A 麻豆社国产contractor has taken home the top honour at the Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) National Awards for Housing Excellence for their net zero home.
was crowned the winner in both the Best Detached Custom Home over 5,000 square feet and Best Custom or Renovated Net Zero Home categories at an awards bash in Victoria on May 15.
Fellow local contractor was also nominated as one of the five finalists in the Net Zero group, which saw entries from contractors across the country.
Blueline Contracting president Adam Smith told The 麻豆社国产 that his company, which has operated out of 麻豆社国产for almost 16 years, was thrilled to have taken home the win.
“We're a medium sized construction company that's been operating in 麻豆社国产since 2009. We're focused on custom, single family [homes] although we do some other architecturally interesting projects when they present,” Smith said.
“[The CHBA awards] are a national award, so it was available to contractors across the country, and there were thousands of entries. So it is nice to be on the top of a very deep field.
“There were some other really excellent entries. So we were happy that the panel of judges really gravitated towards the craftsmanship in this house.”
The CHBA National Awards are billed as Canada’s premiere competition for new homes, home renovations, community development, and residential marketing. Businesses of varying size from across the nation submitted more than 1,000 entries, which were evaluated by 300 volunteer industry experts.
According to the CHBA website, the Best Custom or Renovated Net Zero Home award recognized excellence in high performance homes that “have an appealing aesthetic including overall exterior and interior design, use of building forms and materials, creative use of space, and functionality of floor plan.”
Mountainview Retreat
Blueline Contracting claimed the win with their Mountainview Retreat home, located in Whistler west side, near Nita Lake.
“This house in particular was 100% electrified, so there was no gas fuel to the house,” Smith said.
“All of the appliances, wall assemblies, windows, everything is factored into a computer program ... to ensure that we have the lowest electric use that we can for the features that the clients wanted to have in the house.
“Then at that point, we go about an evaluation of how we can put the energy back in and develop enough of our own energy to satisfy the needs of the house on a yearly basis. So if we had a house that was using 75 kilowatt hours a year, we would need to develop our solar energy program to ensure that we're putting that much energy back into the grid.”
Aside from the net zero components, Smith said the Mountainview Retreat is a “very beautifully, architecturally designed house.”
“The details are unmatched in any of the houses that we've done so far, as far as wood finishing. We had probably a crew of eight people doing interior wood finishing for almost six months,” he said.
“It was a great choice of materials with natural, native to the area materials like cedar, concrete, douglas fir with some metal added in. So it really feels like it's from here, and it fits.”
Smith said that a lot of consideration was also put into the siting of the home on the lot.
“We did a lot of blasting to pocket the house into the rock mound that was on the lot, and in doing that, we created some privacy from other homes in the area,” he said.
‘It also provided a really cool back terrace for the hot tub and other sort of indoor, outdoor living zone that is shielded and private from other neighbours, and has some really cool rock features in it.”
While 麻豆社国产is known for being a green-leaning town, Smith said it is hard for clients to commit to a 100% net zero home for a number of reasons.
“I think it is challenging, both with the passive house programs and net zero. It is an extra cost beyond the building code level of the home,” he said.
“As costs get more expensive in the Sea to Sky, the cost to build goes up and the prices of houses aren't going up at the same rate. We find challenges where clients just don't want to spend the extra money sometimes.
“We understand that there are some additional costs in insulation, better windows, sometimes some compromises in equipment to make them more efficient than maybe what someone has seen in the showroom that they like. And there's also the addition of solar panels as well. So, sometimes it doesn't fit the budget, but we are trying to do as much of this as we can when our clients are also on board.”
Another challenge clients face is the location of their property and whether or not there is enough sun to make solar panels a functional option for their home.
“You do need to have an open view of the sun. So some sites that are more rural or more shaded by trees have less solar value,” Smith said.
But for the Mountainview Retreat, it seems all the cards were in favour of a net-zero home.
“It was really nice to have clients that were very focused on doing something better, and were focused on energy efficiency, and we didn't have to do much convincing to try to take this house to a net zero level,” Smith said.
“That was also a real highlight of the project.”
Whistler's Vision Pacific Contracting Ltd. also took home a win in the Best Detached Custom Home between 4,001-5,000 square feet category for its project, Mountain Longhouse.
In 2024, Blueline Contracting took home the CHBA National Award for the Best Detached Custom Home 2501-3000 sq. ft. for their Alpine A-Frame home.
For more information on the awards, visit the
