Luc and Cheryl Gobeil exude an air of simplicity and normalcy as we tour the new off-grid home in St. Paul County, Alberta, that Luc designed and built for them over three summers. To design and build a house is an amazing feat for someone without a builder’s background, but to be responsible for the eye-catching 3200 square foot, built to last three centuries home we now sit in is nothing short of extraordinary. Still, the couple maintains that with extensive planning and research, building a green home just like the one at Sun Forged Acres is achievable for any green-enthused John or Jane Doe. I am left with a secret inner smile- there is hope for the lot of us!

“Why the fixation on such a long lifetime for the building?” I ask. Luc and Cheryl inform me that as original occupants of this home, they have the ability and therefore the responsibility to reduce the amount of waste it generates and to use the Earth’s resources wisely. Essentially, in nearly four generations, most of the home’s components will require far fewer replacements compared with a typical home. Luc and Cheryl will also be able to answer to their grandchildren when asked if they did their part to address current air pollution, climate change, and water scarcity challenges.

Not only is the environment protected by the lighter impact of this house, but the building and occupants themselves can rest easy knowing that important safety measures keep danger at bay. With measures including the heavily fortified walls between the batteries in the utility room and living spaces, stone and steel stairways, a non-toxic fire-proof finish on the ceiling, and even a sprinkler system that will saturate the ground within sixty feet of the house when threatened by forest fires, the home feels pretty comforting.

To account for the size of the house, Luc reasons that when fuel prices become unaffordable, the off-grid home will open its doors to give three generations of family members a comfortable and secure lifestyle. My attention is also drawn to the wide doorways and lack of steps leading into the house that make for a barrier-free main floor in case a wheelchair is required later in their lives.

Quick Facts

Timeline	Built over 15 months working time during the summers of Spring 2003 - Spring 2006
Amount of work hired out	15%
Professionals Hired	Structural Engineer Backhoe Operator Finishing Carpenter Tile Layer
Designer	Luc Gobeil
Construction Cost*	$275,000
Interior Square Footage	3200
Cost per Square Foot	$72
Eco-features	Off-grid Passive solar Wind power Solar electric Solar water heating Post and Beam with straw bale infill insulation Efficient design Rainwater harvesting Grey water recycling & aquaculture Black water composting Organic orchard, gardens, greenhouses, and broiler chickens

*Includes heating and power systems

It’s a far cry from the tent Luc and Cheryl lived in during the building phase of the house. “After the bear tore the top off the tent, I said to myself we’d better get something more permanent here.” This close encounter and a later worrisome episode with a cougar in the dead of night prompted the quick completion of the garage for temporary living quarters. Now safely living in the home, the couple can relax and enjoy the untamed wilderness that surrounds them and shelters the likes of moose, deer, weasels, frogs, and birds galore. Still, it has become habit to count the cables on the wind turbine every morning due to two previous moose uprootings. And in the winter, firecrackers are kept on hand to shoo them away from cozying up to the boiler.

The first summer that the Gobeil’s acquired the land, they camped in different locations and explored its contours to get a sense of the place, and to come to know their new home. The final decision on the building site was made one afternoon, Luc remembers, when the land revealed the sunny spot where the house now stands.

Full of beauty and resources, the land was also chosen for its abundant tree population. With the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, growing carbon credit markets will boost the value of forests such as the one at Sun Forged Acres. With a current market price of about $38 per tonne, and the carbon consumption of each tree on the 320 acre property at one tonne annually, the Gobeil’s carefully managed forest is a true living asset. In addition to the trees, the family is grateful for the land’s other offerings, including heaps of stones to be incorporated in the building’s façade and landscape, and soils that have yielded them about 600 pounds of tomatoes this year.

Life on the Inside
Someone unfamiliar with how attractive green homes can be might picture this house a cramped and austere living environment, lacking in all things fine and beautiful. But the home I see today is very beautiful indeed. Heaps of natural light from a full wall of ten foot windows illuminate the thoughtful details and character of the open living and dining room. The home also offers an enchanting view of the landscape with an up close lens to spy on resident hummingbirds.

