Elisabeth and Stan Jang with children Oliver, 4 (left) and Anika, 6, and East Van home. CREDIT: Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun Home builder Wilma Leung in the kitchen of Elisabeth and Stan Jang's R-2000 home, which has formaldehyde-free cabinets. CREDIT: Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun The master bedroom has wooden flooring, which Wilma Leung recommends as a healthier option than carpeting. CREDIT: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun The front sitting room (above) and child's bedroom capture the Earth-friendly ambience of the Jangs' home. CREDIT: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun The front sitting room (above) and child's bedroom capture the Earth-friendly ambience of the Jangs' home. CREDIT: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

When computer programmer Stan Jang hired WISA Healthy Homes to build a Craftsman-style house on his small east Vancouver lot, he requested an abode that complemented his family's passionate belief that the best footprints left on the earth are the smallest.

The 35-year-old Jang, who bought the 31-foot-wide, 3,400-square-foot lot in 2001 and moved in about a year ago, chose the 4500-block James because of its proximity to city amenities.

He and wife, Elisabeth, walk or cycle to just about everything. And while they own one car, it's rarely used and they're considering selling it.

The Jangs, who have two young children, wanted a smaller house -- sustainability is the family mantra -- and the landscaping would emphasize their less-is-more philosophy.

As well, the house would have an abundant supply of fresh, ventilated air and materials that were green with a capital G -- in short, a showcase of environmentally friendly features that highlighted both beauty and sustainability.

"I grew up in this area and we chose it because we could walk and cycle everywhere," says Jang, who is obviously proud of his new home. "The house was just part of it. It's a lifestyle choice."

In choosing WISA, the Jangs linked up with a contractor that has quietly established a sterling reputation for building some of the most environmentally friendly homes in the Lower Mainland.

Last month, WISA won three Gold Georgie awards, including a Grand Georgie, for its work on the Jang residence: One for the best single-family detached home under 2,000 square feet; one for the best single family landscape design (Kingwood Avenue Gardens shared); and one for the best home builder in B.C. (small volume).

Wilma Leung and husband Arthur Lo, the couple who own the company, are experts in building homes with R-2000 features that meet standards for energy efficiency, ventilation and construction practices.)

The Jang project has solidified WISA's stature in the housing industry, although the company, which only builds a few such houses each year, has won scores of other Georgies -- a measure of excellence among B.C. builders -- in previous years.

From the outside, the Jangs' three-storey 1,953-square-foot house, which has an annual heating and utility bill of about $800, looks no different from many of the other new heritage-accented homes going up in east side neighbourhoods.

But look a little closer.

First off is the front of the 22-foot-wide house, which features charming architectural elements such as a sitting bench that promotes a communal spirit in the neighbourhood.

The one-car driveway is only partially covered by brick pavers. The "bare" spots promote natural irrigation and rainwater management by allowing water to percolate through the surface into the ground, lessening the waste and runoff into the sewer system and naturally irrigating plants.

Although the garage has room for only one car, there is plenty of extra space to store and maintain bicycles -- an important element in the Jangs' car-free lifestyle.

The exterior landscaping not only features native plants that thrive on the west coast, but uses trees, shrubs, perennials and vines that need little supplemental irrigation and resist pests and disease naturally. The back lawn only takes up about half the yard, with a vegetable garden running down one side and a kids' play house dominating the other.

The roof is made of metal shingles with a 50-year-warranty and the siding is an unpainted stone-like stucco, a finish that Jang says is very environmentally sustainable. "The [metal] shingles can eventually be recycled or reused."

Inside the front door, you're met by a built-in bench constructed from throw-away boards.

The front entranceway is slate, with bamboo flooring covering the rest of the main level. Bamboo is not only very attractive, but is as hard as wood and completely sustainable because it's a type of grass that's harvested within five years of being planted. "You're not chopping down old-growth forests," Jang adds.

Other healthy and environmentally friendly material used throughout the house include formaldehyde-free cabinets, power-smart lighting, water-saving dual flush toilets and restored tavern-grade red oak flooring -- normally thrown away or used as hog fuel -- on the top floor.

As well, the flexible layout of the house -- including a front sitting room with door -- allows for accommodating aging grandparents if the need arises. The main-floor bathroom can be used as a wheelchair-accessible shower room, with a main drain in the middle of the floor.

There is also built-in wiring to capture future solar electricity potential and a small balcony off the back of the house for running laundry lines in the summer months.

The Jangs have a dishwasher, but usually wash by hand because it requires less water, which can then be used for plants.

But the heart of the house is its R-2000 designation -- which, among other things, means the house uses about half the energy of a similar code-compliant home -- and that's where WISA comes in.

In each house it builds, WISA finds benign alternatives in building materials to eliminate unhealthy off-gassing. Instead of carpets, Leung recommends flooring materials such as hardwood, bamboo or linoleum made of natural materials, such as wood fibre, cork or linseed oil.

She says carpets give off "a lot of emissions" and that those that don't inevitably trap dirt and dust mites, which are bad for health.

"There's no stale air in any corner of this house," she says of the Jang residence's heat recovery ventilator, a continuous mechanical ventilation system that provides fresh air to all rooms. "The air is moving 24 hours a day."

Jang says his main objective was energy efficiency and sustainability and that they went the extra mile by choosing a geothermal heat pump system, which heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer.

Acting like a refrigerator, installing the heat pump -- not a requirement for R-2000 designation -- involved boring twin holes 50 metres into the earth to extract the heat. "It's like a refrigerator," he says. "It takes heat from one place and transfers it to somewhere else."

Before coming to Canada with Lo and their two kids in 1994, Leung, 46, was a senior environmental protection officer with the Hong Kong government. Lo was an engineer and the couple decided to combine their talents and focus on building what is still a very small part of the market -- environmentally sustainable homes with the R-2000 standard as a minimum.

"When we came here in 1994, we looked around at the quality of some of the houses being built and we felt we could do a lot better," recalls Leung, who is obsessed with environmental issues.

"I knew three people who bought three new houses that year and they all sold within three years because of the problems they were finding in their houses."

Leung, who believes people are getting away from huge homes, also favours high-performance windows with low emissivity coating. She says that people should spend less money on providing additional space and more money on higher-quality R-2000 features.

She says that an R-2000 home is usually between $6,000 and $10,000 more than a similar house, depending on the size.

bmorton@png.canwest.com