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Exterior of the Home of the Future, featuring cedar cladding and pine beetle wood, and the BC Hydro Dunsmuir Street office towering above.
January 26, 2010
Tour the Home of the Future at Power Smart Village
Blaine Kyllo & Rob Klovance
For bchydro.com
It's called the Home of the Future, but we're a lot closer to living in it than you might think.
On display at the BC Hydro Power Smart Village, which opens to the public on February 10th, the Home of the Future is a hip residence that is a hallmark of sustainability. Designed using local and recycled components, the home is outfitted with energy-efficient appliances and other technologies that will soon be part of our homes.
Also look for Chevrolet's electric vehicle, the Volt, in the home's carport from February 10-19.
Get Google Map directions to the Power Smart Village
Once a shipping container...
The home is constructed from two shipping containers sourced from a facility along the Fraser River. That's in keeping with an architectural trend in recycling shipping containers, which have a close relationship to the city and the province. "Vancouver's port is conspicuous, the stacks of containers loom large on the landscape," says IBI Group construction project manager Cameron Owen.
Retro-fitting cargo containers as homes is similar to taking a pre-fabricated systems approach to bringing the cost of construction down, but with a contemporary sensibility. Owen said they could be an interesting way to meet the city of Vancouver's initiative to explore eco-density.
For the Home of the Future, the two containers are offset instead of aligned side-by-side. The 680 square-foot space has been arranged to mimic the layout of an apartment or small house.
The interior design makes use of locally-sourced and recycled materials that are readily available. The outside celebrates B.C. wood in using cedar board siding and pine beetle wood, and a green wall that features plants that add insulation while filtering pollutants.
Cool devices, recycled materials
Inside the Home of the Future, visitors will get an early look at some slick new appliances from General Electric. That includes new models in the GE Profile Smart Energy line that BC Hydro Power Smart representative Ken Bell says will be available in stores later this year.
Also on display will be a refrigerator, a range with a double oven, a microwave, a dishwasher, front-load washer and dryer, and a hybrid electric water heater that can absorb heat from the surrounding air to be transferred to water in the tank.
Here's a look at a few of the technologies, materials and devices featured in the Home of the Future at Power Smart Village:
Green wall
Smart washer and dryer
Smart refrigerator
Pine beetle wood
Cedar cladding
Recycled shipping containers
Home energy management system
Electric vehicle charging station
Smart meter
Solar panel
Green wall: The Home of the Future showcases one version of a green wall, which can either be partially or entirely covered in vegetation. It creates a local, sustainable urban food source, filters pollutants from the area and increases the biodiversity of native plants, animals and insects. Green walls also act as a good insulator that can reduce your annual heating and cooling costs.
Smart washer and dryer: Smart, frontload washing machines and dryers can communicate with a smart meter inside the home, allowing for delayed start times so that the appliances can operate when energy demand is lowest.
Smart refrigerator: Today's refrigerators defrost based on how often the refrigerator door is opened and closed. The smart refrigerator is capable of delaying the defrost cycle — which uses more energy than the normal operating mode — until the demand for energy is lower.
Pine beetle wood: The Home of the Future uses pine beetle wood on the exterior, above and below each window. The pine beetle, which lays eggs under the bark of pine trees that then become food for the hatched larvae, has left millions of hectares of trees dead in British Columbia. Pine beetles also carry a fungus that stains the wood blue or grey, which causes discoloration but does not degrade the strength of the wood, which has many uses, including standard framing lumber, a variety of wood products and energy generation.
Cedar cladding: The majority of the home's exterior is covered in cedar cladding. Unlike concrete or aluminium siding, cedar is a completely natural and 100% biodegradable building material. It is a sustainable and durable product that acts as a natural acoustic barrier and, due to its density, cedar is also a good insulator.
Recycled shipping containers: More than a million shipping containers become surplus in shipping yards and others storage locations across the world each year. Although steel is not a renewable resource, we can put these excess containers to good use by converting them into homes. Architects and designers are increasingly turning to these inexpensive, strong building blocks, stacked and connected to provide efficient living spaces at a low cost.
Home energy management system: A central nervous system for the home that helps you manage consumption and comfort by connecting devices such as appliances, in-home feedback devices and lighting to a main display. Set lights to go on and off at certain times, or use as an alert that the heat was left on in a specific room.
Electric vehicle charging station: In the future, charging stations will be set up for vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt. The electricity grid would be plug-in ready, allowing you to charge your vehicle when electricity is cheap. You may also have the option to sell electricity stored in the car’s battery back to the grid during the day when electricity rates are higher. Charging stations may be found in mall parking lots, at airports and at existing filling stations.
Smart meters: Digital smart meters identify electricity consumption in far greater detail than a conventional, electro-mechanical meter. Smart meters are capable of capturing and
sharing real-time data between meters, the utility, and display devices in the home, which will allow BC Hydro to provide you with more innovative services. Two-way communication enabled by smart meters allows you to monitor and control your energy consumption through in-home feedback devices, including web portals and programmable appliances. Smart meters also provide a valuable link between your meter and BC Hydro that will improve outage detection and restoration.
Solar panels: Collecting sunlight and converting it to energy that can be used as electricity, solar panels are a clean and environmentally-friendly means of collecting renewable energy
from the sun. They create free, renewable energy that couldn lower and potentially eliminate electricity bills, enabling you to essentially live off the grid and reduce carbon emissions.
