We were in France on vacation this year, and I was interested to see a growing deep green orientation there.  In the past, it has always felt like France was lagging behind Germany, Sweden, and the UK in addressing climate change on the ground.  I could feel a difference this year though – in the street art, growing bio street markets, and green initiatives. 

In Paris, a year long planning process resulted last year in “le Grand Paris“, sponsored by President Sarkozy as a way to reshape the capitol to have a smaller footprint in the coming centuries.  Several new deep green skyscrapers, such as Hypergreen, have been proposed in the last several years.  Just in the last two years, Paris has started a dedicated effort to promote bicycling, and there was a new bike rental program called Velib which was used by lots of folks, including commuters – in a short amount of time it has become a great success. 

zHome at Hypergreen display, Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine

Out in the countryside, PV panels were showing up on roofs.  Folks said the big controversy was the local planning authorities were concerned about the aesthetic integration of the panels on the historic tile roofs.   All in all, really positive signs – you could feel the change in the air.

PV installers' van

Tubes!

The tubes are conduit runs through the foundation.  This is a photo of the concrete forms.  Concrete will be poured into the forms to create the foundation walls.  The tubes provide a chase for things to be run up into the unit – wires, pipes, etc.

Seems like a lot of tubes, right?  We have a lot going on in these units – regular stuff like water pipes and electricity, but in our case ground source piping, extra wires for the solar panels…and who knows what else?  So we have a lot of tubes.

zHome retaining wall under construction

One of the zHome materials benchmarks is for all concrete to include 30 percent flyash by volume.  This is an aggressive percentage, reflecting the nature of zHome’s pushing the envelope. 

Flyash is the byproduct from coal burning power plants.  Flyash is a recycled material that reduces the need for cement.  Another benefit to using flyash beyond simply reducing material use is that the production of cement produces a significant amount of CO2 – so using less is good.

High flyash concrete is different than typical cement.  It is stickier and harder to form and work.  It takes longer to cure, which particularly in structural situations can mess with your timeline.  On the upside, in addition to its environmental benefits, it has less voids than typical concrete (the flyash is like little ball bearings and helps the concrete flow) and is stronger once fully cured. 

Closeup of 30% flyash wall - almost void free.

Centralia power plant, source of our flyash

An interesting sidenote is that flyash locally has historically come from the Centralia power plant.  However, during the boom times, local demand for flyash resulted in it being brought in by rail from Alberta, which created its own carbon issues.  Now, with construction significantly reduced, we are back to Centralia flyash being easily available.

Q: Tell us a little bit about Ichijo as a company.

A: Since our company, Ichijo, was established on 1978, we have focused on the business for custom-built houses. Unlike as is typical in the United States, our custom homes are factory built, and thus able to be offered at more typical production home prices.  Currently, we have more than 3,400 employees, and last year, we built more than 8,000 houses nationwide in Japan (revenues were approximately 2.1 billion US Dollars).  Although there are many major home builders in Japan,  Ichijo was ranked  No.1 in performance in Super-Insulated Houses (“Energy Efficient Houses” in broad sense), and had the No.1 track record in Seismically-Isolated Houses as well. 

Prebuilt wall panels being fabricated

Q:  zHome is Ichijo’s first venture in the United States. I think this says a lot about both zHome and Ichijo. What was attractive to you about zHome?

A:  It was August last year when we first heard about the zHome project.  The  net zero energy consumption design concept of zHome is exactly the same direction where Ichijo is heading. Last year, when we found out about zHome, we wanted to know our worldwide position in energy efficiency performance, and how our houses would be evaluated by the people and construction industry of the US, which is the country of origin of wood framed construction.

One more attractive thing is that there is the participation of a great home builder, Howland Homes.  Just like us, Howland Homes is oriented toward environmentally-friendly houses. I am sure that we could not move forward by ourselves without their sincere cooperation. It was only a couple of days when we stayed in Seattle last year, where we met Matt Howland and learned about zHome.  So, I would say it was a miracle that both of us could meet each other and we were able to find out about the zHome project during our brief stay.  It will be very impressive for our colleagues as well as our customers in Japan if they know that we are participating in this project in the US.

