HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDING

One Sky Homes thinks that the goal of living in a High Performance Home can best be summarized as: hot showers and cold beer - Comfort First!

We believe that the consideration to build a high performance, energy-efficient home should be much like deciding to purchase a high performance, energy-efficient car. When a consumer thinks about buying a new car what are the criteria that informs the purchase?  Each person's criteria will be a bit different of course, and here are just a few of the features consumers consider as they go through the process of deciding on a particular car:

What is the safety record? Can I drive in comfort? What about style and aesthetics - is it beautiful to look at?  Will my friends and colleagues envy me? What about the amenities? Do I want GPS, leather upholstery, a special paint color, a killer stereo or a DVD player for the kids in the back?  And, of course, energy-efficiency. How important is it to me that I get good gas mileage?  Do I want the latest Hybrid? 

For most people choosing a new car is not only about energy efficiency so why should build a new home be only about that?  The designers and builders at One Sky Homes believe that you can have it all - beauty, safety, comfort and energy efficiency.

We believe in re-prioritizing the home building list by putting the safety and comfort of the home-owners at the top of the priority list. Of course, energy efficiency, water conservation, sustainable building practices and how well the house will perform against other 'green' performance criteria are vitally important.  But at the end of the day, when you drive into your driveway, what will you want from your house? We are betting on a hot shower, a cold beer, and a cozy, draft-free place to relax ...in other words, comfort.

Do you need to sacrifice safety and comfort to drive a hybrid car?  We don't think so. And you shouldn't have to sacrifice aesthetics, safety and comfort while you are saving energy in a high performance home either.  In our way of thinking, everything about a high performance home is an added benefit to its owner.

What do we mean when we talk about the safety of a home. Burglars? That kind of security is important too, but in our way of thinking we mean indoor air quality.  The old traditional construction has produced off gassing of materials, poor ventilation, mold, dust, drafts and hot spots. Asthma is reported at an all-time high. What we mean by home safety and comfort is a well-ventilated, thermally comfortable (evenly heated and cooled) living space with 24 hours a day of fresh-air circulation.

Respiratory Comfort: See above about Indoor Air Quality. It's really important. Our homes feature premium ventilation systems with constant and abundant filtered fresh air. You have to feel it to believe it.

Thermal Comfort: Traditional building methods have allowed a house to basically reflect what is going on outside of it.  In the summer, a house is generally cool in the morning and hot in the afternoon (heat gain) and in the winter, its cold all day and even colder at night (heat loss). In order to stabilize the temperature in our houses we have relied on heating and air conditioning units to maintain our thermal comfort at astronomical costs to our pocketbooks and to the planet.  Now, using high performance building technologies we can achieve minimum temperature variation in our homes through superinsulation and airtight construction thereby substantially reducing the need for heating/cooling energy while increasing our thermal comfort.

Acoustical comfort:  You like your neighbors but not their teenager's drum practice or the sound of their lawnmower on Saturday morning. You want to hear your own music but not that of your neighbors. You certainly don't want to hear the heating and air conditioning when it's on. Our homes are designed and engineered with advanced acoustical isolation techniques to be quiet and peaceful.

Visual Comfort:  Lighting levels, architectural aesthetics,

Functional Comfort: Simple mechanics and ease of operation, maximum comfort with minimum hassles.