This luxurious home has been designed to serve as a primary residence. Ample available room allows for a three main bedroom suites, guest suite and guest bunk bedroom suite. Besides a great room there is a bonus room as well as an office and a sun room for afternoon reading and relaxation. A full size gym/game room condo is an absolute favorite. Large windows are capturing the views including Sleeping Giant, Steamboat ski mountain, Hans peak and others.

We have designed and implemented several new features to the home that were there to maximize energy efficiency of the home and occupant's comfort. Besides superior insulation, significantly higher than code required, we have opted for a state of the art mechanical system. This system has been successfully implemented in our previous projects. Air source heat pump provides both domestic hot water and hot water for radiant floor heat. Since these systems are unable to provide heat at nights when it is extremely cold, we have opted for a very high efficiency gas boiler backup. Great benefit of this system is that we were able to implement a snow melt system that will utilize high efficiencies of heat pump before a gas boiler is needed.

A state of art Zehnder ventilator has been selected for this project. This ventilator continuously extract stale indoor air and replaces it with fresh outdoor air. All impurities from outdoor air get filtered out before it gets distributed through the home.

To ensure the best possible interior environment we have implemented several moisture control features. In high moisture areas like bathrooms automatic means have been implemented to reduce moisture levels by starting a ventilator. Colorado's typical dry weather results in dry indoor air. High performance homes with good air sealing are immune to this problem since house don't suffer from as many air exchanges as in typical, older, drafty home. With ventilator running constantly providing 250cfm of fresh air, indoor relative humidity stays steady between 30-35%. This is favorable winter humidity level in Colorado.

Hot water availability and water conservation was addressed during the planning phase as well. Energy star certified appliances and Water sense certified faucets have been used in order to minimize usage of water without sacrificing comfort and performance. A circulation system has been specifically designed for this project to ensure that hot water is available within seconds. In order to provide hot water for showers in all bathrooms we would have needed a huge storage tank. This tank would be inefficient solution in times when not all bathrooms are used at the same time. Since this is a most common use scenario we have decided to harness heat from the heat pump buffer tank and step it up with tankless gas boiler, only if needed. A thermally controls three way valve is diverting domestic hot water either through boiler if it needs further warmed up or directly to the DHW distribution lines if temperature is acceptable. This arrangement greatly reduces cycling of the gas boiler and utilizes high efficiency of the heat pump when ever possible. Waste water heat recovery devices have performed well on our past projects. They harness 57% of the heat from the waste shower water used in the upper level. This energy preheats cold water prior to it entering through buffer tank reducing the load on the heat pump and/or boiler. This is passive and virtually maintenance free system.

State of the art ventilation and mechanical systems don't offer superior interior air quality on their own. All interior materials, glues and paints have been carefully evaluated for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and especially Formaldehyde contents. All selected cabinetry, flooring, paint and glues are California CARB phase 2 compliant with either very low or zero VOC contents. In order to minimize "new home smell" that is due to the construction process, the home will be flushed with fresh air for 48 hours upon completion. This allows the majority of harmful matters to be flushed from the interior air for maximum comfort and safety.