Passionate about everything Passive House, Nick Bray, of Nick Bray Architecture, shares his unlikely journey with Mike and Jennifer-Lee about building a 5-bedroom, 5-bathroom high-performance house on a 25-foot-wide peat bog in Vancouver. Bonus! Lucila Diaz of Harmony Sense Interiors shares her expansive design solutions.
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About the Speakers
NICK BRAY
Nick is a qualified Architect and has been working in practice since 2001 after graduating from the Welsh School of Architecture. Whilst working on high profile projects at Jestico+Whiles Architects in London, England, Nick was involved in many award-winning designs including the prestigious UK Housing Design Award [2008] for the design of a highly sustainable mid-rise residential building in East London.
Moving to Vancouver in 2010, Nick was a lead designer for a number of award-winning buildings whilst working for Alfred Waugh Architects and Christopher Bozyk Architects. These projects included the O’Syiam Pavilion in Squamish, the Barrow Street light-industrial complex in North Vancouver, the mid-rise InGastown apartment building in downtown Vancouver, and the LightWorks commercial building in Mount Pleasant.
Having now established his own award-nominated studio, Nick Bray Architecture Ltd, Nick brings a diverse background of international experience to specialize in sustainable designs in an evolving Vancouver architecture landscape.
LUCILA DIAZ
Designer Lucila Diaz serves as Principal at Harmony Sense Interiors Ltd. in North Vancouver, BC. and offers interior design services all over the lower mainland. She established the company in 2006 with a clear mission to help her clients achieve their life’s goals by creating spaces that reflect and express who they are while enhancing their lives.
After having a successful career in marketing in the corporate world in Latin America, Lucila came to Canada in 2003 to complete an MBA at Sauder School of Business at UBC, she then became an entrepreneur following her passion for design.
Lucila believes that her job is surrounded by creativity, which to her, is more like a science than an art. She feels it is essential to listen and understand her clients’ needs and life’s goals and then find the picture-perfect balance between what each space has to offer with the know-how of where and how to find the ideal pieces to fulfill her clients’ demands.
Resources mentioned on this episode
Here's the Full Transcript of this Episode
Jennifer-Lee:
Welcome to Measure Twice, Cut Once a podcast from HAVAN, the Homebuilders association Vancouver.
Mike:
from codes to kitchens,
Jennifer-Lee:
safety to sun decks,
Mike:
We’ll take you behind the walls and all things, home building design and renovation,
Jennifer-Lee:
And give you the ins and outs from the experts.
Mike:
to help you build a renovate the right home for you.
Jennifer-Lee:
in plain language
Mike:
Focused and home building design and renovation.
Jennifer-Lee:
I’m Jennifer Lee Gunson.
Mike:
And I’m Mike Friedman. Now that you’re here, why not hit subscribe? And you’ll never miss another episode.
Jennifer-Lee:
Hey Mike, here we go again,
Mike:
Back in the studio for another round. And I’m particularly excited about today’s guest is I worked on this project with him as a sound consultant.
Jennifer-Lee:
I didn’t know that that’s really cool that you got to bring your two worlds together. High-tech audio. And podcasting.
Mike:
It really is the best of everything. High performance entertainment meets high efficiency homes. And I got to tell you, I mean, before we get started, I was in this home a number of times. And every time I go in there, I am still amazed at how spacious and well laid out it is. It’s just such a great space. So very excited to talk to you both today, of course, getting to work with Nick Bray of Nick Bray Architecture and Lucila Diaz of Harmony Sense Interior Design was a great opportunity to contribute to this home. And this home is leading the way in both energy efficiency and design solutions. So it really is a special place.
Jennifer-Lee:
And I’ve toured through the early stages of the home when it was in the framing stage. And I’m very intrigued to see what it looks like. Now. I’ve heard a lot of great things. We both have Nick and Lucila in the studio today. Welcome to you both. Before we get onto the project I always like to dive deep into people because I like knowing what they did before or if this is what they’ve done their whole life. So can you tell a little bit of your life story? Obviously we can’t take hours, but just the Coles notes version of each of your life stories, please.
