Our paths in life take interesting and profound tangents worth reflecting upon. The latest tangent that has notably affected my life path is that of becoming a Certified Passive House Consultant. As a trained Landscape Architect, I would not have seen this curveball coming 10 years ago! But things change.
In 2019, the whole Frontiers team (all 12 of us at the time), hopped on a plane and took a trip down to Las Vegas to take part in the International Builders Show (IBS), a convention of epic proportions held for designers, builders, trades and vendors North America wide. While convention hall touring, absorbing lectures, and networking, a group of us eventually felt gravity pulling us towards a live “High-Performance Building Zone”. A charismatic speaker was doing the dog and pony show on how to build better: “well, we might as well stick around and listen”, we said to each other. What turned out to be a compelling demonstration of a robust approach to building envelopes encouraged us to introduce ourselves to the speaker and ask where he was from. Assuming the answer would be Colorado, or California, or New York, we were shocked to hear: “my name is Gord Cooke, and I’m from a little town in Canada called Cambridge”. Shockingly, about 10min from our headquarters in the south end of Guelph, Ontario, Canada! An authority in the field of high-performance, Gord is the figurehead of Building Knowledge Canada Inc., a consulting company from our neck of the woods.
The rest is history, as they say. We were inspired to learn and get better. James Savoie, a partner at Frontiers Design Build, was the early adopter and went on the search for more information. Stumbling across an international building standard called Passive House, Frontiers started its education with James taking on the Certified Passive House Consultant course, taking the certification exam, and earning his accreditation. Seeing the value of the content and the passion to build better, James promptly had each of our in-house carpentry team members take the Passive House Certified Tradesperson course. Fast forward a couple of years and Frontiers Design Build has found itself with opportunities in a variety of high-performance projects – to name a few: a high-performance backyard tiny home in Guelph, a PHIUS laneway house in Hamilton, and a 3600sf high-performance custom home in Halton Hills. It became clear that we wanted to head in this direction. It also became clear that we would need to figure out a way to speak to, and educate, our marketplace on what this “high-performance Passive House” stuff is all about.
No doubt, taking a Passive House approach on residential design/build is a niche proposition. Passive House is internationally established as the gold standard in high-performance design and construction. Very ambitious performance targets and an exceptionally scientific design process make the attempt at certifying a building to the Passive House Standard a daunting one. The links between marketing this, selling it, and building it would certainly take some thought. In charge of business development and sales at Frontiers, it became clear that I would need to have a deep understanding of Passive House if I were to convince our future clients, existing trade partners and vendors to get onboard with the idea. After signing up for the Passive House Certified Consultant course, I had the sincere pleasure of taking part in twenty classes put on by Passive House Canada, and delivered by various Passive House experts nationwide. Covering topics ranging from thermal modelling, to airtightness strategies and measurement, innovative mechanical system design, through energy balance equations for window heat gains and losses (and much, much more). I had already known that the Passive House standard involved a highly detailed approach – I had no idea as to the incredibly impressive level of thoroughness that was possible. Every conceivable factor that affects the energy balance of a building was being taken into account. In June, I wrote and passed the certification exam, gaining my accreditation as a Certified Passive House Consultant. Now connecting the dots and appreciating the design orchestra that is the Passive House Approach, I feel empowered and armed with the right information to spread the word and share the benefits of building to a higher standard like Passive House. As we like to say at Frontiers, “you can’t unsee this” …. “Once you know this is possible, why would you build any other way?”
Closing the circle, life takes us on interesting journeys – sometimes we feel like a passenger along for the ride. But, sometimes we need to hop off the train and get on another. I would argue that the residential construction industry is on a train that will still get you to the next station, but there is another train on a parallel track that seems to be heading to a better destination. There is a fork in the tracks ahead, and we need to be conscious of what we want our destination to be. The supply and affordability of homes are issues of huge importance – no question. But we can’t lose sight of resilience, durability, cost of ownership, annual operating cost, comfort, indoor air quality, and mindful use of materials. While tackling supply and affordability issues, we need to simultaneously raise the bar and build better. At Frontiers Design Build, our goal is to be the leader in our marketplace for high-performance design and construction. We are proud to say that we are well on our way to reaching that goal.
Written by Doug Taylor, Owner / Sales Manager
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