You know me as they guy who rescues homeowners from bad renovations, who says "take it all down" and makes it right. I'll tell you, as a contractor, I'm sick of fixing crap. There's nothing better than building it right the first time.
Repairing bad work is full of compromises - you're dealing with existing structure, with existing mistakes, with other peoples' choices of inferior materials and bad designs. It's always more work, and it costs more, to go back and fix what was done wrong in the first place.
And that's how I came to build a new house. I came across a bad renovation - so bad that it was easier and cheaper to take it all down and start again than to try and fix the crap that had been done to the house.
In the end it wasn't easy. It took thousands of hours and over 18 months of hard work. And it sure was not cheap. I had to get the support of hundreds of companies to help me build it and it still cost me a lot.
But it was a chance for me to use products I've never been able to incorporate into a renovation. It was a great chance for me to build the kind of house I really believe in, using techniques and products I love, designed to the specs that I think are the best - strong, sustainable and with green features.
I think of it as research and development.
This house is a prototype for the houses I believe we should all be building. Think about it: Wouldn't you love a house that won't blow down or burn down or rot? A house that won't have mould? A house with the best indoor air quality possible? A house that will be low maintenance, will save you money by being energy efficient and that will outlast you?
People have asked me for years what kind of house I'd build if I could take it all down and start again.
This is it.
The design of the house
I love the look of this house. It's modern, clean and open, but even more important, it's really functional.
In the dining room, located in the centre of the house, there is a 24-foot-high, three-storey tall ceiling. Not only does it look fantastic, it encourages natural convective airflow. At the upper level, there are remotely operable windows that can be opened to create naturally driven cooling for the house. Hot air will vent out the top and the homeowners may only need to use air conditioning during the hottest months, if at all.
The house has a southern exposure, and we've put recessed windows on that side. This provides natural shading through the overhanging soffit in the summer when the sun is higher in the sky. But it allows sun penetration during winter, when the sun is lower, to increase heat gain during colder months.
The way it's made
This house is made from concrete. Tonnes of concrete, in poured forms and precast slabs, make up the structure above and below grade. Concrete is sustainable - the investment in energy that it takes to make it pays off for a long, long time. The house, and its exterior cladding, has an anticipated lifespan of up to 100 years or more, with little or no maintenance.
Concrete is durable and can resist high loads and impact. It won't burn or rot, and it's also energy-efficient. Concrete provides thermal mass, absorbing heat from solar exposure and re-releasing the heat at night or in cooler conditions. This reduces energy costs from heating and cooling.
Because the floors are all precast concrete with a poured top, we were able to install radiant in-floor heating throughout the entire house - even the garage and basement. It provides one of the most efficient, evenly distributed heating systems available.
And, we've upgraded the building envelope by using sprayfoam insulation with an R25-30 on the walls and R40+ on the roof. There are huge energy savings there.
Indoor Air Quality
I believe everyone should have the best indoor air quality possible. In building this house, we used environmentally responsible and low-dust products for good air quality, like paints with zero volatile organic compounds, non-allergenic carpets on the stairs and tile or hardwood throughout instead of broadloom, as well as an extensive filter system, complete with ultraviolet filters on both furnaces.
Solar Panels
On the roof there are two sets of solar panels. Two panels are for pre-heating the domestic hot water supply, which will save on energy consumption and cost since the hot water heater doesn't have to work as hard.
The second set of four panels produces battery storage power. The power they collect from the sun is fed into a 10,000-watt battery back-up system that instantly provides power for essential services in the house in the event of power failure.
Green Roof
On the top roof deck that faces south, we've installed a green roof system. Green roofs improve local air quality and provide additional insulating values to the rooftop. They absorb rainwater runoff and snowmelt, and keep it out of municipal storm drain systems, though that's not an issue in this design because we've diverted all rainwater from the house.
Rainwater Collection
Buried under the front lawn is an underground rainwater collection cistern and treatment tank. Rainwater from the roofs is collected, treated and re-used for toilets, laundry and exterior irrigation. This is phenomenally energy-efficient and reduces the impact on the city's water supply and systems. Think of it: Every time you flush your toilet or do a load of laundry, that water isn't coming from the city - or going onto your water bill.
Building this house was the biggest project I've ever done. It was a huge investment in time, resources and creative thinking.
And in the huge effort of getting this project designed and built, it could have been easy to lose sight of why we were doing it in the first place: We were doing it to help a family and to help them get back into their home. It's a better home than what they had, maybe even a better home than they could have even dreamed of. But it's the house we should all look toward.
I'm very proud of this house - not just proud of how it was designed, engineered and built, but also of what it stands for. It stands as a model of the kind of house we should all be building: fire-proof, mould-proof, sustainable, eco-friendly and using new technology and state-of-the-art materials and processes.
See the house Mike built in the two-hour Lien on Me special February 28 at 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. on HGTV. Then visit www.holmesonhomes.com and see more.