Rachel Ross

EnerGuide Rated Homes

Man­dala Cus­tom Homes is pleased to announce that all of our homes will be audited by an Ener­Guide Advisor.

An Ener­Guide rat­ing shows a stan­dard mea­sure of your home’s energy per­for­mance. It shows you (and future buy­ers) exactly how energy effi­cient your home is. The rat­ing is cal­cu­lated based on stan­dard oper­a­tion assump­tions so that you can com­pare the energy per­for­mance of one house against another.

The home’s energy effi­ciency level is rated on a scale of 0 to 100. A rat­ing of 0 rep­re­sents a home with major air leak­age, no insu­la­tion and extremely high energy con­sump­tion. A rat­ing of 100 rep­re­sents a house that is air­tight, well insu­lated, suf­fi­ciently ven­ti­lated and requires no pur­chased energy on an annual basis.

For a brand new house, a rat­ing of 80 or higher is excellent.

Typ­i­cal energy effi­ciency mea­sures for these new homes include:

• insu­la­tion upgrades
• higher-performance win­dows
• bet­ter draft proofing
• more effi­cient heat­ing, hot water and air con­di­tion­ing systems
• ENERGY STAR® qual­i­fied appli­ances (if sup­plied by the builder)

The ben­e­fits to the new home­owner are:

• lower energy bills
• improved com­fort
• lower impact on the environment
• higher resale value

For more infor­ma­tion visit:

Canada Ener­Guide Rat­ing System

US HERS rat­ing system

by Rachel Ross

Benefits of Pre-Fab Construction

Pre-fabricated con­struc­tion is trans­form­ing the face of the home con­struc­tion indus­try: with a full spec­trum of ben­e­fits rang­ing from envi­ron­men­tal, to qual­ity and speed of con­struc­tion, to financial.

Qual­ity

The con­trolled envi­ron­ment of our pro­duc­tion facil­ity allows for a much higher degree of pre­ci­sion and qual­ity con­trol dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase than is avail­able on site. Mate­ri­als are pro­tected from weather and kept uni­form, dry and undam­aged, result­ing in a higher qual­ity build­ing. Cost The pre­fab­ri­ca­tion process is very effi­cient, sig­nif­i­cantly mod­er­at­ing the amount of labour and build­ing mate­ri­als required, as well as the waste pro­duced. At Man­dala we use Build­ing Infor­ma­tion Mod­el­ing (BIM), a three-dimensional, real-time, dynamic build­ing mod­el­ing soft­ware for effi­ciency and pre­ci­sion in build­ing design and con­struc­tion. Equip­ment and mate­ri­als are pro­tected from weather, theft and van­dal­ism keep­ing costs down and safe­guard­ing your build­ing sched­ule from weather or mate­r­ial delays.

Envi­ron­men­tal Integrity

The car­bon foot-print of a Pre-Fabricated home is sig­nif­i­cantly smaller than that of a com­pa­ra­ble on-site con­struc­tion. The use of ship­ping and con­struc­tion vehi­cles on-site is cut back sub­stan­tially. Since most of the con­struc­tion process is com­pleted in our pro­duc­tion facil­ity in an extremely effi­cient process, less build­ing mate­ri­als are required and the waste pro­duced is minimal.

Speed

A Pre-fab home takes sig­nif­i­cantly less time to build than a house built on site. Under the pro­tec­tion of our pro­duc­tion facil­ity, con­struc­tion is quick and pre­cise, and your build­ing sched­ule is unaf­fected by weather or mate­r­ial delays. Once shipped to the build­ing site, the pre-built com­po­nents can be assem­bled to weather tight in a mat­ter of days. In addi­tion to the obvi­ous cost ben­e­fits, short­en­ing your con­struc­tion time also short­ens the term of your bridge financing.

Value

Pre-fabricated homes typ­i­cally cost less than a com­pa­ra­ble stick built home, though worth at least the same, and fre­quently val­ued higher due to their qual­ity, sus­tain­abil­ity and increas­ing popularity.

Trans­parency of Process

The pre­ci­sion and envi­ron­men­tal con­trols avail­able in pre­fab­ri­cated con­struc­tion cre­ate a trans­parency of the entire project, both for all the trades involved as well as for the cus­tomer. As you may know, there are often numer­ous unfore­see­able fac­tors that arise when build­ing a home on-site, often result­ing in addi­tional expenses. The effi­ciency and con­trol of Pre-fab Con­struc­tion mean that you can count on your quoted price.

by Rachel Ross

Formaldehyde

Formalde­hyde is a com­mon chem­i­cal used in numer­ous build­ing and home prod­ucts from adhe­sives, paints and seal­ers, par­ti­cle board, insu­la­tion, tex­tiles, deter­gents and many more house­hold prod­ucts. Formalde­hyde has been linked to many health issues, includ­ing throat, eye and nasal irri­ta­tion, res­pi­ra­tory symp­toms and can­cer at high lev­els of expo­sure. One symp­tom of formalde­hyde expo­sure is insom­nia, which can be cured by remov­ing polyester/cotton or no-iron sheets, both of which are cov­ered with a per­ma­nent press formalde­hyde resin. Wash­ing with bak­ing soda and borax will help.

