Daylighting

A green home is one that takes advantage of site opportunities, including passive solar design to reduce heating and cooling costs, but also natural lighting. A home lit by natural light can reduce utility bills but also feels warmer, brighter, and more spacious.

Deltec offers many products for designing for ample daylight, including a myriad of high performance window choices, as well as fixed or operable skylights and sun tunnels from Velux.

Skylights can enhance the beauty of your Deltec Home with natural lighting, and cut down on electricity costs by substituting artificial light with sunlight.

Sun tunnels in closets or bathrooms are a great way to provide natural lighting in rooms without windows.
 

Why Is It Green?

• Skylights from Velux meet ENERGY STAR guidelines
• Sun tunnels can provide a lighting substitute in closets, hallways, bathrooms or other areas during daylight hours
• Velux skylights come with a leak-proof guarantee

Green Tip

When installing skylights, make sure the skylight shafts are correctly insulated on the attic side, incorporating both insulation with R-value equal to that of the rest of the attic, and an air-barrier, such as rigid polystyrene foam insulation. Those skylight walls are just another interface between your home and attic, and should be insulated accordingly!

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Skylights open up a room to ambient natural light

Sun tunnels provide a direct, fixture-like illumination, without the fixture
 

Metal Shingle Roof System

Deltec Homes has partnered with a leader in the metal roofing industry to provide a metal shingle roof system that is specifically designed to work with our roof system. By using a shingle style product, the amount of waste during installation is drastically reduced over other styles of metal roofing. The combination of the cool roof coating and aluminum substrate allows the roof to reflect the sun’s radiant energy and significantly reduce cooling energy costs.

Why is it Green?

• Longer lifetime and more durable than an asphalt roof
• Metal shingle product reduces waste during installation
• Can reflect the sun’s radiation away from your attic, keeping homes much cooler
• Made from 95% recycled-content aluminum

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Four Unique Overhangs

Why is it Green?

Deltec’s range of overhang styles allows you to pick an overhang that is right for your climate.

Energy Saver Overhangs, with raised heel trusses, allow full insulation thickness throughout the attic, right up to the roof-wall intersction. Two options for Energy Saver Overhang lengths, 2'0" or 3'0", can work well with passive solar design goals.

The standard truss is available with our  1’9” Standard overhang or with the 3’9” Deluxe Overhang. The 3’9” overhang is a smart choice in hot climates, where cooling energy expenditure greatly exceeds any heating needs, and especially in climates that are both very warm and very wet. The deep overhang allows superior shading to keep out solar heat gain, and helps to deflect rainwater well away from the walls and foundation.

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(Top) 2'0" or 3'0" Energy Saver truss with insulation.  (Bottom) 1'9" or 3'9" overhang truss with insulation.

2’-0” Energy Saver Overhang

3’-0” Energy Saver Overhang

1’9” Standard Overhang

3’9” Deluxe Overhang

Passive Solar Design

Many of our customers have adapted their Deltec floor plans to benefit from free heating available from the sun. The flexibility of the Deltec components allows you incorporate any level of passive solar design: from the simple (often called "sun-tempered") benefits of south-facing glass and large overhangs to a well-planned passive solar house with just the right amount of glass in each cardinal direction, envelope design for superior insulation, and heat-storing materials incorporated into the floors and interior walls.

Deltec Passive Solar Floor Plan Guidelines

1. Interior spaces requiring the most light, heating and cooling should be along the south face of the building, while less-used spaces should be located in the north quadrant of your home. The more open these areas, the deeper sunlight and passive solar benefits can penetrate.

2. Keep window and door openings to a minimum on the east and west sides as these are the most difficult to shade in the summer, especially at lower latitudes. Also, most winds travel east and west, so these windows and doors on the east/west side will contribute most to air leakage. Doors and windows on the north side should also be kept to a minimum to reduce heat loss in the winter.

3. Overhang size should be selected to allow sunlight to illuminate your south windows in the winter but completely shade your south windows in the summer. Deltec's green department is available to help you with overhang sizing.

4. Glass especially designed for passive solar applications is available for south-facing windows.

5. High-performing insulation and dense flooring materials such as concrete slab floors and ceramic tile can compliment passive solar window arrangements by storing the heat gained.

