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A Lasting Legacy to the Building Science Community

The Enclosure is a two-storey plus basement single-family dwelling being constructed in Pemberton Heights, BC, by SENWiEco Designs. Much more than a home, we plan for The Enclosure to result in a lasting legacy to the building science community and occupants for decades to come by making the dwelling available to the building science and engineering community for the purposes of studying high-performance building assemblies needed by BC’s construction community. This will assist the City of Vancouver and the Province in their goals to reach a Net0 future for new construction.

Design Focus

Provide highly thermally resistant and airtight envelope assemblies that focus on reducing thermal bridging and ensuring effective insulation values are as close to the nominal values as possible while also demonstrating best building enclosure practices in terms of stormwater management and assemblies that while airtight will still allow for the assembly to ‘perspire’ to the exterior low-pressure side.

Building Science Lab

To ensure the planned dwelling provides a lasting legacy to the building enclosure and construction community, SENWiEco has sponsored and is including building science labs that are to be built right into the dwellings building envelope.

We have a wall lab that will test a series of high-performance wall assemblies over 1-2 year periods while being monitored with a sophisticated instrument package and a subfloor slab lab that will analyze 4 different below slab insulation strategies for wet-up, compression, and R-Value retention.

About SENWiEco Designs

Sean Wiens is principal at SENWiEco Designs. Sean has had a keen interest in building science and energy efficiency for most of his adult life and has been a regular contributor to various online discussion groups that focus on Building Science Community, Energy Efficiency, and best plumbing/electrical/HVAC practices.

Sean also has a passion for reducing human footprint on this planet and hosts a sustainable living blog at thepathtosustainableliving, which discusses ways that we can all live a more sustainable lifestyle. This includes discussions on constructing our dwellings in ways that make them more durable and energy efficient, while at the same time using materials with a lower embodied energy.

With Sean’s passion for energy reduction, the environment, and most importantly – Building Science Best Practices, Sean, along with his wife, has made the decision to offer up their new construction project to the building science and engineering community for the purposes of studying high-performance building assemblies.

We are building a new dwelling that will result in a lasting legacy to the building science community and not a liability to the planet.