Q:  I understand Ichijo has an innovative housing model in Japan, the i-cube.  Can you tell us more about it?

A:  Briefly speaking, there are three key features in the i-cube. First, very high insulation performance, second, very high air-tightness performance, and third and most important, that we could provide reasonable and affordable price to our customers in Japan.  In combination with other hi-tech items, i.e. heat pump, heat exchange ventilation, and PV systems, these enable the i-cube to be an ideal highly energy efficient house.  Based on all these energy efficient components, the i-cube uses about 54% of the energy of a similar sized and configured home built to the Washington State Energy Code.

i-cube under construction

The current Japanese home buying market is primarily focused on durability, as well as homes being earthquake proof. However, new home durability mainly benefits the  next generation, and a giant earthquake might happen less than one or two times in a lifetime, while highly energy efficient houses are closely related to your daily comfort and daily energy expense.  But then again, most Japanese home buyers are hesitant to buy highly energy efficient houses with significant extra budget. So, we think that innovations in reasonable pricing for highly efficient homes are most important for them to become widespread, and then it will finally contribute to a large amount of CO2 reduction.

Q:  What sorts of other innovations has Ichijo introduced in its homes?

A:  Among other things, we are proud to introduce our Seismically-Isolated Houses.  This is a technology which physically isolates the home from earthquakes.  It involves the homes being built on a large set of vibration controllers which sit between the foundation and the home structure.  We developed it in partnership with Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire and rubber company. We have a track record of 3,600 Seismically-Isolated Houses as of Dec. 2009, and the No. 1 track record in total number of Seismically-Isolated Houses so far built in Japan.  [Ed:  There is a very cool short film of the interior of a seismically isolated home versus a conventional home in a simulated earthquake on the Ichijo website.  Scroll down the page and click on the images to view.] 

Seismically-isolated home demonstration at testing laboratory

We have also developed heat exchanger ventilation systems which have a 90% heat recovery rate, radiant floor heating systems, and double paned windows we build ourselves.  This enables us not only to minimize costs, but to optimize quality control through the entire production process. We manufacture more than 70% of the total housing components which go into the i-cube, and we need only 45 working days of construction for home completion once the foundation is complete and the components are on the building site.      

Q:  On a personal note, what have been your impressions of the United States?  Is it the same or different than you imagined?

A:  Thanks to the zHome project, I was able  to visit the US for the first time. I was very much impressed that there is so much green, forests, and the beautiful waterfront in greater Seattle area, and it reminded me of the importance of consciousness about sustainability. 

Also, business infrastructure through the internet, specifically the websites of each government agency, is very advanced and well organized. I did not feel any discomfort with starting business here in US.

Drilling the first well

Ground source heat pumps in homes are used for heating both hot water and the home interior. Generally, they are a water based system – they heat water, rather than air, like your typical forced air furnace.

Ground source heat pumps essentially combine two very efficient technologies to result in an extremely efficient technology. They include two parts: a ground well system for preheating the fluid to the average ground temperature (in Issaquah, 50 degrees or so). Once the fluid has run through the ground well field and been prewarmed, it is then run through the heat pump, which then heats it further up to 125 degrees or thereabouts.

The radical thing about using the preheating loop is that effectively, the heat pump only has to heat from the 50 degree baseline, year round. That means that in the dead of winter, when it’s 30 degrees outside, the heating system is effectively only having to heat from 50 degrees, since it’s using the well field water. The heat pump has its own cool efficiency which I’ll explain another time.

So, back to our well field. To create our well field, our mechanical engineer (Stantec in Seattle) determined the appropriate sizing based on the total heating load for our ten units. They determined we needed 3,000 feet of vertical wells. Our initial design configured that 3,000 feet into ten 300 foot deep wells connected by a set of pipes (called a manifold) just under the surface.

