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Year of the House: Building an Energy Efficient House for a Cold Climate 
We are going to build a similar project just down the road on Upper Perth Road. Would like to talk to you guys about your journey. Is it possible? – Cam Haines.
My letters keep disappearing – I don’t know if any have reached you – so quickly – where did you buy your plan – any other sources for materials you can recommend-anything you would do differently now that you are there?
Hello Pat, We bought our house plan at http://www.homeconcepts.ca/. Here’s the link to our house plan: http://www.homeconcepts.ca/home-plans/home-plan-10190_Millbrook.htm
We changed it by making it bigger as well as some changes inside with location of downstairs bathroom and adding a root cellar
We bought lots of materials online like plumbing fixtures, lights, in-floor radiant heating, blinds. An excellent online lighting store is:
http://www.canadalightingexperts.com/
We have an open concept house with a high two story open space. We find it very echo-y! But this is not a huge problem. Just something we are not used to.
More planning for where the HRV (heat recovery ventilation) should go (sort of in the way where it is now), make the mudroom slightly bigger, bit more of a basement. Our house just has a small basement leading to the root cellar.
Full foundation around screened-in porch would have been nice, so that if we ever wanted to make it into a all-year round living space, we could.
In terms of how the house functions re: energy efficiency, all is working well. On sunny days, we do not heat the house at all even on very cold days. On cloudy days, we heat the entire house with one woodstove. Therefore, the cost for heating our house is minimal. The key is super-insultated walls, large south windows, concrete floors on main floor to retain heat from sun and tightly sealed house (need HRV for fresh air exchange).