REEP House Renovations
REEP House for Sustainable Living at 20 Mill Street was conceived as a hands-on, one-stop showroom for green living ideas. The overall scope of the retrofit is also a realization of the priorities that everyone should embrace when updating a 20th Century home for 21st Century performance.
Retrofitting Priorities at REEP House:
- Seal and insulate the entire building envelope including properly insulating the walls, attic and basement
- Upgrade heating and cooling systems
- Upgrade hot water production system
- Replace windows and doors
- Reduce plug load and water consumption by upgrading appliances and practising environmentally-friendly lifestyle habits
- Add energy generation components, such as solar and wind power, as needed
A Conversation Starter
In essence, 20 Mill Street will act as a conversation starter, a place where you can examine various ways of achieving these priorities. We have taken care to install a wide range of products—different insulation materials, competing heating systems, various appliances—so that you can physically explore the performance of the best new ideas on the market. Moreover, every tour of REEP House includes the opportunity to forecast product and renovation options in your own home or building using our exclusive modelling software, the Green Home Planner.
Two Side-by-side Approaches
In addition to presenting a range of product ideas, we've also used the retrofitting of REEP House to investigate a couple of different options for overall home energy performance. At 20 Mill Street, our goal was to demonstrate the deepest retrofit option available to home and property owners by approaching net-zero energy performance—in other words: taking the house completely off the grid. Next door at 24 Mill Street, we've completed a 50 per cent energy reduction by concentrating on just our first two priorities.
