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.
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