Stefan Simek, "Understanding the Need for Energy Efficient Housing"
Stefan Simek, President of Ferguson , Simek, Clark (FSC) in Yellowknife , NT , Canada
Summary: Mr. Simek’s presentation laid the groundwork for what the Forum was about – understanding the need for energy efficient housing and the inherent difficulties in technology transfer. He presented examples of development projects in Russia , and the reality that change doesn’t come easy: Russia lacked materials, knowledge and maintenance skills. The developers faced theft of tools and materials, skepticism, hard-headed local officials, fear of new technology and resistance to change. Technology transfer is difficult due to lack of government funding, lack of demonstration projects and trainings, and lack of power to enforce new building codes and regulations.
Mr. Simek’s presentation, “Housing Construction 1986 – 2007,” related his experiences transferring Canadian energy efficient building technology to Russia . Russia needed more housing and wanting to commercialize the process, looked to private companies such as Mr. Simek’s company, FSC, to design energy efficient housing developments. After visits back and forth between the two countries from 1986 to 1991, the FSC Company decided to place the first development, called the “ Canadian Village ,” in the cold region of Yakutsk , Russia .
The village consists of 77 houses, a school with a gym, a community center, retail outlet, hospital, maintenance garage, a power generator building producing 500 kW of power, a water and sewage treatment facility, health center, administrative building, assembly hall and a 420-foot community well. The Village is a demonstration project to transfer wood framing technology instead of commonly used brick. The Russians had never used wood framing, sheetrock, or steel pipe building technology, thus there were no codes for them to go by. Wood frame technology has the advantage of year-round work, it’s faster to build, and heavy equipment is not generally needed. During construction, the FSC Company discovered some Russian building codes are stricter than Canada ’s due to the need to plan for the inevitable theft of tools and materials and to plan for maintenance issues such as installing windows in stairwells to plan for people not replacing the light bulbs. Another code difference was the Russian ceiling height requirement of 2.7 meters (or approximately 9 feet). There was a lack of local building materials. Materials have to be barged into Yakutsk and their certification documents approved, creating administrative headaches. “There was a lot of skepticism until the project was finished in 1993 and the Russians thought for sure the wind would blow the houses over,” joked Mr. Simek. That winter was very cold (-62 ̊ F) yet the new houses stayed warm. The FSC Company maintained the project for one year, earning the peoples trust. “We had originally planned to build three Canadian Villages but after this one was finished, the politicians wanted to take it over for government housing. So the President of Yakutsk decided to turn it into a music school and now all 77 homes are used for student housing,” stated Mr. Simek.
In 1995 Yakutsk flooded and the FSC Company built 500 eight-plex apartments on pilings with natural gas hot water heaters, dual heating system, and ventilation systems. In 1996 they built 27-plexes (very long buildings with units accessed via one long corridor.) Mr. Simek said he regretted building the 27-plexes because he noticed those living in the 8-plexes had formed social groups whereas those living in the 27-plexes did not. Thereafter the company built only duplexes and townhouses, even building a duplex for the governor of Chukotka. In 2003, the company built the Zima Highlands project comprising 100 duplexes with central heating, HRV’s, landscaping, and a community center with a swimming pool. “This was the first project we did without a government “roof over our heads”. By this time, wood frame housing was approved in Russia but without government backing, we had to deal with arrogant Fire Marshalls whose attitude was “I don’t care what Moscow approved – I’m the approval agency around here,” Mr. Simek exclaimed. The building plans called for electric heat using diesel generators for power which didn’t make sense to Mr. Simek as they only have a 30% efficiency rating so he changed the plan to oil fired boilers. Trust issues and lack of local knowledge on boiler systems made approval difficult. Even though the company installed low-pressure boilers, Russians are afraid of “high pressure” boilers so they had to install them in little “boiler houses” next to each house, rather than inside the homes.
In 1995, the question became how to transfer the success and approval gained in Yakutsk so that the transfer of wood frame technology could continue through Russia . A memorandum was signed by the Russian Ministry of Construction (MC) and the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) to form an intergovernmental committee with a sub-committee on housing to work on harmonizing building codes between Canada and Russia . The Canadian International Development Agency put $10 million into the project; $6 million to train Russian contractors and inspectors on Canadian wood frame construction techniques, $3 million for translation of building codes, and one million for the approval process of products and materials and other administrative expenses. The Ministry of Construction used to have great power but when Russia turned to capitalism they lost funding and power to govern building and materials regulations. In 1998, a crisis in Russia caused the halt of new construction. For a time, Russia flip-flopped between building brick homes (which are cheaper to build) and wood framing. The building code translation was completed and approved in 2002 but by then the funding was lost for knowledge transfer and training. Understandably, Canada would not contribute more money for training purposes.
“This created the current problem of contractors building shoddy wood frame houses. The technology is approved and they have building codes, but the contractors aren’t trained! The hard part about technology transfer is that you can’t build enough demonstration houses for people to learn by. It is better to bring people to you so they can see what can be done,” opined Mr. Simek. Mr. Simek commented on the lack of sustainable fuel sources and the difficulty of adequate sewage disposal in Russian communities.
Mr. Simek concluded with suggestions for the future. He would like to see the creation of an International Building Code with codes that fit each region. He would like the market open for proposals from designers who are also builders that work with local agencies and communities to gather input on what the community wants and doesn’t want in new developments. Mr. Simek thinks this should be a requirement so communities know what is being done and are part of the process.