About A House - Energy Efficiency Elements

In the last post about the SIP roof, I had mentioned that the attic space was extremely comfortable without any other insulation except for what's on the roof. Thought it would be good to continue on the topic of energy efficient features to wrap it up!

Near the end of our design process, the city of Vancouver approved the use of double wall construction.  Double wall usually takes away interior space because it takes up a few inches around the perimeter of the outside wall.  The city of Vancouver allows the actual internal square footage to remain the same with the double wall. We adjusted our design to take advantage of change as it has a higher R rating than the standard R2000 wall system and is supposed to be cheaper to construct than the R2000 wall because of less expensive insulation material.

This is probably a good picture to illustrate the framed double wall as it shows the 2 layers of structure that makes up the wall and the space in between with a copy of our plans wedged in between.

The other energy efficiency big ticket item is the windows and exterior doors. Our window manufacturer selection process started back in Oct 2011. 2 local manufactures and 2 from other parts of Canada were considered, all were triple pane. The 2 local ones were vinyl and the other manufactures fibreglass. After evaluating the cost/benefit differentials between the them, we decided on the fibreglass windows from Fibertec. Their quote was less than 1 of the 2 local suppliers and the other fibreglass choice.

Why triple pane? I found a good short explanation of the cost benefit analysis of double vs triple glaze. Another added note is this house has lots of windows and big ones!

The windows arrived on Apr 25 & installed by May 4.

About A House - SIP Roof

The SIP roof arrived on Apr 3. There was a massive amount of panels in large pieces stacked up on the wider side street waiting to be transported onto the property.

Each panel is labeled to be fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle once lifted up.

From the side street, they are moved onto either the front or the back of the property depending on which side of the roof it is for.

Although there are many advantages of the SIP roof, the major benefit in our case is not even listed. It is the usage of the living space in the attic for our design. Our master bedroom & bathroom, laundry room, storage area and utility components such as HVAC and hot water tanks are all located on the top floor. Without any trusses, there is no wasted slant space under the roof.

It is fast to install as advertised....

By April 11, the SIP roof is done!

What about the cost? Compared to a truss roof for a standard house, SIP probably costs more if the added benefits of energy savings and even temperature are not considered. But our design allows very little truss to support the roof, we believe the cost of our roof would have been higher than normal. We were in the attic on a warm sunny day and the house is still not sealed or insulated except for the SIP rood.  It was not hot or stuffy. Pretty cool!

About A House - Saving Mature Plants

We've moved out of ex-house last week! That was some undertaking!! I can't believe the amount of stuff we have accumulated in our past 13 years at that house.

One of things I loved the most about our ex-house was the mature plants around the property. It was built in 1921 and the original owner had planted hedges, flowering shrubs all around and a cherry blossom at the front of the house. Fast forward 90 ish years and this is what they look like... the property is lush, private and colourful.

The original house at the new property was over 100 years old with plenty of mature plants in the yard. Unfortunately, we couldn't save as many plants as we would have liked because the lot is too narrow to accommodate the space Arthur needs to build the house. But we did manage to save some mature rhododendron, azalea and a Japanese maple. Some of them decided to show us their glorious colours this month to affirm that it was a good decision to make a nursery for them on the edge of the lot. They will be moved to their new homes when we do the landscaping this fall.