April 28, 2006

Internet Resources

Korky Koroluk

The home of the future

With all the innovative things we read about nowadays relating to green building in general and LEED in particular, it’s easy to overlook the fact almost all of it is related to either commercial or multi-unit residential buildings.

What about single-family homes, or small multiples — two- or three- or four-unit structures?

Canada Mortgage Housing Corp. has done a lot of work on its “healthy homes” concept, and now it has begun work on net-zero energy healthy housing. That’s simply healthy housing that operates off the energy grid or, perhaps, draws energy from the grid when necessary, but which can generate energy to sell back to the grid at other times.

And the Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA), in concert with TD Canada Trust, has its Envirohome program. Envirohome basically picks up where the R-2000 program left off. To qualify as an Envirohome, a home must be certified to the R-2000 standard, then include additional air quality and environment features beyond that.

All this is to say that there are ideas out there for homebuilders who want to branch out from traditional production housing.

And in the United States, some exciting things are happening in the PATH program. That’s the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing, a public-private partnership led by the U.S. department of housing and urban development (HUD).

The work being done in all these programs will, most of it, ultimately be reflected in LEED for Homes, which is still down the road a piece in the U.S., and farther down the road here in Canada. And tagging along behind LEED-H, as it is called, is LEED-ND, which will be for neighbourhood development.

You can find some really exciting stuff in PATH, and the concept home it is building this year in Omaha, Neb.

For instance, it involves a flexible floor plan featuring designs and building systems that let the owner reconfigure interior spaces with relative ease. Need to carve out a small space for a nursery for the new arrival? Move a couple of walls around. Need to renovate to accommodate an aging relative who’s moving in? Same thing, except you may want to put a small kitchen in as well to make a small, self-contained suite.

PATH wants production and assembly processes that improve building quality and efficiency. Part of that will be in the use of alternative basic materials, developed for homebuilding or adapted from other industries.

PATH calls the home that will encompass these principles the “home of the future,” which, it says, will not only accommodate family changes, but allow basic designs that can be easily customized “to give the home the quality and curb appeal of a custom-built house without the high cost, and improved production methods that speed construction and enhance long-term durability.”

PATH is strictly American, but the ideas it develops will inevitably find their way into the Canadian market, where home buyers, concerned about energy costs, are already forcing builders to devote more attention to energy efficiency.

Homebuilding is heading off in some new directions that will require new design and production ideas supported by innovative building systems. So if you’re a Canadian homebuilder, you have some reading to do.

CMHC’s net-zero web is at www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/inpr/su/neze/index.cfm

CHBA’s Envirohome information is at http://envirohome.chba.ca

For PATH information go to www.pathnet.org You will find links leading you to downloadable files detailing the six principles that will apply to the Concept Home.

Specific information on the Concept Home is at www.pathnet.org/concepthome

You can see the Concept Home plans at www.newportpartnershipllc.com

Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com

Print | Email | Comment