Windsor Essex Community Housing Corporation teamed up with The Now House™ Project to bring sustainable thinking and design to the 60-year-old wartime homes in their portfolio.
Air Sealing
Insulation
Basement
Heating, Cooling & Ventilation
Solar Panels
Tankless Water Heater
Windows, Doors & Siding
Air sealing and insulation are the most cost effective ways to improve energy efficiency.
Air sealing stops cold air from entering the home in winter and keeps hot air out in summer.
Two inches of foam insulation were sprayed on the floor of the attic providing an insulation value of R12.
Cellulose spray foam was added on top to increase the insulation value to a total of R50.
There is a lot of preparation required for insulating the basement.
All equipment had to be moved away from the basement walls, for example, duct work, the electrical panel, water meter, laundry sinks, and plumbing pipes.
This is done so that a complete air barrier can be created when the walls are spray foamed, therefore, permitting no thermal bridging.
Once the insulation was completed, the heating and cooling required to keep our homes comfortable was greatly reduced.
The heat load was recalculated in order to determine the size of the new HVAC system.
Solar photovoltaic panels (PV) convert the sun's power to electricity.
Electricity from the panels can be used in the home in a net metering arrangement with excess electricity credited to the electric bill or be grid-tied in which case all energy is sold to the local utility.
We chose a tankless system to eliminate standby energy losses normally associated with a typical hot water tank.
This tankless system heats water only when there isn’t adequate heat provided by the solar thermal system.
The system provides hot water for heating and domestic hot water use.
The time to replace windows and doors is after the home has been air sealed and insulated.
If your home is still leaking energy, new windows will not make a lot of difference.