[jeremybell]

It's still very much in the early stages of design, but I've started to document the design and construction of an eco-modern house I'm building in Toronto. We don't have much to show yet, other than a few drawings and cool cardboard model... but I think she's moving along nicely.
Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

http://www.360winnett.com

 

[interchange42]

Thanks for posting this Jeremy - your project is unique amongst the condo and office towers we are following here. I am sure a good number of us will enjoy watching your progress!

42

 

[jeremybell]

I was actually a little reluctant to post at first as I thought this forum was dedicated only to commercial & large-scale projects. I'm definitely glad to hear there's some interest.

 

[marcus_a_j]

Jeremy,
I like what you are doing and it will be neat to see how it all progresses. I'm just curious as to how your neighbours have reacted to the plans (if you've shown them off)?

 

[jeremybell]

Thanks Marcus - the neighbors have been quite enthusiastic about the whole thing... well, at least those I've shared the plans with. I'm actually in the middle of putting together a little package that I'll place in everyone's mailbox. It'll contain the plans, model photos and possibly renderings (if I get them in time). And of course the website address

The reality is that we're within our setback limits, so luckily no one can contest what we're doing - but we want to at least give them the courtesy of sharing our intentions so they'll know what to expect.

 

[hullymon]

Eco-modern home

Hey, thanks for sharing this. I will watch closely what you are going through with this. I have the same desire to build an eco-friendly home. Very interested about your eco-plans, and if you are looking to have solar/wind/thermal...All the best with the project.

 

[jeremybell]

We're definitely considering a variety of eco-solutions... however solar and wind appear to be far too expensive to invest in those solutions now. Geothermal on the other hand is also expensive, but the ROI is MUCH quicker - it's definitely at the top of "non-traditional" HVAC solutions we're considering. That said, I'm still have a hard time stomaching the upfront costs... so we'll have to wait and see if it's actually viable given our budget.

 

[jeremybell]

Just a quick update - We've submitted our plans for our building permit, however we're now investigating the usage of ICFs (nudura) to the roof. Price-wise, it appears to be very similar to traditional stick framing + spray foam throughout. It'll probably be a little more, but we're investigating how much more. We're also moving out of the house tomorrow, and we've tentatively scheduled a demolition date of August 4th (although I'm expecting that'll change if we decide to proceed with ICFs to the roof).

 

[bar1967]

Just a quick update - We've submitted our plans for our building permit, however we're now investigating the usage of ICFs (nudura) to the roof. Price-wise, it appears to be very similar to traditional stick framing + spray foam throughout. It'll probably be a little more, but we're investigating how much more. We're also moving out of the house tomorrow, and we've tentatively scheduled a demolition date of August 4th (although I'm expecting that'll change if we decide to proceed with ICFs to the roof).

Just visited your site. Very interesting!! Looking forward to further updates.

 

[Voltz]

May be a little late now, but I wold tale a serious look at using this line of products for the exterior walls, even the foundation walls

http://www.thermapan.com/

I have seen it in action before and have worked with it, it out performs all other types of wall systems.

Alot of information is avaliable there what ever you might choose

 

[Archivist]

Thanks Jeremy. I will be going through this process myself in a few years, and will follow your progress with great interest. Even the choice of green solutions will be quite interesting for me, so I really appreciate this a lot.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Hey Jeremy, have you considered certifying your house for LEED? I'm not sure what sort of financial incentives you get out of this (in Ontario), but every newly certified home increases the credibility of the program and it also gives you more exposure should you build more sustainable houses in the future.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Will the home be R2000 compliant?

 

[Joe]

Thanks for posting here Jeremy. I've been following your site since it was featured in either Torontoist or BlogTO.

My wife and I are currently househunting, and will most likely be retrofitting whatever home we buy to be both energy efficient and also less dependent on traditional hydro (using solar panels, etc). I've been reading a lot about geothermal lately, and it sounds good, but have been unable to get any ballpark figures about cost.

I notice that you mentioned on your blog that homeowners can get up to $7000 back from the government after geothermal installation... do you know of any cost "rules of thumb" when it comes to this type of energy?

Thanks,

joe.

 

[jeremybell]

Well, the house came down on Monday. It's nothing but a hole at the moment...

For those interested, I cut together a quick video of the house coming down: http://www.360winnett.com/videos/demolition/

@Joe - Geothermal will set you back quite a bit... we got some ballpark costs, and it was looking like it would be around $40K. Even with $7K back, it's still hard to swallow those costs. Most of the cost came from the vertical well drilling that was required. It would be cheaper if you have the option of using horizontal wells, but that's a little unrealistic in the city. We've decided on a very high efficiency natural gas furnace + a heat pump (instead of an A/C unit) + an HRV. At $11K, it's all still quite expensive... but it's a fraction of the geothermal, and we'll get about $2400 back in rebates.

The other downside of the geothermal rebate is that it's so big. As crazy as it sounds, the $7K actually made it less attractive for us because we qualified for a variety of additional rebates. The maximum rebate you can get is $10K, and with everything taken into account now, we'll be getting about $9600 back. Had we gone with the geothermal setup, it would have been far less attractive for us to do everything else we wanted to simply because we would have reached the cap a lot sooner.

@W. K. Lis / Hipster Duck - The house won't be LEED certified, simply because there isn't a residential program available in Canada yet (apparently it'll be an option in 2009). However, we are trying for Energy Star certification (which is similar to R2000 in many ways).

I'm not sure what, if any, benefits we'll see by getting the certification... other than saying we got it. There are a number of hoops we need to jump through, one of which is hiring a "consultant". This seems like such a waste of money to me, simply because all of the documentation is available online so I know what we need to do to receive certification. We're going to build to these guidelines anyway, so I don't understand why I need to pay a consultant to explain it. Sigh.

I'll be writing about the requirements soon, which will hopefully put it perspective a little better... stay tuned.