Your connection to the green home improvement movement in Canada. Free Articles, Green Building Forum, Tools & Resources, News & Events, Green Building Blogs, Do it yourself projects, Definitions, and more.
Last week, in my mailbox appeared a brand new fluorescent lightbulb. Watch your mailbox closely this season - you’ll probably be gifted with one too!
So who’s the secret santa? Meet Project Porchlight - an eco-initiative of non-profit Ottawa organization One Change. Back in 2004, One Change founder Stuart Hickox met inspiration in the following statistic:
‘If every household in Canada replaced a single incandescent lightbulb with a fluorescent, the effect would be equal to removing 66,000 cars from the road.’
That’s the power of simple actions orchestrated en masse. And that’s what Project Porchlight is endeavoring to do.
Care to help? Project Porchlight is recruiting volunteers to deliver ‘power savings’ to mailboxes Canada-wide. Volunteer orientations are happening right now, so if you’d like to take a walk and fight climate change at the same time, join the movement! I just did.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re dreading the moment I unleash my judgement on the parent who irresponsibly allows pollution of their child’s bodies with artery-clogging sweets, over-packaged junk food, and artificially dyed and preserved confections.
Relax, that’s not how I roll. All you’ll hear from me are a few friendly pointers on how to have more fun and less guilt on October 31st. Here goes:
Are you a humble person? So many of us answer ‘yes’, and yet our homes and possessions tell another story. One of the central pillars of personal sustainability and green living is fulfilling needs over wants, and doing so in non-material ways when possible.
Why? Because producing ‘things’ requires energy and resources, not to mention the toll it takes on the environment throughout the ‘thing’s’ production, use, maintenance, storage and disposal. But weeding out those ‘wants disguised as needs’ and finding non-material paths to fulfillment demands a certain amount of honesty, creativity and courage.
Shay Salomon, author of ‘Little House on a Small Planet’ sheds light on the growing small house movement, and how humble dwellings can offer financial relief, greater social contact, clutter-free spaces, more leisure time, and an abundant sense of home and personal fulfillment.
Sound intriguing? Try on Shay’s view via this Peak Moment interview or borrow her book from the library.
The stucco is taking much longer than anticipated, the weather in May and June being so dismal being part of the problem and just the shear amount of work to do on the stucco. We’ve had some great help the past few weekends from great friends and family though and are making headway! We’ve started work on the finish coat this past week and got a good start on the north wall. After troweling it on you sponge it to seal the surface and heal any drying cracks. It turns out looking fantastic and looks just like adobe. (gallery below the fold)
You’ve likely heard of carbon neutral homes and commercial buildings as the next big thing in green building. A carbon neutral building creates no more carbon dioxide than it captures or offsets.
An ambitious village 350 strong has set its sights on the goal of carbon neutrality, and they’re starting simple, from the bottom up gaining voluntary buy-in as they go along!
Following the example of British Ashton Hayes, the community is pulling up its socks not just to be the first carbon neutral village in North America, but to truly do everything in their power to reduce their contribution to climate change. Charles Simon, renowned Canadian architect and champion for green and healthy design has been an instrumental member of the Eden Mills carbon neutral team.
Yet what may be most inspiring about Eden Mills, is that rather than waiting for governments to take the lead or becoming overwhelmed by the challenging carbon neutral target, they have made a public commitment and are getting to work the best way they know how - with common sense projects like:
encouraging biking, public transit use and car pooling
home audits paired with energy conservation initiatives
green power purchases and tree planting
Above all, Eden Mills has committed to an approach that is grassroots, guilt-free, and fun for all those who participate. Perhaps that is why the project has garnered the unanimous and full support of their local mayor and council. There is truly something to be learned from the Eden Mills project about how to welcome people to make positive environmental behaviour changes.
With its priorities to first reduce energy consumption, use renewable energy wherever possible, and, absorb or sequester the carbon that’s left, the Eden Mills project is wisely using the savings from its energy conservation projects to finance more costly upcoming initiatives.
To learn more about the Eden Mills carbon neutral village project, visit their web site or listen to Shelagh Rogers’ October ‘07 interview with Charles Simon on CBC’s Sounds Like Canada.
The numbers are in: 8 million or half of Canada’s adult population participated in Earth Hour. But critics of recent Earth Hour expressed that ‘One hour is not enough!’ Thankfully, the organizers agree, and have partnered with World Wildlife Fund Canada’s The Good Life program to offer tips like this one:
Almost 90 per cent of the energy used to wash clothes goes into heating the water. You can save as much as $100 a year by changing to cold wash and rinse, and about130 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. If every household in Canada switched to cold in their washing machines, about 1.5 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions would be saved. That is the equivalent to taking 250,000 cars off the road for one year! (The Good Life)
Think it’s only a drop in the bucket?? The difference you make becomes truly visible when you join thousands of other Canadians who are also “making simple but significant changes in their lifestyles to help fight climate change and reduce their footprint on the planet.” (The Good Life)
Already living as green as you can? Join anyway to see the measurable results of collective action. The Good Life allows you to register action you’ve taken as far back as a year ago!
I figure it’s time for a status update on the straw bale home. It’s been a slow 3 or 4 months since the snow started back in November, other than the interior walls, the plumbing and electrical rough-ins and a few small items we haven’t done much on the house. A few weeks ago we had the main ventilation shaft and fan installed and will now be able to go ahead with insulating the attic! We ordered the wood for the second story ceiling and the danish oil finish for it.