The National Acad­emy of Sci­ences esti­mates that 10 to 20% of the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion may be sus­cep­ti­ble to irri­ta­tion from expo­sure to formalde­hyde at extremely low con­cen­tra­tions. If you sus­pect a formalde­hyde prob­lem you can get more infor­ma­tion online at www.epa.gov/iaq/formalde.html or http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/formaldehyde-eng.php.

At Man­dala Homes we rec­om­mend liv­ing in a build­ing that is formaldehyde-free. Ask us about using formalde­hyde free insu­la­tion, non toxic (non VOC) fin­ishes, and other formaldehyde-free fur­nish­ings for your home. Find out the many dif­fer­ent ways we can sup­port you to live in a healthy home.

by Rachel Ross

Mandala Homes Uses Green Renewable Energy

Man­dala Homes is proud to use green renew­able energy pro­vided by Bull­frog Power. Visit www.bullfrogpower.com for more infor­ma­tion about this com­pany and find out how you can cre­ate a cleaner world for today and tomorrow.

Bull­frog cur­rently pro­vides a 100% green elec­tric­ity choice to every­one in British Colum­bia, Alberta, Ontario,Nova Sco­tia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Bullfrog’s elec­tric­ity comes exclu­sively from wind and hydro facil­i­ties that have been cer­ti­fied as low impact by Envi­ron­ment Canada under its EcoL­ogo pro­gram instead of from pol­lut­ing sources like coal, oil, nat­ural gas, and nuclear.

by Rachel Ross

What About the HST?

There has been some con­cern about the Har­mo­nized Sales Tax (HST) and it’s impli­ca­tions on hous­ing prices. Start­ing July 1 the HST will apply to most of the goods and ser­vices that have been pre­vi­ously sub­ject to the GST. For a pre­fab­ri­cated home pack­age, the HST will now apply to the total cost for Cana­dian cus­tomers. In the past theGST (5%) has applied to all provinces, and the PST (7%) has applied to all sales withinBC. There has been a PST exemp­tion for mate­ri­als used to con­serve energy, includ­ing insu­la­tion and Energy Star rated win­dows and doors with glass. This exemp­tion will no longer exist with the HST.

To sum up, the HST will only affect the cost of a Man­dala Home Pack­age for BC cus­tomers, and this change will be an addi­tional 7% on insu­la­tion and Energy Star rated win­dows and doors with glass (approx­i­mately $700 on a $100,000 home pack­age). Cus­tomers in Alberta will con­tinue to be charged 5% — the GST por­tion of the HST, cus­tomers in other provinces will pay the sales tax applic­a­ble in their province, and ourUS and inter­na­tional cus­tomers will not pay Cana­dian taxes. For more infor­ma­tion visit https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property-taxes/property-transfer-tax/exemptions/newly-built-home-exemption or https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/gst-hst-businesses/gst-hst-rebates/new-housing-rebate.html.

by Rachel Ross

Mandala Custom Homes Newsletter

We are happy to share our first newslet­ter with you. You can con­tact us at info@mandalahomes.com or 866–352-5508 to have a copy sent to you.

by Rachel Ross

Save Energy, Build Mandala Round

We are all pay­ing more for fuel, even as we look for ways to save energy.  Energy-efficient homes are at the top of the list of how we can save energy and save money.  This is sup­ported by a 2007 poll by real estate firm Royal LeP­age:  72% of Cana­di­ans will look for a green-improved home for their next pur­chase and 63% are will­ing to pay between $5,000.00 and $20,000.00 more for green fea­tures.

Build­ing a new home offers a great oppor­tu­nity to design green, energy-efficient fea­tures, right from the start, and to use mate­ri­als that are non-toxic, to you and the envi­ron­ment.  And the shape of your new home will help deter­mine effi­ciency, too.

A Man­dala round home adds a crit­i­cal fac­tor to achiev­ing excel­lent energy per­for­mance.  The main rea­son is found in the geom­e­try:  a round build­ing exposes less wall area to wind, rain and other ele­ments than a square build­ing.  So, less warm air escapes in the win­ter and more cool air stays indoors dur­ing the sum­mer, just the way you want it.