The twelve tonne stone-faced masonry fireplace-oven commands more than a fleeting glance of admiration, standing on call next to a stunning cork-floored kitchen. Local poplar supplied by a neighbouring Saskatchewan sawmill is the wood of choice for the upper ceiling. Solid doors installed with four industrial hinges a piece will ensure entrances are inviting for generations. But, the deeper sustainability of this house lies beyond its physical beauty. Luc proceeds to enlighten me on the inner workings of the dynamic systems that make this place function.

Lower Energy Needs + Lower Costs = More Conservation
Of utmost importance when designing an off-grid home, Luc tells me, is efficiency. This is why he incorporated straw bales as infill insulation in the post and beam home . With such effective insulation material and window shutters, the passive solar heat from the expansive reach of salvaged South-facing windows, lingers longer in the house. Concrete pavers that adorn the main floor and absorb the solar heat slowly radiate that warmth within the home until the next sunrise.

It also helps that the home was designed without a full basement, and that the flooring rests upon extra layers of sand that also collect heat that travels through ducts nestled between the layers. These materials function as thermal mass , a bank for heat storage. Together they add up to fifty-five tonnes of thermal mass contained in the house. In turn, less heat is required from the couple’s boiler-fuelled in-floor heating system.

Every little detail in this place smacks of careful foresight and planning, and when Luc speaks I can literally hear the research in his voice. For instance, the front entry vestibule prevents massive heat loss in the winter each time the front door opens. Luc tells a visiting neighbour and I, “you’ll notice that we have seven and a half foot ceilings rather than eight or nine” to prevent the energy waste of heating unused space. But, the lower ceiling height is imperceptible even after I’m told.

The heating system’s cash flow requirement is enviable, boasting a miserly monthly cost of nil except in the months of January through March when just under $20 per month in diesel is needed to cart firewood from the property’s parkland forest. I am surprised to hear that last year, with the boiler and the masonry fireplace-oven together, the Gobeil’s went through seventeen cords of wood! The decision to incorporate the boiler was made because typical mortgage companies will not finance a home unless it has a conventional heating system. Luckily, because of the size of the boiler, logs need only be cut every four feet - a saving grace considering Luc cuts them by hand with a Swede saw.

All in all, the boiler-run in-floor heating meets 40% of the home’s heating needs, with passive solar heat covering the remaining 60%. Sixty percent! I’m floored by this number. Just imagine for a moment, the potential energy savings if all homes in Canada were designed to take advantage of the maximum available passive solar heat.

To Cheryl’s disappointment, they’ve never really needed to use the majestic masonry oven , originally meant to provide back-up heat. The oven offers 24 hours of slow even heat from burning 20-50 pounds of wood, efficiently carrying out a secondary burn of initial gasses created. The fires heat up the oven walls, the exposed metal chimney, and quite soon after, the house itself.

Kilo-what?
‘Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency,’ is also the mantra for designing an off-grid electrical system in a home. To save power in the kitchen, the couple combines super efficient appliances with an insulated and naturally-cooled pantry on an outside wall. The pantry is cooled with a PVC pipe that draws cool outside air into the space, and is adjusted with a simple valve. This is in addition to the two basement cold rooms and ultra-efficient fridge. Their sleek stainless steel RF16 Sun Frost refrigerator keeps perishables far longer than a conventional fridge with a fraction of the power. “It keeps my celery, mushrooms and peppers looking flawless for three to four weeks,” shares Cheryl.

