I'm Tim O'Brien, founder of Tim O'Brien Homes.

Every home that we build has a third-party green certification
and a third-party energy certification.

The Birchwood model is just under 3,200 square feet finished.

It focuses on four aspects of green: energy efficiency, water conservation, indoor air quality, and resource utilization.

On the indoor air quality side, we've been able to use the VELUX skylights to capitalize on natural air, fresh air being drawn into the house, and exhausting, stale, and contaminate air out of the home without mechanical ventilation.

The skylight installation in a Birchwood is a classic example of the chimney effect.

Tim O'Brien Homes uses a clerestory, which is an extension, a vertical extension of the home.

With the clerestory application, we wanted to demonstrate how you can use

natural ventilation to cool a home versus having to turn on your air conditioner, plus the beauty of the natural light

that's able to come in.

The chimney effect is the movement of fresh air into and out of a building and/or home.

And it is powered by buoyancy, meaning that moist, warm air is lighter, cooler air is heavier.

So by opening a fresh air skylight at the highest point in the home, and opening a vertical window

or a door down below, you create that chimney effect.

Because the VELUX Solar Powered "Fresh Air" Skylight is powered by the sun and through solar cells, we did not have to have any wiring up into the clerestory. It made the installation a lot easier.

It has a photovoltaic cell on the outside of the unit that draws the sun's rays, which in turn, charge and recharge a low battery, which operates the skylight, so the skylight doesn't have to be operated with any electricity.

We wanted to be able to show people that there are laws of physics that you can use to do natural, fresh air intake and air exhaust, again, without having to bring the mechanicals in or use utilities to do so.

The family that's gonna be coming into our Birchwood this year is going to be able to use the skylights to cool not only the first floor, but the second floor just by opening windows on ends of the home and allowing that fresh air to come in through those windows as the warm air rises and escapes through the VELUX skylights.

We've encouraged our clients to be able to use that.

And as we sit here right now, I can still feel, with the skylights open, all of the air that's kind of rushing in and around me, and it's very comforting.

[uplifting music]