Nick:
Yeah, well, I was working, working back in London, 12, 13 years ago now. I was focusing very much on, on large scale, sustainable residential buildings, as an architect and the recession hit. And it was a good time to, get out of the city. So I managed to randomly get a job with an architectural charity called Article 25. And they sent me out to oversee some projects in Burma and Thailand. And I just carried on traveling after that really for about a year or so, and ended up in Vancouver for the Olympics with no intention to stay whatsoever. And here I am 11 years later.
Jennifer-Lee:
So the Olympics made an impression on you.
Nick:
I met a lot of great people. I was very, very fortunate. I met some fantastic people, ended up getting a fantastic job and, uh, yeah, just one thing led to another. And yeah. Here I am .
Jennifer-Lee:
And Lucila, I’ve read so much about you and I’m kind of curious to know I’m reading about your production design for HGTV’s property brothers. I want all the dirt on that. I always want to know the inner workings of reality TV. Tell us a little bit about yourself and including what led you up to that point into what you’re doing now.
Lucila:
So I have been doing design now for 16 years, but I completely switch careers when I landed here in Vancouver to do an MBA degree. I have been doing financial and statistics in my former life, and I always love creativity. And when I was finishing my MBA, I decided to press the reset button, influenced by all these TV shows. I said that is something that I want to do. So I started from scratch this new career, and then I got the opportunity yes. To do the production design for the Property Brothers. And this is a great opportunity for me to talk to homeowners that are listening because these shows are amazing to inspire us to want to do renovations, but they are not 100% of what happens in real life. So it gives me an excellent opportunity when I meet clients to set expectations from the get, go and say, you’re not going to have a renovation done in three weeks, as you see on the TV but this is what’s going to happen. And it has been a pleasure to do a lot of different projects and then I got the opportunity to meet Nick and work in this passive house.
Jennifer-Lee:
That’s so cool. I’m glad that reality TV shows have broadened awareness to the building industry and the fact that you worked on one and you’re also an interior designer. I think it’s just cool that you can tell people and be like, wait, your home is not going to be built in a day.
Lucila:
Yeah. And especially because people forget that they’re just watching a screen. They’re not seeing exactly what’s going behind the scenes. And the other part is that when people engage in this reality shows, they don’t have 100% control of what’s going on. So the pace is very different. There are a lot of different variables that are completely different from what really doing a renovation is. They’re great. As we mentioned for inspiration to get people to do what they want to do. And it’s great that people watch them and I’m happy they did when I work with the Property Brothers because it was a blast.
Mike:
Do you find the jobs got an easier as more people have tuned into these types of shows or is it more things coming at you that you have to?
Lucila:
I think it goes both ways. On one side, people are more eager to do things, which is great. But then on the other hand, you have to be more clear on setting expectations, right from the get go so that there are not disappointments at the end. And that goes for everything that you do in the renovation industry, from timing, budgets, what to expect.
Mike:
Well, we spent a great deal of time talking about setting proper expectations for homeowners. So it’s important that you add that as well that you know, you’re not going to get your basement renovated in three weeks. I do want to talk a little bit more about the project itself because it is a fascinating project. There’s nothing like it out there. And it starts with where it was built. Let’s not even go into how it was built to what makes that unique. It was built on a peak bog. Nick, I want to know why a peat bog and maybe let’s take it a step further just in case someone doesn’t know what a peat bog is. What’s a peat bog?