Logically, Sun Frost designs its units with the compressors placed above the appliance rather than below. In effect, warm air from the hottest component is prevented from heating up the rest of the fridge simply due to its placement. To give you an idea, fridges of comparable size listed as most efficient in the Canadian Energuide Appliance Directory consume between 387 and 450 Kilowatt hours per year (KWh). The RF16 Sun Frost refrigerator runs on a mere 216 KWh per year average. In the laundry room, a Staber washing machine saves the family 50% of the water, 70% of the power, and 90% of the detergent consumed by an average machine. Clothes are then dried naturally on the line. As for the rest of the home, standby power or phantom power from televisions, chargers, and stereo equipment is eliminated, so that their valuable electricity is directed only to useful outlets.

You may be wondering about the affordability of these super-efficient appliances, and for good reason. The fridge and freezer together cost the couple $5000 in 2002, with the total cost including other appliances reaching $15000. For a grid-fed homeowner looking to do energy efficiency upgrades, the numbers may be beyond reach, but for an off-grid family, the decision is a no-brainer.

For an off-gridder, the expensive yet efficient choice allows an even greater savings when the alternative requires an investment in additional costly renewable energy equipment. In this way, Luc and Cheryl were able to save on a renewable power system to accommodate their trimmed-down power needs. They even had the option of connecting to grid from the south or north for about $22,000. With the entire renewable power system ringing in at $24000, the decision was as good as made. Of course, cost is just one factor, and the environmental benefit to choosing efficiency is important. Review the example below to see how efficiency gains can cut costs in photovoltaic (PV) equipment. Note that all figures are in Canadian dollars.

Model	Energy Use	Initial Cost	PV Panels	Cost of PV	Total
Sun Frost RF16	.38 Kwh/day	$3742 **	1	$1295	$5037
Standard new fridge	1.5 Kwh/day	$1060	3.8	$4921	$5981

**Includes cost of fridge, plus an estimated $800 in shipping and taxes. Price has been converted to Canadian dollars.

In designing the home’s renewable energy system, Luc calculated their power needs at 2.8 Kilowatt hours per day, the amount the system can generate on the shortest day of the year, December 21st. The system produces and stores enough power to allow life at the house to carry on as usual for five sunless and windless days. A solar tracker that adjusts the position of the array to follow the sun captures an additional 30% power.

On top of that, a multi-power point tracking device captures excess voltage produced and ensures that the ideal amount enters the batteries, representing another 30% gain in efficiency. At $600-700 for the device and $1200 for additional PV modules, it doesn’t take long to connect the dots and pay for the device in efficiency gains. In ideal yet rare conditions, the eight 185 watt photovoltaic modules and the 1000 Watt wind turbine, combine to generate a total of possible 16-28 kilowatt hours per day in the summer, and 4-6.27 kilowatt hours per day in the winter.

As I peer in at the batteries, Luc jokes that at 415 pounds a piece, “if you can lift them, you can have them!” The couple monitors their energy production and storage daily in a technology-packed utility and laundry room that looks like it could double as an air-traffic controlling station. Even the speed of the wind turbine is controlled here to prevent damage to the system.

Without flinching, Luc assures me that when systems are running optimally, all it takes is one 15 minute check twice per day to monitor power production, batteries, water heat, water levels, and pressure. It’s all part of the usual routine at Sun-forged Acres that also includes turning off lights in an empty room, opening and closing the shutters with sun and temperature cycles, and making use of natural light whenever possible.

And, there is no shortage of natural light. The home’s windows are large, plentiful, and creatively placed. Even tiny high-hung windows share light from bright open spaces with neighbouring hallways and shadowy corners. A solar tube installed in the main floor bathroom lends additional power-free lighting to the space.

Not A Drop Wasted
The most impressive eco-feature at Sun-forged Acres may well be the water system. Not only does the house collect and treat its own rain water, but it filters and reuses grey water all of three times. After the rain streams down the green steel roof, it drains into a 23,000 gallon concrete cistern located beneath the home’s solarium. It then passes through a sand filter where any solids are removed and enters a 40 gallon stainless steel holding tank. The Gobeil’s shock the system once each Spring with chlorine as part of a treatment process later to involve exposure to ultraviolet light.

