On average, over 35,000 new homes begin construction every year in Alberta, with concrete predominantly used for the foundations/basements of these buildings. Reducing embodied carbon has emerged recently as a vital new frontier in building decarbonisation. There is growing interests among leaders in architecture & design, manufacturing, and construction to use mass timber panels to replace traditional carbon-intensive materials such as concrete and steel.
The proposed project aims to demonstrate a high-performance mass timber foundation solution using Nailed-Laminated Timber (NLT) for residential housing and build capacity for large-scale adoption. For a typical 2,200-square-foot single-family home in Edmonton region, using NLT as basement walls can reduce embodied carbon by 12.95 tonne CO2e. Moreover, the wood materials used in the foundation can store an additional 15 tonnes CO2e. This project will eliminate regulatory and marketing barriers for NLT foundations and set a successful business example to facilitate widespread adoption in the homebuilding industry. The NLT foundation manufacturing facility established in this project will product 250-300 NLT foundations per year, leading to direct GHG reductions of 4,990 tonne CO2e annually when carbon sequestration is included.