Home Heating Options

Comfort and warmth, for less

Making the right decision upfront for the proper heating system might save you hundreds of dollars every year.

By Heather Clarke

Contributing Writer Energy-efficiency, lifestyle, and budget are the big factors when someone is choosing a heating system for their new home.

Steve Wilson with the Nova Scotia Oil Heat Association says there is high efficiency equipment in the market today that is oil-fired, and there are oil-fired furnaces manufactured in Parrsboro that have 96 per cent efficiency levels.

“You can get a lot of energy from just a single litre of fuel oil,” says Wilson. “It gives us a quick response to energy requirements, and can get a house brought up to the right temperature. You get a faster hot-water recovery than with other fuels, too.”

Wilson says there have been advances on the storage of oil in recent years.

“In the past, people had environmental concerns about tanks getting older and leaking, but now there’s really no excuse to have an oil leak in your home,” says Wilson. “There is a great double-containment technology available – fibreglass < ... >

tanks, European-style tanks, plastic tanks with metal casing. There’s even traditional steel tanks with a double bottom, so if there’s ever an issue, a monitor is triggered.”

Jack Knox, owner of Halifax Heating, says understanding which type of heating system is best for a specific home is perhaps the most important part of the new-home construction process.

“Consumers need to know what information is necessary in order to be able to make the correct choice,” says Knox. “Because that choice will impact on both the existing and potential future homeowner, so it’s important to get it right the first time.”

Knox says the right heating system should “enhance the enjoyment of every other aspect and feature of the home” – and potentially pay for itself,

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Choosing the wrong choice of system, however, can often result in excessive operating costs, uneven heating distribution, distracting operating sounds, lower indoor air quality, and less overall enjoyment of the home.

Before making any decisions, Knox says a homeowner should insist on being presented with a credible representation of capital and operating cost comparisons showing a range of systems for consideration for that specific home – since operating costs and comfort levels are directly related to the heating system choice for that specific house.

Knox recommends that homeowners in the process of choosing a heating solution should talk to professionals who can demonstrate their knowledge of heat loss, equipment sizing, and the options for consideration.

“When properly designed and installed, a forced air heat pump system can provide an economical solution for many homes,” says Knox. “Air-to-air and air-to-water heat transfer is ideal for many new heating applications – especially considering our climate – and can be used to supplement even fossil fuel systems.”

Natural gas is currently available in certain pockets of Halifax, Dartmouth, and Bedford – as well the Halifax Stanfield International Airport, and parts of Oxford and Amherst.

Rohit Seth, Business Development Specialist with Heritage Gas, says very few builders include natural gas in their base model, but it’s often available as an upgrade. “People love cooking with gas, and it’s just such a versatile product,” says Seth. ”It powers your fireplaces, your BBQ, your pool and hot tub heaters, and it can even power a snowmelt system under your driveway.”

Seth says Natural Gas’s clients appreciate the comfort and convenience of natural gas, and says it’s “very attractive to use, compared to oil” because it has very little sulfur dioxide and minimal greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also instant, which means homeowners will always have heat and hot water on demand – even during a power failure.

Kelly Lunn, owner of EnCom Alternative Energy Services, says new homeowners who add solar heating equipment onto their mortgage will be “paying far less than what they’re saving each month.”

“There are big savings to be had – both in energy and in dollars,” says Lunn. “While our customers do appreciate the environmental impact, most people buy based on the financial payback.”

Lunn says in-floor heating using tankless on-demand boilers integrated with solar energy and tube technology can cut your heating costs in half.

“It gives you a very energy-efficient heating system for your house, as well as the offset of all your domestic hot water – which is typically a savings of $1,500 a year or more.”

Lunn says in-floor heat is a popular luxury, and they’re able to do a lot with solar integration because of the low water temperature. If there are areas upstairs where a homeowner doesn’t want to use in-floor heating, they can instead use low-cost mini heat pumps.

“You’ll need to insulate anyway – not just outside the concrete, but under your floor – because basements are a brutal energy draw from a house,” says Lunn. “The cost to lay the pipe and do in-floor heating is so low, and then all of a sudden you’re turning that into a positive heat-sink instead of a negative.”

When it comes to heating choices, there is a resounding theme amoung all professionals. Do your homework and make the best choice to suit your family’s lifestyle and needs.

There will be many examples of home-heating options available to research at The Real Home Show 2013. Seek out the professionals and ask them about what might be best for your home.

End

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New walls for new houses

For many Canadians, there are many attractions to buying a newly constructed home. These include new, up-to-date finishes, modern floor plans and amenities, comfort and energy efficiency. When considering your options, energy-efficient heating, appliances and lighting are common choices. But what about the amount of insulation for the walls? The construction of a new home offers the best opportunity to build in as much insulation as you can afford in order to protect yourself from heating cost increases in the future.

