One of the best ways to reduce the long-term energy consumption and carbon footprint of a new home is to incorporate a high-performance enclosure system into the design. Using semi-automated tooling, good old-fashioned experience, and natural materials our pre-panelized wall, floor, and roof systems are customizable to your project and offer an accessible solution to building a higher preforming home.
New Energy Works calls this program HPEz, or High-Performance Made Easier™, and we caught up with Bryan Bleier who manages our HPEz shop to learn a little more about the technical specifics and benefits of pre-panelized enclosures.
Q: What makes our HPEz enclosures high-performance?
A high-performance enclosure is a wall system that is fabricated far above code-minimum construction standards in terms of insulation, airtightness, thermal bridging, and overall quality. This is achieved by increasing insulation values and airtightness using industry leading products such as intelligent membranes, tapes, and gaskets. Our airtight, vapor open assemblies offer increased indoor comfort & air quality, reduced energy consumption/costs as well as long term performance and durability. It’s our goal to build enclosures that last generations, not just 50-100 years.
Q: Why should a homeowner or architect consider working with a partner on a high-performance home’s enclosure?
A: Working with a partner like New Energy Works on an enclosure system offers a number of benefits, chief among them is that our team thoroughly vets any architectural drawings and design details to ensure that all of the various systems that make an enclosure project successful and efficient are optimized prior to fabrication. The level of pre-planning detail, experience, and expertise that an off-site manufacturing partner can bring to a high-performance project streamlines not only construction, but results in a higher quality structure.
Q: Why is building an enclosure system off-site a good approach?
A: Some benefits of off-site pre-fabrication of an enclosure system are obvious, like enhanced quality control due to manufacturing in a controlled environment, but others are less apparent. Building your enclosure off-site can speed up construction and build time on-site because panels deliver with all of the layers pre-assembled, ready to install, reducing the time it takes to get a building weather tight and ready for trades during construction. In addition to efficiency on-site, pre-panelization reduces the overall waste created by construction of an enclosure and makes for much cleaner and less cluttered job sites.
Q: Why should renewable materials be used in an enclosure?
A: Choosing to use natural and sustainable materials like wood, hemp, or wool when building a high-performance enclosure over chemical, foam, or synthetic materials improves indoor air-quality long-term and reduces the structures overall carbon-footprint. In the case of wood specifically, trees remove carbon from the environment, locking it in away in their fibers which is called carbon sequestration. That carbon is trapped within the wood fiber for the duration of its lifecycle which makes wood a carbon neutral building material. There are also performance benefits to using wood products as woods natural properties make for a much more durable assembly due to its high potential for drying.
About:
Bryan joined our engineering group after earning his degree from the SUNY Institute of Technology. He's a leader of most of our HPEz enclosure projects, sharing well-tuned knowledge of energy efficient design and implementation. Outside of the office he's an avid outdoorsman and enjoys anything to do on the water – fishing, boating, jet skiing, and kayaking to name a few. When the weather cooperates and there isn't a nearby body of water, he can often be found camping, hiking, or hunting. These days he and wife Jillian (and their two dogs) spend lots of time running for fun and competitively...but mostly in effort to keep up with their son!
Learn more: High Performance Building Enclosures | New Energy Works