Nick:
It’s basically a dried up swamp and building on a peat bog kind of like building on a sponge. Very challenging journey began many years ago. I have a young family and we were thinking about, well, where are we going to live? Can’t stay in our one bedroom apartments. And there’s a affordability issue here in Vancouver. So we were looking at moving to Port Moody or Victoria, but then this plot came up in a fantastic neighborhood between Main and Fraser in Vancouver, on 18th Avenue, very up and coming neighbourhood, great for young families, great neighborhood. There were two issues with it. One was that it was 25 feet wide, which is incredibly narrow. And the other one is the peat bog issue. You’ll know if you’re in an area where there’s a peat bog, there’s a few of them in Vancouver. If you just look around, you’ll see the road is really bumpy and uneven. The houses are all leaning one way or the other. And the easiest way actually is to look at the front fences to the garden fences and they’re all sinking or leaning or broken. You’ll know you’re in a peat bog.
Jennifer-Lee:
Nick, on that point before we obviously get into actually building a house, but you went through challenges with building it on top of this peat bog. Was there an added extra cost to it because you’re not building on a normal foundation?
Nick:
Absolutely, absolutely. But I like to think that we saved money overall. I think the land price was that much cheaper that the additional cost to us was still bringing us within budget. And I think that was largely because obviously being the, being an architect and being the owner, I put a lot of time into it myself. So I was able to bring down the cost somewhat by doing that.
Mike:
It sounds like building on a peat bog is quite a challenging proposition. How do you manage the foundation on something that’s essentially a moving surface?
Nick:
Well, yeah, absolutely. And there’s a lot of complications with it, but the solution we came up with, which was pretty groundbreaking involved 40 foot piles. I think it was 46 of them in total. But the other issue relating to the peat bog was the ground water. The water table was only two feet below grade. So we effectively had to build a boat. So the basement of our house, it’s like a boat.
Mike:
Nick, I’m just going to ask for a bit of clarification. We’ve heard terms like step code, passive house, net zero. And I think it’s very overwhelming and confusing to somebody who doesn’t really understand how this all works. Can you talk a little bit more about the term passive house? What exactly is a passive house and is it like a net zero house or a step code house?
Nick:
Yes. Similar. So passive house is considered to be the most rigorous global energy space standard in the construction industry today. The step code is really it’s mandated by the BC government and the City of Vancouver. Broken down, this was brought in 2017 and really what it’s about is a phased update. So the BC Code is stepping towards us all building net zero ready homes by 2032. So that’s not that far away. When it comes to houses there’s five steps in the step code. And as we moved towards step code five, where we’re getting very close to passive house standards.
Jennifer-Lee:
And for passive house, because you were just talking about step code, what is maybe a misconception of passive house that someone might be like, Oh, what is that? And why? I don’t know if I want to live in one?
Nick:
Um, I guess the cost is the, is the big issue. And it’s still a very unknown question, because there’s a lot of misinformation out there regarding that.
Lucila:
I have an analogy for a passive house. So we have been talking about what’s the cost of building a passive house and it’s a little bit difficult to put just a percentage of a value of what it will be, but it’s an investment in your lifestyle. So it’s like eating organic food. So when you eat organic food, maybe you’re spending a little bit more, but then you might be saving down the road in medical bills or in the way you live that causes less stress, or you can live in a more harmonious space. So if we look at it like that a little bit, there are some characteristics of passive house that allowed you to have that air tightness. So that will make this space feel more harmonious because you’re not so involved with what’s going on the outside. If you live down a busy street, for example, and then you’re breathing fresh air all the time, which for me is one of the biggest advantages of a passive house.
Jennifer-Lee:
Yeah. And I think that’s something that I, when I was doing research for this, and BCIT had quite a few videos of a passive house, they’re seeing a lot of people think that they’re not going to get fresh air in a passive house and that they feel like they’re going to be in a plastic bag because everything’s sealed up. And they were like, that’s the biggest misconception.
Lucila:
And you can still open your windows. Like the windows that Nick put in his house are amazing. You then open them. But then when they’re closed, you really have that air tightness, but you have fresh air all the time, regardless of the weather that is happening outside.
Mike:
So Nick, what exactly is a passive house?
