Better

Cheaper

Faster

Easy

We need all 4 conditions to make high performance buildings the standard in our industry. This year

after trying for 30 years we finally achieved all of them.

Better is easy just throw time and money at the project and you can always achieve better.

Palliser Lodge 2006

48-unit 4 story condo hotel over underground parking at Kicking Horse Mountain resort.

ICF to the roof; Hambro floor system; 1 HRV per floor for all ventilation including hallways and common

space; in suite electric baseboard heat; Central hot water with Rinnai Gas boilers. Worked well but did

not meet the energy targets and was more expensive to build. Only hit 1 out of 4 conditions Better

Solana 2016

20-unit 3 story Condo over underground parking.

ICF parkade with private garages; mix of mass timber and lightweight wood framing; used an 8” SIPs

panel on top of the 2x6 for the exterior walls. Individual HRVs and electric hot water tanks. Decent

Canadian made triple pane windows. Worked great but too complicated, expensive and took too long to

build and too long to have engineered. Only hit 1 out of 4 conditions.

Better, but we came close on the other 3

Radius 2018

45-unit 3 story over underground parking purpose built rental building

ICF parkade with private garages; Hambro floor system; 2x6 walls with extra interior insulation and

some EIFs on the exterior; central ERV with integrated heat pump heating/cooling; heat pump central

hot water with backup gas boilers; triple pane Justa European Passive House Certified tilt and turn

windows and doors. Hit 2 of 4 conditions Better and Cheaper. Too complicated and

took longer to build.

We spent too much time chasing engineers and suppliers to complete the system designs and help us

commission the mechanical systems. Complications were engineering and mechanical system supplier

support; fire stopping and fire separations, soundproofing was too complicated and expensive,

construction sequencing and details were too complicated. However, it is a great building

Orion 2020

45-unit 3 story over underground parking for sale condo building

We hit all 4 conditions in this building other than getting the heat pump hot water system designed and

engineered in a timely manner. We now have simple prescriptive solutions for all aspects of building a

high-performance building. Our target design standard is half of the energy use of a current Passive

House or Step 4 of the BC Building Code. We know we have achieved this because in partnership with

BCIT we have been monitoring the energy use, air quality and comfort of the Radius building for 2 years

now and have the Hydro bills to show that in real world conditions, we have hit the energy targets and

the right air quality and comfort levels.

OSO Rendering Start 2020

Mixed use building with 3 stories of residential over commercial; 58 condo units and 14,000 sq. ft of

commercial

This building will be easy now that we have the simple prescriptive solutions for a high-performance

building. There is nothing in this building that is not within the scope of knowledge of the trades today

and the engineers who need to design the structural and mechanical systems. Everything meets the

current BC Building Code and is readily available off the shelf products. There is no training required, we

do not need to have all the engineers, architects, and trades get together to learn how to build

something new and buy in to a new way of building. They already have the knowledge to build this

building. Other than a few specialized products this building can be built from Home Depot by any

competent contractor in BC.

How did we get there? In partnership with BCIT we modelled every aspect of the Radius building and

looked for the most cost-effective solutions. The answers are simple enough; use the highest efficiency

rated HRV/ERV, use the best performing windows, use heat pumps for heating/cooling combined with

the ventilation system, a heat pump hot water system and build an airtight building envelope.

If you want to see savings you have to do it all, the rewards are you can then start to eliminate a lot of

expensive building systems and components to get your costs in line.

Full disclosure our costs for the Radius and Orion buildings are

These costs are net of land and GST. We do not have a lot of projects to compare ourselves with so we

used the Altus Cost report for 2019 to determine that we are below what the average cost for buildings

in this class even before they add a 15% cost escalation factor for the Whistler area. The developers

listening can determine how we stack up their projects keeping in mind this project in the Lower

mainland should cost 15% less than our Whistler costs.

ProjectCost/Gross

SQ FT

Radius

Hard Costs 183.04$

Soft Costs 34.49$

Total Costs 217.52$

Orion

Hard Costs 219.11$

Soft Costs 28.50$

Total Costs 247.61$

Orion ICF foundation for parkade

We use ICF for the foundation and parkade walls,

Orion Parkade framing is 2x6 bearing walls between the garages and a TGI 2 hour rated floor system.

We build in areas with very high concrete costs so going away from a Podium style parkade with a

transfer slab probably saved us $1,000,000 and made it simple to insulate and make airtight from the

building.

