Fall 2012 Energy Efficiency Public Review

BC has been pursuing energy conservation and greenhouse gas reduction goals in buildings for more than five years. In September 2008, the Province adopted new energy and water efficiency objectives and requirements for all buildings in the British Columbia Building Code. Since that time, staff have been working on the next steps to improve energy efficiency in buildings consistent with the goals in the Clean Energy Act (2010).

We invite your feedback on a set of proposals to adopt updated energy efficiency requirements in the British Columbia Building Code, including:
 
Large Residential, Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (Part 3) Buildings: A proposal to reference both the 2011 National Energy Code for Buildings (NECB) and ASHRAE 90.1 – 2010 as two possible compliance options in the BC Building Code.

Housing and Small Buildings (Part 9): A proposal to adopt the package of new revisions to the National Building Code relating to energy efficiency for housing and small buildings.

Ventilation (Part 9): A proposal to adopt new ventilation requirements for Part 9 housing to maintain occupant health and safety.

The proposed changes would have an impact on Part 10 in the BC Building Code. If these proposals are adopted, Part 10 would look like this.

Alfie Lives

Well Alfie did not exactly get the life of leisure I promised him.  I immediately put him to work on my 'rock pile' in the back yard that was hidden under years of blackberry growth.

Start of job - find the rocks and dirt through the mountain of blackberries and ivy!

 A lot of rocks to screen.  This is excess soil and fill that accumulated from previous projects around the yard like the perimeter drainage, garden sprinklers, and the start of a waterfall, pond and stream.

Not exactly Kutny's Soils scale, but it worked wonderfully.

The finished screened pile (about 20 cubic yards worth) - I have a lot of stone work in my future.  Plan on a stone wall fence, stone wall raised garden beds, stone herb gardens, and a selection of stone and gravel stream bed.

But just before getting to the above finished stage, poor Alfie had to have a rest.  He had been leaking fluids before I liberated him, but the vendor had thought they had addressed the issue by flushing and cleaning the radiator.  Well the problem was a bit more terminal than that and poor Alfie required bed rest for the last 3-4 weeks while we searched for a suitable heart donor.   A suitable replacement water pump was located last Friday and Alfie went under the knife last Monday.  After 4 hours of anticipation and worry, wondering if he would or would not make it, Alfie woke up and jumped out of bed and started digging.  

After looking at the pump that was removed, we are amazed that it was still in one piece with the cracks radiating around the entire perimeter.  We are thrilled with his recovery to date but he is not out of the woods yet.  He still gets flushed after a few hours work and needs to take a break to cool down.  We will work together to get through this season and then he will go see a specialist.  We are all routing for him here at SENWI.

Alfie the Excavator joins the SENWI Team!

When I was younger, I always wanted a fancy tractor to play in the sand box.  Well 40 years later I got one.

We would like to welcome Alfie the Mini-Excavator to the SENWI team.  Alfie spent most of his life up in the Whistler, BC area where he worked on the rock gang and was often left out in winter's cold cold harsh weather.  We at SENWI wanted to rescue Alfie and let him live out his senior years in the relative comfort of the lower mainland.

Alfie has an impressive 10ft digging depth and due to his rigorous exercise schedule is able to fit through a 5'3" opening.  So he is great for those small back yard projects you have been putting off.  He loves to dig and is quite skilled at digging a small trench for a perimeter drainage system.  For fun he likes to knock out stumps, small trees, and brush and has even been know to transplant the odd bush or two.  His thumb makes it child's play for him to move around rocks or slabs in the various landscaping projects he will be helping us with.

We decided to ask Alfie to join our team, as I anticipated having a large volume of landscaping to be done on our build.  Having a help like Alfie on site during the build itself will also be invaluable.  He has already provide some ideas on how to create a small deck on his boom to help me lift materials up to the second floor and claims he is up to the task of removing our structure and concrete slab when we tear down our existing dwelling.  He also can't wait to show his brawn and lift in all the heavy beams I will have on the first floor ceiling.

