Better Builder Magazine, Winter Issue 2014

1
BETTER Builder MAGAZINE
the builder’s source
ISSUE 12 | WINTER 2014
WWW.BETTERBUILDER.CA
The Water Issue
IN THIS ISSUE
Less Water Equals More Lots
Making Sense of CSA P.9-11
Rainwater for Use in Laundry
Field Testing Sustainability in New Homes
Water Pipe Sizing in OBC: A Solution
Looking for a Problem
PHOTO: BRENT PERRY PHOTOGRAPHY PUBLICATION NUMBER 42408014

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2 WWW.BETTERBUILDER.CA | ISSUE 12 | WINTER 2015
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BETTER Builder MAGAZINE
the builder’s source
FEATURE STORY
16 Water Conservation, a Grey Issue
BY ALEX NEWMAN
20 Getting Ahead of the Curve Through
Decentralized Water Systems
BY BILL GAULEY AND TRACY PATTERSON
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
02 Publisher’s Note: Water – The Cup Is Half Empty
BY JOHN GODDEN
03 The Bada Test: Less Water Equals More Lots
BY LOU BADA
04 Industry News: There Is Power in Water
BY LENARD HART
06 Industry Expert: Combination Space Heating and
Domestic Hot Water Systems
BY GORD COOKE
08 Builder News: Trying to Make Sense of CSA P.9-11
BY ALEX NEWMAN
13 Industry News: Rainwater for Use in Laundry
BY MICHAEL LIO
22 :P[L:WLJPÄJ! 61 Talwood Drive
BY BARBINI DEVELOPMENTS INC.
24 Builder News: PRIORITY GREEN Clarington:
Field Testing Sustainability in New Homes
BY GLEN PLEASANCE
27 From the Ground Up: New Water Pipe Sizing
in the Ontario Building Code: A Solution
Looking for a Problem!
BY DOUG TARRY
31 :P[L:WLJPÄJ;VV! Winner – My Design Studio and
Castleform Developments Inc.
BY MY DESIGN STUDIO AND BETTER BUILDER STAFF
32 The Plane View: Need to Know Facts About Water
BY BETTER BUILDER STAFF
1
3
13
ISSUE 12 | WINTER 2014
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WWW.BETTERBUILDER.CA | ISSUE 12 | WINTER 2014
PHOTO: WSB® CLEAN WASTEWATER SYSTEM FROM RH2O® NORTH AMERICA BOTTLE, MONEY: WWW.PHOTO: WWW.SHUTTERSTOCK.COM DESIGNPICS.COM; BALANCE: WWW.DREAMSTIME.COM

Publisher
Better Builder Magazine
12 Rowley Avenue
Toronto, ON M4P 2S8
416-481-4218 fax 416-481-4695
sales@betterbuilder.ca
Better Builder Magazine is a
sponsor of
Publishing editor
John B. Godden
managing editor
Wendy Shami
editorial@betterbuilder.ca
To advertise, contribute a story,
or join our distribution list, please
contact sales@betterbuilder.ca
Feature Writers
Tracy Hanes, Alex Newman
ProoFreading
Janet Dimond
creative
Robert Robotham Graphics
www.RobertRobotham.ca
This magazine brings
together premium product
manufacturers and leading
builders to create better,
differentiated homes and
buildings that use less energy,
save water and reduce our
impact on the environment.
Publication number
42408014
Copyright by Better Builder
Magazine. Contents may not
be reprinted or reproduced
without written permission. The
opinions expressed herein are
exclusively those of the authors
and assumed to be original
work. Better Builder Magazine
cannot be held liable for
any damage as a result of
publishing such works.
trademark disclaimer
All company and/or product
names may be trade names,
trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of the respective
owners with which they are
associated.
undeliverable mail
Better Builder Magazine
12 Rowley Avenue, Toronto,
ON M4P 2S8. Better Builder
Magazine is published four
times a year.
publisher’s note
By John Godden
Water – The Cup Is Half Empty
Life on this planet cannot survive without
water. Fortunately the city of Toronto is
situated on Lake Ontario supplying an
abundance of water. Other localities rely on
groundwater and wells for their water supply.
In both cases the treatment process of pol-luted
water and the movement of water for
various uses is expensive.
In fact, moving water in Toronto consumes
35 per cent of the city’s electricity bill. This
consumption number for the central dis-tribution
of water
It turns out that greywater
recycling is a practical way
to reduce household demand
of water by up to 30 per cent.
is higher than the
cost to the Toronto
Transit Commission
to run the subways.
The city of Guelph
relies on pumped groundwater. The electricity
consumption for their water supply accounts
for 50 per cent of the city’s bill.
Water can be wasted in a number of ways –
by leaving a tap running or leakage in the cen-tral
distribution system. This leakage accounts
for 10 to 30 per cent of the total volume of
water moved through the system. Increasing
development and more people require more
pipes, more pumps, more sewage treatment
facilities and more infrastructure. Although
average individual daily consumption of water
is down, there are more people using it and
they live farther and farther from the source.
The average annual household water bill in
Toronto went from $814 in 2013 to $887 in
2014 (the Toronto Star, Dec. 18, 2013). This
rate will continue to increase by 8 per cent
yearly for the next three years.
Given that water is expensive to treat and
move around, it is imperative we conserve.
Currently certain localities are experiencing
water shortages and experts warn that the
water table is being depleted permanently. The
cup is half empty.
The current Ontario Building Code (OBC)
has mandated low flow shower heads, fau-cets
and toilets to ensure water conservation.
Additional water conservation measures are
needed to protect the fragile supply of water.
A good example of leadership in water
conservation is the Sustainable Home Incen-tive
Program (SHIP). Introduced in 2009 by
York Region, SHIP allocates up to 20 per cent
greater water and sewer capacity to projects
that meet water reduction targets. This means
builders who construct homes that use less
water will be granted allocations to build
higher densities (more
houses).
In this issue of
Better Builder all our
contributors discuss
important issues
regarding water. Gord Cooke looks at combi-nation
heating systems that use hot water to
meet lower heating requirements for residen-tial
applications. Alex Newman interviews a
number of builders addressing the subject of
greywater recycling. It turns out that greywater
recycling is a practical way to reduce household
demand of water by up to 30 per cent. Michael
Lio examines the building code requirements
when using rainwater for laundry uses.
In approaching water efficiency we must
determine what measures are cost effective.
We include an article in this issue describing
how initiatives like PRIORITY GREEN Claring-ton
are essential for determining cost-effective
measures through testing and monitoring
water consumption. Doug Tarry reports on
recent changes to the Ontario plumbing codes.
Water is precious and in greater demand
every day. A simple reminder – less water
supplied to a house means less water leaving
the house. The resulting reduction of water
demand means less infrastructure, smaller
pipes, fewer pumping stations, less electricity
consumed and less treated water. A commit-ment
to reduced consumption may – over time
– fill our cups. BB

