This package has just about everything that you need to plan a high-performance Mixed-Humid climate house. 

The drawing set gives you an architectural description of the house from the foundations up to the roof.  The floor plans show a layout with special attention to the quality and character of the rooms, giving the future occupant a comfortable living space in an affordable way.  The ground floor of the house can be easily converted to a fully accessible living area. 

The plans also describe the house framing system in some detail.  The structural design makes use of advanced framing techniques, which save material, minimize waste and increase thermal performance.  The service pathways have been considered and a materials list is included.  You will see that the building enclosure has been carefully detailed to manage water, heat and air, making the house design energy-efficient, durable and comfortable.

Electrical and mechanical drawings are provided.  The lighting, ventilation, space heating and domestic hot water systems have been designed with a whole house energy model that considers the building enclosure and the climate.  Trade-offs have been made to get excellent performance while keeping the systems affordable, and examples of equipment are given to help you put the systems together. 

The team of architects, engineers and building scientists that designed this set of house plans meant for all this information to be used all together as a complete design. 

But the package doesn’t have everything – there is important work for you to do.  Every homeowner has particular needs, and these should be reflected in the final plans and material choices.  And just as design, material selections, and construction details may change from one climate zone to the next, local environmental factors in your specific location or even on one building lot can lead to changes not covered by this package.  Professional judgement and common sense are required to address these issues.

To help, we have explained our design decisions in the text that accompanies the drawings.  In the first part of the text, which describes the Basic Mixed-Humid Climate House, you will find a step-by-step explanation of how we applied climate-specific design and building science principles.  The second section describes advanced technology packages that can be added to further increase the energy savings achieved by the basic house.  At every step, we show you how our decision-making was guided by the whole house energy model.

With all of this, you will be well on your way to creating a high-performance home that is safe, healthy, durable, comfortable, and economical to operate.