A friend of Alfie costs $3200 a month to rent.  If we only rented when we really needed a helper like this, then we would not have one around for all the small jobs that Alfie will be great at.  At a minimum, we would need one of Alfie's friends for a period of 6 months at a minimum cost of $19,200 + Tax.  At a purchase price that was less than this, Alfie just makes financial sense.

His arrival has also sparked up interest in the neighbourhood and he has already been asked to play at two yards nearby which of course helps reduce his purchase costs.  For longer trips, he has made friends with Butch the tow truck during his trip down from Whistler, so that he can get out and play in other yards on occasion.

Finally Re-Started

I can proudly say, as of yesterday, I have finally restarted the design process for the floor layout with an effort this time to maximize the sun’s exposure for living areas (align living areas along the south side and utilities along the north) and minimize the floor area in general in order to lower costs and also fit within the District of North Vancouver’s floor space ratios (even with my thicker walls).  In a jet-lag-induced-stupor, I broke out AutoCAD (which I use for prototyping), blew away all the walls on my previous designs and started the process over. I have done this probably a dozen times over the last 10 -12 years and it always surprises me that the ‘next’ design is often substantially different than the last design.  As my priorities and goals change, so does the layout of our home.

For instance, when I intended for this to be a retirement home, I did not worry about what would make the design ‘marketable’, but only on what we as a couple needed and wanted.  This resulted in a 2-bedroom house with lots of extras like a gym, second laundry, office & study, theatre room, etc.  Then about 5 years ago, I came to a realization (my wife also to a lesser extent) during an annual stay at a vacation rental house on Chesterman Beach in Tofino, that I really did not want to live in North Vancouver for the rest of my life.  When I moved here 13 years ago, it was a drastically different place, and I intended to ride out the remainder of my life here.  But, in my view, the North Shore has deteriorated substantially since then.  Traffic is my number one concern.  Because the Upper Levels Highway has reached capacity, a lot of traffic now spills onto Marine Drive and through residential areas.  In my neighbourhood (which has not seen ANY increase in the density of homes), the flow of traffic at a nearby intersection has gone from 2400 vehicles a day in 2008 to over 5000 vehicles a day last March (this increase is generally vehicles cutting through the neighbourhood between the Upper Levels Highway and Marine Drive).  Marine Drive has now become choked for a large portion of the day and it can often take 15+ minutes to get to a nearby mall during the day (10 blocks) when the same trip at night only takes three minutes.  And now the District is supporting heavily increased densities along Marine Drive without any meaningful plan to address the traffic.  Until and unless the North Shore Communities demand that the Province upgrades the highway and bridges, the problem will only get worse.

But I digress. That is a conversation for a totally different blog.  The point is, I do not see that this will be a pleasant place to live for decades (if ever), and so the emphasis of my design will now be marketability as opposed to personalization.  In this region that means bedrooms, the more bedrooms the better.  It does not really matter on what size the bedrooms are and many are filled up with a queen sized bed.  If I were truly building to market demands, I would also add more bathrooms.  Many homes in my neighbourhood have a bathroom attached to each bedroom.  But in my books, this is just nuts.  My generation and my parent’s generation managed just fine with only one bathroom in the house.  Yes that’s right one bathroom!  Can you imagine?

Although I will be building with marketability in mind, I still believe that builders should be providing a legacy in the structures that they provide and not a liability.  So I will be trying to provide the ‘features’ that the current buying public want, but not at the expense of the building envelope and compactness of the home.  I will talk about this and my design process more in future posts.

For now though, I would like to leave you with some thoughts I have as a resident of the North Shore on my return from a holiday to Chicago, Scotland, and London.  I feel I am further up the curve of what I consider a sustainable path through life, just by the programs in place where I live when viewed in contrast to these recently visited regions.

Let me start with Chicago.  This is a LARGE city by Canadian standards (approximately 4-5 times bigger than Greater Vancouver) and there was a lot of waste produced and a lot of traffic.  What was not visible were recycling efforts or car pool/transit lanes.  

