When building your dream custom home, it is essential to make the right choices from the beginning of the process to end up with a property that is not just beautiful and stylish but also safe and healthy for your family. Additionally, world trends are making homeowners think more about green options for their homes to protect the environment, reduce their human footprint, and enjoy healthy and more green spaces.
As Calgary custom home builders, we consider that one of the best ways to accomplish the performance optimization of our homes is to devote enough time to plan and model each property before the actual building happens. In this series of blogs, we are going to explain in detail one of our preferred practices, energy modeling. This top technique that helps us have the right design and layout decisions in the most beneficial way for each homeowner. In this blog, we will specifically share with you some details about this multipurpose tool that is indeed changing the game in the green building industry.
What Is Energy Modeling?
In general terms, a building simulation is the computerized or virtual simulation of any projected building that has not yet been built to analyze its characteristics. It is usually divided into load design and energy analysis, and the latter is the one that involves energy modeling explicitly. As its name suggests, energy modeling primarily focuses on the future energy consumption of the property and considers the costs and life cycle of energy-related items such as air conditioning, heating, and hot water systems, lighting, and insulation.
The goal of Calgary home builders when performing energy modeling simulations is to obtain accurate and solid data based on building costs to build a safe and energy efficient home. The idea is also to evaluate the payback of green solutions and how they could impact utility bills and quality of life of homeowners. By simulating your future custom home, your chosen home builder in Calgary can get valuable system recommendations about the feasibility and actual benefits of energy saving tools such as solar panels, wind turbines, and high-efficiency appliances.
How Is an Energy Modeling Simulation Done?
An energy modeling simulation consists in creating a virtual replica of a custom home. This is done thanks to top trend software that allows custom home builders in Calgary to enter a property’s components in a computer and simulate its performance through weather conditions ―usually for a whole year― to predict energy consumption, savings and loss.
At Sunset Homes, Calgary inner city home builder, we always recommend you trust the energy modeling of your future custom home to a professional team. This is a task that requires both solid experience and knowledge of green building techniques and specialized software use. Usually, to make an accurate energy modeling simulation, your chosen custom home builder in Calgary will need to enter the property’s location, geometry, building materials, interior load values and systems, and any applicable zoning requirement.
Who Needs Energy Modeling?
In our experience as professional Calgary custom home builders, we can assure you this: Energy modeling is equally valuable for builders, homeowners, and the environment! For example, builders can forget about huge spreadsheets that are not exact and homeowners can prevent future energy leaks and build an energy efficient home from the beginning.
Architectural design also greatly benefits from energy modeling, which allows architects to design energy-efficient homes while comparing and reducing up-front construction costs and operational energy costs. Your Calgary custom home builder will also need a professional energy modeling simulation or an energy performance report to choose the best HVAC system, window types, wall and insulation thickness/types that meet your property’s thermal loads efficiently.
The Energy Report
How Can You Benefit from Energy Modeling?
If you are in the process of building your dream custom home, you have probably asked yourself how green do you want your home to be. Of course, this decision depends entirely on you. The truth is that today most homeowners want to build structurally sound homes that are energy efficient as well. If you are contemplating the idea of having an eco-friendly custom home, then energy modeling is an excellent tool for you.
If you could foresee any potential energy challenges before building your home, why would you build it and adjust it later? Remember that energy modeling uses scenario analysis about technical, climatic, economic, internal and external conditions to foresee your home’s future energy performance so you can avoid unnecessary worries and headaches in the future.
Ask your professional Calgary custom home builder to run an energy modeling simulation of your project before building so you can save resources and time, adjust materials and design when necessary, determine the life cycle of any proposed green solution, define the consequences of any modification, and even predict your annual and monthly energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
Energy Modeling Explained by the Experts
Ready to build your dream custom home? Contact Sunset Homes today! We will prepare a class 3 estimate for your project, and provide you with the right tools for every step of the custom home building process.
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Too Long Didn't Read (TLDR)
Energy modeling is the computerized simulation of any projected building that has not yet been built to analyze its potential future energy consumption, which benefits homeowners and allows them to create greener, safer, and more energy efficient custom homes.
