This past July an article Sheena wrote was published in the “In Touch” magazine by the REIC (Real Estate Institue of Canada) on “Decarbonizing the Operation of a Building” (pdf). The article is reproduced completely below. Decarbonizing the Operation of a Building by Sheena Sharp We have all heard about the need to stop …
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This post is a follow-up to the previous post on the changes to the SB-12. The OntarioPH team including Sonia Zouari, Andrew Peel, Greg Labbe and our own Sheena Sharp submitted a change request to the Ontario Building Code to allow for the PassiveHouse Planning Package (PHPP) — the software used to design to PassiveHouse standards which …
Last Thursday the Coolearth team held their Summer Retreat at our Parry Sound office. It was a brilliantly sunny and hot day on Georgian Bay as we gathered for the retreat. We discussed how the year had gone, what was on each of our plates, shared ideas, and brainstormed for the future. These retreats …
Our friends over at Blue Green Group made a post recently that highlighted how air leakage in high performance homes should be more closely integrated into the Ontario Building Code’s SB-12 Section, as well as how more training amongst professionals and builders is needed to implement already existing technology and techniques for air tightness. See …
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The focus of this blog post is on how occupant behaviour effects designing buildings for net-zero. The topic of user-behaviour and net-zero design came up when we were analyzing the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) energy modelling software for a net-zero energy envelope retrofit project this week. We noticed that the clothes dryer used close to 20% of …
New changes in the Supplementary SB-12 “Energy Efficiency for Housing” section of the Ontario Building Code were announced on July 7, 2016. These changes, which come into effect January 1st, 2017 and include: – New prescriptive compliance packages that provide minimum 15 per cent energy efficiency improvement over existing packages – Drain water heat recovery units …
