A New Way To Build

When thinking about the structure of a house, wood is often what comes to mind, as houses have been built using wood products for many years. BONE Structure is making waves across Canada with a new material to construct your home with.

Instead of using wood, the BONE Structure uses steel components that are manufactured in Quebec, a bag of screws and a drill. There is no need to cut any of the steel, as it comes perfectly cut to include windows and doors. Marc Bovet, president and founder of BONE Structure compares the traditional home to a BONE Structure home, "It is a light steel system versus wood, so it is really sustainable, it is really ecological, it is very durable and it goes up like a Lego toy set."

Houses using the BONE Structure are built very quickly, and there is no cutting or piercing that can be seen with a traditional wood structure.

"All the trusses are open like an aerospace fuselage, so when the time comes for all the subcontractors to do their thing they don't have anything to pierce," said Bovet. "At the same time for the customers what does it mean, the cost of energy is going down very rapidly, because the house is so well insulated."

When wanting to expand or change a traditional home, there is a lot of renovations involved, making it a nightmare for some people. The BONE Structure allows you to change up your home over the weekend by removing walls.

"Other attributes would be no interior load bearing walls that means you can have four bedrooms and when your kids leave home at the age of 28 you can take down those bedroom walls, and at the age of 32 when they come back you can erect more walls and add windows and doors without any structural issues," said Bovet.

At a construction site a garbage bin is around the corner to dispose of the materials that are just not needed. When a BONE Structure home is being built there is no garbage bins, because there is no garbage. The steel frame is pre-made to fit perfectly together.

"A typical 2,500 sq. ft. house built the same old way we've been building it for 400 years will fill up a minimum of five of those humungous garbage containers of brand new materials, and not to account for the loss of efficiency on the job site of workers filling them up," said Bovet. "A better picture is to say that 60 per cent of the waste in our landfills comes from the construction industry, so as much as you are going to do your recycling you will never do enough in your lifetime to basically make up for that 2,500 sq. ft. house that you had built."

The cost comparison between a BONE Structure and a traditional house turns out to be about the same in the long run, Bovet explained. While the cost up-front may be more, the money is saved from the efficiency in the time it takes to build.

"You get your money's worth, the money is going into the house, plus it's not going into the garbage containers or into wasted time," said Bovet.

The time frame for building a BONE Structure is about a week, and Bovet argues that subcontractors no longer have to make things fit, it can all be assemble as the measurements are so precise.

"With the BONE Structure you only need one tool per individual to assemble the house, and with five guys with five drills a house of 3,000 sq. ft. can be put up in a week," said Bovet.

The traditional house has a standard appearance to it, the BONE Structure can be developed in a variety of ways. "If you draw a triangle and a box underneath, it is pretty much how Canadian architecture has been designed for the last 400 years, you have that triangle which is your rooftop which is 32 per cent of your household – useless," said Bovet. "We take back that space, we can because of the steel that we are using, we can give you access to that space."

While many other industries have evolved in how they do things, the question remains why can't the materials used on houses change – they can, BONE Structure is giving a new meaning to how we think about homes.

Tagged: BONE Structure | Calgary Real Estate | Calgary Real Estate News