South-facing living area of a passive solar Deltec. First floor windows are shaded from summer sun by a second-floor porch looking south.

Non-Toxic Pest Control

FrameGuard is a factory-applied coating technology designed to increase the durability of your home. The FrameGuard coating contains a blend of anti-mold chemicals and borate technology that alleviates problems from mold, termites, and fungi.

FrameGuard is a green product for its exceptional durability and ability to reduce pesticide treatments. It was a 2007 NAHB Green Building Award winner and is GreenSpec® listed. The components of the FrameGuard chemical are all found in everyday products such as crayons, food, lotions, and cosmetics.
 

Why is it Green?

• Protects against mold, improving the durability of your home
• Protects against both fungi and termites, further improving durability
• Factory-applied treatment allows your wood to be protected from the elements from the first day it leaves the factory
• Environmentally friendly product which contains no VOCs

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Composite Decking

Deltec offers several deck packages, including the option to use composite decking materials from Trex, a company widely recognized for its sustainable manufacturing practices. Composite decking is made from wood and recycled plastic, allowing your outdoor space to withstand nature’s harshest elements: UV and water. Additionally composite decking comes with integral colors, meaning that staining is never necessary.

Why is it Green?

• No need for staining, a common source of VOCs, now or in the future
• Extremely durable: resists water damage and UV breakdown
• Diverts landfill waste: material made from recycled plastic (mostly plastic bags) and reclaimed wood fiber

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Panelized Construction

Many Green Building experts are now beginning to talk about what we here at Deltec have known for 40 years: panelizing a home in a factory setting can dramatically reduce waste, increase quality, and reduce the potential for damage from the elements during assembly. Our homes are panelized with sustainability at the core: we recycle and reuse materials; use computer aided saws for optimizing wood use and reducing waste; and produce a long lasting, durable product that will require fewer resources over the life of the structure. Additionally, our homes are built using 100% renewable energy.

Why is it Green?

• Reduced job-site waste by providing precisely-fitting house shell components
• Improved durability: components are protected from the elements during their production with siding, windows and protective house wrap pre-applied, short assembly time decreases risk of exposure to elements while on-site
• Reduced factory waste by comprehensive recycling and computer-aided saws to optimize lumber use
• On the path toward a zero-waste facility: 78% less waste is produced than with site built homes
• Facility is powered by one of WNC's largest solar photovoltaic arrays

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DelKote is a superior, factory finish for your wood and fiber cement siding and trim, offering immediate weather protection with a quality finish and color uniformity. Machine application is a process that assures a longer-lasting and higher-quality job than traditional on-site application. All sides of the board are coated providing complete encapsulation, and application takes place in a controlled environment.

Why is it Green?

• Siding boards are coated on all sides for complete protection
• Factory-applied coating protects material before it is exposed to elements, enhancing the home’s durability and offering up to 25 year warranties
• Low VOC coatings are available

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High Performance Windows

Choosing high performance windows for your new home is essential for increasing the energy efficiency and regulating the heating and cooling loads of your home. And our windows can come pre-installed in your Deltec walls, ensuring superior attention to building-science prescribed details for maximum energy performance and leak prevention.

Why is it Green?

• Double-paned and filled with argon gas reduces heat loss
• Low emissivity “Low-E” coating further reduces heat loss and additionally allows or blocks solar heat gain, according to your climate
• Factory installed windows ensure quality installation according to recommend building science practices.
  

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Energy Star Certification

Energy Star for Homes is a building certification program created by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Homes earning the Energy Star label have been designed to utilize the most efficient practices, and are rigorously tested to ensure they are at least 15% more energy efficient than homes built to recent energy codes—often they are 20%-30% more efficient. The Energy Star label is achieved for a new home through a combination of strict insulation, air tightness, water management, and heating and cooling building practices. 

Some of these practices are the very same air sealing and water management strategies automatically incorporated in the pre-assembled pieces of your Deltec home.  Yet building a home to earn this label requires planning and cooperation across the many disciplines that will be involved in building your home.  That’s why Deltec has teamed up with a third party energy professional in a program called Designed to Earn the Energy Star, enabling you to complete the design aspects of Energy Star certification with Deltec.   You can then take your Designed to Earn plans to a local energy rater at your building site, who will complete the final field testing.
 