When I talked with our drivers, they did not think anything of the traffic, and felt it was acceptable to commute through communities in order to miss the back-up on the highways.  Really???  The City is looking at adding ‘green-wash items’ like bike lanes in the core, but what about the gridlock?  Why not reward drivers who carpool and take transit by allowing those drivers/passengers an expedited path through the gridlock.  This will help solve many of your problems including road capacity (encourages denser passenger ratios), pollution (less stop and go traffic), and less cars means less damage to road structure.

As a resident of Greater Vancouver, I was also shocked at the lack of recycling generally available in the City.  For any city in any part of the world, recycling just makes common sense.  Yes there is an expense to do so, but let’s consider the savings.  The pickup costs are largely offset by the reduction in garbage pickup volume.  Reduced garbage volume means less pressure on the landfills.  Much of what is normally recycled are often items that do not readily break down in landfills and can often leach all kinds of nasties into the surrounding soil and groundwater.  By recycling them we can reclaim many of the materials in the products we throw out.  This reduces costs to remediate dumps, reduces manufacturing costs (recycled material is by its nature pre-processed and so often easier to incorporate into a manufacturing process than raw material and usually much cheaper to purchase as well), and of course recapturing raw materials puts a lot less strain on the diminishing natural resources on this planet and reduces our need for their exploitation.

Scotland also lacked any visible recycling program, and I felt horrible, throwing away plastic, paper, and glass while there.  With a total population of just over 5 million (less than Chicago) and a land mass of 30K square miles compared to Chicago’s 1487 square miles, their logistics challenges for collection is understandable.  But I am sure that the Country could come up with some innovative methods if they put their heads to it.  For me, it felt almost barbaric,  like living with an attitude that stated - Not a problem – we have LOTS of room to just dump it.

The other surprising point for me in Scotland was the food.  It was generally heavy (meat and potatoes or seafood and potatoes), and often lacked the addition of fresh vegetables.  Salads were never a standard part of the meal in most locations we visited.  One server just could not understand that we wanted vegetables with our dinner and not chips. Near the end of our trip, I remarked on this to a Chef at an Inn in Gairlock, and the son of one of our neighbour’s.  He advised that the growing season in Scotland just does not support the production of produce.  Indeed in my travels, I did not drive by even one farm, lots of fields of grazing sheep, but no crops of any nature.  He advised that the vast majority of the Countries’ food is imported from the nearby European neighbours.  They apparently do not even eat a lot of lamb and instead export that product because it is generally too expensive for the ‘locals’.  Fortunately, he followed up our conversation with a large salad course to our meal that was a welcomed addition. 

This, however, got me thinking about the sustainability of that type of culture, and the need for innovative solutions.  If we can grow tomatoes in a greenhouse in the Vancouver region, why can’t others?  It made me realize that a lot of the things I take for granted back home are really very innovative and environmentally responsible, compared to the practices in many other parts of the world:

• We generally have car pool and transit lanes on many arterial routes into and out of the cities (still LOTS of room for improvement).  We provide special parking for small cars, electric cars, and co-op cars.
• We recycle a lot of our trash (the percentage is growing all the time – the District of North Vancouver recently introduced a food waste recycling program) and if our Municipalities are unable to provide recycling pick up or drop off, there are companies like Pacific Mobile that provide drop-off service for many non-compostable products that we as a society would otherwise throw out. 
• We have available to us locally grown and raised produce.  I can even go to a major chain and buy vegetables and fruit grown locally in BC (far less often as we should be able to, but it is a start).  And if I am willing to split my shopping trip up, I can buy fresh and often organic meat and vegetables from smaller stores or directly from the producers.
• We in BC enjoy one of the cleanest electricity grids in North America if not the world. 
• We in BC have much better building standards for insulation, soon to be air tightness, and requirements to keep water out compared with much of the world.

I leave you with this thought:  

WIKI describes “produce” as a description that is often implying that the products are fresh and generally (being made available) in the same (region) where they were harvested.  

Think about this the next time you pick up a bag of grapes, melons, or even snap peas at the local supermarket.  Look at the labels for where the ‘produce’ was grown.  I think you will be shocked.   

