gains will add an unreasonable amount of cost and time delay to the building process.

Fortunately there are free resources out there for anyone to dispel these myths. A free software package from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) can be downloaded called HOT2000 and it allows anyone to do energy modeling on their home and actually forecast what various changes will do to the energy consumption of there homes! It has a fairly shallow learning curve, with a windows interface, drop down menus and check boxes, and comes with a good help file and example files to build on.

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Strawbale Home Update

14 04 2008

I figure it’s time for a status update on the straw bale home. It’s been a slow 3 or 4 months since the snow started back in November, other than the interior walls, the plumbing and electrical rough-ins and a few small items we haven’t done much on the house.

A few weeks ago we had the main ventilation shaft and fan installed and will now be able to go ahead with insulating the attic! We ordered the wood for the second story ceiling and the danish oil finish for it. Two weeks ago we spent the long weekend cleaning my father-in-law’s shop and laying out and pre-finishing the wood for the ceiling. The danish oil was a labour intensive finish for 2400lnft of 1×5 t&g pine but it was fantastic to be able to use this non toxic finish without wearing masks. We also completed a last few niggling attic chores like vents for the bathroom fan, dryer and fresh air intakes.

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