SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - You know those people who delight in sniffing a new book for the pungent chemical smell contained between the pages? Dwayne Wohlgemuth is not one of those people.

Son and father construction team Dwayne and Herb Wohlgemuth stand in front of the home they're building at the corner of 49 Avenue and 45 Street. The house will be the first one north of 60 to be accredited with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes program. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Together with his father, Herb, Wohlgemuth is building the first house north of 60 to be accredited with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

Known in short as LEED Canada for Homes, the program aims to reduce the energy footprint of buildings through a variety of means, including building with as few products containing little or no air contaminants.

"We've taken steps to reduce the amount of glues and formaldehydes in our home," said Wohlgemuth. "For example, OSB – oriented strand boards – have a lot of formaldehyde in them. People will use that kind of product often now for floor sheeting ... and that gives off formaldehyde, which is now in your living space. We've actually done a floor that's just solid wood.

"It won't smell like a new house when you walk in; it will just smell like it does outside ... like home."

When designing the future home for himself and his fiancée, Mary Kelly, Wohlgemuth put energy efficiency before anything else, choosing to heat the house with a wood pellet stove and purchasing a heat recovery ventilation unit with a rebate from the Arctic Energy Alliance.

"We didn't want just a typical house," he said. "We wanted a small house that is energy efficient and has good air quality and one that is durable and going to last a long time."

The house, perched at the corner of 49 Avenue and 45 Street, will boast an EnerGuide for Houses (EGH) rating above the 80 rating stipulated by the city of Yellowknife's recently amended building code.

"Basically the higher the number on the rating, the more energy efficient it is," said Wohlgemuth. "Our aim is to have EGH 85, which will be a 25 per cent decrease in energy use over the new Yellowknife energy standards."

The house will consist of three floors: a master and guest bedroom – plus a five foot high cellar – on the first floor; a living room, bathroom and kitchen on the second; and a greenhouse on the top floor.

"We're basically trying to produce as much of our own food as we can while being in a city environment," said Wohlgemuth, who added that he and his fiancee practice "flexatarianism" – a semi-vegetarian diet focusing on vegetables with occasional consumption.

"With a greenhouse and a cellar, we should be able to produce a lot of our own food that doesn't require shipping in."

Wohlgemuth took very little vacation time from his job at the Department of Public Works and Services last year, saving up as much time as he could to work on his home this summer.

"I was able to use all my annual from last year and then take another seven weeks of unpaid leave," he said.

He wasn't the only one to take time off.

Herb, a licenced gas fitter, mechanic and commercial truck inspector, travelled from his home in Crooked Creek, Alberta to help with the project and, as he explained it, "because (Dwayne) needed to have a better place to live."

"I was actually living in a shack in the woodyard (behind Ragged Ass Road)," admitted Wohlgemuth.

Of his son's new home, Herb said, "It's different because he designed a house without having ever built one or been involved in the construction of a home.

"We've had some little differences; we changed a few things that he had different in his plants. For instance, we dropped the windows down. They were right to the top of the wall; they would have been way too high."

Despite their separate tastes, father and son have bonded over the course of the project, said Wohlgemuth.

"The components that I was less familiar with, the plumbing and the gas fitting, I hadn't really done a lot of, so I'm learning a lot from him," said Wohlgemuth.

The pair plans to have most of the exterior completed by the middle of September, with Wohlgemuth and Kelly moving in later this fall.