Coolearth Interviewed on Net-zero Design

The Coolearth Architectures team was interviewed by Host Craig Riddock, of “Shut Off That Noise”, about net-zero carbon architecture a design. “Shut Off That Noise” is a series of interviews about makers of art, music, design and architecture about the nature of their work and their creative process.

 

“In this episode, Craig interviews Architect Sheena Sharp and her team speak with Craig about the challenges of designing net zero architecture and the current state of sustainable energy efficient building practices.”

 

You can have a listen using the applet below, or visit: https://shutoffthatnoise.podbean.com/e/e-22-cool-earth-architects-designing-for-net-zero/

 

Thanks to Craig for recording the interview — it was a great chat, and was fun to participate in!

 

Community Building Community: The Seventh Day Adventist Church

Coolearth was hired to build a new church for 138 parishioners on a property in Machar Township, a 2-hour drive south of Sudbury. The new building is fashioned with a well-lit foyer, a sanctuary that includes a full-immersion baptismal font – the grand feature of the church – and because the church stressed the need to cater to families in the community, the church also includes a mothers’ room, media room, warming kitchen, community-use fellowship hall, classrooms, an office/library, change room, and universal washrooms.

The proposal as well provides parking for 55 vehicles, accommodating for large vehicle turn arounds and offering flexibility on occasion for large events.

Recognizing that this project would serve as a significant cultural public space, the community came together – as strong communities should – to construct the church. Coolearth produced both permit and construction drawings, keeping in mind that the township’s own residents would use them to build the project. The church was completed in May 2018 and now serves as a centre for both activity and growth within the community.

Breezeway House – Permaculture Design

Working closely with the clients for the Breezeway house, who have a passion for wildlife, birds, and nature, has been a great job. We have just completed the first phase, the Permaculture Masterplan for the site. See below for some images from the final masterplan document.


Through observation, mapping, and integrated design strategies we created a plan for the site to harvest
rainwater, sun, and wind, grow perennial food crops, increase biodiversity, develop resilience, attract birds and wildlife, and a beautiful relaxing environment. The Masterplan document includes a Site Plan (snippet below), Aerial View (above), Phasing and Maintenance Plan, and Site Analysis, and more, to be used on the site.

We are now working with the clients on the Implementation of the rear Food Forest. Hopefully we will have some updates this Spring as we prepare the site for planting!!

If you are interested in having updates, please subscribe to our newsletter below, or get in touch with us via the Contact Page.

See here for our previous post on the design of the home itself.

Green Ontario Fund – Rebates Available

 

The Ontario Cap and Trade Carbon program is up and running and almost $500-million is being invested in rebates for energy efficiency upgrades for Ontario homeowners. In this blog post we will give a quick overview to people in Ontario looking to perform Energy Retro-fits and improve energy efficiency and comfort.  With rising electricity costs making your home energy efficiency via retrofits is one way of reducing long-term costs, while also fighting climate change.
 

 

“Save Money, Fight Climate Change”

 
The GreenON program is based around rebates for adding insulation, high-performance windows, geothermal systems, and air-source heat pumps.

 

There are rebates of up to $7,200 for insulation.  Insulation is a great investment because it is a part of the building envelope and will provide continuous passive energy performance for it’s lifetime. Upgrading insulation can reduce the energy usage by anywhere from 15-50% of your home.  It can be a big upfront cost so the rebate will make this added insulation more feasible for more projects.  A bit more details about the rebate program:

 

  1. Receive $1/ft2 up to $1,500 for upgrading your attic insulation.
  2. Receive $2/ft2 up to $1,900 when you update your basement insulation.
  3. Receive $2/ft2 up to $3,800 when you upgrade your home’s exterior wall insulation.

 

There are also rebate up to $5,000 for select high-performance windows.  This includes $500 per window up to 10 windows, or $5,000 when you upgrade to select high-performance windows. As windows needed to be replaced on average every 20 years, investing in high-performance, triple-pane, argon filled windows now is a great idea because this rebate program will more then cover the premium for triple vs. double pane windows.  One aspect of triple-pane windows which is often overlooked is how much comfortable a room is when it is very cold outside — it means you can sit beside the window without getting a chill! Another factor is how they can reduce the sound from outside — a few things to consider!

 

Geothermal is one of the most expensive elements of an energy efficiency upgrade, and the GreenON program has up to $20,000 in Geothermal Rebates.  However our position on this is that there is no point in doing this unless you first deal with the windows and envelope of the house.  This is because electricity is used to run the geothermal system and if your house has poor energy efficiency then you will not end up saving money.

 

A little understood heating device in Ontario (so far) is the Air-source Heat Pump. Air-source Heat Pumps use the difference between  outdoor air temperatures and indoor air temperatures to cool or heat your home. They are an efficient and simple way to meet the heating/cooling demands of the house, and the rebate program makes  Get up to $5,8 to Install Air-Source Heat Pumps.

 

To learn more visit: https://www.greenon.ca/en

Building Show 2017 Follow-up: Net-zero Retrofit

Thank you to everyone who made it out to the Seminar Sheena Sharp gave on Thursday, November 30th, entitled: Net-Zero Upgrade to an Existing Semi-Detached House – Construction Follow-up.

There were many more architects in attendance this year’s talk.  This is good news, as it shows that the discussion of sustainability is reaching further into the Architectural Profession. This is very promising – we need more architects involved, in fact ALL architects involved in doing what they can to contribute to building a better world.  We hope the talk showed that net-zero carbon retrofits of Toronto’s homes are possible and inspired others to undertake the process themselves.

 

You can learn more about net-zero energy (or carbon) retrofits of Toronto homes, by visiting more pages on our site, such as information about a tour we ran as part of Green Energy Doors Open 2017, Blower Door Testing we conducted, or get in touch with us at 416-868-9774 to learn more!

Building Show 2017 – Seminar


 
We are getting excited — this Thursday, November 30th, Sheena Sharp, a principal at Coolearth Architecture, will be presenting a Seminar as part of the Building Show 2017. If you are interested in attending, please let us know, we have a few complimentary tickets for the seminar. Otherwise, we hope to see you there!

 

The talk is entitled: Net-Zero Upgrade to an Existing Semi-Detached House – Construction Follow-up.

 

Details:

Thursday, November 30 @ 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. in Room 706  at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre

 

Summary of Presentation:

In our case study presentation we will outline the three stages of our conversion of an existing semi-detached home into a Net-zero energy project. Stage one is complete and includes the full upgrade of the envelope including additional external insulation, making the home airtight, and replacing the original single-pane windows with new high-performance windows and doors. For the mechanical system, an energy recovery ventilator has been added to bring in clean air, and recycle the heat in the house. We are monitoring the energy use and will present the results, comparing them to the pre-renovation forecast for energy use. The upgrades to the home will make it more comfortable, improve the appearance of the home, and reduce energy consumption and therefore lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Our presentation will teach participants about the strategies we have used and developed to retrofit existing homes to be Net-zero energy.