#7-2025 Nicole Tysvaer (Tis-vare) and the Queen of Zero in new homes and renovations.

March 31, 2025

Thank you to Nicole Tysvaer Founder and CEO of Symbi Homes for being on the BUILDCast. Symbi Homes is a sustainable construction firm reinventing home building with an emphasis on wellness, energy-efficiency and technology. Symbi short for Symbiosis immediately got my thinking about building science, systems thinking, and the synergistic interactions that take place in construction of high performance homes. Symbi Homes has decided to follow the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program specifications to guide their path to high performance building. Uniquely they have also chosen to apply these high-performance specifications to a Queen Ann Victorian complex form as well as in their current remodel and addition current project. To me this beautifully demonstrates that homes of all shapes and sizes can pursue high performance building when project goals are clearly defined from the start.

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Nicole Tysvaer on ⁠LinkedIn⁠

⁠Symbi Homes⁠

⁠DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Program

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Our expectations of the performance of houses has changes faster than how we build to achieve that performance. So, at the beginning of a conversation in the construction industry, when I hear, “I have been building for 30 year” I think to myself, there are only two outcomes from this conversation. First, the person is putting up a guard and will not be receptive to an applied building science approach. You know, houses have to breath or your telling me to tighten up the house and then pouch a hole in it for ventilation. On the other hand, the person may have amazing insights and experiences to share.

When I step back, I realize that I’ve almost been working in this industry for 30 years. With an emphasis on sustainable High-performance building I still struggle to integrate what I do into mainstream building, yet I tend to learn something new everyday that takes me one step closer. Having these difficult yet enlightening conversation is often were I learn the most.

At BuildTank, our mission is to use what we learn by applying building science in the field to affect meaningful change in the construction industry. This BUILDcast is the next step. By having broad conversations with the players in the industry we will learn something new from their story that will move us forward toward taking sustainable buildings to mainstream building.