From there, the water rushes to the tap for showers, washing, and yes drinking. I taste the fresh result of this system and can attest to its success. I am later informed that annual results from tests at the Provincial Laboratory for Public Health confirm the water to be of excellent quality. The grey water from these drains then flows through a nylon filter and a repurposed tractor air filter into the purification system in the solarium - a bright open space with tall ceilings where Luc and Cheryl aspire to grow a citrus tree someday.

1400 pounds of crushed milk jugs mimic nature’s filtration and aeration process as the grey water flows through the solarium circuit where a small pump adds oxygen to the mix. Roots from plants growing above the jugs reach down to scrounge excess nutrients and moisture before the water arrives at its third and final destination - the family’s orchard, garden and two greenhouses. A second 1500 gallon cistern under the garage greenhouse collects additional rain for irrigation.

All of this rainwater harvesting , conservation and recycling makes it possible for the Gobeil’s to satisfy more than their household water needs even if it doesn’t rain for another two years. Luc and Cheryl set an example in water conservation that we all should follow in a country where water use has ballooned over 25% since 1980. Sadly, Canada ranks second place to the United States among OECD countries for highest water consumption per capita. I sheepishly underline my existing mental note to replace both thirsty toilets at home.

Water is heated with three systems, or rather two at a time. Solar evacuated tube collectors mounted on the South exterior wall of the home pre-heat the water year round. If the water is hot enough, it bypasses the other two systems and gets consumed. But in the winter when there’s not quite enough heat to warm the water, the boiler tops up the temperature as needed. Between the Spring months and early fall when the boiler lays dormant, a propane-fuelled tankless water heater does the topping up. But overall, 70% of the energy needed for water heating comes from the solar evacuated tube collectors, so very little additional energy is required of the boiler and water tank.

When I marvel at the creative design and execution of this system, Luc again humbly deflects all praise, citing inspiration from nature’s example. Also installed in the Autonomous & Sustainable Housing demonstration house (ASH) in Calgary, these systems are common in all Earth ships , Luc tells me. In an existing mature home, I won’t be able to compost my black water as they do here, but I do have my eye on a couple of ultra low-flow toilets.

Fields to Feast the Eyes On
After an offering of fresh feta and dried tomato bread with wholesome vegetable soup and cookies, we carry on to explore where most of this tasty food came from. The Gobeil’s maintain two greenhouses, the smaller of which is attached to their garage workshop. Inside its semi-circular planters, several flourishing tomato plants are loaded with yellow and red fruits that turn out to be just as sweet as they look.

The outside 400 square foot greenhouse fills the pantry, cold room and refrigerator with food nine months of the year thanks to underground heating tubes from the boiler and four feet of insulation below the soil - further signs of Luc’s careful foresight. This makes the greenhouse fit for growing two months longer on either end of the local growing season. And, that’s only about 108 days long in these parts. One harvest has already been enjoyed from this greenhouse with another on the way. Luc slices up a fresh okra pod for me to sample and I’m instantly smitten. Why anyone ever cooks okra is beyond me - the raw version is far more delectable.

Eagerly growing at my feet are radishes, spinach, onions, beets, lettuce, and swiss chard. The nearly 2500 square feet of outdoor growing space adds a bounty of fruits and vegetables to the Gobeil’s diet including apples, blueberries, pears, apricots, leeks, garlic, carrots, cucumber, potatoes, and tomatoes. And those are just the highlights! In many cases, Luc and Cheryl are growing many varieties of the same vegetable. Come winter, the couple supplements their canned, frozen and dried stores with fresh sprouts.

Verging on self-sufficiency, the Gobeil’s produce the majority of their food, including a flock of 75 broiler chickens. Keeping a third of them for meat, the others are sold

along with tomato plants in the Spring for extra income. They save their seed for next year’s crops and share much of what they harvest with neighbours, to my good fortune even visitors.