Nick:
From a construction point of view, there’s, there’s five principles, five main principles. And the first one is insulation, significant levels of insulation. The second one is air tightness, the third being high performance glazing. So a very high quality windows. Now the fourth is thermal bridge free construction. And what we mean by that is eliminating any weaknesses in the exterior of the building that allow heat to transfer in one direction or the other. And the final one is high efficiency, heat recovery ventilation system. So there’s always a constant, fresh air being circulated around the house. And we just talked about the, the misconceptions, the biggest one being that’s because it’s so air tight, that there is no fresh air, but these high efficiency, HRV systems are constantly bringing and circling fresh air.
Jennifer-Lee:
Another thing that comes up too is the fact that is it going to be like during the winter months, are you going to have enough heat? And I know for somebody like myself who is very cold, like I always say I’m like a lizard trying to find a hot rock during the winter, are they going to be warm in the winter?
Nick:
Absolutely. Well, that’s one of the big benefits is that there is a constant temperature everywhere in the house all year round. And my wife she loves the heat. She would have that house set to 30 degrees. We came to a compromise. I’m not so big on the heat. So we came to a compromise of 22 degrees. Our house is constantly 22 degrees everywhere all the time.
Jennifer-Lee:
Not warm enough for me.
Mike:
I do want to talk quickly about indoor air quality too, because we chatted earlier about that. And we were talking about the fact that usually every year now we’re dealing with some changes in our environment. And as a result, forest fires are changing the air quality in the summer so that people can’t leave their windows and doors open. Can you talk to us a little about how a passive house and how you built the house will help mitigate some of those problems that we’re experiencing in the summer?
Nick:
We have two options with the house in the summer. We can either have the windows open and rely on natural ventilation and it’s designed so that hot air naturally rise up through the building and exhaust through the rooftop door, but also in the forest fire situation, we can close all those windows and because it’s so airtight we can seal out all the smoke and the HRV, the ventilation system, has filters in it. And, it brings the air in and filters out any issues with any smoke and whatever else. And basically pumps it around the house. And you’ve got constant, fresh air.
Jennifer-Lee:
And for the like design of a passive house, I know for you, your lot is very narrow, but you were still able to make like the outside design still very pleasing. Is there like a standard design for passive houses or does it kind of just depend on what lot you’re on?
Nick:
Yeah. Well the more cube like a passive house is the easier it is to get through certification. So that was a big issue with our house. It’s so long and narrow. It’s 18 foot wide and 48 foot long. So it’s very much not a cube. So it came with a number of challenges. So the original pioneers that were building passive houses in BC, I have big respect for those guys, kind of really leading the way on this. They started off by building cubes with small punch windows, which weren’t that interesting, if we’re honest, architecturally interesting, but you know that they were pioneers, they were, they were bringing this new technology to Canada. But we’ve moved on from that now. And I really do see passive house as being like, we should treat it like the building code. It is the standard to which we design, but we don’t let it dictate the architectural quality of what we’re designing. I think where we find ourselves for example reducing the amount of natural daylight we have, or cutting out that beautiful view of the mountains or, or whatever else, if we’re downgrading the architectural quality in any way, then we’re not doing it right.
Jennifer-Lee:
Oh, I didn’t know that there was like, the layout was like a standard cube. I didn’t know that for passive houses.
Mike:
The other thing I think is really interesting to look at this is two things. First of all, when we’re planning this, we have to also look at what that house might be worth when we go to sell it as well. And so Nick, you can probably talk about this far better than I could, but your house is going to be significantly more valuable than an equal size house on the same street, simply because of how you built it, correct?
Nick:
Absolutely, I mean, there was many, many targets that we had when we bought this house and, and one of them was for it to last, at least a hundred years. And being from the UK. I mean, that’s not unusual in the UK, you know, typical houses more than a hundred years old, really quite shocked when I moved to North America. That’s a really, that is not the case here. And seeing builders tear down 30, 40, 50 year old homes, it’s really, yeah, it’s a real shame. And it’s really incredibly damaging to the environment to be building that way. So naturally building passive house, you’re building to a very high quality. So a knock on of that is that the house and all the components inside it, they’re going to last a lot longer. So if your house is depreciating at half the rate, then your investment is a lot stronger.
