Passive House a Winner with CleanBC’s Building Innovation Fund – Passive House Canada | Maison Passive Canada
BC continues to provide a springboard for homegrown companies to flourish in green innovation.
North Vancouver-based BCollective Homes and Invermere-based Collective Carpentry were two of the deserving recipients of the $8-million CleanBC Building Innovation Fund. Both companies foundationally believe in the value of Passive House principles as the pathway to provide superior solutions in construction that significantly reduce carbon emissions that don’t break the bank.
CleanBC’s Building Innovation Fund supports building projects and programs that accelerate the availability and affordability of low-carbon building solutions including advanced building designs including Passive House, and new construction methods including the use of low-embodied-carbon mass timber. This funding also supports an investment in advanced production equipment to increase production quality and efficiency, including employment in highly skilled trades.
BCollective Homes, a design build firm specializing in custom Passive House homes that are net zero and high performance, received funding for their BOSS initiative. BOSS – or Building Offsite Sustainable Systems – will provide builders across BC a cost-effective recipe on how to build homes that are climate neutral, yet allow for variation in design and across a number of housing types. The program will be collaborative and open-source, providing builders, developers and designers with a prescriptive solution to meet upcoming code requirements mandating net-zero ready by 2032.
Design of BCollective’s BOSS duplex which aims to build homes with Passive House Certification, with the use of low embodied carbon materials, and 100% electric and renewable energy.
Projected to cut standard construction costs by 15-20% and reduce construction and operational emissions by up to 40%, BOSS aims to build homes with Passive House Certification, are prefabricated, and with engineered wood and timber, low embodied carbon materials, and 100% electric and renewable energy.
BCollective President Chris Hill, states, “Passive House is critical to reducing operational energy, but it can be complicated, potentially leading to higher costs. Our goal to make it easier and remove the myth about higher costs. “
Collective Carpentry is a manufacturer of sustainable, high performance custom homes, and has developed a strong foundation of knowledge, experience, and systems for the manufacture of wood-based, prefabricated, insulated structural panels for Passive House, Net Zero, and other high-performance buildings
The funding is enabling the addition of advanced production equipment that will allow greater efficiency, flexibility, and speed in their production process while improving quality, increasing production volume, and ultimately resulting in lower cost and greater value to general contractors and building owners. This improvement will require additional staff in design, production and support, and will be exploring avenues for training and apprenticeship opportunities including for First Nations.
“By incorporating Passive House design principles into our construction practices and eliminating some of the uncertainty associated with accomplishing these building envelope improvements on the jobsite, we can confidently deliver a beyond 50% reduction in annual energy consumption vs. conventional approaches,” said Collective Carpentry co-owner Rane Wardwell.
By supporting innovation in the BC building sector, the CBBI Fund helps strengthen B.C.-based industries and innovative ideas, build consumer confidence in high performance buildings and lower the costs of new technologies and building approaches over time.