About Us
A&E Building Systems supplies architects, developers, builders and contractors with the products, services and information necessary to achieve high performance building objectives and criteria including Passive House, LEED, RESNET/HERS, Energy Star, etc. Our passion is fueled by the desire to provide home and building owners comfortable, healthy and highly efficient places to live, work and play.
Why should we build high performance buildings?
First, what is in it for me/you (WIIFM)? Properly designed, high performance buildings are:
- less expensive to operate
- more comfortable
- more durable and last longer
- healthier and have better air quality
- quieter
We assume that our children will have children and their children will have children and so on. Fossil fuels won’t last forever and will become increasingly difficult to extract. We believe it is not necessary to extract them at the rate in which we are today. Also, of the total US energy consumption, 42% is used in buildings. This is the single largest energy consumption segment – larger than transportation and industry. The primary use of energy within our buildings is for space heating and cooling.
The global population is growing and energy demand is growing domestically and globally. If we consider current energy consumption, population growth and increase in demands due to economic prosperity in highly populated countries like India and China, how do we meet Global demand in 2112. In 100 years, perhaps three to five generations, how will our great, great grand children heat, cool and light their homes and businesses, get to work, heat their water and cook dinner? These are fundamental daily activities that do not include vacationing at Disney World or some exotic locale, getting to soccer practice or powering a computer or TV.
Why not build more comfortable, higher quality, energy efficient buildings that conserve resources for future generations?
What is a High Performance Building?
We hear a lot about sustainability and green, but what does it mean? The definition is blurry at best. A&E Building Systems believes high performance is a function of conservation. Also a blurry word, we believe conservation is a function of reducing the energy requirement necessary to effectively operate a building or home. The definition of conservation is broad. We do not ignore other fundamental objectives like reducing embodied energy and environmental impacts.
Conservation at A&E is a function of weighing short term and long term impacts in an imperfect world of data often driven by profit. Our product selection process takes many variables into consideration. It is next to impossible to have high quality, high performance, attractive design, highly sustainable and low cost all wrapped into a nice tidy package. We do our best to supply products that meet as many criteria as possible with high performance weighed heavier than the others.
A&E Building Systems provides products and services that help reduce energy demand today and in the future and are sustainable and/or last for centuries not decades.
Why do we like Passive House or Passiv Haus?
Passive House helps decrease the energy consumption for heating by 90%. While other methodologies are effective at reducing energy requirements, Passive House is the gold standard of energy conservation in buildings. The heat load in moderately sized homes is reduced enough that it is often difficult to find heating technology that is small enough. In more moderate climates, the equivalent of a hair dryer is literally enough to heat a home.
Please note that Passive House does not just apply to single family residences. Commercial and Multifamily buildings have been built to Passive House standards.
