Images courtesy of Vermont Timber Frames and Green Building Advisor
August 2016 — During the last three months of project specifying, RFP writing and subcontractor interviews, I occasionally ran across the term "hybrid home" while researching online. Most sources used the term to identify a house that blends two material technologies, like post and beam timber framing with Structural Insulated Panels — an ancient technique paired with a fairly recent innovation. It's a nice marriage of beautiful wood engineering, superior insulation and efficient construction methods. Carpenters like it because classic timber framing is a venerable craft, and that balances out the prefab feel of the SIPs. At the end of the job, you see the gorgeous, functional woodwork, and the SIPs have magically disappeared to form walls and ceilings.
You might wonder as I did: If Hybrid Cars represent the the transition from fossil fuels to purely electric transportation, do Hybrid Homes like this represent a transition to a newer form of building technology? Maybe, but "hybrid" is not necessarily a binary equation. Many components and materials go into a car that has a gas motor and electric drive train, and these are constantly being evaluated and improved. Building houses is a bit different, but they too require multiple components and materials. The Real American Dream Home Company, an operation we like in Bennington VT, builds with timber frame and SIPs, plus stone, corrugated and structural steel, concrete, shakes and wood sidings. Each material has its place on the spectrum of form and function.
The products that have real longterm value are the ones that tend to stick around, which is why the ancient art of timber frame construction will be with us for as long as there are trees. Hopefully that will be a long time... A friend visiting Shanghai related to me not long ago how, when checking into her hotel, the receptionist asked, wide eyed, is it true that in America we build houses out of wood? In much of the world, concrete and stone rule because they are plentiful and relatively inexpensive, and wood is dear. Ultimately homes get built with whatever the market can provide. In the US, the markets (both commercial and residential) offer virtually everything a creative homebuilder could desire.
So here we have the freedom to consider a wide array of materials and methods to build with, mix and match them based on performance and aesthetic criteria, and carefully engineer them into a home. For the realsmarthouse shell we are marrying industrial strength 14" thick Thermomass concrete sandwich walls with Vermont Timber Frames mortise & tenon roof trusses and SIPs from The Timberline Panel Company for the roof, exposed steel second floor joists by New Millenium supported by engineered Gluelam beams and posts, and highly efficient Pella-EFCO windows and doors. This house is indeed a hybrid — of commercial and residential materials and methods. But the end result will be a beautifully livable and exquisitely comfortable home, whose value is also measured in longterm durability and savings in energy and maintenance costs.
Is Hybrid the new future? It's certainly a prolific word. We specified a State Hybrid electric heat pump water heater for its efficiency. The garage will be wired for charging a Hybrid vehicle or fully electric people mover. My next dog may be a hybrid Alaskan Shepherd. Bottom line: If Hybrid means you have more choices, what's not to like?
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Good reads: Virtual Reality, Wabi-Sabi | What's a Real Smart House? | Location: Daylight | Process: Design