Into each well, a very heavy duty double U shaped one inch diameter pipe is run down the bore hole. The pipe is made out of polyethylene, and is the same pipe used to carry natural gas to homes. The pipe is then grouted in place with a material called bentonite, which is a sort of flexible inert concrete. The grouting ensures that the pipe and the fluid inside the pipe is in full contact with the surrounding ground, to maximize the thermal conductivity.

The problem we’ve run into is that we’ve had some issues boring holes that deep. Portions of Issaquah Highlands are an old lateral moraine from the big Puget Sound glaciations of the last Ice Age. There are lenses of gravel which tend to collapse when we’ve drilled through them. In particular, there is a lens at around 200 feet.  As a result, we’ve had to modify our well field, and increase the number of wells to fifteen or thereabouts. It’s added cost and taken more time.

I was in the field yesterday watching them place one of the pipes and grout it in place. It is tough work for the drillers – sledgehammers, rubber boots, hard hats, a big drill rig and a lot of sweat. It was a very good reminder to me that this is where the rubber hits the road. After years of planning, evaluating the options, and weighing the pro’s and con’s, here was a crew of three guys working hard all day, drilling a hole, muscling a tube down the hole, mixing a big batch of grout, pumping it down the hole, and moving on to the next one. When zHome is done it will be a mix of brains and guts and stamina.

So, how did this come about?  Howland Homes, our builder partner, has formed a joint venture with Ichijo USA, which is providing project financing.  Ichijo USA is the American subsidiary to the Ichijo Group of Japan, which is a major homebuilder there.  Last year they built about 8,000 homes with a total sales value of $2.1 billion. Ichijo is currently building highly energy-efficient homes in Japan, including the i-cube, which includes a heavily-insulated exterior (R-30 walls) and air source heat pumps as standard specification.  They completely get what zHome is about, and have been real leaders and innovators in their home market. 

It feels great to be starting construction.  The team is really excited to begin our education program and start rolling with our market transformation.  I am personally incredibly excited to have Ichijo as part of the project.  zHome is now international in scope, influencing not only Issaquah, the Puget Sound region, and the Northwest, but potentially Japan as well.  If we are going to be serious about addressing climate change, it is going to be these sorts of international partnerships that are going to do it.

More on details of all this as we move forward – I just wanted to get the word out!

This home, which will be the Shirey’s personal residence, is exactly what it says it is – it provides ideas to the building and home buying audiences for advanced energy saving technologies which are part of a potential zero energy strategy.  It includes such advanced technologies as structural insulated panels, (R-24 walls, R-40 roof), solar hot water heating, LED lighting, a reverse chiller for heating, a helical wind turbine, and a 2.5 kwh photovoltaic panel array.  The combination of all these technologies will most certainly help the house get much of the way to zero net energy usage – resulting in one of the most advanced homes built regionally to date from an energy standpoint.  The WSU Energy Program projects the home will have net energy bills of about $500 a year, quite an achievement.  I suspect given how green the Shirey’s are, they are likely to do even better than this in actual usage.

Installing the structural insulated panels

As wholistic green builders, the Shireys have also included a number of other cutting edge green components.  Extensive green roofs and native landscaping will help reduce the roof rainwater runoff.  A 3,000 gallon rainwater cistern provides irrigation.  Lots of neat green materials, like FSC floors, recycled plate glass counters, and concrete countertops show green homes can be incredibly beautiful.

I have had the pleasure of knowing the Shireys for a number of years.  They own and run Shirey Contracting, located here in Issaquah, WA.  They are true green building pioneers, and were some of the first builders regionally to draw the important connection between building and sustainability.  They have been builders for several decades and were early users of structural insulated panels, which can result in tight, energy efficient walls and quick construction timelines.  Donna was instrumental in starting Built Green, the green building program for King and Snohomish Counties.  In addition to the Idea House, the Shireys are also building a home in Florida which will be LEED platinum – two truly cutting edge homes.

A great 13 minute educational video of the home was made by King County GreenTools – don’t miss it.  Also, the Zero Energy Idea House will be open Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Nov. 8 for self guided tours.  It is most definitely worth checking out – it is a truly inspiring home.