WWW.BETTERBUILDER.CA | ISSUE 12 | WINTER 2014 5
Force of Nature.” So too it seems
that water can also be the driving
force in land development. Pro-vincial
legislation, plans and policies
speak to the importance of sustain-ability
in land development. Upper-and
lower-tier municipalities, to be in
alignment with provincial legislation,
are responding to the growing priority
of sustainable development. Municipal
staff have developed sustainability
metrics for new developments in vary-ing
forms. Measurement is obviously
important in setting and achieving
goals, however it has become a tool for
assessing the merits of new develop-ment
proposals as well – a ranking sys-tem
of sorts. Although measurement,
verification and prioritization are
important, alone these do not result in
reaching our desired goals.
Water – potable use, waste dis-charge
and stormwater retention have
rightly been included in the calculus of
determining the desirability of a new
project. Interestingly, potable water
(and its inevitable waste discharge)
and stormwater are yin and yang when
viewing sustainability. Pumping and
treating potable and wastewater and
the infrastructure needed consume
significant amounts of energy contrib-uting
to climate change (depending on
the source of electricity). Stormwater
management is to a larger degree
being considered part of climate
change mitigation practices.
The Ontario Building Code (OBC)
has recognized this, and industry
has stepped up its efforts in reduc-ing
potable water use. Waterclosets
have gone from 13L per flush to 3.86L
per flush (a 70 per cent reduction) in
relatively short order. Similarly faucets
and shower fixtures have greatly
reduced their flow rates without too
much effect on the consumer experi-ence.
Exciting new technologies on the
near horizon such as greywater recy-cling
are reducing both water intake
and outflows at the same time. This
technology is likely the next best step
to get us even more efficient in our
water use. Most important here is that
manufacturers have innovated before
government has mandated.
Stormwater management goals
largely revolve around keeping as
much water on a property as possible
via harvesting, reuse and greater infil-tration
into the ground. This is done
to keep runoff to a minimum. Some
reasonable targets have been achieved
given that compact development and
density are often at odds with infil-tration
and harvesting. That is to say
that more hard surfaces (buildings
and roads, etc.) on smaller properties
test the physical limits as do native
soil types. Some latitude must be
given here since we are leaving much
more land undeveloped today.
The good news is that builders
and developers who undertake more
stringent potable/waste and storm-water
management practices are
being rewarded with more water and
sewer allocation for their projects.
York Region is a good example with
its 2009 Sustainable Home Incentive
Program (SHIP), which allocates up to
20 per cent greater water and sewer
allocation for projects that meet their
reduction targets. Incentive is the
operative word in this program. This
incentive program yields tangible
results for all stakeholders – con-sumers,
industry, government and
the environment. It would be great
if more conservation programs were
conceived of in this way. Direct gov-ernment
handouts should be avoided.
It is rather simple. When we use less,
we should get more – and/or pay less.
Although measuring the sustainabil-ity
performance of a new development
may have its uses, checklists and point
systems can be problematic. It can be
viewed this way: Fill out these forms
and promise to do these things (among
a great many others), and you can
compete for the privilege of taking an
enormous amount of risk, and investing
great amounts of time and energy in
the hope of generating some all-around
economic benefit in providing a basic
societal need. What has happened
is that we’ve raised the basic cost of
admission. Incentives work better than
checklists. I guess you can lead a horse
to water, but you can’t make it drink. BB
Lou Bada is construction contracts
manager for Starlane Homes.
thebadatest
By Lou Bada
BOTTLE, MONEY: WWW.DESIGNPICS.COM; BALANCE: WWW.DREAMSTIME.COM
Less Water
Equals
More Lots

Everyone knows that water is
powerful. We see the effects of
waves and floods, but it takes
a lot of power to get us our drinking
water and treat our sewage. In fact,
water is actually fairly power inten-sive,
and this may be good news for
water conservation in general.
In some ways water is the forgot-ten
resource. Being situated beside
the world’s largest freshwater
reserves has not helped make water
conservation a priority in the same
way conserving natural gas, electric-ity
and even gasoline has become
in Ontario. Water efficiency has
been written into the Ontario Build-ing
Code (OBC), which means that
extreme waste (like 20-litre flush
toilets) has been relegated out of
the new home market. Yet, there
has been comparatively little in the
way of programming or funding to
significantly address water conserva-tion
in the last five years. Canada has
the lowest cost per cubic metre for
water of any Western country, and is
second only to the U.S. in terms of
water consumption per capita, at 353
litres per person per day.
Water management, both fresh
and sewage, is typically the purview
of local governments and there is
no such thing as the Ontario Water
Authority to serve as an equivalent
to the Ontario Power Authority (OPA)
to co-ordinate conservation efforts
(although there are regional conserva-tion
authorities that focus primarily
on watershed preservation). Aside
from the building code, there are
some local initiatives for toilet retro-fits,
downspout disconnections and
rain barrel installations, and some
widespread reductions have come
from efforts to reduce hot water use
by gas or electric utilities with low
flow shower heads and faucet aera-tors
to save energy used in heating.
With little municipal funding to
address water conservation, looking at
the energy used to produce and then
treat cold water is perhaps a short-term
way forward to making water
conservation a priority. More than one
Ontario utility or local distribution
company (LDC) has already looked
into the amount of energy used to fil-ter,
pump and treat water, and to date
they have not yet seen it as a cost-effective
area to address, but things
may be changing.
With the new Conservation First
Framework, Ontario LDCs are tasked
with very aggressive reduction tar-gets.
Medium-sized LDCs often have
the local water and sewage plants as
their biggest use customers. Early
adopters will likely be those LDCs
who are closely tied to their munici-pal
government, and who might even
be active in delivery or billing for
industrynews
By Lenard Ha r t
PHOTO: WWW.DESIGNPICS.COM
POWER There Is
in Water

water, like Utilities Kingston
or Public Utilities Commis-sion
(PUC – Sault Ste. Marie),
for example. Additionally,
there could be early activ-ity
in places where a greater
energy is used to draw water
from wells.
The Conservation First
Framework is a six-year
funding envelope that has a
total conservation target of
7 TWh. Each
LDC is allotted
a percentage
of that total
target based on
its size, demo-graphics
and
Canada is second only
to the U.S. in terms
of water consumption
per capita, at 353 litres
per person per day.
regional needs. The OPA, a
quasi-governmental agency
that manages conservation in
Ontario, is phasing out of its
active leadership role and is
set to merge with the Inde-pendent
Electricity Service
Operator (IESO) at the end of
this year. This enables LDCs
to take the lead on conserva-tion,
and encourages them to
be more innovative and more
regionally distinct to meet
the needs of their particular
customer base. Most of the
saveONenergy programs in
the market for the last four
years will continue into 2015
and beyond. This includes the
New Home Construction Pro-gram,
now registering homes
for completion in 2015 (con-tact
RNC@summerhill.com
to register or find out more).
Water conservation measures
could easily be added to these
programs to increase poten-tial
electrical savings.
LDCs are developing their
conservation planning for
2015 and beyond, and there
is an opportunity for water
conservation to be part of
those plans. For builders, this
may allow for some incen-tives
to use rain or greywater
systems, real-time water
monitoring, ozone washing
machines and more.
We all know that CO2 emis-sions
are changing the climate,
CFCs deplete
the ozone
and pollution
affects our air
quality, and
this is why we
are aggres-sively
legislating and funding
programs to reduce the causes
of all three of these problems.
Likewise, we know water is a
limited and precious resource
that sustains all life, but we
are not pricing its consump-tion
accordingly and not
funding its conservation suf-ficiently.
It’s hard to know why
there is such a collective blind
spot on this one issue.
Perhaps we just need to
look at water differently
through an energy savings
filter. Then we can find a way
to prioritize significant water
conservation efforts. Then
the future of water conserva-tion
may not be driven by
local governments trying
to conserve an important
resource, but by LDCs trying
to meet massive energy con-servation
targets. BB
Lenard Hart is vice-president
of sales and marketing at
Summerhill Group.
industrynews
By Lenard Ha r t

