Building healthier homes is nothing new to Darin Ryan. He’s been doing it his entire career in Austin, Texas, home to the nation’s oldest building rating system for evaluating sustainability, the trailblazing Austin Energy Green Building.
About two years ago Ryan went out on his own with Dalainey Performance Homes because “… we can do them just a little bit better,” he modestly says of his privately-held custom homebuilding company.
What makes his homes arguably a whole lot better was on full display during the 64th Annual Greater Austin Parade of Homes. Ryan calls his striking new $1.8 million, 3,410-square-foot creation “Up Tempo”, for reasons that may surprise some. (The spec home located at The Reserve at Lake Travis sold before the PoH.)
For starters, caring for home aesthetics occurs later in the design process. “We plan the guts of the house, the lungs if you will, before considering its looks. We do everything to make the house optimal in certain areas,” he explains.
JPM Real Estate Photography
Inside Out
That starts with air quality and whole-home wellness. The pandemic only reinforces Ryan’s conviction that home health and wellness come first today. “People want a home that supports a healthy lifestyle,” he says.
To that end, Ryan is a stickler for a pre-construction meeting with the architect and mechanical engineer, just as the NAHB National Green Building Standard advises. “We work the plan,” he says. “The HVAC system and mechanicals are thoughtfully placed before anything. Shorter, more direct runs. Everything has its own routes, like a commercial application. We know where everything goes. Water heaters. Air conditioning. Water treatment. Ducts. The works.
“The house is planned inside out.”
Integrated Whole-Home Strategy
One of Ryan’s first steps in planning the home was investigating health and wellness partners. The builder learned about a new concept in integrating the energy-related components of the home called Tranquility by Trane. Trane proactively leads the Tranquility whole-home approach to building healthier homes, including facilitating a third-party mechanical design that delivers a smarter, precisely scaled home air solution without relying on extra tonnage. It was just the technical road map Ryan needed to hear. The Trane system configuration in this Dalainey Performance Home features Trane’s CleanEffects Air Cleaner, setting the standard in air quality using revolutionary technology that supplies the home with a cleaner, healthier environment, removing up to 99.98% of airborne particles – including those as small as .1 micron, making it 8 times more effective than even the best HEPA room filters and up to 100 times more effective than a standard 1-inch filter. It’s also the first air cleaner to earn asthma & allergy friendly certification from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) through their product testing arm, Allergy Standards Ltd. The designation is awarded to only products that pass rigorous real-world air quality testing.
New Building Standard
“People today are much more engaged around maintaining wellness rather than treating sickness and disease. The Environmental Protection Agency says indoor air can be four to five times more polluted than outdoor air. If someone has asthma or an allergy the first thing a physician will ask about are trigger factors in the home before prescribing a medication. Only products that are asthma and allergy friendly are certified,” reports Dr. John McKeon, CEO of Allergy Standards Ltd.
Tranquility by Trane is now the whole-home approach used in all Dalainey Performance Homes. “It’s definitely where I want to be for home wellness,” Ryan says. “Tranquility by Trane is my standard going forward.”
For more information visit Trane.com/Builders
