At Jenesys, every house we produce is built to unusually high environmental standards.

We believe that the single most important consideration for responsible environmental design is energy, because of the greenhouse gas emissions from hydrocarbon energy sources. More than 60% of total residential energy use and more than 10% of all national greenhouse gas emissions are related to heating and cooling. We follow European Passive House principles to design all of our systems with a high performance passive shell. This typically reduces heating and cooling loads by 50% or more compared with conventional frame construction. Walls and roofs are superinsulated – R36+ for walls and R60+ for roofs. Site orientation and window sizing and placement are optimized for passive solar gain and for cross-ventilation, and the building envelope is carefully sealed to control airflow.

In third party testing our houses consistently achieve exceptionally high EnerGuide ratings of 80-90 (for a description of this rating system search EnerGuide for Houses).

By prefabricating our kits, we are able to minimize material waste in comparison with conventional construction. We prefabricate insulated wall and roof panels, as well as interior partitions, trusses, and joists. Our materials are locally sourced and carefully chosen to meet high environmental standards relative to toxicity and emissions. The kits come to site ready for assembly.

The structural insulated panels (SIP’s) we use for walls and some roofs are highly effective barriers to air transfer, and offer vitually no cavities for the possible growth of mould. Our superinsulated houses maintain relatively constant interior temperatures and have excellent sound insulation qualities.

We pride ourselves on the demonstrably superior environmental performance of our houses, and we are constantly seeking to further improve that performance.