SEARCH RESULTS FOR “WA”

North America’s long-cold, sub-zero win­ters demand ener­gy-effi­cient homes that save Cana­di­an and Amer­i­can home­own­ers mon­ey while keep­ing their fam­i­lies warm and com­fort­able.

Con­crete mason­ry units (CMU) and insu­lat­ed con­crete form (ICF) walls have sev­er­al fea­tures in com­mon: ener­gy-effi­cien­cy, dura­bil­i­ty, and good indoor envi­ron­men­tal qual­i­ty (IEQ). How­ev­er, ICF is quick­er and eas­i­er to install com­pared to CMU, which saves time and mon­ey.

The steel rein­forced con­crete, which can cure stronger than nor­mal con­crete because of the foam insu­la­tion, can with­stand winds of over 200 MPH, and pro­jec­tile debris trav­el­ing over 100 MPH. There are dozens of eye wit­ness exam­ples of ICF homes tak­ing EF5 tor­na­does head on with the walls still stand­ing.

Min­i­mal­ist archi­tec­ture mate­ri­als and design always aim for func­tion­al­i­ty. Fox Blocks presents six sug­ges­tions on mate­ri­als for design­ing a min­i­mal­ist house exte­ri­or.

In regions prone to hur­ri­canes, tor­na­does, and wild­fires, Fox Blocks ICF wall assem­bly pro­vides an excel­lent alter­na­tive to wood-frame con­struc­tion.

Water does­n’t need a flood to cause dam­age — high humid­i­ty and poor ven­ti­la­tion are often enough to com­pro­mise a struc­ture from with­in.

A net-zero ener­gy home aims to make enough renew­able ener­gy to meet its own annu­al ener­gy con­sump­tion needs. These are 8 must-haves for a net-zero ener­gy home.