A Man­dala home pro­vides a more energy-efficient dwelling designed to get you around to more green ben­e­fits:  you save money by using less energy and you use fewer resources to con­struct and main­tain your round home.  Man­dala homes are nat­u­rally aero­dy­namic, deflect­ing cold win­ter winds around your home; flat walls allow the ele­ments to bat­ter your home and can let the wind in through the tini­est cracks.

You also want to enjoy a more effi­cient and health­ier inte­rior. A Man­dala home allows warm air to rise up the walls, flow along the ceil­ing to the cen­tral sky­light where some of the air cools slightly and sinks back to the floor.  This “con­vec­tive air flow” main­tains a more even dis­tri­b­u­tion of air through­out your home and a health­ier envi­ron­ment for every­one.  Remem­ber, there are no cor­ners to col­lect stag­nant, stuffy air.

There are many fac­tors which con­tribute to your home’s energy effi­ciency, and the Man­dala round design is a crit­i­cal one.

We look for­ward to keep­ing you up to date with more facts and inter­est­ing ideas to make your Man­dala home the best in qual­ity, sus­tain­abil­ity and ele­gance.

by Rachel Ross

Mandala President on Cascadia Steering Committee

Lars Chose, president of Man­dala Cus­tom Homes, is a steer­ing com­mit­tee mem­ber of the Cas­ca­dia Region Green Build­ing Coun­cil, Nel­son Leaf.

Cascadia’s mis­sion is to pro­mote the design, con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of build­ings in Alaska, British Colum­bia, Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon that are envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble, prof­itable and healthy places to live, work and learn.

Learn more about Cas­ca­dia  at www.cascadiagbc.org

by Rachel Ross

Kootenay Company Expands to Meet Demand for Greener Homes

Nelson-based Man­dala Cus­tom Homes, now in its 8th year of pro­duc­ing fac­tory built round homes, has decided that the best way to meet the grow­ing demand for energy effi­cient build­ings is to offer round and square build­ings. To that end, they’ve just com­pleted con­struc­tion of a new pro­duc­tion facil­ity on High­way 3a south of Nel­son, and with it they’ve increased their pro­duc­tion capa­bil­ity.

“This is a huge step for the com­pany,” says owner Lars Chose. “We’ve been build­ing green for years, but with the grow­ing pub­lic aware­ness of cli­mate change and ris­ing fuel costs, inter­est in energy effi­cient build­ings has really taken off in the last year and a half.”

Over the past decade, Man­dala Cus­tom Homes has become known as a leader in the pre­fab­ri­cated round home mar­ket. While they con­tinue to build round struc­tures, Chose has real­ized that Mandala’s unique com­bi­na­tion of green build­ing and fac­tory con­struc­tion is ideal for almost any shape of build­ing. “We’ve re-tooled our busi­ness model some­what,” he says, “because lots of peo­ple want healthy, energy effi­cient homes but not nec­es­sar­ily round ones.”

With the new pro­duc­tion facil­ity, Man­dala is able to pre-fabricate any size or shape of struc­ture, either one from their own pre-designs or a cus­tom design they do or ones brought to them by a client, con­trac­tor or devel­oper. “Round homes, square homes, garages and cot­tages, you name it, we can pre­fab­ri­cate it,” says Chose.

For home­own­ers and con­trac­tors alike, it’s easy to see why buy­ing a factory-built struc­ture makes sense. Not only is the process inher­ently energy effi­cient because it pro­duces tighter build­ings by con­struct­ing them in an envi­ron­men­tally con­trolled pro­duc­tion facil­ity, there is also much less waste and less site dis­tur­bance plus far less labor required to con­struct. To fur­ther sup­port the company’s com­mit­ment to green build­ing, Chose is work­ing with a pro­fes­sional team accred­ited by LEED (Lead­er­ship in Energy and Envi­ron­men­tal Design– a North America-wide green build­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem) con­sist­ing of a local archi­tect, designer and engi­neer.

“Pre-fab has always been a more effi­cient way to build,” says Chose, “Now it’s becom­ing known as a higher qual­ity, greener and less expen­sive alter­na­tive to tra­di­tional on-site con­struc­tion. For con­trac­tors and devel­op­ers, it means increased effi­ciency, lower labor costs and less has­sle. To max­i­mize the new factory’s capac­ity, Chose antic­i­pates hir­ing a sec­ond shop crew in the com­ing months. He also antic­i­pates sig­nif­i­cant spin-off busi­ness for local com­mu­ni­ties, since he makes a point of buy­ing many of his mate­ri­als close to home.

For any­one inter­ested in learn­ing more about pre­fab­ri­cated green and energy effi­cient build­ings, check out www.mandalahomes.com, or call them at 250–352-5582, 1–866-352‑5503.

by Rachel Ross