Achievement highlights significant advancement in residential construction, ensuring cleaner, healthier living for homeowners
Empire Communities, an award-winning residential homebuilder in Canada and the United States is proud to announce that its standard home model featuring ERTH360 Air enhancements has achieved the rigorous clean airflow requirements of ASHRAE Standard 241 — the new high bar for infection resiliency. This first-of-its-kind achievement is a testament to Empire’s commitment to providing homes with the highest standards of indoor health and sustainability. ASHRAE Standard 241, Control of Infectious Aerosols, is a landmark standard published in July 2023 and applies to all building types, commercial and residential.
The clean air performance of Empire’s standard home with ERTH360 Air was evaluated and verified to meet the standard’s targets using a new test method that ASHRAE Standard 241 introduced to the industry, known as ‘air tracing’. Poppy, a venture-backed company based in San Francisco, has pioneered air tracing as a rapid, low-cost commissioning / retro-commissioning technology and service for any building. The Poppy Certify program has been used in over 1,000 locations globally, promoting gold-standard health measures while reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. Empire’s attainment of Poppy Certify status underscores the company’s commitment to creating a healthier and safer environment for its homeowners.
“In our 31st year of homebuilding, Empire continues its dedication to ensuring the safety and comfort of our homeowners while constructing more sustainable homes. Achieving Poppy Certify status is part of a broader initiative to introduce ERTH360 Air in select Empire communities,” states Dan Guizzetti, Co-CEO of Empire Communities. Andrew Guizzetti, Co-CEO adds, “This underscores our commitment to enhancing homebuyers’ health and well-being by providing clean and healthy indoor air, while minimizing environmental impact through balanced energy use.”
Empire Communities joins an elite group of sustainable, healthy buildings across various sectors that have been assessed using air tracing and have achieved Poppy Certify status. This breakthrough in single-family homes demonstrates that accessible HVAC upgrades combined with comprehensive testing enable a home with central air conditioning to meet the most stringent requirements of ASHRAE Standard 241. The Empire Communities standard home featuring ERTH360 Air improvements used a bypass HEPA filtration unit, alongside MERV 13 filters, and a 175 CFM energy recovery ventilator (ERV) to enhance indoor air quality and sustainability.
For the homeowner, ASHRAE Standard 241 offers numerous benefits by promoting healthier environments for occupants. These benefits include:
- Clean air necessary to substantially reduce the risk of disease transmission.
- Reduced occupant exposure to various pathogens, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19, as well as influenza viruses and other disease-causing agents that inflict significant personal and economic damage each year.
- A separate area where a household member known to be infected can isolate with the clean air equivalent to a patient room in a healthcare facility.
"Poppy congratulates Empire Communities on achieving this landmark for single-family homeowners and builders. Poppy Certify is awarded to buildings that satisfy performance requirements linked to ASHRAE building standards for the control of infectious aerosols," says Elizabeth Caley, Co-CEO of Poppy.
The ERTH360 Air package was developed by ERTH360 to demonstrate that strategic improvements to standard homes can significantly enhance indoor air quality. ERTH360 also designed a Discovery Home at Empire’s Avalon community in Caledonia, Ontario featuring more substantial indoor environment improvements, including clean air, filtered water, and circadian lighting. This model also successfully passed the ASHRAE Standard 241 test, showcasing its effectiveness in improving indoor environmental quality.
About Empire Communities:
Empire Communities is a vertically-integrated homebuilder involved in all sectors of the new home-building industry, including both low-rise and high-rise built forms. Celebrating over 30 years of building inspiring new places to live, Empire has an established tradition of creating prestigious award-winning new homes, communities and amenities, and has earned a reputation for outstanding attention to detail and customer service. Since its inception in 1993, Empire has built and sold over 35,000 new homes and condos. Today, Empire is one of North America’s largest privately held integrated residential homebuilders, with current communities in Toronto, Southwestern Ontario, Texas, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee.
About ERTH360:
Empire acquired ERTH360 in 2022 and has established it as a separate business unit focused on designing healthier indoor living environments that improve occupant health and well-being while using more sustainable building materials.
- For more information, please visit ERTH360.
About Poppy:
Poppy is the market leader in advanced air technologies for healthy, sustainable buildings. Poppy revolutionizes how buildings measure equivalent clean airflow, manage rising energy costs and secure health in buildings with their patented air tracing technology. Poppy serves locations in 25 cities, across Canada, US, Europe and the Middle East, helping building operators to reduce costs, decarbonize, and protect occupant health. Poppy was founded in 2019 and is based in San Francisco and Toronto.
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