Combination Space Heating and
Domestic Hot Water Systems
Last winter I wrote about the
opportunities in multifamily
buildings (low rise and high
rise), for downsizing heating equip-ment
because of the inherent effi-ciency
of attached dwelling units due
to fewer outside walls and ceilings,
and because of the improved energy
efficiency of houses overall. Now,
while it is true space
heating loads are
on their way down,
I am finding that
the expectations
of homeowners for
increased hot water
for domestic use is
on its way up, in a pretty extraordi-nary
way. To put this into perspective,
consider the typical 1,000 to 1,200 sq
ft starter home of the 1960s, like the
one pictured here. From my memories
of growing up in a family with six
kids, we had one 40-gal water heater,
perhaps with a capacity of 40,000
BTUs/hr serving the one bathroom.
But there was also a big old natural
draft boiler that was around 120,000
to 140,000 BTUs/hr capacity. Compare
that to the 1,000 to 1,200 sq ft, 3.5-sto-rey
townhome common today, where
the capacities are typically reversed.
The new space heating capacity needed
is under 40,000 BTUs/hr, but the expec-tations
of the 2.5 bathrooms is perhaps
a tankless water heater or wall hung
boiler with a 120,000 to 140,000 BTUs/
hr capacity. Even the new condensing
tank water heaters often have a capac-ity
of 90,000+ BTUs/hr. These great
new efficient water heating options
are sitting around most of the day
waiting for someone to take a shower.
But many builders and HVAC contrac-tors
have figured out that an efficient
domestic hot water heater can also be a
useful appliance for space heating. One
gas appliance instead of two means
one less vent added to the crowded end
walls, and hot water offers flexibility
in heating distribution. A hot water
air handler, radiant
panel heaters and
even in-floor heat can
all be served off that
one appliance.
There is at least
one important
technical issue to
be resolved – the efficiency of this
one appliance but dual roles scenario.
Even in my R-2000 home built in 1992,
it was pointed out to me, and the
industry, that the high efficiency water
heater I used condensed nicely during
a call for domestic hot water, but not
when the air handler was pulling hot
water for heating my home. This was
due to the difference in return water
temperature to the water heater and
noticeable just by standing outside at
the vent – steamy in hot water mode,
no condensate in heating mode.
Now, after much research and
industry consultation and development,
there is a new standard called CAN/
CSA P.9-11 – Test method for determin-ing
the performance of combined space
and water heating systems (combos)
standard. This standard ensures that
the total or overall efficiency of combi-nation
systems is reported accurately
and consistently. This is clearly a great
goal for a technology that has a lot to
offer in both new and existing homes.
The standard is now referenced in the
2010 National Building Code and is also
a requirement for combination systems
used in ENERGY STAR-labelled homes
as of September 2014.
The essence of a truly energy-efficient
combination system is that
the heat exchange process must get to
condensing mode not only in domes-tic
hot water heating mode, but also in
space heating mode. That is, when the
return water temperature from the
space heating coils will generally be
much warmer than the city water inlet
temperature that the system heats
when providing potable hot water.
This is particularly difficult in part
load conditions or mild days, when
the space heating needs are very low.
Forward-thinking manufacturers
have realized that good overall results,
measured by a new energy performance
metric called thermal performance
factor (TPF), can only be achieved when
efficient water heaters and air handlers
are well matched and the operating
system intelligently controls both the
water heater and air handler together.
Successful control strategies are able
to vary the water temperature and flow
to the air handler to ensure the water
heater condenses all or at least most
of the time. The TPF metric combines
ratings for space heating and water
heating performance, and takes a load-weighted
average of the two to generate
a performance rating.
In many ways, the P.9 standard is
more comprehensive than the stan-dards
used to rate performance of
water heaters and furnaces individu-
industryexpert
By Go rd Cooke
LHYLÄUKPUNJVTIV
systems with TPFs even
under 0.80 outperform the
more traditional high
LMÄJPLUJ`MYUHJLHUK
power-vented water heaters.

120 MBH 1960s starter home 40 MBH
30 MBH 2014 starter home 140 MBH
ally, since it recognizes that heating
systems will operate under part load
conditions most of the time. Thus
combination systems are tested under
loads that equate to 100%, 40% and
15% of their space heating capacities.
For comparison purposes, a combi-nation
system with a TPF of 0.90 can
be assumed to have an overall energy
performance roughly equal to the
combined performance of a 95% AFUE
(annual fuel utilization efficiency) gas
furnace and a water heater with an
energy factor of 0.67. However, as
we have been applying TPF perfor-mance-
rated equipment specifically
to efficient townhomes, where space
heating loads are very small, we are
finding combo systems with TPFs
even under 0.80 outperform the more
traditional high efficiency furnace
and power-vented water heaters.
There is a helpful list of manufac-turers
who have either developed their
own total package of air handler and
water heaters, or have worked with
other component manufacturers to get
systems performance tested. The most
current list can be found at:
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/pml-lmp/index.
cfm?action=app.welcome-bienvenue
I urge you to support these tested
products as they represent the best
combination of features that include:
‡high combustion efficiency to ensure
condensing mode as often as possible
‡modulation of water temperatures
‡variable flow water pumps with low
electrical consumption
‡variable air flow fans with low elec-trical
consumption electronically
commutated (ECM) fan motors
‡optimized hot water coils for proper
air temperature control
‡great controls that adapt to space
and water heating loads easily.
The best combinations are able to
achieve TPFs over 0.90 and offer a
great match of efficiency while meet-ing
the expectations of your homebuy-ers
for more hot water. BB
Gord Cooke is president of Building
Knowledge Canada.
SUPPLIED PHOTOS

Until recently, builders were
given the freedom to match up
HVAC components as they saw
fit to make for as efficient a system
as possible. For example, a contractor
or engineer could select a hot water
source – instantaneous water heater,
boiler, combo unit and tank – and
pick any type from any manufacturer.
But as Brian Jackson, P.Eng.,
mechanical engineer with Airmax Tech-nologies,
explains that didn’t neces-sarily
mean you were getting the most
efficient system even if you combined
two high efficiency components.
“For example, a 25,000 BTU/hr
fan coil paired with a 120,000 BTU/
hr high efficiency instantaneous
hot water heating device together
might not be as efficient at one set of
operating points, but very efficient at
another,” Jackson explains.
To ensure equipment is paired for
the greatest efficiency, CSA has writ-ten
a standard to assess whether two
components from the same or two
different manufacturers are working
together to derive maximum system
efficiency.
The premise behind the CSA P.9-11
standard is a good one, Jackson adds.
“It’s something that makes sense
and can give you a system efficiency
rating on two pieces of equipment
combined.” This has potential rami-fications
for ENERGY STAR for New
Homes (ESNH) builders. As Jackson
explains, when a building designer
PHOTO: BAKER STREET RESIDENCES
specifies the building construction
details to ensure compliance to ESNH,
they can approach it in one of two
ways – prescriptive or performance.
“Most builders prefer the easier, less
complicated and less expensive choice
of the prescriptive method. What that
essentially means is choosing from a
list a set of prescribed building details
that when combined ensure compli-ance
with the building code.”
The other way to approach the
design is using the performance
method. “That’s used when you do
not or cannot comply with the stan-dard
set of details in the prescriptive
method. In this application, a builder
employs an energy evaluating firm
like Clearsphere to model the build-buildernews
By Al e x Newman
Trying to Make Sense of CSA P.9-11
With changing urban densities, stacked townhouses are becoming a common housing form. These units need an integrated space and
hot water heating system offered by combo systems. The efficiency of these combo systems is in question along with a reasonable
standard for testing them.

