What is the best option for building our next resilient home?
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What is the best option for building our next resilient home?
We are currently living within the GTA area but looking to buy a land (within the next couple of years) about 2 hours away from the central Toronto area and build a new home. It will be a small 2-bedroom bungalow or rancher (just under 1400 sqft) that we would keep, essentially forever.
We are both few years away from retirement. Once we build the house, we plan to travel for about 4 to 5 months of the year (mostly winter and few months in summer) mostly in USA & Canada. As we become older, we plan to live in the house for longer durations.
Given this, what would be a sensible approach in building this house? Of course, we are interested in health/comfort, lower energy cost and longevity during the ownership of the house. Basement space is a nice to have but not a must if that significantly helps reduce build cost.
I have read many of the articles posted on this site but starting a such process still appears to be rather daunting. Assuming the land does not have any city hookup infrastructure, is it realistic for us to build a fully liveable "passive" house for under $350-$400kCA (land excluded in this price)?
谢谢你！
我们对每个建造家园的人的建议是一致的，目标是能源效率、耐久性、安全的室内空气质量和负责任的材料选择等。I would point you to our guide pages to search by category or keyword -
Green building guide for high performance construction techniques
On top of that, we would suggest you take extra time on resilient home design. Since you won’t be there a lot of the time, try to foresee any issues your home may face and add design features to deal with them passively.
Here is a short list of measures you might want to consider that will help protect your home while you are away for long periods, and we have included as many relevant links as we can think of:
Choose a suitable lot to build a homewith consideration put towards soil quality, water tables, emergency service access, and close enough to a community so you could have someone on call that can attend to your home regularly.
Super-insulated homes such as passive house, anddesigning a home for passive solar heat collectionwill keep your energy costs at a minimum and also help it stay warm in the event of power failures.
When you suggest a basement, my first thought would be to avoid that and stay above grade. Building a basement is typically a more expensive way to build, and even if you take measures to protect it against flooding, you will still be at risk.A slab on grade house on high groundwillsafeguard your home against extreme weather events in a changing climate.
If you do choose to go with a basement, please see our guide todurable and healthy basement construction, and take extra durability measures such as installing a sump pump, possibly a second one depending on water tables, and even a battery backup.
Choose durable roofing materialsto protect against high winds, such as a professionally installed and well-fastened metal roof, or aliving green roof. Asphalt shingles are the least durable and are susceptible to damage from wind and hail.
Smart homes and home monitoring with devices– control the systems of your home remotely, and monitor for intruders, temperature swings, andget smart phone notices for leaks from basements and or appliances.
We make no secret of the fact thatwe prefer slab on grade homes over basements, and particularly in your situation. Aside from what we mention above, it’s great to have a retirement home on a single level so you can avoid the need to negotiate stairs if you have mobility issues in the future. That said, we also have information ondownsizing and home design for seniors现在，当你的旅行结束时，你可能会想要考虑一下。
And to address the issue of cost – yes, you will put more money into a durable and efficient home, but they pay for themselves in the long run. As you plan to stay in this for the long term, we truly believe that the added investment for a greener home will pay off. The best way to keep costs down is to keep the size down and the design simple, so take time to consider how big a home you really need.
嗨，我希望开始一个麻家建筑公司，我相信你不会错建一个麻家他们是惊人的!不仅难以置信的生态友好，而且负载裸露、自隔热、防霉、防火、风速180英里/小时，不需要加热或空调，所以如果是可选的，整个家可以用大麻建造，它的碳正或负，成本大约与砂浆家一样。麻块就像乐高积木，它们是连锁的，你会对这种技术感到惊讶。我非常认为我们应该沿着海岸线和火灾多发地区建造这些房屋。我希望把这个放在那里，我可以找到投资者，帮助我使我的梦想成真。我的经济状况还不稳定，无法独自完成这项工作，但我正在与另一家公司合作。我希望你去看看大麻积木然后有什么想法再告诉我。快乐建筑从我们所有人在“三麻家园”美国的未来家园拯救世界一次1大麻家园。
Casey Bobbitt and Dennis Trombley
Princeton La
Hi Casey. From our research we haven't found hemp blocks to be quite as good as all that unfortunately.Hemp is a great building material but in our opinion building a home from compressed hemp blocks is not the best way to do use it as an insulation.There are companies that already do that, and so far what we've seen are plastic blocks enveloped in a mix of compressed hemp and cement. So it has a lot of plastic in it, and from what we have found, the process for compressing the blocks is pretty high in embodied energy. Energy consumption and emissions from manufacturing need to be factored when calculating the carbon footprint of any building material or a total house build if you really want a clear picture of the ecological impact.
As for home performance, hemp has an R value comparable to other insulations like mineral wool, fiberglass, or EPS foam, and just like any other insulation chosen for a house build, the heat load of a building will depend on the climate zone, and many aspects of the building envelope from how airtight it is, how thick of a wall you make, attic/roof insulation, window quality and even window orientation for solar gain.
As for heating and cooling - AC may be optional, however omitting it may be quite hot in some climates. And you would absolutely need heating in any cold climate where home heating systems are required. Hemp blocks are not a particularly airtight way to build either, so this is not an all-in-one sort of product, you would need a dedicated air barrier for energy efficiency.
这并不是要贬低你的商业理念，而是帮助你带着现实的期望进入其中。We have put some thought to in in the past, and better in our opinion than blocks would be astick-framed house with hemp batt insulation.
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