Project Overview

This 1400 ft2, 2-bedroom house is being built as a retirement residence, and is situated on a beautiful south-facing lot in Wakefield, QC – some 35km north of Ottawa. The conceptual design was by Matthew Drury of Le Dessinatoire, Wakefield, and the client hired local contractor Maisons Chicoine Homes Inc to build the house, specifying a high degree of energy efficiency (and energy security) in the building.

Construction Maison Passive Inc of Wakefield was hired to conduct a PHPP analysis, and we found that this design could reach the “Low Energy” standard of the Passivhaus Institut, namely a heating demand of 25kWh/m2 (rather than 15kWh/m2 for the full Passive House). This still translates to the building being the most energy-efficient in the entire community.

For simplicity and speed of construction, it was decided to use CLT for all interior and exterior walls, as well as a CLT floor in the 2-storey part of the building. This approach allows Passive House performance to be reached with just 2 or 3 material layers for the walls, since the German-made CLT is the structural layer, airtight layer, vapour control layer, electrical conduit layer and provides a beautiful sanded finish layer on the interior…