ing to determine and opti-mize
the energy efficiency of
the building. They will define
the building construction
techniques and all construc-tion
details like insulation,
architectural materials and
mechanical equipment. A
builder must pay for this
service, then pay for a blower
door test after it’s built, and
those things cost money.
Most builders doing subdivi-sion
homes prefer to use the
prescriptive method.”
The new CSA P.9-11
standard, which applies only
ESNH, will permit use of the
prescriptive method if the
selected combo
systems’
thermal perfor-mance
factor
The other way to
approach the design
is using the
performance method.
(TPF) is 0.89
or more. Since
the CSA P.9-11 standard only
applies to ESNH, builders
must use combo systems
with a certified CSA P.9-11
result if they want to build to
ESNH standards and be certi-fied.
If the TPF falls below
0.89, the builder must go
with a performance method.
In theory this is all well
and good, but when manu-facturers
of HVAC equipment
went to conduct the P.9 tests
on their equipment, there
weren’t many labs that could
complete the work – only one
in Canada. “With several dif-ferent
manufacturers trying
to get quotes, book lab time,
and the duration of a single
test of about a week and a
half, well, you can do the
math. In process test condi-tion
adjustments are only
making that turnaround time
longer,” Jackson says.
And since Natural
Resources Canada (NRCan
– the federal body that
publishes the test results
and determined that 0.89
threshold number) only gave
manufacturers six months to
comply after releasing the TPF
threshold, there was consider-able
opposition to the stan-dard.
Manufacturers and build-ers
alike were complaining
they didn’t have enough time
to meet the April 1 deadline
(which has since
been extended
to October 1).
For the man-ufacturers,
the
tests are expen-sive
– upwards of $10,000 per
system, Jackson says – and
there is no value added sales
benefit. Also not all builders
do ENERGY STAR homes and
the standard only applies to
ENERGY STAR builders.
It’s an even bigger chal-lenge
for small manufactur-ers,
who can’t afford either
the time or money to spend
on testing their equipment.
Jackson’s company Air-max
Technologies is capable
of absorbing the $100,000-
plus they’ve spent on tests,
but it doesn’t allow for the
company to charge any more
for their systems, so that is
money straight out of their
RD budget.
With the trend to build-
buildernews
By Al e x Newman

buildernews
By Al e x Newman
ing smaller homes – especially with
the new stacked townhomes – which
have a significantly smaller heating
load, there’s a mis-match
between the
appliance capacity
required for domes-tic
water supply (at
120-200K BTUs/
hr), and the smaller
space heat loads of
around 25K. “These
two pieces of equip-ment
work better when they’re more
closely matched in capacity,” Jackson
explains. “When you take a 25K BTU/
hr fan coil and match it with a 125K
BTU/hr instantaneous water heater,
they might not work optimally
together and may
give you a TPF lower
than 0.89, so now the
builder has to have
the home modelled to
comply with the per-formance
method.”
Coming up with
newer designs of
equipment that work
together more efficiently takes time,
Jackson says. “A lot of manufactur-ers
are working on the next genera-tion
of instantaneous water heaters
that can modulate lower and also
maintain thermal efficiency at that
lower modulation level to properly
align with the smaller load required
at the fan coil.”
Bottom line, Jackson says, is
the standard NRCan “wants you to
achieve is currently difficult with
equipment that’s commercially avail-able
right now. Getting these things
working in tandem properly is a
multiyear project.” BB
Alex Newman is a writer, editor and researcher
at www.integritycommunications.ca.
Bottom line, Jackson
says, is the standard
NRCan “wants you to
achieve is currently
KPMÄJS[^P[OLXPWTLU[
that’s commercially
available right now.”

industrynews
By Mi c h a e l L i o
For the last 20 or 30 years,
changes in housing have largely
focused on energy efficiency.
Ways to dramatically reduce water
consumption are part of a new con-versation.
There are many benefits
associated with water conservation.
For instance, using less water reduces
the load on the urban infrastruc-ture
(sewers and treatment plants),
reduces energy consumption (less
water to pump to households) and
saves the homeowner money.
While installing low flow faucets
and showerheads are commonplace,
new practices are being adopted
that can dramatically reduce water
consumption. Environment Canada
reports that over the 20-year period
from 1991 to 2011, Canadians reduced
their overall water consumption by 27
per cent (from 342L/person/day to
251L/person/day). Only by adopting
new, more aggressive measures can
the savings continue to grow.
Making better use of rainwater for
household uses holds much promise.
Rainwater capture and storage in rain
barrels for use on lawns and gardens
is not new – neither is using rainwater
for toilets. What is new is using rain-water
for household laundry.
Washing clothes uses approxi-mately
20 per cent of household
water consumption, and while
harvesting rainwater does not offer
year-round benefits, it can lower peak
summer water demand. Rainwater
harvesting also reduces wet weather
sewage overflows by providing tem-porary
storage for rainwater.
The 2012 Ontario Building Code
(OBC) allows, for the first time, the
use of rainwater harvesting systems
PHOTO: WSB® CLEAN WASTEWATER SYSTEM FROM RH2O® NORTH AMERICA
Rainwater for Use in Laundry
A rainwater harvesting system.

