One of their specificity is the "CANADIAN WELL OR PROVENCAL WELL"

It's a system which decrease the interior ambience temperature of the house around 6 to 9 degrees during summer. And during winter time this system also enables you to decrease the heating consumption.

This is a passive use of geothermal energy.

Canadian well works by making the part of fresh air pass through the tubes placed underground at the depth of around 1 to 2 meters before it enters the house.

In wintertime, the ground at this depth is warmer (around 12°C) than exterior temperature: - - Cold air warms up while it passes through the tubes.

With this system the air drawn-in by VMC (tubes) will not be withdrawn directly from the outside (by ventilators or doors) which enables you to economize the heating.

In summertime, the ground is colder than the exterior temperature: Canadian well will use the coolness of the ground (around 12°C) to temper the air entering the house.

"CONCRETE HAS A HIGH IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT"

Albert is really aggressive against Concrete and says "The less we use concrete, greener we will be." That's why they are offering a construction with 20% less concrete than usual house and use special grade concrete.

Figures: 1 Ton of concrete = 1 ton of Co2. More than 2.5 billion Tons are released from concrete every year.

Traditional concrete is made from heating limestone and clay at 1'500C, this part of the process is the more polluting.  But with new fabrication process and material we are now able to get concrete at only 650C, which result of 50% cut in CO2 emission.

In addition to its embodied energy, building with concrete uses a lot of water on site and has the potential to pollute the water and soil in the immediate vicinity of the building site.

A major step in eco-building!

For more information on Maison de France, please go to:

http://www.maisondefrance-online.com/

By Gregory Martin

Sources: Techniques-ingenieur

Enerzine.com