EEBA's High Performance Home Blog

What a year it has been! I think most of us can agree that 2018 has had its share of industry ups and downs, but there are many things for which to be grateful. In this week of Thanksgiving, the EEBA staff takes a moment to convey what they are most thankful for. “Reflecting back on this year, I am truly thankful for the inspiring leadership of our President Gene Myers, whose time and dedication to EEBA have been invaluable, and for our incoming President, Geoff Ferrell, for stepping up and taking on this important role. I'm grateful for a very good year for EEBA, including a highly successful Summit, the many training events we've held across the country, and the partners, presenters, sponsors and board members who make it all possible,” says EEBA Executive Director, Nancy Bakeman, who has both professional and personal topics for which to be thankful. “I am also grateful for my small but mighty team, as well as all the new people we've worked with this year, whose... read more

When Emmanuel Cosgrove and Mike Reynolds, co-founders of Ecohome, designed and built The Edelweiss House, they were simply trying to exhibit that affordable, energy efficient homes are achievable. “We undertook this project to show builders and homeowners that it isn’t that hard or expensive to build better-performing homes and that your true monthly overhead can actually be lower, right from the moment you move in.” Building a hyper-efficient cold-climate house 40 minutes outside of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in Gatineau Hills, had its own challenges because of the climate and the nature of the location. Add in the standards required for Canada Green Building Council’s LEED v4 certification, and the challenge is amplified. The resulting 1,552 sq. ft. passive solar home, where a visitor to Gatineau can rent a room and stay in, costs less than $250,000 to build, and energy bills were estimated to be less than $1.40/day, compared to a new home of comparable size that uses around 10... read more

In addition to some great sessions at this year’s High Performance Home Summit, we also offered the opportunity for attendees to earn the High Performance Builder and Site Supervisor Designations. 6 individuals joined Gord Cooke, Andy Oding and Mike Barcik to earn their EEBA High Performance Builder Designation after successfully completing Houses That Work, High Performance Mechanicals, and the HERS Associate. Each attendee took and passed the required test for each of the three courses. Congratulations to the following people who earned their High Performance Builder Designation: Roy Birney - Thrive Home Builders Matt Bohannon – R.E.S. Contracting Richard Fayad – QC Manufacturing Jason Hoyle - Thrive Home Builders Jacie Jeffrey - Thrive Home Builders Andy Llora – QC Manufacturing Adrion Marti - Thrive Home Builders Ricardo Schobert – QC Manufacturing Dane Stevenson – QC Manufacturing Greg Van Dam – Dwell Well “Thrive Home Builders is excited about ... read more

“So I decided to wing it. Ron's [Jones] talk to me was very provocative. We have to meet challenges. You want to know who is going to solve them? — the people in this room. Our big builders don’t do anything. Our big builders don’t take risks. Our big builders have no fire in the belly. They are harvesting the market. They harvest it when times are good and pull back when times are bad. And they have resiliency, because they have deep pockets and big capital. But we have creativity. We have drive. We have a saying at Thrive: When we see intractable problems, we need to deploy our secret weapon. And that is us. We live in a world where the worldwide engagement in our jobs is 16%. The United States and Canada lead the world with 29% of people fully engaged in their jobs. You want to know Thrive’s secret weapon? — 100% engagement. For every two hands we hire, we get a free brain. That is our secret weapon. We are a small fish in a very big pond. I have often thought that it’s a... read more