MAISON COCAGNE HOUSE - Elevations

SECOND FLOOR 745 sf (650 heated)

Bedroom 1 14' x 15'

Bedroom 2 14' x 15'

Full Bathroom 8' x 7'

Stair/Hall 8' x 17'8

Attics (2) 14' x 8' ea

FIRST FLOOR 990 sf (860 heated)

Living/Dining 14' x 22'

Kitchen 14' x 15'

Laundry/Pantry 14' x 7'

3/4 Bathroom 8' x 7

Stair/Hall 8' x 17'8

Enclosed Porches (2) 14' x 8

BASEMENT 990 sf (760 tempered)

Basement Room 14' x 22'

Storage Room 14' x 14'

Root Cellar 14' x 7'

Mechanical 8' x 7'

Stair/Hall 8' x 16'8

Cistern Rooms (2) 13' x 7' ea

Total Area 1745 sf

Total heated area 1510 sf

Footprint 40' x 32'

Maison Cocagne House is a design style commonly found in the Canada Maritime provinces - a simple rectangular form with a distinctive central dormer. Historically, houses of this style were often built as 1-1/2 story buildings incorporating a timber H-frame structural system. Maison Cocagne House is a stud framed 2-story building with an attached 1-story lean to at the north elevation. The thermal envelope of the house is defined as the space from the basement floor to the 2-story ceiling and 1-story roof within the basement and the exterior walls of the main house excluding the porches (21,620 cf).

Traditionally, buildings of this style were built either with or without open or enclosed porches. The first and second floors (excluding the enclosed porches) are heated; the basement (excluding the root cellar and cistern rooms) is tempered. The unheated, enclosed porches of the Maison Cocagne House are designed to act as solariums outside the thermal envelope of the main superinsulated house. The concept is to provide spaces to capture solar heat gain during the cold winter months and to reduce winter impact on the thermal envelope. The building can be opened to the porches during hours of daytime solar gain, but closed during nighttime heat loss. The porches also allow for the expansion of the kitchen and living room activity spaces during the warm summer months.

Maison Cocagne House was designed to incorporate, to the greatest extent possible, locally manufactured and/or Canadian products that use the least amount of embodied energy in composition and manufacturing. While striving to achieve the best thermal performance, material and system choices favored readily available skill levels and access to local materials and manufacturers.

Basement Walls: 12-inch LOGIX insulated concrete form (ICF) walls (2-inch XPS under floors)

Provide R20 rigid insulation for the tempered basement spaces.

Exterior Walls: 12-inch double stud walls with full thick ROXUL mineral fiber batts

Provide R45 insulation without thermal bridging.

Use optimum value engineering (OVE) framing techniques to reduce materials.

Use local forestry products and a Canadian insulation material.

Roofs: Raised heel roof trusses (main roof) & 24-inch parallel chord trusses (lean to)

Provide R60 up to R80 insulation.

Windows and Doors: Best product available from local manufacturers.

Triple glazed casement windows at thermal envelope openings.

Double glazed casement & fixed windows at porches.

Finishes: Best products available from local manufacturers to resist maritime climate.

Moderne-Slate by TRACC roofing shingles - 50 yr warrant / 175 mph uplift resistance.

Fibre-cement siding, but others are also appropriate.

Further discussions and illustrations of building materials and construction details will follow in later postings.