Net Zero Energy Certified
It’s official, we received our CHBA Net Zero certification label this week! Big thanks to capitalhomeenergy and twinlionscontracting for handling the paperwo...
Recent Posts
Atmospheric River
We had record amounts of rainfall on the North Shore this past weekend in the first ‘atmospheric river’ of the season. Over 250mm of rain (>10”) 🤯 fell ov...
Art Work
Superposition, 2022 by james.nizam with galleryjones. We offered up our 1958 house as a canvas before deconstruction, and the results were extraordinary. Fas...
Planting Plan
A few photos from the garden taken over the last couple of weeks. We had a fair bit of time pressure to get all initial planting done before our move date to...
Move Week
At long last! Excited and very relieved to be in our new place and at the end of a long journey. Cheers to the team at Twin Lions, especially Morgan, Fish an...
Systems Run Down
Final few days of tweaking, touch ups and inspections. We spent the morning getting a run-down on our heat pump, HRV and heat-pump water heater. We were able...
Energuide Rating 0GJ
“This house produces more energy than it uses on an annual basis”.
Final Steps
Closing out summer with final paint colours, heat pump installed, sod and stepping stones laid, and fireplace complete.
Solar is Live!
Our solar team @puresolarcanada stopped by the house last week to switch on our panels. A big moment - we are now live and producing clean on-site electricity!
Permeable Driveway
Lots of action on site this week as we complete the driveway and hardscape. Because of the site’s poor drainage (see Stormwater Management post 11/24/2023), ...
Kitchen
The kitchen. So many hours spent here cooking, socializing, prepping lunches, baking cookies, making preserves, packing for adventures. We wanted to create a...
Railings
Lots of metalwork in recent days…
Interior Finishes
Tiles are in and looking fine!👌 Select cabinets as well - top quality work from @millwerks. Blind selection is underway. We must be in the home stretch? Huge...
Soffits
Cedar soffit install has been progressing nicely with scaffolding moving about the house one side at a time.
Flooring
It was a shoes off kind of site visit over the weekend with oak flooring in place 👌Look at the the detail on that stairwell! We went with hardwood upstairs /...
More siding, paint and blown-in insulation
The team has been working hard to get all our Hardie siding up. It’s looking fantastic - just the final sections to go at the soffit line.
Solar
Today’s the day! 27 solar panels and 12.7MWh of annual production installed on the roof! A much anticipated moment and key part of the net zero equation. So ...
Drywall and Siding
This week it’s all about drywall and siding. Heaters are going full blast in here to dry out the tape and joint compound. Siding is going up around the back ...
Insulation II
Happy Friday everyone! The majority of insulation is in and we’re onto drywall! It feels quieter and warmer in the house already.
Blower Door Test
@capitalhomeenergy stopped by this week to conduct a pre drywall blower door test.
Framing Inspection
We passed framing inspection this week! High fives to our team @twinlionscontracting for hitting this major milestone. We spent some time documenting what’s ...
Energy Storage and Back-Up Power
If you have solar panels on your roof, it makes sense to add batteries too so you can store excess energy, help smooth out peaks in demand, and power the hom...
Rough In
A ton of plumbing, mechanical and electrical work happening behind the scenes lately. As well as ‘back framing’ – final interior framing around bulkheads, do...
Floating Stairs
Our walkway, landing and front stairs are done! And with that, the last low-carbon concrete pour as well. Phew!
Lock up
Lots of momentum while we’ve been away for spring break. Our house is now closed in and we have a key! ‘Lock-up’ means not only windows but doors in as well....
Tree Work
Big pruning work today to pull vegetation back from the roof ahead of solar install. Burley Boys Tree Service turned up bright and early to thin the canopy o...
Insulation and Flashing
We have rigid insulation going in on the ground floor slab this week (one of the advantages of increasing the ceiling height in the basement). Result will be...
A Note on Air Barriers
With the framing progress this week, we were able to snap a couple close up photos of the air barrier system – the part of the home that will help keep our h...
Roof and Interior Framing
Front deck is done, back deck sheathing goes on today. Closing out on interior framing too. Nice to see the rooms start to take shape.
Window Install
Thrilled to see our triple pane windows by Vinyltek go in this week!
January Updates
New front deck in progress 👏👏👏
Winter Break
The roof is sealed, our retaining wall is done, windows are taped up as the team breaks for the holidays. We took an evening walk past the house last night a...
Mechanical Systems
In an earlier post, we discussed our HVAC strategy overall. For those interested in the nuts and bolts of system selection, air tightness and makeup air, thi...
Roofing
You know you are closing in on sheathing completion when a site visit includes a roof-top walkabout!
Stormwater Management
This week, we’ve passed inspection on our stormwater management system. This is a District requirement, targeting new builds and homes adding significant sur...
Sizing Heat Pumps
We’ve been working with our project team to narrow down our HVAC strategy for the house. With upped insulation in the walls, high performance windows and air...
Sunday Site Visits
Sundays are for site visits and offcut finds!
Roof Update
Perfect conditions to raise the roof!!
Old vs New
Tons work in prep for roof arrival next week. We can almost recognize the house again 😲
Sheathing and Main Floor
Our floor sheathing is complete and main floor framing is going back up!
Framing 2
Another couple of weeks and the makings of a ground floor! Loving these engineered floor joists, parallel strand (PSL) beams and old studs sandwiched between...
Framing
Really great progress while we’ve been away. Nice to see some framing starting to take shape. A mix of new lumber, old lumber and parallel strand lumber (PSL...
