Floor Plans and Renderings

Since yesterday there have been several rounds of plans and renderings. We are trying to capture the Newfoundland vernacular architectural style: The Saltbox.

Saltbox homes are simple, linear, built to shed the newfoundland climate with a steep pitched roof. They also happen to be a great shape for a Passive House. Here are a couple of the floor plans and renderings:

The main difference between the two plans is the gable orientation on the garage. Sch-3 has a much simpler roof line than Sch-4 This may be our best option since the area over the breeze way can be included in the thermal envelope of the garage and add for extra space in the garage attic. We can add a shed canopy to the front/back of either plan to act as shading over the south facing windows if necessary. We'll see....next round to come soon....

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Building the Air Tight Barrier: Door Flashing Details.

It took us a while to wrap our heads around the door details on my plans. The main exterior wall is composed of 2x8s. The rough stud opening was substantially larger than the door. Because the walls are much deeper than a standard door frame for a 2x6 wall, the interior of the 2x8 opening was studded with double 2x4s. Outside of these 2x4s, there is 1.5" of foam and another 2x4 on face which brings the door frame opening flush to the exterior 3" of EPS foam. The brick mould of the door will sit against the exterior of the wall. The ganged 2x4s which define the opening will allow the door to open a little further than that of a 2x8 wall. With the door details finalized, I had to flash the opening as per the plan. I specified the size/shape for aluminum sill pans and CBS Eavestroughing made them for me. The sill pans have a kind of end dam to prevent water from entering under the under the stud opening should the door ever...

Choosing an HRV...My Thoughts....

So, which HRV do you want for your home? This is a question not often asked by the homeowner. When the house is built, somebody installed an HRV and that was it. The home owner is rarely involved in anything other than turning a knob on the HRV wall control if they dare fool with it at all. An HRV is probably one of the most important appliances in your house; it expels moisture, eliminates odours, evacuates stale air from bathrooms, provides clean air to keep you healthy and it recovers a lot of heat that would have otherwise been blown out through the vent on the house. It serves three main functions: 1. Supplies the home with fresh dry air. 2. Removes stale air and removes excess moisture. 3. Recovers heat or heat/moisture For a low energy home we need an HRV that is as efficient as possible. With the ventilation unit taking care of exchanging most of the air in the building, having an efficient one will pay for itself...

The Attic: A hatchway, A Landing and a Catwalk.

Attics are one of the neglected spaces in the our homes....an afterthought really. Many trusses are designed the same way they were years ago. There is no thought put into the lack of insulation above the top plate on exterior walls. Heeled trusses were developed as a solution to this problem (https://www.apawood.org/raised-heel-trusses). Adding a small heel enables deeper insulation over the top plate of exterior walls and helps prevent thermal short circuiting to and from the attic space. It seems that heel trusses may become a mainstay for the future since new code changes now required attics to be a minimum of R50. Large heels mean more blocking and higher baffles to combat the effects of wind washing on the thermal effectiveness of the attic insulation. The key here is to direct any wind (entering the attic through the soffit) far above the layer of insulation. The air contained in the insulation remains stagnant which ...

Flatrock Passive House: A Passive House in Newfoundland

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