John Halliday says he really likes innovation.
The North Bay native was born and raised here before leaving the Ottawa region to work in the engineering field. He moved back home a couple years ago and had a plan.
He wanted to build an energy efficient home.
“It is kind of like a bucket list thing, I always wanted to build a house, I am an engineer,” said Halliday.
Halliday found his ideal location on McLaren Street.
“I have always done renovations and always loved building things from nothing and I grew up just around the corner on Burke and this was our old toboggan hill when the hospital was here so when I saw the lot and I knew the guy that owned it I purchased the lot and I got interested in the net zero.”
Halliday claims his new home is the first certified net zero home to be designed and built in North Bay and Northern Ontario.
The idea of a net zero energy home is that it produces at least as much energy as it consumes on an annual basis.
“What I like about it is essentially it is almost like zero maintenance over the life of the house and you are reducing your carbon footprint if you want to look it like that,” he said.
“People may say they have built a net zero or a passive home and that may very well be, but this one I can demonstrate that I have met all the targets that the net zero committee put out.”
According to Halliday, a net zero home is designed and built to generate as much energy as it uses, and typically uses 1/3 the energy of a code built home.
The home design was modelled by a certified energy advisor and features 7.8 KW of solar on the roof, tripled glazed windows, a cold climate air source heat pump heating/cooling system, waste water heat recovery, an air source heat pump water heater and an innovate building envelope design by BASF.
Halliday thinks net zero homes will be common in the future.
“What I have done in terms of energy efficiency, and wall structure and windows and mechanicals, that is probably going to be in the building code within the next 15 to 20 years,” said Halliday.
"It is just something that is going to be coming eventually because of the way we are moving toward sustainability and the better uses of our resources.”