Now, think of all the actions required to get the product from where it is grown to the shelf that is now in front of you.  Think of the fuel burned in trucks, boats and planes to move that product. Think of what chemicals and pollutants the ‘produce’ may have been exposed to back in the growing country.

Ask yourself. “Are these sustainable practices?”  I know my answer!

WSS, WRB, AB, & VP - Oh My!

After my last post, many of you are probably left wondering: "Has he done ANYTHING on his design yet?"

The truth is I have; not all my time over the last 4 or so years I have been ‘working’ on this project has been wasted.  Although I do not have any hard blueprints or floor-plans yet, I have continued to flesh out ideas for different components of the build by continuing to invest considerable time into research, seminars, technical courses, and discussions with colleagues.

One of the components I have invested the most time into (I would estimate at over 200 hours to date), is what will be best practice for my water shedding surface (WSS), water resistant barrier (WRB), air barrier (AB), and vapour barrier (VB).  There are probably as many opinions in this field as there are blades of grass in my front yard.  And it has taken me over five years to come to some conclusions of my own in this area (was interested in this subject long before I started this latest design journey) but even now, I am running lab tests to prove or disprove whether my decisions are wise enough to proceed on the real thing.

One of the key factors in deciding on a WRB, is first deciding on an AB strategy.  The most common strategy this (in my region) is an attempt to seal the vapour-barrier-poly on the inside surface of the wall (beneath the drywall) to also serve as the air barrier.  As a home inspector who has been in hundreds of attics, crawlspaces, and basements, I can honestly say I have yet to see a poly-vapour-barrier adequately detailed to form an effective air barrier.  It is next to impossible to form a lasting air-tight seal using poly and tape around penetrations like wiring, floor joists, knee walls, etc.  In most homes I have looked at, there hasn’t been a serious attempt to install this so important barrier.  The reason?  It is hard, takes a long time to do right, and is therefore expensive.  So it tends to just get a half hearted effort so that the contractors can tick off the requirement as they move forward in the build.

Let’s back up a moment: "Isn’t making a house more air tight why we are having so many problems with moisture issues and mould in North America?"  I am quite confident a large number of people reading this right now agree with this statement.  "After all, we did not start to have these problems until we started to make our building stock more ‘energy efficient’ – Right?"

The truth is, it is the process of adding additional insulation, and not ‘attempting’ to make our assembly’s air tight (I state attempting because we have actually done a really poor job in this field to date), that has led to the increased risk for our wall and roof assemblies.  I talked about this last March in my ‘New Education’ posting. You see, in the old days our houses were very inefficient but somewhat durable.  Sure the huge volume of air that flowed through our assemblies helped to keep some components dry, but it was the heat escaping through our poorly or un-insulated walls and ceilings that was doing most of the work.  This heat acted to ‘cook’ out any moisture in the wall and roof sheathing.  Once we started to increase insulation levels, we started to cool these surfaces down and eventually we cooled them down enough to reach the dew-point potential of our standard interior air (which for the Pacific Northwest at 21°C and 50-55% RH is around 10°C).  As we can reach this temperature for most of the fall through early summer in my region, the risk is actually very high and I see the outcome often, especially in attic cavities, in my inspection practice where a great number of homes I have looked at over the last four years that have had ‘modern levels’ of insulation in the attics, have also had moisture problems and mould in the attics.

As we have added more insulation to our dwellings to make them more comfortable and energy efficient, the air barrier, which has been the most ignored barrier to date in our building codes in my view, needs to become the star of the show.  In truth, it should have always been the star of the show, because reducing the air exchange through the assemblies automatically makes the home more comfortable and energy efficient without adding a stitch of insulation (read about my personal experience back on my January ‘We own a House’ entry).

To emphasize the importance of the air barrier, let me provide this graphic from Building Science Corporation in their paper RR-0412: Insulations, Sheathings and Vapour Retarders.  This provides a dramatic visual of how much vapour movement can occur through the smallest of holes in the air barrier compared to a large hole in the vapour barrier.