(RWH) for laundry purposes. The
background of this code change lies
in a 2010 Building Code Commission
Hearing where we represented the
applicant Rodeo Fine Homes. The
house in question was a two-storey
house in the town of Newmarket,
which was completed and occupied.
The builder applied for a permit to
install a RWH system for laundry
purposes, and was declined.
The proposed RWH system used
a prefilter system to catch debris,
leaves and dirt prior to rainwater
entering a storage tank. This filter-ing
system had previously been
demonstrated in a Guelph home by
Reid’s Heritage Homes. The stor-age
tank was designed to be buried
underground and had a connection
to municipal water should there be
a short supply of rainwater. The
rainwater was supplied to the washer
through its cold water inlet, but the
system did contain an on-demand
water heater should hot water be
required. The proposed system was
connected to a front-loading wash-ing
machine, as opposed to a top-loading
machine, which prevented
the opening of the appliance until
after the water had fully drained.
An air gap and backflow preventer
were included to prevent rainwater
from flowing back into the municipal
water supply. The system conformed
to CSA-B128.1-06 Design and instal-lation
of non-potable water systems
and CSA-B128.2-06 Maintenance and
field testing of non-potable water
systems.
The sections of the code in
question were from Part 7, which
addressed storm drainage systems,
water distribution systems and
nonpotable connections. The intent
of these code provisions is to limit
the probability that an inappropriate
location for outlets from nonpotable
water systems would lead to the
inadvertent use of nonpotable water
for functions which require potable
water. This could lead to the con-sumption
of harmful substances.
It was argued at the hearing that
rainwater should be permitted in
residential laundry facili-ties
for four main reasons,
which were supported by
credible research:
1. It does not pose a
health and safety risk:
‡pathogens are more likely
introduced by dirty laun-dry
than rainwater
‡contaminated rainwater fails to
increase bacterial count in washed
laundry
‡rainwater is generally of good quality
for laundry purposes
‡rainwater contamination can be pre-vented
through proper installation,
storage and system maintenance
‡contamination of the potable water
system is prevented
‡the system includes a number of fail-safes
to minimize risk of contamina-tion
from equipment failure.
2. It does not result in premature
failure of appropriately designed
laundry facilities:
‡system maintenance is straightfor-ward
for optimal performance.
3. Past performance proves it is a reli-able
means of washing clothing:
‡the building code already permitted
the indoor use of nonpotable water
(storm sewage/stormwater)
‡RWH systems for laundry have been
successfully demonstrated in Canada
and elsewhere (past performance
was cited from Guelph, British
Columbia, Saskatchewan, Germany,
Texas, Australia and New Zealand).
4. It provides a significant benefit
including a reduction in household
water use:
‡there is reduced water and energy
demand and pollution when RWH is
used for laundry
‡homeowners benefit when RWH is
used for laundry.
We had argued that the proposed
RWH system did not expose occu-pants
to significant additional health
and safety risk, that past performance
indicated RWH has been used reliably
for laundry in many jurisdictions, and
the system conformed
to two CSA standards. In
the end, the commission
ruled that the system
demonstrated sufficiency
of compliance. It should
be noted that the ruling
applied to the specific
house in question only. However, the
ruling provided the foundation for a
code change.
In the 2012 Ontario Building Code,
treated rainwater free of solids is
permitted to be used as a water sup-ply
for clothes washers (see Article
7.1.5.3. and 7.7.4.1.). For clothes
washers supplied by rainwater and
a potable water system, the potable
water system needs to be protected
by dual-check valve backflow preven-ters
that conform to CAN/CSA-B64.6
for both area isolation and premise
isolation (see Article 7.7.1.1). Nonpo-table
water systems are required to
be designed and constructed to good
engineering practices appropriate
to the circumstances, as described
in the ASHRAE handbooks, ASPE
Data Books, or CAN/CSA-B128.1 (see
Article 7.7.4.1.).
These code changes are an exam-ple
of the next wave of aggressive
water conservation that will continue
the efforts of past years. The wide
adoption of RWH systems in homes
across Ontario, in addition to saving
homeowners money, will dramati-cally
reduce water consumption and
provide reduced loads for sewers and
treatment plants that may become
strained with increased density.
Together, water efficiency and conser-vation
will help protect our valuable
water resource. BB
Michael Lio is president and Ceara Allen is
manager, technical services, at buildABILITY
Corporation. michael@buildability.ca.
industrynews
By Mi c h a e l L i o
Rainwater is
generally of
good quality
for laundry
purposes.

Features

featurestory
By Al e x Newman
Water Conservation, Reducing water consumption not only saves money
and is simple to do, but also keeps municipalities
happy. And when local municipalities – and their
sustainability checklists – are satisfied, builders
can do their job better.
Bob Finnigan, COO of Heathwood Homes, explains,
“Water allocation is a serious issue for municipalities, who
are trying to reduce water consumption now for the future.
For builders, it’s not just a slam dunk – buy the land and
automatically get approvals – because water isn’t always so
readily available.”
Chris Thompson, cofounder and CTO of Greyter Water
Systems, whose technology creates water-efficient build-ings
and homes adds, “It’s not just inaccessibility of water,
but challenges in delivering water from the source to the
customer. York Region, for example, doesn’t have direct
access to Lake Ontario, forcing them to purchase from
other municipalities. Water is transported to the region
through pump stations, which adds greatly to the cost and
creates a bottleneck.”
In Richmond Hill, where Heathwood is now building
113 homes at its Forest Hill on the Green site, greywater
recycling rough-ins are part of the whole package. Finni-gan
says, “One component the municipality looks at in
allocating development permits is what you are doing
with respect to water conservation. That factors into the
municipality’s ability to grant permits – the less con-sumption,
the more homes they can give allocation to. It’s
a simple equation.”
This is particularly true in York Region, he adds, where
new sources of water had to be found and created because
until now most water had come out of wells. So anything

A Grey Issue
that can slow down the consumption of such a hard-to-get
resource isn’t only good for future generations, but also
for future development.
In suburban areas where development has covered up
much of the ground, water hasn’t had a chance to reach
below the surface into the water table. Instead, it’s been
running off into storm ponds – not so bad in itself except
when heavy rains threaten to cause floods and overrun
storm sewers and ponds. As well, especially around the
Oak Ridges Moraine, municipal governments are making
efforts to keep the water table up.
For Boaz Feiner, housing division president of Gera-nium
Corporation, greywater recycling just makes “good
sense.” Geranium has just finished greywater rough-ins in
18 homes at its Ballantrae site, because as Feiner points
out, “There is no logical reason or purpose to be flushing
perfectly good drinking water down the toilet.”
He is well aware of the sustainability checklist of
municipalities in which his company builds, and with the
recent innovations in greywater recycling he says it’s so
much easier to build homes that are future proofed. “This
ensures a user-friendly and energy-efficient tomorrow –
and adds a lot of life to your housing stock,” Feiner says.
Greywater recycling has proven to be one of the highest
water reducers in a home. In 2011 when Heathwood built
both a green home and an ENERGY STAR home in Richmond
Hill, they monitored the results, with Ryerson students ana-lyzing
the raw data. Finnigan says of all the green compo-nents
in the green home – some more successful than others
– the one that consistently achieved very high sustainability
results was greywater recycling.
The recycling system works by taking wastewater from
PHOTO: BRENT PERRY PHOTOGRAPHY

showers and tubs, which consumes
the most domestic water in a home.
Those isolated drains are plumbed to
the mechanical room and tied into the
sanitary drain. When the greywater
system is installed, the shower and
bath water are redirected into a sys-tem
that filters, stores and disinfects
the greywater, which is then pumped
to the toilets to use for flushing.
This year, Heathwood expects to
build about 300 homes with greywater
system rough-ins, Finnigan says.
The rising cost
In many areas of the world,
including some parts of
North America, there’s
a shortage of water.
of water is another
potential concern,
say both builders. At
the moment, most
homeowners don’t
think about their
water bill, Feiner says, because it’s still
so cheap. But as water costs continue
to escalate, it will become top of mind.
“We have abundant water now,”
Feiner says. “But we can’t rest on our
laurels. In many areas of the world,
including some parts of North Amer-ica,
there’s a shortage of water. Water
is the next major item that needs to
be dealt with. We’re in the same place
with water consumption now that
we were with energy consumption
10 or 15 years ago. I’m not saying
we’ve maxed our energy savings, but
we in the industry have done well to
track it, and have come a long way
in terms of energy efficiency. But we
need to start dealing with the water
issue now.”
Thompson says the amount of
water saved is significant. When he
first installed a system at home, he
was “tracking between 28 and 40m3
of water every month for five people.
Partly that was so high because of
a swimming pool, and also making
a skating rink in the backyard. But
normally it was around 24m3. When I
did greywater recycling, it went down
to 9m3 and when the municipality saw
my bill, they thought the household
size had dropped to one or two.”
Thompson figures he has saved
about 130,000 litres a year, which
amounts to about four swimming
pools. “We flush on average seven
times a day, and if you have 6-litre
toilets, that’s 42 litres per person per
day, the equivalent of two of those
big jugs of water at the store. If you
recycle the water from tubs and
showers, that’s how much you’re sav-ing.
For the end user it’s a huge cost
savings. And what you save on your
monthly water bill is much greater
than the cost of
installation.”
Greywater ready-ing
is incredibly
easy to install dur-ing
the construction
phase – a couple of
extra pipes is all that’s needed. And
the cost is minimal – between $400
and $600. Compare that to installing
after the fact, says Feiner, when it is
likely to cost thousands in ripping
out walls and retrofitting the right
drains and pipes.
So why don’t we see more resi-dential
greywater recycling systems?
“There are no affordable, practical and
efficient products on the market that
achieve a high quality of water back to
the toilets and are simple to main-tain,”
says Chris Thompson. “Until
now.” While Greyter has been actively
selling its commercial building grey-water
systems around the world, they
have spent the greater part of the last
three years designing and testing the
Greyter HOME. According to Thomp-son,
it has been designed to efficiently
deliver a high quality of water for
reuse with minimal maintenance.
Furthermore, it will be priced around
$2,000 and take up a small footprint
within the home. The highly antici-pated
Greyter HOME is expected to be
available on the market as early as the
end of 2015. BB
Alex Newman is a writer, editor and researcher
at www.integritycommunications.ca.

