Bradford’s newest home on the block is set to play an active role in the future of sustainable housing development.
Members of council and representatives from Georgian College joined representatives from Great Gulf this week to announce a new partnership between the company and the college and to officially reveal the Summerlyn Active House at 8 Downy Emerald Drive in Bradford.
In his speech, Mayor James Leduc expressed his excitement that the company chose Bradford to launch their third Active House in Ontario, and acknowledged Great Gulf’s efforts to create environmentally-conscious developments in town since 2008, including the ecological wetland area included in the Summerlyn Village development.
“They have played a huge role in our local culture, always finding ways of giving back and supporting our town. After all they have done for BWG it gives me immense pleasure to stand here today as we take another leap in this legacy of sustainability and community,” he said.
At 3,185 sq. ft., the house was designed as part of the international Active House Alliance, which brings together members of academia with the development and home-building industries to create sustainable buildings, based on the three guiding principles: comfort, energy and the environment.
The house is Energy Star certified, EnerGuide rated and net zero ready, with solar panels, a Tesla battery, an optimized building envelope, and wood panels which are approved by CSA Group (formerly the Canadian Standards Association; CSA).
Tad Putyra, president of Great Gulf low-rise and home technology and a member of the international Active House Alliance’s board of advisory committee, described the house as another step in the evolution and improvement of housing design and construction technology.
“What is very special about Bradford is this is the first time we put this house on the market as a standard model that can be purchased,” he said.
To ensure comfort the house features an abundance of natural light from large windows, skylights, light tubes and an interior designed to avoid obstruction of daylight, and help maintain a person’s natural rhythm.
“Daylight supply — that’s our hormonal cycle: waking up and going to bed and being functional during the day. That’s our ambition,” Putyra said.
It also offers a consistent thermal environment thanks to each floor having its own thermostat and fresh air from skylights that keep the house cool in warm months and ensure ventilation.
The house is designed to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions thanks to the solar panels and battery, high-performance insulation, under-pad insulation, triple-glazed windows to reduce heat loss/gain, energy-efficient fixtures and LED lighting, smart devices and a heat recovery ventilator in the HVAC system.
By carefully designing the makeup of the home and how it’s controlled, Putyra said the company can not only make sure it’s more energy efficient, but it also helps people to be more comfortable.
“One of the biggest complaints we typically hear from people is control of climate: too hot, too cold, too dry, too humid, etc. And we live in a climate where we have to be very flexible; summers are very hot and very humid and winters are relatively dry and can be very cold. So the system installed in the house and all the equipment needs to address that variety,” he said.
While many of those features already help the environment the house also includes water-saving fixtures, an on-demand hot water system, a monitoring system to shut off water in the event of floods, and is built using recycled materials and “responsibly sourced” products, accord to Great Gulf.
The construction method is also designed to reduce waste and involves designing the home in 3D, before panels are pre-assembled in the company’s 200,000 sq. ft. Toronto manufacturing facility with robotic technology which Great Gulf says ensures air-tightness, precision production, optimal environmental conditions and quality control.
With the exception of the foundation, the entire house, including the roof, is made from these pre-fabricated panels which are then delivered to the site for assembly within a few days, limiting weather exposure for both the materials and the workers.
In future, people may see fewer workers on some housing job sites and more work done in factories, as a direct response to the lack of skilled trades people, according to Putyra.
“Our biggest worries now is lack of qualified skilled trades, so this is the resolution to shortages of skilled labour,” he said, noting Great Gulf was one of the first companies in the industry to offer full automation.
While the company says its Active House options will "soon be available in select communities across Ontario,” the Summerlyn Active House in Bradford is designed to be a prototype and demonstration model, which may also play a part in the partnership between the company and Georgian College, but exact details of how students would be able to study or learn from the prototype had not been finalized, according to representatives from the college.
Details were available regarding the company’s $50,000 pledge to the college’s financial aid program which is set to help 24 students who drive innovation and sustainability through four awards named after Great Gulf in the following categories: skilled trades, sustainability, big data and artificial intelligence, and environmental technology.
Additionally, Great Gulf said they will provide students exclusive access to the company’s facilities for applied research.
Dr. Yael Katz, vice-president of academic at Georgian College, said the Active House philosophy and the college's commitment to sustainability and environmental design are well aligned, and she expects the ability to learn from the project will benefits students in a series of programs that focus on skilled trades and construction design as they look to cutting-edge technology and new design formats.
“Teaching our students across disciplines in areas that are related to construction, design and technologies is a real honour in terms of collaborating with Great Gulf. ... The ability to learn from such a great organization will be fantastic and certainly, we’re very much grateful for their generosity. This is the beginning of a great collaboration, and we’re really open to exploring together how we might mutually move forward,” she said.
Great Gulf said they drew from more than a decade of data analysis and real-life experimentation to create the Summerlyn Active House, after creating the first Active House-certified home seven years ago.
Great Gulf is a founding member of the International Active House Alliance.
