Oakley Building Co.

We built this home for our family.

We focused on building principles that would facilitate our health and comfort. We took into account potential future energy shortages and power outages by focusing on efficiency and becoming net-zero energy ready, finally we built a home that is durable and architecturally significant so it should last for generations and won’t end up in a landfill.

It’s certainly a lesson in empathy being the client of your own business😅

A pup in his kitchen

The holiday project at our home. These are just temporary installed. Soon to have hidden low voltage wiring routed through and lit and final coated. These were made completely out of white oak veneer plywood to prevent warping. Fun project for the long holiday weekend!

Design inspiration from

Initial blower door test today!

Air sealing is hugely important for many reasons, more important than the amount of insulation and what type of HVAC system you choose.

Air sealing allows you to control the home’s comfort, air quality, keeps pest out, makes the home quieter and makes your home more durable.

I wanted to get a baseline before drywall to see where I am in my air sealing attempts. Drywall can act as an air barrier as well so I felt it was important to get this as a more accurate number. Also, I can still fix large gaps/cracks at this point.

Most modern home come in around 3-5 ACH-50. Which means you depressurize the home with the fan to 50 pascal. Then with a manometer(a device that measures pressure difference between spaces you can determine the amount of air leakage in the home. The air leakage is measured in Air Changes per Hour. So if the wind is blowing causing my home to be pressurized, a typical house would loose and have to recondition it’s air 3-5 times.

Our first test came in at 0.67. Passive house level is 0.6 which we could likely reach after drywall. I’m thrilled! Think of this home like a high-end yeti cooler vs a Coleman insulated lunchbox.