Events

How to Make Smart Building Enclosure Design & Construction Decisions with Increasing Step Code Targets and Consideration for Future Climate Resilience
With Graham Finch – RDH

Presented by BC Housing

Home builders in the Okanagan have plenty of building enclosure design and construction options and important decisions to make related to increasing BC Energy Step Code targets. Higher step code houses offer improved energy performance and comfort, but our local communities also urgently need homes that are more resilient to the effects of climate change such as persistent wildfires, floods, and heat waves. To mitigate further climate change, many projects aim to use lower embodied carbon building materials, yet builders are faced with ongoing worldwide supply chain issues. Needless to say, it is becoming more challenging for home builders to stay informed and make cost-effective decisions that offer long-term benefits to our BC communities.

In this seminar, Graham will dissect the building enclosure of a typical Okanagan home to help builders understand the interplay of fundamental requirements like heat, air, vapour, and water control along with growing considerations for embodied carbon, resilience to wildfire and water, and material availability. This seminar will cover the building enclosure design and material selection from below-grade floors and walls to above-grade walls and roof assemblies. Builders will take away a renewed sense of clarity about best practice future-proof building enclosures given the many goals that their projects are trying to achieve.

Cold Climate Heat Pumps – A Deep Dive into the Research
With Christopher Marleau – RDH

Presented by BC Housing

Heat pump performance ratings are based on test procedures that evaluate the equipment in a laboratory under opportune conditions. These conditions rarely occur in the real world and because there is limited research on how this equipment functions in service, RDH completed a year-long study to provide a clearer indication of the real-world efficiency of air-source heat pumps in existing homes for both cold and moderate regions of British Columbia. During this presentation, we will cover:

Homes as a system: how enclosure and mechanical systems interact
What heat pump retrofits can teach us about heat pumps in new construction
Performance of cold climate heat pumps in interior BC
Design and installation considerations that affect heat pump performance
Best practices to ensure optimal performance of heat pump systems