There is no question it requires less energy, effort,
and cost to operate a system efficiently than it does
to operate a system inefficiently. Any system. In
fact, that is essentially the definition of efficiency. As such,
an efficient system will require less revenue to operate in a
full cost recovery manner and, therefore, future increases
in customer water rates will be minimized. In short, oper-ating
an efficient system is a win-win scenario.
Nearly everyone is aware that indoor residential per
capita water demands are declining in North America at an
unprecedented rate due to programs like WaterSense and
the recent marketplace shift to water-using fixtures and
appliances that are more efficient – specifically high effi-ciency
toilets and clothes washers. But what about outdoor
water demands? After all, it is the increase in outdoor
demands after extended periods of hot and dry weather
that lead to high peak day ratios, and the need to expand
our water supply infrastructure (at a huge cost!) to meet
demands that may only occur for a few days each year.
Landscapes generally get the water
they require either naturally through
precipitation or somewhat unnaturally
through manual or automatic irrigation
systems. Since landscapes do not require
potable water, it makes little sense in
a philosophical way to spend money
and effort to convey nonpotable water
from a site (rainwater) and, at the same
time, spend money and effort to convey
potable water to the same site to be used for nonpotable
purposes. In some municipalities like Kitchener, the munic-ipality
charges each customer a fee (stormwater utility fee)
based on building size for residences and the amount of
impervious cover for nonresidential properties. A credit
is available to those customers who capture rainwater for
reuse or increase the permeable areas on their properties
by using rain gardens or soak-away chambers. Such storm-water
fee structures are getting municipal attention and are
the approach of choice to address costly infrastructure and
encourage at-source stormwater management.
Why do more large industrial or
institutional customers not collect and
use the rainwater that falls on their
properties to irrigate their landscapes?
Well, the answer is partly related to costs
and partly to convenience. The water bill
is still one of the least inexpensive bills
many industrial or institutional custom-ers
receive. Spending a lot of money to
SUPPLIED PHOTO
build a rainwater harvesting system to save a little bit of
money on the water bill does not make great financial sense.
Two things are likely to change this situation in the future:
1. Not only are water rates increasing at a far greater
rate than inflation to make up for charging too little for
water historically, more and more municipalities are begin-ning
to look at incorporating a seasonal water use rate into
their rate structure – a rate that would charge customers a
much higher rate for each cubic metre used as irrigation.
2. The opportunity to install larger communal rain-water
harvesting systems (vs. a single
smaller system for each customer) takes
advantage of economies of scale, allows
a single operator to service the needs of
multiple sites, allows sites with little or
no irrigation needs, but large roof areas,
to provide their water for a fee to other
sites that do have irrigation or other non-potable
needs such as processing water,
and it allows sites to keep the rainwater
on site, thus not incurring any stormwater utility fees.
This type of system is called a district water system and is
defined by The Water Strategy as:
A decentralized publicly-operated, privately-operated
or jointly-operated (public-private venture) water
management system that captures rainwater or
greywater and treats the collected water to suitable
standards for its intended use. Currently, district
water refers to treatment for nonpotable purposes
with water provided to customers for irrigation,
boiler and cooling tower make-up water, toilet and
featurestory
By Bi l l Ga u l e y a n d Tr a c y P a t t e r s o n
Getting Ahead of the Curve Through
Decentralized Water Systems
Bill Gauley
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RELIABLE,
CONSISTENT,
MARTINO Heating • Air Conditioning • Indoor Air Quality • HVAC Design
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urinal flushing, car washing, back-up fire flow, etc.,
on a multibuilding scale or for aquifer recharge.
District water systems are likely to become more popu-lar
as more municipalities start
developing stronger require-ments
for stormwater manage-ment,
flood mitigation, reduc-tion
of contaminant loadings
to water bodies, watershed
protection and water conserva-tion
(particularly for peak time, seasonal water use).
In fact, the trend among leading jurisdictions is to
require builders to use low impact development (LID)
practices and technology to control and manage rainwa-ter
at its source, such as rainwater/stormwater capture
and reuse, bioretention, porous paving, etc., as well as
conveyance controls, such as bioswales, perforated pipe,
grassed swales, etc. Eliminating the need for stormwater
retention ponds in new subdivisions not only improves
the aesthetics of the subdi-vision,
it also allows more
building sites to be developed,
which is a financial benefit to
the developer and the town.
Thinking outside the box
takes a little more effort but,
with forward thinking and a little ingenuity, we can begin
to work in closer harmony with nature – improving not
only the environment, but the bottom line as well. BB
Bill Gauley, P. Eng., is principal of Gauley Associates Ltd. Tracy Pat-terson
is a managing consultant and principal of Freeman Associates.
featurestory
By Bi l l Ga u l e y a n d Tr a c y P a t t e r s o n

sitespecific
By Ba r b i n i Developments I n c .
This is BARBINI’s latest offering
– a luxury contemporary home
that sits on a generous corner
lot in a quiet Toronto neighbourhood
and is easily accessible by two major
highways.
This contemporary home was
renovated with sustainability in
mind. It provides a complete array
of elegant contemporary design
details, meticulously selected fin-ishes,
together with the advantages
of a superior building envelope and
efficient heating, ventilating and air
conditioning (HVAC) system deliver-ing
pure air quality and energy-effi-cient
operation. The design approach
to the home was a holistic one, and
so the experience of the benefits is
also holistic. The home performs as a
total environment and all the compo-nents
are experienced together.
61 Talwood was designed for the
future. The home is future proofed
so it can evolve and adapt to the
requirements and technological
changes of the future including a
100 amp panel for an electric car
charger in the garage and prepara-tion
for solar panelling to be inte-grated
with the HVAC system. With
sustainability in mind, the home
was redesigned so that not only did
it comply with the Ontario Build-ing
Code (OBC), it ranked way above
code requirements, therefore pro-viding
a better living environment,
air quality, mechanical systems and
significant energy savings, which in
turn lower the carbon footprint of
that residence and family
while providing a superior
comfort level for living.
The ground level of this
home features an open
concept kitchen, dining
room, interior/exterior liv-ing
room design for today’s
living style. The side
entrance features a dog/
boot shower and is acces-sible
Amedeo Barbini
from a two-car garage
with easy assess to a large
kitchen designed for family
use and entertaining. The
home is flooded with natu-ral
light through oversized
windows and doors, and is
very much part of the lush
exterior.
The Award:
Barbini Developments Inc.
winner of the 2014 Ontario
Home Builders’ Association Awards
of Distinction for the “Most Out-standing
Home Renovation” (Actual
Retail Value Over $500,001). BB
61 Talwood Drive
Credits: We wish
to thank our in-house
team – interior designer
Vanja Stepanek, site
supervisor Raul Alberto
and project manager
Amedeo Barbini for
their vision, hard work and determination.
Talwood would not be what it is today
if it weren’t for our team’s co-ordination
and collaboration with our friends and
colleagues at Integral Design Associ-ates,
M.G. Pascoe Associates Ltd.,
Clearsphere, Alpha Comfort Control Ltd.,
Inline Fiberglass Ltd., Amberwood Doors
Inc., Vanity Island Custom Cabinets, Alli-ance
Stucco Moulding Ltd., RA Stairs
Ltd., Adanac Glass, Rockport Painting
Inc., and many other companies that
assisted us in making our concept and
vision a reality.
SUPPLIED PHOTO