Jennifer-Lee:
Is there a standard passive house size, or can they be any amount of square footage
Nick:
When it comes to passive houses, generally the smaller it is the harder it is to get through passive house energy modeling, but really theoretically there’s no, there’s no limits.
Jennifer-Lee:
Okay. So you could have like a larger, like a 16,000 square foot passive home. Like it doesn’t mean that a passive home is necessarily.
Nick:
Absolutely. And we can design passive houses that are big apartment buildings, office blocks, towers, you name it. There’s no, there’s no restriction on building type.
Mike:
Nick, have you used any of the passive methodology for commercial spaces as well? Is this making its way into commercial builds as well?
Nick:
Absolutely. We haven’t yet had the opportunity to design a passive house certified commercial building, but every commercial building we’re designing, we bring the principles of passive house to the table and try and incorporate them where possible.
Mike:
Nick and Lucila, I’m loving this discussion and I want to take a deep dive into the passive house living and the cool features in Nick’s house. But first we’re going to take a quick break to thank our podcast sponsors. So hang in there, we’ll be right back in 30 seconds.
Jennifer-Lee:
Measure Twice, Cut Once is grateful for the support from our podcast partners, BC Housing, BC Hydro, and Fortis BC. Their support helps us share expert knowledge and resources like you’re hearing today from Nick and Lucila to help build and design and renovate home right for you.
Mike:
Add speaking of resources, the BC Energy Step Code program is a provincial standards that is moving the entire home building industry forward to build homes with better energy efficiency standards, which means better comfort, health, and safety. Be sure to check out betterhomesbc.ca, where you’ll find a variety of rebates for construction materials, home, energy evaluations, plus mortgage and tax refunds.
Jennifer-Lee:
There are also rebates for renovations. Just click on the rebates search tool button on the homepage of betterhomesbc.ca to find cost saving resources for your next project, or talk with your licensed builder or professional contractor. They’ll help guide you. Now let’s get back to Nick and Lucila.
Jennifer-Lee:
what are the benefits? Because there’s definitely benefits to building a home, which we touched a little bit about on, and of course, benefits like anything. Once you have them, it doesn’t matter what the money costs it because you’ve got better things coming towards you.
Nick:
Yeah. When we promoted passive house originally, we would focus on energy efficiency. And a passive house has the potential to use up to 90%, less energy than a typical home. And that’s a huge reduction. Obviously that has an impact on your energy bills, but maybe more importantly, it has an impact on the environment. And when you think of some countries, 50% of their total energy use is used within the buildings that we live and work in. So if we reduce the energy usage of buildings, up to 90%, that’s going to have a huge, positive impact on the environment, reducing CO2 emissions, and really tackling global warming.
Jennifer-Lee:
Another benefit to building a passive home, is there a lot quieter.
Nick:
They are indeed. I mean, there’s a lot of knock on effects to build into this sort of quality. And I like to use the windows as an example. So the high performance windows we have to use, they’re typically triple glazed. They’re obviously energy efficient and airtight, but also that they’re very beautiful. We used fetter windows on our house and they’re aluminum on the outside. They’re beautiful windows, are a lot more environmentally friendly than say using vinyl to build windows. They’re very robust and durable. If you’re building to that level of quality to be that airtight, you naturally are going be building windows that last a very long time. And as you mentioned, they’re very soundproof. You’ve got three layers of glass. And I like the security aspect of it as well, knowing that they have like multi locking systems, and that doors are safe as well, that the glass has all three layers of toughened safety glass. They’re incredibly difficult to break into. So that’s a huge peace of mind for our family.