Low-Carbon Concrete
It’s pour day!!! After a long stretch of sunny weather, it’s drizzling the day we pour concrete 🌧. We’ve opted for a low-carbon mix supplied by Rempel Bros /...
Foundation Upgrades
Quick work from our project team to get trades back on site 👍 We’ve been digging, cutting, and forming for foundation upgrades. Concrete scope includes: U...
Some Good News
We have a building permit in hand at long last. All further dispatches will be from site.
Wildfire Development Permit
We thought we’d be back to work on site by now. Unfortunately, the final go-ahead is still held up because we have been going through a Wildfire Development ...
Mind the Gap!
Haven’t posted anything in a while. We have been navigating the permitting gap between a deep energy retrofit and a new build.
Permit Update II
An update - In the last 3 weeks, we’ve bolstered our engineering capacity and come up with a plan to tie into the existing foundation 🙌.
Foundation Update
We’ve needed to pause work as a decision taken by BC Housing as to whether our project remains a renovation or has tilted in the new build category. No major...
Storm and Sewer
As a renovation project above a threshold value, the District required us to upgrade the street utility connections. Here is the storm & sewer being repl...
Embodied Carbon 2
We are nearing completion of our life cycle assessment (LCA). Overall it’s been an interesting process to learn what our highest carbon materials are, lower ...
Drainage
This week is all about trenching for drainage and below grade plumbing. It’s been a very wet few weeks (North Van, what can you do!) but at least the tempera...
Superposition
Throwback to September when we partnered with @galleryjones and artist @James.Nizam who turned our red room into a work of art 🙌
Digger
New year and things are now moving quickly. We have a digger on site! Have started to pull out the harder materials: front steps pebbledash walkway fo...
Energy Efficient Building Poem
In celebration of the season here is a Christmas greeting from ChatGPT. Prompt was “A short Christmas Poem about an Energy Efficient Building”
Deconstruction II
Deconstruction has been moving swiftly. Our roof is off, the back deck is dismantled and our backyard shed too.
Site Walkthrough
Our house has been stripped back to the basics! A few things seen on our site walkthrough:
Asbestos Removal
It’s taken ages to get all the asbestos out of the house, but we passed air clearance on Friday ✅✅ which means our team can get started on the work proper.
Embodied Carbon 1
Embodied Carbon in buildings refers to “greenhouse gas emissions arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of ...
Electrical Pole
Today’s milestone was that we had temp power added to our new electrical pole. A few big tree branches had to be pruned to accommodate this (sorry neighbors!...
Go Time
Fences are up! Place is officially looking like a building site. We managed to salvage a few final items before handing over the house:
Red room becomes art
So awesome to be able to support this project ahead of our reno.
Permit Update
Breaking news, we have a permit in hand! Donuts, bubbly and thumbs up all round! Can’t wait to finally get started on this project. It’s taken us a year + 3 ...
Water, Sanitary, Storm
We will need to redo a number of District connections as part of our renovation including water, sanitary and perhaps storm. This is at the cost of the owner...
Yard Clean Up
Today we made some major progress on cleaning up the yard in preparation for construction. Evergreens were pruned, plants along the perimeter of the house pa...
Interior Design
No permit yet but much progress on interior design 👍 So grateful to be working with @tripledotdesignstudio to help streamline decisions. Who knew grout colou...
Permit and Patience
There are two things in life that, as adults, we don’t have any control over:
Fireplace
We inherited an old cast iron wood burning stove with the house, a Vermont Castings Resolute. Solid stove but would need a bunch of work & parts to get i...
Not Net-Zero Choices
While this account mainly focuses on net zero building, we are also doing a full gut renovation which means we have about 1000 decisions to make!
Gas Shutoff
Yesterday, Fortis came by and disconnected the gas.
Plants
going to a good home
Art Project
Exciting things underway in our red room as we await permit! With artist @james.nizam
Paint
Testing exterior paint colours before deconstruction
Deconstruction
Our permit is moving along and we are getting closer to go time! Anticipated start date is mid-September.
Grants and Funding
The province and Canada have different funding available for energy efficiency retrofits.
Mechanical Design
image cred @sarahlazarovic
Interrupting the renovation feed…
…with some plant photos!
Windows
This week we’re looking at windows and two performance metrics in particular: 1) U value, or USI in metric (inverse of R value). Measures the insulation or t...
Net Zero Metrics
Long post! TLDR, we can hit net zero with our design. See our Net-Zero Energuide Report and CHBA Net-Zero Energy Design Summary.
Hazmat Test
Our hazardous materials survey showed many materials containing asbestos - flashing, duct tape, firestop, vinyl floor tile, drywall joint compound and putty ...
Why Net Zero?
We’re targeting a deep energy retrofit with a stretch goal of net zero. Why? After transportation (road & air) and “stuff” we consume, our home represent...
Roof Design
The current roof is hand framed, with an addition out back ~1970s. Structural upgrades would be needed to support solar for net zero + if we were to add insu...
Hype Cycle
Earlier this year, we went down the path of a detailed cost estimate for our net zero renovation that came back >2x our budget and timeline. Cue many late...
Air Tightness
A blower door test measures how well the building envelope prevents air leakage. The fewer air changes per hour (ACH) the more airtight the building.
Baseline Energy Use
We had an energy audit conducted in March 2022. See our Baseline Energuide Report. Our energy performance was estimated at 185GJ/year, or 0.74 GJ/m2/year, wh...
The Property
What we like about the property is the location, solar access (yes, in North Vancouver!) position on the street, and views north and south.
The House
Our house is a 1958 hip roof, wood framed house, with single pane aluminum windows, natural gas heating and hot water, and minimum insulation as was required...