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PRIORITY GREEN Clarington:
Field Testing Sustainability in
New Homes
Context
The population of Clarington will
double within 20 years. Recognizing
these pressures on its infrastructure,
the municipality has launched PRIOR-ITY
GREEN Clarington (PGC). By field
testing numerous beyond code water
and energy efficiency technologies
and techniques, Clarington will gain
clarity on which technologies make
economic and environmental sense.
These results will provide direction
on how to reduce the water and sewer
footprint of new homes, lessening the
growth pressures on water and sewer
infrastructures and pointing the way
to more sustainable growth.
Three Projects in One
Beyond the field test there are two
other facets to PGC:
1. Clarington will be refining develop-ment
approvals to favour green
development by reviewing cur-rent
practices and changing them
to expedite approvals for green
homes and neighbourhoods.
2. The Province’s Places to Grow Act
(2005) dictates higher densities
through intensification. In Claring-ton,
public opposition to town-homes
and apartments is impeding
intensified development. Various
innovative community engage-ment
techniques such as visioning
walkabouts will involve a variety
of community members (including
those opposed to intensification).
Broader public outreach will be
tested in late 2014 to inform the
larger community of the benefits of
higher densities.
Field Testing Green
In 2013, Clarington requested pro-posals
from area homebuilders. The
municipality secured the participation
of three innovative companies – Brook-field
Residential, Halminen Homes
and Jeffery Homes. Each one agreed to
enhancing two homes each with over
20 water- and energy-efficient beyond
code improvements. Each builder
chose its own enhancements from a
schedule provided by Clarington and
each covered related costs.
In addition to a great response
from the homebuilding community,
a number of leading-edge technology
suppliers have donated products to
the project. Examples include Profi-ciency
3-litre flush toilets from Water
Matrix, ecobee smart thermostats,
Panasonic Whisper bathroom fans
and three Recover greywater units
from Canplas. The Recover units take
shower and bath water, cleanse it and
return it to flush toilets. They have
the potential to reduce indoor water
use by 25 per cent. The greywater
systems are being monitored for
inflow, outflow, potable water top-up
and water quality. This project com-buildernews
By Glen Pleasance
Water meter used to measure water use reductions.
An ecobee smart thermostat.
SUPPLIED PHOTO

ponent holds great promise.
The beyond code improvements
or best management practices (BMPs)
will be measured by an average of ten
water and eight electricity submeters.
These submeters will record data for
at least four months, transmitting
it daily via Wi-Fi to a dedicated web-site.
Water submeters are measuring
clothes washers (hot and cold), drain-water
heat recovery units, showers,
kitchen faucets, greywater recovery
units, etc. Note there is sufficient data
from other studies on high efficiency
toilet (HET) water use. Electricity
submetering includes furnaces, air
conditioners, heat recovery ventilators
(HRV), clothes washers and dryers,
etc. The combined water and energy
metering will enable measurement of
the water/energy synergies within the
homes. (Note: whole home natural gas
consumption is also being recorded.)
By understanding these water-energy
synergies, water, electricity and natu-ral
gas consumption can be reduced.
This holistic approach to home
energy and water use will enable
return on investment (ROI) calcula-tions
to be determined for many of
the BMPs. The ROIs will identify the
BMPs that make the most sense for
homebuilders and homebuyers. It will
also allow the measurement of carbon
dioxide equivalent (CO2e) reductions
for each home. The field study report
will be completed in March 2015.
What we know so far is that the
energy performance ratings of the six
homes averaged 21 per cent better
than code (the Ontario Building Code).
Jeffery Homes has already released its
next phase of 20 townhomes, built and
marketed to PRIORITY GREEN Claring-ton
specifications.
Many Partners
A project of this complexity requires
broad partnerships to be success-ful.
Partners include both levels of
municipal government (Clarington
and Region of Durham), Ministry of
the Environment’s Environmental
Innovations Branch (Showcasing Water
Innovation Program), Federation of
Canadian Municipalities’ Green Munici-pal
Fund, our three homebuilders,
the Sustainable Housing Foundation,
Durham College and the University of
Ontario Institute of Technology. BB
Glen Pleasance, from the Municipality of
Durham, has 20 years as Durham's water
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fromthegroundup
By Doug Ta r r y
I was just recently on holiday at one
of my favourite resorts down in
Jamaica, looking at that beautiful
blue Caribbean water. As my article
on plumbing and water conservation
was due, a sign in the bathroom got
me thinking about hotels and water
conservation. Some of us will remem-ber
that years ago we used our hotel
towels and the next day fresh ones
magically appeared. Then suddenly
little signs appeared in the hotel
bathrooms asking us to hang up our
towels for reuse unless we required
fresh ones. In one stroke it made
hotels look like environmental leaders
while at the same time reducing their
operational costs. They looked like
they were leading the way to a greener
planet and their bottom lines were
improved. A win-win by all.
Fast-forward 20-odd years and look
at the incredible work by the Ontario
Home Builders’ Association (OHBA),
and our many locals and members, at
transforming our industry in reducing
both energy and water usage through
mostly voluntary programs. We are
proud to say we are the only Cana-dian
industry that has both met and
exceeded our Kyoto Accord targets,
and before the deadline! As this article
is focusing on water, I am proud to
be one of the many members who
advocated for low flow toilets and
showers for the most recent building
code change, as both are environmen-tally
responsible at the same time
as understanding the connection to
rising electrical and water treatment
costs for our customers. Like the hotel
industry we saw this as a win-win.
Then the 2012 code came into full
effect on January 1, 2014 and we
began to realize that some things had
entered our Ontario Building Code
(OBC) that we will call unintended
and/or unforeseen consequences
such as water service sizing. Our
members understood the reduction
in measured water flow, and using
fixtures that met the new building
code requirements should have been
fairly straightforward. Selecting fix-tures
that met the EPA WaterSense or
equivalent requirements would meet
the code requirements, were readily
available, would have limited impact
on installation costs to the builders,
provide long-term savings to our
customers, and the flow rates were
clearly defined in the OBC.
Now here comes the blindside.
At the same time as we advocated
for and got the inclusion of smaller
fixtures, for some reason both the
National Building Code, followed by
the OBC, changed the requirements
for pipe sizing to be increased. What?
What does this mean? I’m not really
sure anyone has completely figured
it out, but it appears that unless you
have a detailed plumbing design,
you will need to run 3/4” pipe to all
fixtures rather than the previous 1/2”
pipe (in the majority of cases).
So let’s be clear. What worked yes-terday
with larger fixtures, volumes
and 1/2” plumbing lines today does
not work with smaller fixture lines,
and we now have to replace 1/2”
plumbing lines with 3/4”? How did
this happen? Why was this change
needed and how in the world of con-servation
is it justified? Where is the
PHOTO: WWW.SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
New Water Pipe Sizing in the Ontario Building Code:
A Solution Looking for a Problem!