Benefits of Certification

• Design your home according to strict criteria for energy efficiency…and verify that it meets those design goals through mandatory field testing
• Certification ensures that energy efficient design strategies are carried out over the various construction disciplines involved
• Build a home with lower operating costs compared to a conventional home
• Increase the value of your home with a nationally-recognized certification

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The Deltec Model Home in Mars Hill, NC earned ENERGY STAR certification.

The Deltec Energy Wall

The Deltec Energy Wall offers an opportunity to build with an exceptionally high performing building envelope. The Energy Wall combines several energy efficiency technologies:

Advanced Framing. 2x6 studs, spaced at 24” rather than 16”, maximizing space for insulation while at the same time optimizing the amount of lumber used in each panel and reducing both material use and heat loss associated with having more studs.

AirBlock. A pre-compressed, durable foam gasket is used to seal the sheathing to the wall panel frame, significantly reducing pathways for air leakage.

Insulated Headers. The gap between the double 2x10 headers at the top of each wall panel is filled with recycled insulation.

Exterior Insulation. The Energy Wall comes with our R5 Energy Package, further reducing heat loss through studs by providing a layer of continuous insulation on the outside of the wall cavity.

Why is it Green?

• Energy Wall allows you to achieve 50% higher R-values than a standard 2x6 wall by taking advantage of all opportunities for insulation
• Optimizes lumber use to reduce material needs
• Reduces air infiltration
• Can perform as well as SIPs (Structurally Insulated Panels). Click here to learn more.

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Click to enlarge picture.

R-5 Energy Package

One inch of rigid foam insulation can be added to the outside of any of the Deltec wall options with our R-5 energy package. This foam is a continuous layer of insulation located on the outside of the wall, underneath the siding, that minimizes “thermal bridging”--the ability of heat to flow more readily through wood studs than through the cavity insulation. Installing exterior foam insulation is a best practice for colder climates and in all climates is one of the most cost-effective ways to significantly increase energy efficiency.

Why is it Green?

• Energy Wall and R-5 Rigid Foam allow you to achieve 50% higher R-values than a standard 2x6 wall
• Slows heat escape through the quick route of building studs, something that happens no matter how well insulated the wall cavity
• Allows headers and corners, common locations without insulation, to be insulated

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Solar Water Heater

Deltec Homes offers solar water heating systems designed to work seamlessly with your new home. These systems are specifically made for Deltec, with panels that have a 150 mph wind rating and sizes that fit on the Deltec roof sections.

"On average, if you install a solar water heater, your water heating bills should drop 50% - 80%. Also, because the sun is free, you’re protected from future fuel shortages and price hikes."

-U.S. Dept. of Energy

Why is it Green?

• Panels are made for Deltec to fit on the triangular roof sections.
• 150 MPH wind rating allows you to utilize solar water heating in harsh climates.
• Systems qualify for federal and state tax incentives and credits where applicable.
• 10 year limited warranty.

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Fresh Air Ventilation

Fresh air ventilation is an important aspect of building design for energy efficiency and comfort. As energy efficiency improves, buildings become more and more airtight, and where we once relied on natural ventilation to bring in fresh air--and additional heating or cooling requirements along with it--we can now use mechanical ventilation to help the home “breathe” in a controlled manner.

Heat Recovery Ventilators (HRVs) and Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERVs) by Venmar provide a constant supply of fresh air while exhausting stale air. Additionally, Energy Recovery Ventilators passively transfer moisture between outgoing air and incoming air, which helps to moderate indoor moisture levels. Deltec provides three ERV or HRV options:

Constructo. The basic ERV or HRV model.

HEPA. Incorporates HEPA filtration, capable of removing 99.7% of dust, mold and particulates from incoming air.

EKO. Advanced motor technology significantly lowers the electricity use of your fresh air exchanger unit.
 

Why Are They Green?

• Work with a well-insulated and highly air-sealed home to continue to allow cycling of fresh air, reducing your exposure to indoor air pollutants
• Recaptures energy used to heat and cool the exhaust air and uses that energy to pre-condition the incoming air
• HEPA option captures 99.97% of all dust and airborne particles, while EKO option provides heat or energy recovery ventilation with minimal electricity consumption of it’s own

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