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:

Read the rest of this entry »

Since my last post, Chris and I enjoyed a fabulous fall break to Europe. Don’t get all jealous on me now, I’ll have you know that the weather was way nicer in Edmonton than anywhere we were. And, on the one really nice day we had in Rome, we couldn’t even wear shorts because we went to the Vatican! No bare limbs allowed. For real.

Plus, it was England’s wettest summer in 90 years! Anyway, we had a great time, visited with family, and saw some amazing historical architecture. Back to the house.

Here’s a video of us installing, sanding, and staining our reclaimed kitchen flooring. I think you’ll like it. I had way too much fun playing with a couple new video editing features.

We still have yet to put the final finishing coats on - 3 coats so far. If we had used harder wood, I might have considered wax. In any case, the products we used were:

• Osmo One Coat Only HS Plus Stain, Oak Colour - It comes in a 375 ml can. We were worried it wouldn’t be enough to cover our area, but it was (by about 3 tablespoons).

• AFM Safecoat Low Odor Polyureseal BP Gloss Finish - This stuff is low VOC, formaldehyde-free, and water based. We chose this to achieve a hard, durable finish to compensate for the fact that fir is so soft.

We like the stain a lot. If you use it, my only tip would be to stir the can often and well to ensure that your stain colour stays consistent during the whole application process. As for the finishing coat, we’re not quite done yet. We’ll fill you in once we are.

We’re almost caught up! Happy Halloween

Want to be inspired? Check out what Steve and JD accomplished two years ago as they deconstructed and rebuilt their US home in the greenest way possible. Here’s just a sampling of their home’s ecofeatures. The couple:

• spared materials from the dump by reusing them in the final product

• reused much of the core and shell of the original building

• purchased Forest Stewardship Council certified wood

• insulated using soy-based spray foam insulation

• installed recycled content products

• incorporated solar electric and solar water heating technology

• …I’ll leave a few surprises so you can enjoy the videos

The videos themselves are really well done, so enjoy!

Where does rubber come from anyway?
Unlike money, rubber actually does grow on trees. That is, naturally occurring latex does. Natural rubber or latex begins its lifecycle when the Para rubber tree is tapped for sap, not unlike how our Quebequois friends bring us maple syrup.

Yet, the majority of rubber products you and I are familiar with are made not from natural latex, but from synthetic rubber. Synthetic rubber is derived from petroleum and other minerals, and is made into tires, gaskets, seals, moldings, carpet backing, bouncing balls, hoses, and wet suits for starters. (IISRP)

But, according to the Minnesota Building Materials Database, synthetic rubber has a high embodied energy. Embodied energy is a measure of the total energy required for sourcing or extracting raw material, material processing, manufacture and even transportation to the end material’s point of use. In a nutshell, look for materials with a lower embodied energy when possible.

What About Recycled Rubber?
Logically, when you cut out the raw material extraction phase of a product’s lifecycle, the energy savings are fantastic: recycling rubber rather than producing it from scratch can yield a 70% energy savings (Mumma, 1995)! While it’s true that collecting, processing, and remanufacturing recyclable materials takes a massive amount of energy, it’s safe to say that the benefits and savings are worthwhile.

Still, no matter how hard you try you can’t deny the fact that a recycled product retains many of the characteristics from its raw ‘material of origin’. In other words, this recycled content apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Amerongen is fond of saying “concrete is one of the most energy intensive things we do”. Or something to that effect. By “we”, he means humanity, and he’s right:

Cement is the principal ingredient in concrete[, and] cement manufacturing accounts for approximately 7% to 8% of CO2 globally, and approximately 1.8% of CO2 emissions in Canada” (source).

The concrete used in the Millcreek NetZero Home (MCNZH) will be composed of about 50% fly ash (a waste material from coal-fired power plants) to minimize the use of cement. We’re still using too much concrete, but since my family is spending its life savings on this house, we weren’t willing to experiment when deciding how to add mass to the home to store solar heat.

Still, reducing our use of concrete is a priority, and were doing it in a couple of ways:

• We’re not building a garage. Since we’re car free, and since our building site already has a (very old) garage on it, we decided to not build a new one in order to save materials, energy, and money.
• We’re seeking non-concrete options for sidewalks, pathways, and other landscaping.
• We’re reusing concrete blocks and the broken up sidewalks that will result from the demolition of the existing home to build paths and sidewalks.

Old sidewalk blocks have been removed and stored so they don’t get broken during demolition and excavation

The old garage on the site - we like it and we’re keeping it!

The greening of concrete is an area that needs desperate attention - it’s a brilliant building material that is used in almost every building we put up. However, it’s an environmental nightmare. That’s why concrete houses are not at all green (contrary to claims made by the likes of Con Boland), and we should strive to reduce its use as much as possible.

In our next house (ha ha), maybe we’ll figure out a better way to store solar heat than in concrete floors. There’s a guy who’s building in the Garneau neighbourhood who’s storing it in pop bottles filled with water. Now that’s a benign source of solar mass.

In the meantime, we’ll do our best to minimize our use, even if it just means reusing old concrete blocks and not tearing down the second building on our building site.