When you walk through a home, it’s easy to fall in love with a beautiful kitchen or the view from the primary bedroom. And you should! But the things that shape how you feel in your home every day are the ones you’ll never see. How easily you breathe. How well you rest. How calm and comfortable your home feels on a -30°C January morning, or a smoky August afternoon.
At Alliston, we design every home around your well-being, and we build it in from the ground up. Here’s a tour of what’s behind the drywall, above the ceiling and under the floor, for those who like to know exactly what they’re getting.
Breathe easy:
We spend most of our lives indoors, so the air inside your home matters. Every Alliston home includes several features that work together to keep it fresh and clean.
Air that’s always moving, always filtered. Our Hi-Velocity heating system circulates air constantly instead of in on-and-off bursts. Because the air is always moving, it’s always passing through the filter.
MERV 13 filtration. Most homes use a basic furnace filter that only catches larger dust particles. A MERV 13 filter traps particles as small as 0.3 microns, including pollen, pet dander, mould spores and bacteria. That means fresher air for the whole family, especially on smoky summer days when wildfire smoke drifts into the city.
Fresh air, around the clock. Today’s homes are built tight to save energy, so they need a way to breathe. Each air handling system has its own Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV), which continuously swaps stale indoor air for fresh outdoor air. The clever part is that it transfers the warmth from the outgoing air to the incoming air, so you get fresh air without losing the heat you’ve paid for.
Fresh, clear bathrooms. Every bathroom has its own in-wall exhaust fan with a timer to clear steam and help keep humidity in check.
A healthier home from the ground up. Radon is a naturally occurring gas that can seep up from the ground, and it’s a concern in many parts of Alberta. Under every Alliston basement slab, a 6 mil poly soil gas barrier is integrated into the slab and perimeter, with every penetration sealed with polyurethane sealant. We also include a sub-slab radon mitigation rough-in, capped and labelled in the mechanical room, so if a test ever shows you need more protection, the groundwork is already done.
Comfort that helps you rest:
A comfortable home is a restful home. When every room holds a steady, even temperature, you can relax, focus and sleep without reaching for a blanket or a fan.
Even comfort, room to room. A conventional forced-air system pushes big bursts of air through large ducts, then shuts off. That cycle is why one room can feel stuffy while another feels chilly. Hi-Velocity keeps air mixing steadily through small-diameter flexible ducts, so the temperature stays consistent from the basement to the bedrooms.
Your room, your comfort. Every Hi-Velocity outlet has a built-in damper, so airflow can be adjusted room by room. A wi-fi thermostat on the main floor brings your heating and HRV together in one simple control.
Ready to grow with you. The system is cooling-ready and zoning-ready, so adding air conditioning or separate temperature zones down the road is straightforward.
An envelope built for Alberta. Steady comfort starts with a well-sealed, well-insulated home. Exterior walls are 2×6 framing with R-20 insulation. The attic gets R-50 blown-in insulation, with spray foam sealing every spot where wires and pipes pass into the attic. The main floor rim joists, one of the draftiest spots in any house, are sealed with 2lb spray foam rated R-20, and every floor over the garage or a cantilever gets R-28 spray foam, so those rooms stay as cozy as the rest of the home.
Triple-pane windows throughout. Every window, basement included, is triple-pane, argon-filled and Low-E coated. You’ll notice fewer cold spots near the glass and less frost and condensation in winter.
A calm, quiet home:
Noise affects how relaxed we feel more than most of us realize. These features help keep your home peaceful.
- Quiet air. The Hi-Velocity system’s flexible ducts have a sound-absorbing inner core, so air moves quietly through your home.
- Quiet floors. Our engineered floor system uses a 23/32″ tongue-and-groove OSB subfloor, both glued and screwed down, for fewer squeaks and less bounce over the years.
- Quiet rooms. Three layers of glass do more than hold in heat. They also help soften the sound of traffic and neighbourhood noise.
- Warm LED lighting throughout. Soft, warm light creates a relaxing atmosphere for your evenings, using a fraction of the energy of older bulbs.
Clean, easy living:
A healthy home should also be an easy one to keep clean and care for.
- Quartz countertops with undermount sinks. 3cm quartz in the kitchen and bathrooms is non-porous and easy to wipe down, and undermount sinks leave no rim to catch crumbs and grime.
- Easy-clean floors. Luxury vinyl plank throughout the main floor makes dust and pet hair simple to sweep away.
- A shut-off valve under every sink and behind every toilet, so a quick fix is always within reach.
Peace of mind, built in:
Feeling well at home also means feeling secure. These features work quietly in the background so you can relax.
A dry, welcoming basement. A waterproofing membrane on the outside of the foundation walls keeps moisture where it belongs. Inside, the basement frost walls are insulated to R-20, and every basement window is triple-pane. The result is a lower level that feels like part of the home.
A backwater valve. Installed to the Canadian Plumbing Code, it keeps your basement protected if the city sewer system backs up during a heavy storm.
Your family, alerted together. Combination smoke and carbon monoxide alarms on every level, plus smoke alarms in every bedroom, are all interconnected. If one sounds, they all sound, so you’ll hear a warning from the basement even when you’re asleep upstairs.
A roof made for Alberta weather. Thirty-year architectural shingles go over an ice and water membrane as per plan, for extra protection against ice dams and wind-driven rain.
Room to grow. Large 60″ x 27″ egress-compliant basement windows and a three-piece bathroom rough-in mean your basement is ready for a future bedroom and bathroom when you are.
Well-being for your wallet and the planet:
Hot water whenever you want it. A gas-fired tankless water heater warms water on demand. You’re not paying to keep a tank hot around the clock, it frees up space in your mechanical room, and you can enjoy a relaxing shower every time.
Every drop counts. Elongated, high-efficiency toilets use less water with every flush, which adds up to real savings over a year, for your household and for our rivers.
Our care for the environment goes beyond your four walls. We build in communities planned to be walkable, connected and thoughtful about the land around them. We source locally and use Canadian and renewable materials wherever we can. That supports businesses close to home, and it means fewer materials travelling long distances to reach your build site.
Come feel the difference:
Specs on a page only tell part of the story. The best way to understand an Alliston home is to stand in one. Notice how fresh the air feels, how even the temperature is from room to room, and how quiet it is when the heat comes on.
Visit one of our show homes or talk to a sales representative. We’d love to show you around.
Better spaces. Better living