Mike:
The one feature was the most striking thing to me when I first came to the house, when it was all done, I stood on the front porch. We talked a little bit, you could hear the noise of the city. And we walked inside and was literally going inside an anechoic chamber. You closed the doors and I felt like I was out of the city in the middle of nowhere. And that’s one of the ways we’re balancing. Like we’re seeing pollution from light and noise become a bigger part of the consideration in the design and building process. And the fact that you’re able to address this without making you drive an hour and a half to get into work every day is really impressive.
Nick:
Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve got a huge windows on our house. I really appreciate natural daylight and access to natural daylight. And we build that into all of our designs. And I think that coupled with the health and comfort that the constant fresh air, and the constant temperature you’re getting into to an area where you really are benefiting people’s physical and mental health.
Mike:
That stuff falls under the umbrella of comfort. But what was always the most striking to me when I went to that house was actually how narrow the home looks from the outside. And it’s a narrow lot. It’s 25 foot lot. But when you go inside, it is like a cathedral in there. So who determined the interior layout? Uh, was it you or Lucila or a little bit of both?
Nick:
I have the privilege of working with Lucila on many projects and new Lucila’s a fantastic designer, and really understands the industry. On this house, being my own house, being an architect, I guess I took more of a lead on the interior, but Lucila was there all the way to support and offer advice and direction.
Lucila:
Yeah, I will say that I was the sounding board for Nick on this project. And something that really struck me is when Nick talked to me about this project, he started to describe it, ‘I’m building my home and it’s going to be five bedrooms, five bathrooms. It’s going to have 12 foot ceiling living room. It’s going to have a roof deck.’ So I was just picturing in my head a large home. And then he closed by saying, ‘Oh yeah. And we were building this in on a lot that only has 25 foot front.’ And then I said, did I listen properly? And I said, right away, I need to go and see those plans because I’m sure that the design that you have come up with to fit all of those things will be like very little bedrooms. And no, when you see the design, actually the bedrooms are spacious. You don’t feel in a small home. There’s a walk-in closet. And the other benefit is that it has a suite. So as a mortgage helper, as well to think about this kind of building in the city, it really helps homeowners to engage in this kind of design.
Mike:
I have a question. You’re a designer. You’re an architect. Where in this equation was your lovely wife? She is neither of those things. How did she have a voice in all of this?
Lucila:
She needed to have a voice of course. She was living there. But I think one of the benefits that we brought into this project was that we were able to do a complete VR of the house. So they were able, especially Nick’s wife to visualize exactly how it was going to look like. I make the analogy that when you give just floor plans to a person in 2D, it’s like giving someone that knows nothing about music, giving them a score and expect them to imagine, or listen to how the orchestra will play. So by doing a virtual reality of the whole house, it was emerging feeling really how the house will feel in terms of space and looks. And that really helped convince Nick’s wife. If she was hesitant about something, then we show it. Then it was like, Oh no, okay. Now I got it. And also as well, working with trades, it’s important to have that because then there is clear communication of what you’re expecting them to produce and do.
Jennifer-Lee:
So, Lucila, to get that fifth bedroom, how did you have to reconfigure that space to fit that in there?
Lucila:
So that was actually for the basement. So then that the ensuite can have two bedrooms there. So just, and this was more like Nick’s magic playing around, just hearing some ideas and making it work. Were you like dead set on five bedrooms? So you were going to make it work no matter what?
Nick:
To the affordability question as well, we needed to have a renter or suite to make this work for us. So also we were considering where are we going to be in five, 10, 20 years’ time? So the way the house is set up right now, it’s a three bedroom house over a two bedroom suite, but we can easily just by switching the configuration of the doors we can easily turn it into a four bedroom house over a one bedroom suite, or maybe in the future just have it as one big house. That’s a big factor for us in terms of affordability. As an architect, designing a house is always going to be experimental. There’s an opportunity to test out new things. And one of the big targets was aiming for really high level of space efficiency. And one way we did that was to make it split level. So the upper floor is actually on two different levels, which enabled us to have much taller windows to get more solar gain on the front and enables us to reduce the amount of corridors that we had to have in the house. So that increased space efficiency.
