Simple. Living.

As the awareness of our sensitive environment grows so do our ways of living quietly within it. This home is an example of one families response to the complexity of living lightly. Combining thoughtful design that captures the sun as a heat source with building technology to retain its energy results in a home with low energy costs and a reduced ecological footprint over the life of the building. As part of the low footprint, the homes expectancy is designed as a 150+ year building.

Using the passive house principle of orienting the house to face south, the home maximizes solar gain during winter months. During summer months the 7’ overhangs provide necessary shade and allows it to stay cool naturally. Thick and heavily insulated concrete floors and walls provide a thermal mass that helps to regulate the temperature in all seasons and provide comfort for the family. Continuing the theme of low energy use, the house was equipped with a super high efficiency and passive house approved Zehnder HRV to provide continuos clean air to the home. As well LED lighting, a heat pump clothes dryer and Energy Star appliances all help to reduce the homes power needs.  

If using very little energy wasn’t already enough the homewas also equipped with a 11 kilowatt grid tied solar system. When the sun is shining the rooftop panels feed electricity back to BC hydro and ultimately reduce the operating cost of the home.  

To further reduce the environmental footprint of the home the house was designed to capture and store 9500 litres of rainwater to flush the toilets, water the plants and wash the cars. Speaking of cars we shouldn’t forget the allowances made for the electric car charger for the owners future car. 

The Sunshine Coast is full of people who love the outdoors and care deeply about our planet and its future. It’s been our honour and pleasure at Summerhill Fine Homes to build for clients that have made their homes examples of how we can step forward lightly.