PASSIVE LIVING
Brookfield builds concept home that is 90 per cent more efficient than the average Alberta residence
There are concept cars, the stars of car shows featuring the latest and greatest in technology and style. Highlights from these dream cars may eventually make their way into production cars.
Then there are concept homes. Like concept cars, concept homes showcase what the future could hold. In anticipation of a new national building code requiring new homes be net-zero ready as of 2030, Brookfield Residential developed and built an estate-level home in Symons Gate that is 90 per cent more energy efficient than today’s average Alberta home.
It’s a “passive house” — a rigorous standard for energy efficiency in a building to reduce a building ’s ecological footprint.
In some ways, one of the highest tech aspects of this 2,500-squarefoot home lies in the lack of technology — it’s a home with no furnace, for instance, but it’s engineered to keep its occupants warm on even the coldest of Calgary winter days. Using superinsulated walls and an energy recovery ventilator to warm fresh air brought into the house, the home is warmed just by the passive heat given off by household appliances, light bulbs, people and the sun. It also has a rooftop solar array to generate clean power.
“When we approached this project, we wanted to figure out what the future might look like and how we’re going to do it,” Doug Owens, senior director of strategic development and regulatory affairs at Brookfield, said at the home’s grand opening last week. “Right now it looks incredibly hard on a number of fronts because this kind of construction doesn’t fit within the conventional code process.”
Those south-facing windows over there, that is the ‘furnace’ (from passive solar heat).
The builder had to get five code variances approved by the city, each delaying construction and some adding unforeseen costs.
“Those south-facing windows over there,” Owens pointed to the side wall with tall window, “that is the ‘furnace’ (from passive solar heat) — the glazing area exceeds what you’re allowed on a wall facing a municipal reserve. So there’s a sprinkler system, and we had to add a pump.”
In building this showcase home, the company learned ways it can begin to add more energy efficient aspects to the homes it builds.
The home is built from crosslaminated timber. It was designed by Brookfield in Calgary, then the plans were sent to a company in Germany where it was prefabricated.
“It came with the pieces cut, the holes drilled, the packages of screws,” Owens said.
The whole house was then assembled on a pre-poured basement foundation.
Faced with an aging and shrinking construction force, Owens sees prefabrication and cross-laminated timber as a way forward for the building industry.
“We’re inviting people who manufacture CLT (cross-laminated timber) to come and tour the house and hopefully get that ability here in Canada,” he said.