HOME 2000
Durable Building Envelope: Keeps You Warm and Dry
Your home's building envelope is all that stands between you and the elements. With a well-designed building envelope you're comfortable all year round, and use less energy for heating and cooling - lowering your operating costs. Durable, long-lasting materials mean that you conserve resources and save on maintenance. Home 2000's envelope - the exterior walls, roof and foundation – is airtight, well insulated and uses energy-efficient windows . The home was built in modules in a weather-protected factory setting, a method that ensures tight quality control and a dry building . It's constructed of long-lasting materials such as a standing seam metal roof, fibre-reinforced cement beveled siding, and pressure-treated wood decking. Heat Recovery Ventilator
| Outside-vented kitchen range hood |
| Stale air exhaust |
| Fresh air supply |
| A healthy home is also energy and resource-efficient. |
| Home 2000 uses low - volume toilets and energy-efficient appliances, lighting and windows. |
| If the floor plan is oriented to take advantage of the sun, the high-efficiency hot water heating system can be supplemented by nature. Solar energy can also be used by the building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) roof panels to supply most of the home's electricity. If they create a surplus , the BIPV panels can even feed back electricity to the main power grid for use by others! You may think that systems like this are financially out of reach, but they're not. |
| Affordable, off-the-shelf technology is available in a range of sizes. |
| Two other key Healthy Housing features in Home 2000 are a durable building envelope, which ensures that moisture doesn't go where it shouldn't, and earthquake-resistant design. |
A heat recovery
ventilator (HRV) operates continuously at low or medium speed to supply fresh outside air
to all living spaces, and exhaust moist, stale air from the bathrooms and kitchens. With
the flick of a switch, you can increase its speed to quickly clear stale air from a room.
The heat from the outgoing stale air is transferred to incoming fresh air
– lowering your energy bill . As with the heating and cooling system, separate HRV
systems on each floor ensure that air, odours, sound and fires are contained.
To really be durable, your
building envelope must effectively manage moisture. Large amounts of trapped water can
cause your home to prematurely degrade; symptoms such as mould, mildew, and wood rot may
appear. There are many ways for water to get into your building envelope: rain and
groundwater can penetrate, water vapour from cooking and bathing can pass through the
envelope and condense on cold surfaces, and wet lumber or other building materials may be
used during construction.
Home 2000 keeps water out with a
rain screen wall assembly and CMHC's 4-D moisture management principle. Durable building
materials are used in areas of the envelope that often get wet. Water is deflected from
the envelope by roof overhangs, canopies, flashing and beveled siding. It's drained by a
cavity behind the cladding and directed down to a metal flashing and back out of the wall.
Any water vapour that reaches the stud cavity can pass back to the outside through the
moisture barrier, allowing the structure to dry.
Earthquake-resistant
Construction: Stands up to Disaster
In a disaster, your home is your
refuge. You can take steps to improve your home's chances of surviving an earthquake -
steps that will increase your personal safety during the quake, and your chances of being
able to live in the house afterwards. For most homes the cost of seismic upgrading is s
relatively inexpensive, and insignificant when compared to the cost of catastrophe. When
deciding what to do keep this in mind: any amount of upgrade is an advantage – even
minor improvements can make the difference between repair and ruin .
Earthquake-resistance is built into the design of Home 2000. The house is bolted to the foundation and exterior walls are reinforced with plywood sheathing. To ensure good load distribution, the builders used ample quantities of nails that embed securely, and metal ties to attach floors and walls. The water tank is strapped down to prevent it from tipping over, and major appliances are restrained to stop them from sliding across the room. The upper kitchen cabinets have latches to prevent the contents from spilling out during an earthquake.
Affordability is Key Affordability is a key principle of FlexHousing and Healthy Housing. While incorporating these features slightly increased the capital cost of Home 2000, homeowners can expect to recover the cost, and actually begin saving, through reduced energy and maintenance costs. With FlexHousing design, the money you invest now is usually significantly less than what you'd have to spend later on extensive renovations. Even better, a house like Home 2000 can be turned into a revenue generator if it's converted to a duplex. | Low - VOC, water-based paint over low - VOC vapour-retarding primer |
| 16mm (5/8") gypsum wallboard |
| 38mm x 89mm (2"x 4") kiln-dried SPF stud wall |
| RSI2.47 (R14) rock woolbatt insulation |
| 13mm (1/2") plywood sheathing |
| Housewrap moisture and air barrier (air tightness of 1.5 ACH @ 50 Pa) 38mm x 38mm (2"x 2") pressure-treated strapping |
| RSI0.95 (R5.4) rock wool draining insulation |
| Fibre-reinforced cement beveled siding |
| Pre-formed metal flashing |
| High-performance rainscreen windows |
| DEFLECTION of water |
| DRAINAGE of water |
| DRYING of water vapour |
| DURABLE materials in moist locations |