Fig 1: Over one heating season in a cold climate, 30 quarts of water can flow through a 1” x 1” hole in an air barrier by means of air movement, but only 1/3 quart of water can flow through a 4’x8’ hole in a vapour barrier by means of vapour diffusion.

As you can see, the air barrier is very important in keeping our walls dry.  Even small holes (imagine trying to prevent these holes with tape and poly) can lead to large amount of moisture, in vapour form, entering our wall cavities where it can then condense on the surfaces we have cooled down by adding more insulation.  This is because air movement is smart.  It moves in a three dimensional way from one hole to the next.  It can enter the wall cavity in one location and find its way out of the cavity to the outdoors on a completely opposite side of the house.  As a result, an air barrier has to be continuous (details are important), durable for the life of the assembly, and most importantly – buildable.  A designer or architect should be able to take a pen and draw the complete air barrier on the design without ever taking the pen off the paper.  If they can’t – its time to find a new one, because if they cannot draw it, how do you expect the contractors to build it!

One convenient fact about the air barrier, unlike the vapour barrier that must go on the high pressure side, is that it can be placed anywhere in the assembly.  There is no rule that states that the AB and VB have to be combined, and there are much easier ways to detail the air barrier than trying to seal the poly.  What IS important to pay attention to is the vapour permeability of the air barrier, and ensuring it is appropriate for the location installed.  In a heating climate with the vapour barrier to the inside, you want to ensure all components installed outboard of that barrier are as vapour-permeable as possible, to allow the assembly to breath to the outside.  So if you are creating an exterior air barrier, it is very important that the barrier has high vapour-permeability. 

When choosing your products make, sure you get independent data to support the manufacture’s claims of permeability.  We recently tested several sheet style sheathing wraps for vapour permeance at a Building Envelope Lab course at BCIT.  There was no surprise that our control wrapped in Poly was still soaking wet after 10 weeks, but what was a surprise was how long it took some of the sheathing membranes - Typar and Vapro Shield specifically - to dry out.  Both of these developed considerable mould on the samples because they had not dried out fast enough.  Even 2 layers of 60 minute building paper outperformed them and exhibited only a few tiny spots of mould.

Some options for creating an Air Barrier are as follows:
    •    Air Tight Drywall Approach
    •    Sealed Poly Approach (Combining with Vapour Barrier)
    •    Sealed Exterior Sheathing Approach
    •    Sealed Exterior Insulation Approach
    •    Sealed Exterior Sheathing Wrap Approach (cannot use building paper for an air barrier)
    •    Sealed Interior Sheathing Approach (Used a lot in the PassivHaus circles)
    •    Combinations of all or some of the above

Many in the scientific community advocate an external air barrier approach.  The benefits of an exterior air barrier approach are as follows:
    •    Can be detailed and tested early in the construction process to ensure you are on the right track and address if you are not.
    •    Is easily reparable during the build, up to the time the cladding or exterior insulation is installed.
    •    Is usually easier to make the barrier much more durable if the barrier is sandwiched between components.
    •    My favourite - Opens up the possibility of using a liquid applied barrier.
    •    But probably the most important - There are far fewer penetrations on the exterior of a wall assembly and most of those penetrations have square sides and are therefore easier to detail.

Because of these benefits, and my research to date, I have elected to implement an exterior air barrier approach on my build, and I'm currently testing a liquid-applied barrier from Prosoco called R-Guard Cat5.  This would act as both the Air Barrier and Water-Resistant Barrier.  If all goes well in testing, and I proceed with this approach, I will be applying the product to the exterior sheathing prior to installing my outboard continuous insulation.  I will discuss this a lot more in future postings but for now I have started to video diary my product tests on a mock-up which I have uploaded to You Tube.


I would welcome any comments or words of warning you may have.  Next month we will talk about the Water Resistant Barrier.   Thanks for reading!

SENWiEco takes a shot at applying R-Guard Fast Flash from Prosoco

The second in a series of videos providing a demonstration in the application of the R-Guard product line.

SENWiEco applies R-Guard Joint & Seam from Prosoco

The first in a series of videos demonstration the application of the R-Guard system.