12 MUST-HAVES FOR YOUR SUSTAINABLY DESIGNED HOME

Our design team reviews all the options and selects the best sustainable designs and products.

We don’t advise simply adding a particular feature just because you can; there has to be a practical sense to your choice, even if it’s only a budget reason. This could mean that out of our 12 must-haves for your sustainably designed home, you should select only those that are really the best fit for your project, your budget, and your location.

Here is our checklist of 12 things to investigate and consider when planning your sustainable new build or remodel project:

1. Optimized Orientation or Pick the Best Building Site for Sustainable

If you are fortunate to be starting a new build, choose the best building site and orientation to maximize some of the sustainable technologies and products you want in your new home. Begin with a sustainable-design mindset, and orientate your house on the property for optimum solar efficiency, whether active or passive. Also consider the same orientation factors if you are remodeling or adding-on to an existing home.

2. Energy Efficient Building Envelope

Our first choice is SIPS (Structural Insulated Panels). Fast to build (you can save months!) & energy efficient. However, you need to design for SIPS at the planning stage; design for the most efficient envelope installation, and for all the infrastructure (plumbing & electrical) required. Be aware: it’s a different mindset designing with & for SIPS! Yet the end result is a very energy efficient tightly built house, well worth researching and learning about before you get started.

3. Heating and Cooling via Heat Pump Technologies

• Tight, energy efficient houses need to breathe! (no door & window leaks to supply the fresh air like our older houses!) So you need to circulate fresh air several times a day with a Heat Recovery Ventilation system (HRV). Check out Zehnder©, a product we often spec. We’ve been to the Zehnder training courses, and spent a weekend installing the complete HRV system with our installer in a 1600sf house. That was revealing, and has helped us to be more intuitive designing the spaces for effective and time-efficient HRV installation.

• Heat pump water heaters for radiant floor heating, such as the Sanden© take outside air and convert it to hot water, for pennies a day. We use and really recommend this technology.

• Heating and cooling systems which offer both ductless (for retrofit) and ducted (for new build) include companies like Mitsubishi©. Extremely energy efficient, they are replacing electric baseboard in many retrofits. The design challenge is to integrate the “invasive” white plastic housing so as not to compromise an otherwise beautifully designed interior! Also, design the installation so as not to place the exterior heat pump housing in a prominent location (by the front entry!). We work closely with our clients to find solutions to disguise the unattractive aspects of these beneficial energy efficient, cost-effective systems.

4. Renewable Energy with Solar & Wind

• Solar energy can generate electricity and/or heat water, and so holds enormous potential. It’s especially attractive now that product & installation prices have fallen dramatically. This is where siting of a new build for solar can make or break you. In particular the new Tesla© solar roof tiles are a dream come true from both form and function standpoints, and we look forward to adding them to our house designs everywhere feasible. But (always a ‘but’ with solar), there are situations where solar may not be the right decision. One example is with a very ‘tight’ house; the clients wanted solar; but their annual utility bill was less than $1000 dollars (<100/mo), and the solar installation estimate was $25K. That pencils out to a 25 year pay back! Will you still be living there 25 years later? Would you go solar just to feel good, with those metrics?

• Wind energy systems can be one of the most cost-effective home-based renewable energy systems. Depending on your wind resource, a small wind energy system can lower your electricity bill from slightly, up to 100%.

5. LED Lighting

Our LED lighting design parameters consider the installation, future maintenance, and importantly, the quality of the light. Where appropriate, we use color filters to adjust the typical cold ‘white light’ appearance. We design & spec a centralized driver panel for the LED’s. This process can make the wiring for LED lighting much more cost effective. We spec all lighting product and lay out the wiring infrastructure in a way that is complimentary to our SIPS design; so it does not slow down the infrastructure process. Our choice for lighting control (home automation) is Crestron© at the high-end. Home automation for energy saving and other conveniences is important, and there are an increasing number of options at both the budget or high end price points (do the research!).

6. Multi-Pane & Low-E Windows

Understand the fluctuations of your local climate to see if triple pane windows are worth the added cost over the double pane we usually spec in the San Juan Islands. Recently a PNW client of ours was opting for triple pane (more sustainable), however with an estimated 10 days each year when it could make a difference to her energy consumption, we didn’t think it warranted a 30% increase in the cost of the windows! The Low-E coatings keep the temperature in your home consistent by reflecting the interior temperatures back inside. We’ll help you determine the best coating for your sustainably designed home. Windows are an important and integral part of every home design; understanding the needs and wants of the occupants, and taking advantage of the best natural light available, (and remembering the budget!) is what we emphasize in our home designs.

7. Rainwater for Household Use & Landscaping

We’ve installed multiple Rainwater Harvesting systems (RWH) since 2006. We work closely with an accredited designer to design the harvest, storage and filtration systems for this precious resource, for both household use, and for landscaping. RWH is a natural in the San Juan Islands, where we have 22” average rainfall in our rainy winters; the trick of course is to design a large enough roof to collect the rain, and then design the storage capacity to carry us through the summer months. (PS: rainwater tanks don’t have to be ugly… they compliment your sustainably designed home!)

8. Natural Landscaping

Our focus on landscaping in the San Juan Islands with the rainy winters and dry sunny summers is “natural” and drought-tolerant. We create “rain gardens” to filter stormwater run off before it reaches the salt water. We install drip irrigation to help new landscapes establish and mature during the dry season. Apropos of that, The Barn Gallery will be featured on the Lopez Island Garden tour on 13 June 2020; all are welcome. Contact me for an invite!

9. Energy Saving Appliances & Fixtures

Today there is an abundance of (often confusing) energy saving appliances and fixtures. We focus on selecting the product that most closely meets our client’s needs and wants, and then integrate everything consistently into an overall design. Tell us what you want and we’ll focus it down to one or two choices to meet your criteria instead of dozens!

10. Reclaimed & Up-Cycled Materials

We’ve been sourcing (mining the industrial forest) and using reclaimed materials for over 20 years in our design projects. We enjoy and appreciate the ‘patina of use’, and the fact that there is less “away” in the landfill. Though it has become increasingly difficult to find the buildings with usable wood or other materials to up-cycle for our new projects we still have our resources!

11. Low-Voc Finishes

We are always aware of environmental impact during a construction project; both with the type of products we use as well as sensitivity to the category and amount of waste generated on the construction sites we manage.

12. A Minimized Carbon Footprint

When selecting new materials for any project we are sensitive to the encapsulated carbon footprint. How and where was a product made? How did it get here? How long will it last?

WHY CONNECT WITH INCLINEDESIGN?

At INCLINEDESIGN, while our design team is focused on your sustainably designed home, we do not let sustainable design thinking compromise good or timeless design. In our view the planning and designing process for sustainable design does not have to break the bank! Check us out at INCLINEDESIGN, or learn more about our process here.

Better yet, come and visit us at the sustainably designed Barn Gallery in the San Juan Islands for a sustainable design tour, and a complimentary consultation.