Construction on a unique mass timber passive house is underway in Courtenay

Tom Grimmer built his first passive house in Comox about seven years ago. It was among a small handful of passive homes on the Island at the time.

Now, he’s building another one in Courtenay. This time, it’s a mass timber passive house, possibly the first on the Island.

“This is the first mass timber, that I’m aware of, the first mass timber build on Vancouver Island and there’s very few in Canada for that matter,” he told CHEK News Wednesday.

Mass timber is described as “a family of engineered wood products known for their strength, durability, versatility and sustainability,” according to naturallywood.com, a B.C.-based, global supplier of sustainably-managed forest products.

It adds that mass timber products are made by “taking smaller wood elements such as dimension lumber, veneers, or strands and connecting them with adhesives, dowels, nails, or screws to create larger structural building components.”

A Passive House is a German building technology that results in 90 per cent efficiency over traditional builds.

“The idea of a passive house is that you use about one-tenth of the energy that you would for a conventional home because of various principles that go into it like triple-glazed windows, super insulation, thick walls,” said Grimmer.

The insulation for the home goes on the outside, not inside the walls, and it all comes from Germany, but from a material that is readily available in B.C. if there was enough demand.

“One of the main components is wood fibre board and it’s used for insulation. This is made from wood byproducts, what we would call waste wood in Canada,” added Grimmer.

A local contractor took the job and says it’s unlike anything they’ve done before.

“I was cautious obviously but this is a process we’re going to be pushed to be building with this kind of efficiency before too long so we’re a step ahead so it’s exciting. Obviously it’s a gamble and there’s a lot of learning curves,” said Tyler Schwindt, owner of Heartwood Contracting.

The house is built air-tight to the highest standard in the world, resulting in high efficiency.

“You could actually heat this house with a hair dryer and the other thing is it doesn’t require any air conditioning so you have a big saving there. So this house is modeled to stay below 25 degrees celcius,” Grimmer said.

The house will cost about $400 per square foot to build because much of it is prefabricated overseas and then shipped to Vancouver Island. But Grimmer says he hopes to see local demand increase and maybe someday see local facilities built to make the pieces.

Source: cheknews.ca