Two weeks ago we spent the long weekend cleaning my father-in-law’s shop and laying out and pre-finishing the wood for the ceiling. The danish oil was a labour intensive finish for 2400lnft of 1×5 t&g pine but it was fantastic to be able to use this non toxic finish without wearing masks.
We also completed a last few niggling attic chores like vents for the bathroom fan, dryer and fresh air intakes. We’ve also finished 85% of the cedar soffit which looks (and smells) great! As soon as the weather turns, which doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon, we can get back to stuccoing inside and out. Actually, as soon as the attic gets insulated so we can control the temperature in the house we could start doing some stucco inside as well.
This past weekend we finished vapour barrier and started installing the the prefinished pine ceiling panelling. It looks great and is a breeze to install with my father-in-law’s compressor and air nailer. Still my shoulders are a little stiff from having my arms above my head for two full days. By this weekend we hope to have the ceiling paneled and ready for blown-in insulation. (photos to follow)
It took all weekend, a load of creativity and much grunting on all fours, but we now have a floor! The sense of accomplishment and satisfaction is fantastic I think because things really look like they’re coming together.
On top of that, our appliance store referred a new installer to us who has, as of yesterday, installed all our kick-plates! Not only did he show up, but he had all his tools ready and spent the entire day completing the niggly detail work that we are more than happy to hand off.
This is in contrast to another installer who repeatedly would not return our calls nor show up when promised. That’s what has been happening for the past 3-4 weeks. So after those ongoing letdowns, it is so refreshing to post on a positive note!
So, in total, Chris and I installed the hardwood together for about 4 hours. He continued on his own for another 2, then the next day it was me on my own for 3, then my parents helped me out for another 2. That makes for 19 person-hours, not including trips to the hardware store for rental equipment pick-ups and exchanges (the hose they gave us did not fit the fitting on the compressor).
Why did it take us so long? The hardwood I salvaged nearly a year ago and unbeknownst to me, was dirty both on the tongue and in the groove (dirt and sticky sap) and anything but uniform. The boards themselves seemed to come in small, medium and large, which means they didn’t line up well. Also, some tongues were thicker and higher set than others.
Needless to say, I now know how to scrutinize hardwood based on how well it will
install! And, once we’ve sanded it down a fair bit and the finishing coats are applied, we will have one gorgeous distressed floor. Hooray!
We have a bad habit in North America of not planning for the future. In our built environment, one way in which this habit manifests itself is disposable buildings. Tearing down a building after 30 years, a practice that would shock most Europeans, is completely normal here. We need to change this mindset.
My wife and I will probably build only one house in our lifetimes. We love Edmonton and the Mill Creek neighborhood, so we want to stay here for the foreseeable future. Since our circumstances will certainly change during the next 50 or so odd years, we’re building a flex house.
The first floor of the Mill Creek NetZero Home (MCNZH) has a wheelchair-accessible bathroom in it. This is largely because my mom needs it, but it’s also making this house flexible for us in case we’re not walking on two legs our entire lives. Hey, it happens. We also have a den on the first floor which is convertible to a bedroom in the future if we need to transition to one floor living.
We’re also building our retirement condo into this house. The side entrance can be framed out to create a separate suite out of the second floor and loft. When we need to downsize, we can split up the house and fund our retirement with rental income (if zoning bylaws allow, of course). To this end, we’re running electrical and plumbing upstairs for a future kitchen and washing machine.
MCNZH, Second Floor
The cheapest time to do renovations is when you’re initially building a house. It costs very little to run conduit and electrical wire for a second-floor stove before drywalling, etc. has been completed.
Building for durability (longterm usefulness) and flexibility is making the most of your resources, and that makes it a green way to go. With a bit of forethought, we hope that the MCNZH will remain useful to us for decades to come.
This is 84th Avenue. The street on the left is 99th street. The green arrow is pointing at the future location (tearing down in May) of the Mill Creek NetZero Home.
I have been learning about ecohouses for years now. One thing you discover early is that a great deal of them are built in the country. The people who value energy efficiency and green building often have an affinity for a more natural setting than a city like Edmonton provides.
The thing is, most often these people work elsewhere. In fact, I’ve never heard of a green home in the country that was within walking distance to any jobs (I guess it could exist on a farm).
So you build green, but you commute two hours a day in your dinosaur burner?
Walkable
So I concluded early on that a true ecohouse needs to be in a location that allows for the jettisonning of the car from one’s life.
Enter the Mill Creek NetZero Home (MCNZH). It will be in the community informally referred to as Mill Creek (it’s actually in Old Strathcona, north of Whyte and East of 99th). And Mill Creek is the most walkable neighborhood in Edmonton.
Off the top of my head, I can count 20 restaurants and six cafes with walking distance of the MCNZH. Two grocery stores, a Crystal Glass, the best movie rental store in the city, a few barber shops, the best bread bakery in the city, and most every festival worth attending are all within distance of the humble foot. Never mind the amazing bus service and the access to the River Valley.
My family of four can and does live comfortably without a car in this neighborhood. And our quality of life is way higher than that of the mobs of minivan owners who flock to my part of town to bring their kids to all the great festivals that their sprawl-burbs don’t have. If your neighborhood is worth living in, why are you constantly driving to (and through) and talking about mine?
Where you live is the most important factor in how green (and how happy) your life is. This NetZero home starts with its location.
Loading ...
Choose green for your next reno project.
