By David Dodge, GreenEnergyFutures.ca
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Reza Nasseri is a pioneer and leader in the movement to construct ultra-efficient homes that are net-zero. But what sets Reza apart is that he’s a production builder who wanted to create the most affordable net-zero homes that money can buy.
I first interviewed Reza in 2013, and I’ll never forget what he said when I asked him why a builder would care about climate change.
I can still hear him saying: “Because that’s the evil that we have to deal with today. Climate change is causing a lot of havoc and will continue to do so. The costs associated with dealing with that, not only in dollars but in terms of lives, actually and livelihoods, are going to be horrendous, so this is something we have to deal with.”
That was just not something you heard from CEOs of companies back then, especially one from a home-building company.
Waste not, want not
Reza traces his commitment to efficiency to his roots.
“I’m an immigrant who came from Iran, and I came to Edmonton directly. I stayed here; that’s my home, and I love the place.”
He says he had no idea what sustainability was at the time, but he came from a culture where it was really important not to waste anything.
“As a kid, I used to go and buy cheese for my family. And I remember that they used to wrap it in large tree leaves. So, not even a newspaper,” he says.
Wasteful packaging was not a thing back then. And wasting water – also not a thing.
So right from the beginning, he applied this to his business philosophy.
Reza was educated as an electrical engineer. “My first love was always in construction. I wanted to be an architect. And, you know, the hands of fate change things.”
So he and a partner started building homes themselves in the late 1970s.
His waste-not philosophy helped them in those early days, and then in the 2010s, Reza was one of the first builders to use what he calls “offsite construction.”
In the frigid Canadian North, Reza brought home building inside
“We build now in a facility that is fully automated with machinery we brought from Germany some 14 years ago.”
ARQBuilt is a separate company in Edmonton that Reza founded, and it’s an amazing way to build a home.
I toured the facility soon after it opened and then again recently.
Computers help order exactly the right dimensions of lumber for efficiency, and this also helps avoid waste. The homes are framed on large platforms using machines with dual robotic nailers and even robotic circular saws that trim the wall boards just right.
The process is a mix of workers and machines.
The roof of a home is framed in sections right on the floor of the plant. Workers are rarely more than 3 metres off the ground, and they work in a warm factory instead of outside on -30° C days, cold winter days in Edmonton.
The process reduces framing time for a home by 90%, produces 50-75% less waste, and reduces carbon emissions dramatically.
In the plant, there are recycling bins for waste material. The thing is, there isn’t much in them.
Building one home a day
“We essentially put the house together in less than one day. So we start from the beginning, after the basement is complete, then by three, four o’clock, the house is up,” says Reza.
An entire floor of walls for a home fits on one truck. Then, cranes lift the walls into place on the foundation.
The result is an exceptionally square home built to very tight tolerances.
On one of my recent tours, I also noticed they have moved to using manufactured lumber. There were piles of 40-foot, absolutely square, flawless 2x4s and 2x6s that are stronger than conventional lumber.
Reza didn’t know what net-zero was 25 years ago, but even then, they were pushing the envelope on energy efficiency, spending $7,000-8,000 more per home in costs to make them more efficient.
While other pioneers of net-zero homes were driven mostly by performance and using double-wall systems and building near passive house standard net-zero homes, Reza had to figure out how to do it in his factory, which cannot build double-wall systems.
Secret to affordable net-zero
And his motive was always to build the most affordable net-zero home.
So unlike the custom builders, he used 2×6 walls and added a 2-inch envelope of EPS insulation on the outside of the walls, which continues seamlessly beneath the basement pad and up the attic.
It’s a simple system that produces an airtight home that can be brought to net-zero once you use electric heat pumps to heat it and put solar on the roof.
Landmark was offering net-zero homes 15 years ago at a time when the market didn’t understand the incredible value of the homes and the lower life cycle cost.
Reza could produce a home that would cost nearly nothing in utility costs.
Most affordable net-zero home in Canada
In 2014, Landmark built Sparrow Landing, the first net-zero townhouse project in Alberta. It was 14 units that were solar-powered and net-zero.
Then in 2017, Landmark built the most affordable net-zero single-family home in Canada in the suburbs of Edmonton. The two-storey single-family home sold for $399,000, including GST.
Reza says there are many ways to “skin a cat,” so instead of building the highest-performing net-zero home, his company stayed laser-focused on building simple, very normal-looking homes that were net-zero.
Landmark even has a building science expert on staff. Haitao Yu completed his PhD while working at Landmark, and he’s in charge of research and development and works every day to find the more efficient ways to achieve the highest performance at the lowest cost.
At the time when Landmark launched its affordable net-zero home, I had been recruited to serve as the Chair of the Board of Energy Efficiency Alberta, but the Notley government and I had the honour and privilege of cutting the ribbon for this accomplishment along with Reza, Mayor Don Iveson, and other dignitaries.
The irony is that Landmark had learned how to build an affordable net-zero home, but the market didn’t get it yet.
By 2020 in other markets like Guelph, Ontario, other builders such as TerraView switched to building only net-zero homes because the market there was wise to the incredible value of a home that has low or no utility bills.
Landmark Net-zero lands in Blatchford
But then in 2018, Edmonton’s Blatchford, the largest planned carbon-neutral community in North America was beginning to take shape.
Landmark wasn’t one of the first builders in Blatchford due to a spat between them and the City developers of Blatchford, who wanted to focus on a geothermal district heating system.
But eventually, Blatchford made room for Landmark’s net-zero homes by allowing builders to build there without hooking up to the district energy system if they were building fully net-zero homes.
So Landmark bought some land and is now building their net-zero homes in Blatchford, which are solar-powered and heated by air source heat pumps rated to -30C.
We did a story on two young homebuyers who liked Blatchford and the Landmark net-zero homes.
Zero utility costs
Unlike other homes, Landmark’s offerings are capable of producing close to zero utility costs.
Up to this point, Reza had built 40 net-zero homes and more than 120 solar-powered homes.
But in Blatchford, all Landmark homes are net-zero, and as the building code approaches the net-zero ready standard, they will be well-positioned with their time-tested home designs.
Thanks to the company’s work on net-zero, all Landmark homes are now much more energy efficient, but the future is moving ever closer to a net-zero standard.
It’s been a long journey for Reza Nasseri, but his patience seems to be paying off. His company has gone through good times and bad times with the ebbs and flows of the housing market. The company had once expanded into Calgary and beyond and has since consolidated operations in Edmonton.
And their sister company, ARQBuilt, has competed more than 20,000 projects for Landmark and many other builders as well.
Pioneering virtual power plants
And recently, Landmark successfully landed funding from Emissions Reduction Alberta to work with EPCOR, Sonnen (a battery company) and a few other partners to pilot one of the first virtual power plant projects in Alberta.
The idea is to add 20-kilowatt batteries and link 100 solar-powered homes together in a network and offer electricity to the grid at market rates.
Landmark will be installing 100 batteries in their net-zero homes and those they are building for other developers in Blatchford.
Landmark is building another 65-unit net-zero apartment project in Blatchford in addition to their own homes.
It has been a long and winding road for Reza Nasseri, one marked by perseverance and commitment to his goals but it now all seems to be coming to fruition.
Back in 2011, Reza shared his dream of constructing all net-zero homes by 2015. It was a big goal, but he never lost sight of it. And guess what? It seems like he’s making steady progress towards that ambitious target!
And Reza’s work has not gone unnoticed. He received an Order of Canada for his work on panelized construction, a CLEAN 16 award, and several others, celebrating his entrepreneurialism and service to the community.
“It feels really good. It feels fantastic,” says Reza after all the years of work.