Jennifer-Lee:
What are the challenges of designing the interior space of a very narrow home?
Lucila:
So the biggest challenge is storage because especially when you have a family, kids come with a lot of things attached to them. So some of the configurations that Nick added in the design of the house allowed him to have, for example, storage in between floors. And there is like a huge amount of storage there. But then when it comes to furniture, you have to think as well, first of all, the proper size of furniture. People think that if they have a small space, then they should go with the tiniest little pieces of furniture. And no, they just have to be pieces that fit properly in the space. And in this case, having them with all storage solutions. So all the sofas lift so you can store things, thinking about the dining room bench as well. Everything underneath is for storage, the playroom area as well, the family room area, because there is little kids, toys comes with it. So as well, the sofa will lift and the storage will be there. There is an entrance where you can store your shoes, your clothes. So when you go in, you don’t really see where all the stuff goes, but there is a dedicated space for each and every one of the things.
Jennifer-Lee:
I love that. We had Jake Fry from Smallworks Laneway Studios on the first episode of the season, and his comment about building small laneway homes was like, how much is enough? How much is enough space? And I think that you summed it up perfectly. As long as you have the proper storage in place, like you can’t go wrong. And that’s interesting to me too, because my mind says, if you’re living in a smaller place, you need small furniture. I didn’t realize you can actually get regular sized furniture. Like you said, it’s about finding the right fit.
Lucila:
I say that your eye needs to breathe as well. So when your eye is going around, it just needs to have that empty space. So the eye can breathe and it doesn’t look like clutter and overwhelmed. So if you allow for those spaces within the area that you are designing, then you can have regular-sized furniture, right? Like Nick is a very tall guy, so he’s not going to be comfortable sitting in a sofa that is very shallow or on a very petite chair. So it has to go with the ergonomics of the people that is living in the space.
Nick:
And there’s a lot of storage areas that we haven’t even started to fill yet. And I think if we ever do fill all of it, I think we’re doing something wrong. We need to purge. I think we’re getting into the hoarding kind of category there. So, I’m really happy with how we’re using the space right now.
Jennifer-Lee:
It goes to show, like you said, the home is very narrow. So just because it’s very narrow, does it mean that you have to give up anything? It’s all about how it’s designed and you can function in it properly.
Mike:
If I put a blindfold on you, led you into Nick’s home and took the blindfold off, you wouldn’t know you were in such a narrow home, it’s as big as any conventionally built home on a wider lot. And that just has to go again with, you know, how Nick has managed the space. And clearly he’s been influenced by a methodology of design that is not necessarily North American, but certainly efficient.
Nick:
Yeah, absolutely. When working in London, for example, everything is about space efficiency. It’s the number one thing. Especially if you work on larger buildings like I did. Apartment buildings is all about the percentage efficiency of that space because obviously space is a premium.
Mike:
Earlier on the show, we talked about five key principles, air tightness, insulation to avoid heat loss in winter, minimizing excessive heat in the summer, ventilation system, HRV transferring air, windows and building envelope. Can these principles be incorporated into a home renovation to improve the quality of an existing home? Like say 40 year old home, like mine, am I stuck? Or can I actually bring some of these principles into a renovation when it’s coming time?
Nick:
Absolutely. They can be applied to any building site, any size, a renovation or a new build. No, definitely. They can apply it to anything. You can even apply a passive house standards to a renovation project.
Mike:
The areas in a renovation, we can look at bringing some of these thought processes in like where some of the immediate areas, if I’m planning something that I can look at as ways to bridge the gap between what I have and what you’ve built.
Nick:
Well, the biggest thing is the envelope. And by envelope, we mean the, the exterior walls and roof and floor, the wrap of the building. And if you’re able to renovate that and maybe add more insulation or add an intelligence air barrier membrane, then you are going to be getting towards the passive house standard. And also an HRV adding, adding a ventilation system, a heat recovery ventilation system would be a great benefit.