Orion parkade HRV & Exhaust fan

Even though we build in cold climate like Kicking Horse Mountain Resort at 4,000 feet in elevation in the

Selkirk Mountains, we do not have to heat the parkade. We use a cheap mid efficient HRV for

ventilation. We still need a code complaint gas sensor activated exhaust system; however it never

comes on with the HRV running 24/7 so we do not have the expense of running the make up air system.

Orion ERV with Heat Pump

We do not have a make up air system for the hallways and public areas of the building. All the

ventilation is done by the central ERV. Same for all the mechanical room exhaust fans. The central ERV

with heating/cooling though an integrated DX coil from the heat pump provides almost all the heat and

cooling required. The units have very small baseboards for backup heat. This proved to be the lowest

cost option and had the highest level of performance. This keeps all the mechanical equipment out of

the units so that it is easier for the Strata or building managers to maintain.

We use ventless dryers, there is a net positive cost benefit to not having to vent them and a large energy

savings with them.

The duct system is designed in conjunction with the structural engineering to eliminate all drywall

ceiling drops, fire dampers and access panels. The number the drywall contractor told us he charged a

similar project for the drops in their building almost paid for the entire ventilation system. The key is to

design the ventilation system in the preliminary architectural design

The central ERV and ductless dryers eliminated over 200 6” duct terminations in the building envelope.

There is nothing cheaper than something you do not have to do.

We do not have any gas to the project, so no gas fitters, connections, gas servicing and design. Great to

eliminate a whole trade from the site and not have to deal with another utility.

Orion Stucco & Liquid Applied air/water barrier

I had not done a stucco building in over 20 years. What a pleasant surprise when we priced out the Adex

EIFS system for cladding the building to find that it was the lowest cost finish we were contemplating

and it eliminated way too many problems that we usually have to deal with. So we saved money, got an

airtight building envelope, added an extra R24 of outsulation, eliminated all the envelope thermal

bridging by installing the insulation without fasteners, they installed the liquid applied air/water barrier

to make the building airtight and they did all this in 28 days without us having to do anything to help

them. All we had to do was frame a standard 2x6 exterior wall and install the windows and watch as

they finished the exterior of the building with a durable low maintenance finish.

To get a Passive House Certified window at a reasonable price we had to import European Tilt and Turn

Windows and have them all tested to comply with the BC Certification regulations. Even after all the

certification costs, they are a low cost alterative to get a high-quality product. To make this feasible we

became the BC distributor for Justa windows.

Orion unit ductwork

We had our carpenters cut all the holes for the mechanical contractor for the ventilation. He lowered his

price by a lot more than it cost us to do this work with carpenters skilled at this job. We drilled all the

holes and repaired all the missing plates and set it up to easily firestop all the penetrations before the

mechanical contractor started his work, they then only had to do the duct work that they are good at.

The savings in firestopping alone paid for this work. We usually must fix a lot of square holes cut with a

chainsaw with firestopping materials. The added benefit is all the ventilation ducts were in the right

location.

We eliminated almost all homeowner controls and got all the mechanical equipment out of the units.

In a high performance building the temperature fluctuations over time and between different units or

parts of the building are minimal, thus eliminating the need for sophisticated controls. The units have

simple digital thermostats for the backup electric baseboards. The ventilation air from the ERV supplies

most of the heating and cooling. During the shoulder season, which in this type of building are longer,

opening and closing the windows controls the heating and cooling.

Heat Pump Hot Water Design

Sanden heat pumps

Hot water system

The most complicated system is the Heat pump hot water system. The system itself is not complicated

and easy to install, getting the engineering design done was the most complicated part. Now that we

have a prescriptive system, we know works well we will simply replicate it in our other projects, until we

find a better one.

Covid-19 and health consideration; 100% of the air circulating in the building for heating and cooling is

fresh air. The high efficiency ERV has such a low energy penalty that only using fresh air for heating and

cooling is feasible.

BC is on the road to electrification of the province. We decided to get ahead of the curve and be ready

today for 2030 when the Province would like to be off fossil fuels for building heat and water.

If anyone would like to see how we accomplished this, I will give you a tour of the Orion and Radius

buildings.

Entry of Orion

Rod Nadeau

Innovation Building Group

C 604-932-8645

rnadeau@innovationbuilding.com