You may have heard of different types of walls being built in energyefficient houses: walls that retain more heat in winter due to the high levels of insulation that they contain. Some of these walls have over twice the thickness compared to more typical walls and this provides greater protection from extreme cold and heat, traffic noise, and everything else that is happening outside. Other benefits are significant savings on your heating and cooling bills and a very comfortable, draft-free home. Why wouldn’t you build like this for your next new house or major retrofit?

Energy Efficient Houses You can achieve a highly insulated, RSI 7 wall (or R-40 in imperial units), if you design and build carefully. This compares very favourably to the standard RSI 3–5 walls found in most new houses. Over the past few years, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been working with leading builders to design, build and demonstrate highly energy-efficient houses that produce as much energy as they consume. All of the houses constructed use highly insulated walls as part of the overall strategy to reduce energy use. For instance, the Riverdale NetZero house in Edmonton has a deep-wall construction with 406 mm (16 inches) between the inside surface and the siding on the exterior. That space was filled with cellulose insulation made from recycled newspapers. During construction of that house, before the heating system had been installed, the interior of the house would warm with the sun and be comfortable, even in sub-zero outdoor temperatures. The calculated insulation level of these walls is RSI 9.9 (or R-56). A deep wall also provides an opportunity to include window seating and plant shelves in the window nooks.

The Green Dream Home in Kamloops, BC used another approach. The walls are made from insulated concrete forms (ICF). ICFs are made up of two layers of expanded polystyrene (EPS) held apart by plastic bracing and are assembled

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Certified Aging in Place Specialists much like building blocks to form the foundation and above grade walls of houses. Once up, the ICFs are filled with concrete to provide structural strength. For the Green Dream Home, the foam insulation used was thicker than normal with 66 mm (2 5/8 inches) of EPS on the inside surface and 134 mm (5 3/8 inches) on the outside and 200 mm (8 inches) of concrete in the core. The total R-value of this wall is RSI 7.7 (R-44). The continuous layer of concrete within the forms also helps to make the house airtight and draft-free.

If You Are Retrofitting an Existing House with High R-value Walls The strategies will be somewhat different, and a little more difficult to do. Your existing walls will remain as the house frame but you will have to decide whether to insulate on the inside of the house or on the outside. As inside work is more disruptive, insulation is often added on the outside. It is most cost effective to consider adding insulation when it is time to replace or update the siding since you would already be doing much of the work. High amounts of insulation can be added to the outside of the frame, usually as overlapping layers of foam board or as spray-applied foam insulation. Semi-rigid mineral wool insulation can also be used. It is rare for a retrofit to attain R-values as high as those of the new houses described above, but you can still double or triple the original insulation value with the installation of 50 to 100 mm (2 to 4 inches) of insulation on the outside of your home.

Consult an Expert Whether you are dealing with a new wall or an existing wall, it is best to consult a qualified designer, builder or renovator who is knowledgeable about the type of work you want done. A well planned project can help ensure that

you use resources properly and in an environmentally conscious way. For instance, you may be able to use recycled building products. Well-designed walls will avoid moisture problems and provide many years of trouble-free service. They will also be affordable to build.

Why do it? The beauty of building or retrofitting very efficient walls in your house is peace of mind. They make your house quiet, comfortable, and relatively immune to the increasing cost of energy. You will also have the comfort of knowing that you may be able to stay in your house longer in the event of a mid-winter power failure. Consider also that the choices you make today will have an impact on the energy performance and comfort of the house for as long as the house exists, and this could be well over 100 years. Once built, energy-efficient walls will continue to save energy for many, many years to come. Great walls help make a great house.

For more information on sustainable technologies and practices for new housing and renovations, including those used in CMHC’s EQuilibrium Sustainable Housing Demonstration Initiative, visit CMHC’s website at www.cmhc.ca, or call Jérémie LeBlanc, CMHC’s Consultant in Research and Information Transfer, at 902-426-4715.

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Energy-Efficient Homes: Wall Construction

The CMHC EQuilibrium™ Housing Initiative features homes that are designed to be healthier, more comfortable and more efficient than traditional housing. The following EQuilibrium™ Housing InSights fact sheets provide information on wall design strategies and technologies implemented in the EQuilibrium™ housing demonstration projects. Scan this tag with a smartphone to access these and other fact sheets:

Avalon Discovery 3 Double Structural Insulated Panel Walls

EcoTerra™ Exterior Wall Design

Riverdale NetZero Deep Wall System Visit www.cmhc.ca or call 1-800-668-2642 today! As Canada’s national housing agency, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) draws on more than 65 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of high quality, environmentally sustainable and affordable housing solutions.