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Yesterday Sheena Sharp, a principal at Coolearth, spoke to students at Canadore College’s pre-Carpentry class about how the trade will be changing in the coming decades to meet the challenge of sustainable design.

The “typical” CMHC house construction techniques are being replaced or improved to include more considerations of energy efficiency.  Some of these changes include thicker walls to house more insulation for a higher r-value;  air-sealing a house by applying caulking to headers and sill plates before nailing them down; and the use of triple-pane windows and plywood window boxes to optimize the location of the window within the insulation profile.

 
The instructor Ryan had this to say:

Just a note to say thanks again for your time with the class on Tuesday! I know they found it interesting and enjoyable, because we talked about it in our regular morning “recap” yesterday. They seemed to be most impressed/surprised at the connection between architecture and fighting climate change: I think most of them had never considered that a trade could have a greater purpose beyond the immediate.

We look forward to coming across these students in the trade in the future!