Mike:
And we’re not talking hundreds of thousands of dollars with a lot of this stuff either are we? We don’t have to go the whole way.
Nick:
The more you can do the better, but anything is better than nothing.
Jennifer-Lee:
That’s very true. I think a lot of us can learn from what we’re hearing today. And if we can take one small step forward into creating a home, that’s better for the environment. Maybe we can’t do the whole thing at once, but if we can like change a little few things here or there were definitely in a better place.
Mike:
And we can also use some of the things we’ve learned to be ahead of the curve. We may not build a completely passive house, but whatever we do moving forward, we can be thinking ahead instead of looking behind. And that’s really important.
Jennifer-Lee:
Well, Nick and Lucila, the episode been so informative learning about the benefits of passive house living is so inspirational.
Mike:
Oh, we’ve learned so much. I mean, to build a passive house and build a passive house level when compared to a quality built house may only be 10 or 15% more, but more importantly, passive homes are built for an improved lifestyle, better air quality, comfort with consistent temperature, improve light and sound, safety and quality for the protection of your family investment. If you could leave our listeners with just one last piece of advice, what would it be? Nick and Lucila/
Lucila:
So I want to point out that regardless of this project, main, very innovative in terms of passive house construction. I don’t want us to overlook the fact that this is a new way of building a home in a very small space. So if you’re thinking about the size of a duplex, so it’s similar to it, but this is a detached home where you have no neighbours, your own control of it, and it’s still feels more spacious than the normal configuration of what a duplex will create. So I think there’s innovation here as well in how we can maybe start dividing lots in the city and allocating this type of homes If they’re built in a passive way. Well, even better.
Nick:
I guess my advice would be to, to anyone that’s thinking about building a house would be initially when you’re, when you’re thinking about hiring the designers, and the consultancy team, don’t cut corners on costs because really, if you cut corners on the design phase, you’re probably going to pay for it 10 times over during construction, both in resolving construction issues due to design, not being resolved, but also because your house probably won’t be worth as much at the end of the day.
Jennifer-Lee:
Very well said, Nick. And if our listeners want to contact you, where is the best place to reach you?
Nick:
If you want to see more information about this house, it’s on our website, www.nickbray.ca, and you’ll see you all our contact information is there.
Jennifer-Lee:
Yeah. So if anyone has any questions about passive houses, they can come to you.
Lucila:
And they can find information about Harmony Sense Interiors at www.harmonysense.com and we’ll be happy to help you guide you through the design process.
Mike:
I’m learning so much about building my own home and my project. Understanding the quality of living achievable by building a passive house is so enticing, especially the idea of improving comfort and sound both inside my house with my screaming children, my dogs, and all my sound equipment, and as a barrier to external noise, I am definitely going back to the drawing board.
Jennifer-Lee:
I’m not sure a passive house will solve all your family’s noise issues. I have been over there, but if you work with an interior designer to help you with the layout, you’ll probably get some relief. Like a little bit.
Mike:
Working with experts is always great advice Jennifer Lee.
Jennifer-Lee:
Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to tune in next week. We’ll be talking with Kim Mowatt from Davenport Homes who took a single home property and built a duplex, each with income helper suites for him and his brother.
Mike:
How the heck did they decide which one got the West side?
Jennifer-Lee:
You will have to tune in to find out. See you next week. This has been Measure Twice, Cut Once the podcast from HAVAN, the Homebuilders Association Vancouver, thanks for joining us today.
Mike:
For notes and links to everything mentioned on today’s episode, go to havan.ca/measuretwicecutonce
Jennifer-Lee:
Follow us and review us to help empower homeowners like yourself to make the right decision the first time.
Mike:
Until next time. This is Mike Freedman.
Jennifer-Lee:
I’m Jennifer Lee reminding you to measure twice
Mike:
and cut once.
