Watercolour Westport
Net-Zero Ready Community in Westport, Ontario
Canada’s first net-zero community in Westport, Ontario
Watercolour Westport
Why This Job Is Important
Watercolour Westport is a development in beautiful Westport, Ontario where all homes being constructed are Net Zero Ready. This means that the houses are built to exacting standards to conserve energy, to the point where they have the potential to produce as much energy as they consume on an annual basis, once solar electric panels are installed on the roof.
The Canadian Government has made it known that it will be eliminating the use of fossil fuels for heating homes in the near future. This means that all houses will need to be heated by clean electricity. Clean electricity is electricity created from hydro, solar or other renewable technologies. Watercolour Westport is a development that is already there. All houses are heated using electricity and fossil fuels are not part of the heating or cooling strategy. To achieve this the houses must be built to high energy standards which include lots of insulation in the building envelope, high performance windows and doors, and very tight houses. Once this has been achieved, the most efficient mechanical systems are chosen to provide heating, cooling, hot water, and of course, ventilation. The result is comfortable homes with wonderful indoor air quality.
Results
This builder has chosen Airtight Home Technologies to seal all their homes using AeroBarrier. For most houses, we have been able to achieve airtightness levels of well below than 0.5 ACH. In this particular example, we have achieved one of the lowest levels we have ever achieved – down to 0.08 ACH. We are proud of this! Imagine, this is the air sealing equivalent of tying the point record of “The Great One”.
