Solterre Passive House Concept Cottage
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Last summer, I took a drive from Halifax down to Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, to check out Solterre Design’s Concept Cottage. The house looks like it’s been there for a few ... [continue reading]
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11 Flavors of Sustainable Housing
Shawna Henderson
Keeping track of what's going on in the world of low-impact, sustainable housing is, and was, a challenge. [continue reading]
Value Chain and Core Competencies
Shawna Henderson
Training in building science and energy efficiency is essential to moving the house building industry forward into Net Zero Energy, successfully. As BHE COO, Hal Richman has observed, many people in our industry do not see the entire value chain. It’s a complicated one – easy to see in this diagram how the home building industry is a hot, fragmented mess of experts and expertise, completely at odds with itself sometimes. [continue reading]
Home Energy's Canadian Correspondent
Shawna Henderson
Shawna Henderson, reporting from way out here on the edge of the world. Well, from Nova Scotia, Canada, just outside Halifax. For my ‘Murrican friends, once you hit Maine, keep going east. You’ll bump into us eventually.I am honoured, and very chuffed, to be bringing the news on the Canadian home performance/high performance building industry to Home Energy readers. A quick history: I had a fire lit under me back ... [continue reading]
Energy Analysis: So Much to Know...
Shawna Henderson
It's hard to wrap your head around the amount of number crunching that goes into energy analysis, and how to prioritize your time and effort when working on a project. There are energy modelling tools that can be used that make it easier, but in a lot of cases, the easier the modelling tool is to use, and the less actual, real-world performance testing data you input, the more likely the result will be a ... [continue reading]
Sales Funnels Are Funny Shaped Things
Shawna Henderson
One challenge seems to be at the forefront of a lot of the discussions I'm having with colleagues and associates these last few weeks is sales. Closing sales. Making the sale. Getting some traction...getting any movement at all... Mark Mitchell is a sales and marketing consultant for the building materials industry who writes a good blog. I have been reading Mark's blog for a little while now, diving into the archives and really finding ... [continue reading]
Why I Love Dumb, Passive Do-Nothing Houses
Shawna Henderson
I've had a decades-long love affair with dumb, passive houses. Passive. As in do-nothing. I love the design challenge of making do with the site and the microclimates that a house can be tucked into, the available solar gain, the building envelope. The minimal interjection of technology to maintain comfort has always been appealing to me, mainly because I'm selectively cheap and lazy. I don't want to do anything that costs me money over and ... [continue reading]
The Consequences of Flush Toilets
Shawna Henderson
So there's lots of excellent work and capacity building going on, and net zero energy, low energy, and high performance houses are being designed and built throughout North America. Innovation and forward thinking abound. It's all very exciting. But there's a place past which most builders, designers, and homeowners will not go: beyond low-flow plumbing fixtures, specifically toilets. Massive infrastructure has made it pretty convenient to not think about the consequences of flush toilets. Sure, ... [continue reading]
Energy Use Patterns in Off-Grid Houses: It's All About the Energy Budget, Right?
Shawna Henderson
I grew up on the West Coast of Canada, and I have had the good fortune to spend lots of time in and around the Gulf Islands, the Sunshine Coast, and Tofino. Earlier in March, an article in Huffington Post (Canada) featured the off-grid community of Lasqueti Island – 400 people living with site-generated power. The article was based on a 2012 episode of Global News’ documentary series 16x9 that was included in an article published ... [continue reading]