evidence of failure to suggest larger
piping is needed en masse? These
are the questions our association and
other industry stakeholders are ask-ing
the three levels of government.
I get it if you put a car wash into a
home, you might need to have larger
supplies. But every home regardless?
This goes against our conservation
efforts and here’s why.
Under the previous code you
installed a 1/2” supply for a typical
shower head. Now under the new
code you will have a 3/4” pipe with a
restricted flow shower head. You have
all that additional hot water to heat
that will sit in a pipe waiting for use.
More correctly, you will have all that
cool water in the larger pipe that has
to be used through a low flow fixture
before you can even get to the hot
water. The customer that would have
complained about waiting for hot
water with a larger flow shower head
is now going to be waiting even longer
before they have hot water. Get ready
for the complaint calls!
But wait! There’s more! We are also
dealing with municipalities insisting
on having a 1” service to the house
regardless of what housing type has
been planned for. The builder/devel-oper
will comply with the municipal
requirement for oversized service, so
that a building permit will be issued
and the added cost ultimately passed
on to the new homebuyer. I’m not
talking about McMansions, just a
common two-storey home design with
two baths on the second floor, a main
floor powder room, typical kitchen
and laundry room along with a base-ment
bath rough-in.
So what’s the problem? There’s
plenty of water, because the water
meter is a 5/8” service. So the most
common size of water meter service
municipalities have in abundance is
also the first and greatest restric-tor
of water flow. That makes this
an exercise in just plain bad plan-ning
– added costs with no benefit
to the customer or the municipality.
When you add it all up, you have
a lot of wasted water, water treat-ment
and extra heating costs – for
what? It goes against everything we
have been advocating for and is not
responsibly considering the cost to
the new homebuyer.
The OHBA is working with other
industry stakeholders to request a
code change to resolve this issue: ‡ We are surveying our members to
see if there have been any reported
issues of water flow that would
require this change. ‡ We are discussing this issue with
Tarion to see if there has been a
significant increase in warranty
complaints concerning water pres-sure
related to water service sizing. ‡ We continue to work with the
Ontario Building Officials Associa-tion
to ensure the change we are
requesting makes sense and greatly
appreciate their partnership efforts
with us on this and other issues. ‡ We are asking upper levels of gov-ernment
for the evidence that this
change was based on, and if the
change to low flow fixtures was con-sidered
part of the decision-making
process.
Admittedly, I am not an expert on
plumbing design. However, I have
consulted with industry stakeholders
who are. We need to share with you
some of the concerns we are working
on, both for our members and for the
consumer. BB
Doug Tarry Jr. is director of marketing at
Doug Tarry Homes in St. Thomas, Ont.
fromthegroundup
By Doug Ta r r y

OTTAWA, ONTARIO (September 22,
2014) – My Design Studio was among
the winners announced at the Ontario
Home Builders’ Association (OHBA)
Awards of Distinction held in Ottawa
this year for taking home the award for
Most Outstanding New Home Kitchen
(New Home 2001 sq ft and Over) for 29
Yorkview, Castleform Developments Inc.
;OLOVTL[YS`MSÄSSZ[OLWOPSVZVWO`
behind Peter Voong’s Castleform Devel-opments
– quality craftsmanship paired
^P[OS_Y`ÄUPZOLZ^P[OV[[OLZHJYPÄJL
of our environment.
Presented by the Ontario Home Build-ers’
Association, the Awards of Distinction
applauds the talent of builders, renovators,
designers and marketers in the new home
and construction industry in Ontario.
“It’s an incredible honour to be rec-ognized
among the best from all the en-tries
throughout Ontario,” says Yasmine
Goodwin, principal, My Design Studio.
Yasmine Goodwin and My Design Stu-dio
were also nominated in 2014 for Most
Outstanding New Home Kitchen (New
Home up to 2000 sq ft) and had previously
won in 2010 for Best Interior Decorating –
Model Home/Suite (Under 2000 sq ft).
The Ontario Home Builders’ Associa-tion
represents 4,000 member companies
organized into 31 local associations across
the province. BB
sitespecifictoo
By My De s i g n St u d i o
and B e t t e r B u i l d e r s t a f f
Annual OHBA Awards of Distinction
Most Outstanding New Home Kitchen (New Home 2001 sq ft and Over) in the Annual
OHBA Awards of Distinction 2014
Top left and top right: The “Most Outstanding New Home Kitchen (New Home 2001 sq ft and Over). Lower right: Castleform Developments LEED
Gold-certified home. Inset: Peter Voong (Castleform Developments Inc.) with Yasmine Goodwin (My Design Studio) and Joëlle Goodwin.
2015 SUPPLIED PHOTOS

theplaneview
By Be t t e r Bu i l d e r St a f f
Need to Know Facts About Water
‡ Canada has more lake area than any other coun-try
in the world – approximately 8 per cent of its
territory is covered by lakes.
‡ Canadians, it seems, have no trouble consuming
lots of it. Canada ranks second highest in terms
of per capita water consumption at 353 litres
per day, and is 65 per cent above the OECD
(Organization of Economic Co-operation and
Development) average.
‡ It’s not just Canadians who are consuming more
water – water use increased six-fold during the
20th century, more than twice the rate of popu-lation
growth.
‡ The Conference Board of Canada ranked Canada
15th out of 16 peer countries in terms of water
withdrawals. This ranking is second only to the
United States. Eight of the peer countries consume
less than half that of Canadians per capita.
‡ There is still little known nationwide about
the quantity and quality of fresh groundwater.
What is known is that approximately one-third
of Canadians depend on groundwater as their
freshwater source.
This fact coupled with the following should be
enough to rouse some alarm.
‡ Twenty five percent of Canadian municipalities
have experienced water shortages in the past
several years.
‡ Add the fact that warmer climates and altered
precipitation patterns are causing increased
evaporation of surface water, which in turn may
result in summer droughts in the interior of
Southern Canada, and a bit of panic may set in.
In Western Canada, these shortages may be worsened
by the slow but steady disappearance of alpine glaciers
that currently provide much of the freshwater input in
regional rivers and streams.
‡ David Crane for Water Canada (http://watercanada.net)
says the first step toward an action-positive move for
Canadians will be “to raise the level of understanding,
not only among policymakers, but also among the wider
public; that there is an enormous challenge facing the
world and that there is also a significant opportunity
for Canada, by strengthening our research base and the
strength of our companies….[we need to] identify our
water champions who will provide leadership to make
Canada a water-solutions country.” BB
Sources:
“The World and Water Fact Sheet.” RBC. Accessed Novem-ber
18, 2014. http://www.rbc.com/community-sustainability/_
assets-custom/pdf/Fact-Sheet-The-World-and-Water-EN.pdf
“High and Dry: What Canadians Don’t Know About Water Could
Usher in Global Crisis.” Accessed November 20, 2014. http://
www.desmog.ca/2013/05/28/high-and-dry-what-canadians-don-
t-know-about-water-could-lead-global-crisis
PHOTO: WWW.DESIGNPICS.COM

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Better Builder Magazine, Winter Issue 2014

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