Cheryl and Luc plan to take their food production to even greater heights by incorporating a flock of laying hens and planting a forest garden. A forest garden is a self-renewing ecosystem with seven different layers of edible plants: the canopy, smaller trees, shrubs, herbs, ground cover, roots, and vines. I look forward to returning in ten years to see the forest garden in action.

From the sloped gardens I pan the silently whirring wind turbine, the accompanying photovoltaic array , a storage shelter filled to the brim with split firewood, and the not yet ignited boiler. Parked just in front of the array is the couple’s silver Toyota Prius hybrid. Sheba the dog and Bailey the tabby cheerfully roam the grounds in search of adventure, or perhaps a snack to nibble on.

It’s an encouraging hopeful scene that leaves me grateful for Canadians like the Gobeil’s who are paving the way for the rest of us aspiring green and off-grid home owners. This is the first home of its kind in Alberta, and it’s one we can all learn so much from -each feature representing an entire voyage of discovery. For your own green home, Luc stresses the tenet of “plan, plan, plan, then execute”. Carefully considering each design decision and questioning assumptions in light of your energy, material, and toxicity criteria can make your final structure as exceptional as this one, and your building process straightforward. If you follow Luc’s advice and example, you can end up with your own sustainable gem of a home.

The Gobeil’s send me off, but not without a five pound bag of earthy potatoes, beets, and radishes. I am grateful to have met Cheryl and Luc, and I look forward to a not very distant tomorrow when all homes are designed with nature in mind and efficiency at heart. In the words of Luc Gobeil, “this is just common sense.”

© Raisingspaces.com 2007

Resources:

RF16 Refrigerator
Sun Frost California
http://www.sunfrost.com/

Staber Washing Machine
Staber Industries Peace River
http://www.staber.com

Photovoltaic Module
Sharp Corporation Japan
http://www.northatlanticsolar.com/

Inverter-charger
Xantrex Burnaby, BC
http://www.xantrex.com/

Panel Tracker
Northern Light Energy Systems Ontario
http://www.northernlightsenergy.com/

Batteries
Deka Pennsylvania
http://www.dekabatteries.com
http://www.theresourcestore.ca/
http://www.etisolar.ca/

Wind Turbine
Bergey Wind Power Oklahoma

http://www.bergey.com/

Masonry Oven
Masonry Stove Builders Quebec
http://heatkit.com/

Euroline Windows
Euroline Edmonton, AB / Germany
http://www.euroline-windows.com/

G842SC+ Dishwasher
Miele Germany
Trail Appliances
http://www.trailappliances.com/

Tankless Water Heater
Tagaki TK Junior Alberta
Bartle & Gibson Plumbing
http://www.bartlegibson.com/

DC Pump
Dankoff Solar Products (Conergy) Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.conergy.us/desktopdefault.aspx

Flowjet Water Pump
ITT Industries Ontario ITT Fluid Products Canada
http://www.ittfpc.ca/

Tubular Skylight
Menzies Metal Products Surrey BC
http://www.menzies-metal.com/

Evacuated Solar Tubes
Thermomax (Solarmax) Victoria BC Thermomax
http://www.thermomax.com/

Sand Filter
Davnor Calgary AB
Davnor Water Shop
(403) 219-3363 or 219-3373Maximum Power-point tracking unit
Outback USA Various:
http://enviroharvest.ca/outback_controller.htm
http://www.solarsolutions.ca/
http://www.theresourcestore.ca/

No-burn fire coating
No-burn Edmonton, AB
http://www.noburn.com/

*The sources listed above are not necessarily the exclusive sources of products and equipment.

Recommended Reading

The Independent House by Michael Potts
Home Power Magazine http://www.homepower.com/
Countryside http://www.countrysidemag.com/
Resource on forest gardening http://www.thebfg.org.uk/home.htm

Are you also living in a green home or an off-grid house in Canada? Share your knowledge and experience in a Raisingspaces.com home feature!

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