BC Energy Step Code Compliance

 By utilizing your construction plans or through an onsite assessment,  we are able to offer a range of energy modeling services:

• Building Energy Performance -  In effectively measuring your homes energy performance,  The energy model accounts for the size and geometry of the building, the climate at the building’s location, the effective insulation values of assemblies such as walls, ceilings, windows and doors, and the mechanical systems that keep the house comfortable and provide hot water.  Modeled energy consumption in a building relates to space heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, appliance and plug loads. Lean more on the benefits of having an 'Energuide Evaluation' performed on your next project. 

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• Passive Solar Design Analysis - Properly designing your home is essential to maximizing on passive heating and passive cooling strategies to ensure occupant comfort. Building orientation and fenestration placement is one of the lowest hanging fruits builders can capitalize on in making a more energy efficient home. We model your home in 3D and provide optimizations to maximize passive solar energy efficiency. 

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• Solar System Analysis - We model the potential energy performance and savings of a variety of solar photovoltaic and solar thermal installations. Your proposed building and site is modeled in a 3D format for visual representation and analysis. 

• Building Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) - We assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the building product's life from raw material extraction through processing, manufacturing, distribution, use, maintenance, and disposal.

A blower door airtightness test effectively measures and identifies where air is leaking through a building's exterior envelope. In a typical home, air leakage can account for 25-40% of the total heat loss of the building. If we increase insulation levels and put in better windows but overlook effectively air sealing the building envelope, the fraction of total heat loss coming from air leakage increases.

We utilize a specially calibrated blower door apparatus with metering equipment that gets installed into a exterior doorway. We measure the amount of air leaving the building envelope at a 50 pascal (Pa) indoor-outdoor pressure difference. This simulates approximately 33 km/h (20 mph) wind blowing on the house equally from all directions. The airflow through the fan and the indoor-outdoor pressure difference provide air tightness values expressed in air changes per hour (ACH), equivalent leakage area (ELA) and normalized leakage area (NLA).

During our air tightness service, we follow a thorough air leakage location identification procedure to locate the weak points in the building envelope and advise on  recommendations for repairs and retrofits. We believe in educating and providing positive awareness to builders, homeowners and trades-persons in improving energy efficient building air tightness techniques.