Creating a superior living experience for our homeowners, and providing distinct advantages over traditional construction begins with one word: Comfort.
Comfort isn’t something you see when you tour a home or look at pictures on the Internet. Comfort is something that a family feels living in a home day in and day out, month after month, and year after year. In your current home, I’m sure you’ve experienced that the temperature and climate can vary greatly from room to room, or from floor to floor. For example, a small bedroom might be at a different temperature than a larger living room, a room over your garage may be uncomfortable year round, the lower level may not be as warm in the winter, basements might feel damper than the main floor, or drafts may be present in a certain spot in your home.
IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!
As the seasons change, the external conditions that affect a home’s comfort are in constant flux, and the home must continually adjust to those conditions in order to maintain a reasonably consistent interior environment. The ultimate goal for our “High Performance Luxury Homes SM” is for these variations in temperature, humidity, and airflow to be minimized, so that wherever you go in your home, the climate feels similar.
Many people do not realize this “across-the-board” comfort is possible because they have suffered with poor conditions inside their current home for years. They have grown accustomed to their homes having different “climate zones”. When we build “Beyond the Code,” our clients control many variables that positively impact comfort levels, which results in a living experience that is unmatched by traditional construction methods. Imagine living in a home where no matter the room or even what conditions exist outside, you don’t have to worry about being uncomfortable.
Factors to consider when both designing and building a home:
• The shell of the home must be properly sealed to provide an air boundary that keeps air on the inside in, and outside air out.
• Insulation needs to be properly specified and installed so that the thermal boundary minimizes the transfer of heat from the inner walls to the outer walls in the winter, and vice versa in the summer.
• The heating and cooling systems need to be the “right-size” for the home. Bigger is not always better. For example, an air conditioner that is too large may actually result in less comfort and higher humidity levels than a system that is the proper size. Also, the wrong-sized system can have higher operating costs and suffer more reliability issues.
• The duct systems should be designed well to distribute the proper amount of hot or cool air to every room. The duct design should take into consideration all factors—including room size, the direction the room faces, and the quantity of exterior walls and windows.
• “Build it tight, ventilate it right” – the HVAC system should be designed with fresh air supply systems such as an ERV (energy recovery ventilator) to ensure adequate fresh air exchanges in today’s tighter homes.
Though there may be other elements of a home’s design that affect comfort level, we concentrate on the areas mentioned above to ensure that our High Performance Luxury Homes are more comfortable and enjoyable. It is the combination of our meticulous attention to detail, modern building science, the right materials, plus our knowledgeable trade partners that result in homes built “Beyond The Code.” We enable our homeowners to control the climate in their house, and be less at the mercy of outside factors that can sometimes make living in traditional homes uncomfortable.
