Casa Tortuga takes its name from a turtle that fell on the site that Marilynn and Arlene chose for their Certified Passive House retirement home.
Nestled in the trees overlooking the water near Black Rapids, the site is challenged with the balance VERT of natural beauty and energy savings through resilient design. The result of the solar pathfinder photo lead to the felling of some evergreen trees to the south. Despite this effort the house is still heavily shaded, which tipped the scales to the insulation side.
A connection between indoors and outdoors produced the 6’ deep wrap around porch that, in cahoots with the trees, dramatically reduces the cooling demand of this home. The intended addition of PV will likely see this project get very close to Net-Zero Energy.
| STANDARD | Passive House | |
| LOCATION | Lyndhurst, ON | |
| TYPE | Attached Single Family | |
| YEAR COMPLETED | 2015 | |
| PROJECT TEAM | ||
| PH CONSULTANT | Stephen Magneron (Homesol Building Solutions) smagneron@homesol.ca |
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| DESIGNER | Chris Straka (Vert Design) chris@vertdesign.ca |
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| BUILDER | Mark Raison – Crane Building Services mraison@xplornet.ca | |
| LIVING AREA | 2,422 ft² | |
| HEAT DEMAND | 13.6 kWH/(m².a) | |
| HEATING LOAD | 7,700 BTU/hr | |
| COOLING DEMAND | 3.2 kWh/(m².a) | |
| PRIMARY ENERGY | 82 kWh/(m².a) | |
| AIR TIGHTNESS | 0.34 ACH (pre-insulation) | |
| VOLUME | 20,420 ft³ | |
| SLAB | Concrete/XPS | R-71 |
| ABOVE GRADE WALLS | 2×6 w 16” I-joist | R-83 |
| BELOW GRADE WALLS | 2×6/Concrete/EPS | R-76 |
| CEILING | Wood truss/PIC/Cellulose | R-88 |
| VENTILATION | Zehnder ComfoAir 550 | Eff. 84% |
| WINDOWS | Gaulhofer EnergyLine Plus 85 | South-SHGC = 0.61 Ug = 0.60 W/(m²K) N,E,W-SHGC = 0.51 Ug = 0.50 W/(m²K) |
| HEATING/COOLING | Fujitsu Ductless Mini-Splits – 2 indoor heads | |
| HOT WATER | TBD | |
| RENEWABLES | TBD | |