Raising the temperature (of our home not our planet)
April 2007 Eco-Sense Update

Hey, drop the size of your supply line and stick an element in it; then raise your R value! Sounds a little rude, but this month has witnessed us with an element of uncertainty about how we conserve water, choose the best backup system to heat the water for the hydronic heat and domestic use, and stay well insulated. We put a few people on the hot seat, did some research and joined a local Bio-diesel co-op. NOW we are plumb(ed) hot!

A refresher on our heating system; we are relying on solar thermal collectors to provide the primary heat for the house. The fluid in the system travels through a closed loop, where in it’s travels, it passes by the evacuated tubes, through a small pump and on to our main 120 Gal storage tank. There at the bottom of the tank, it travels through a coil, and transfers its heat to the tank. At the top of the tank there is another coil; this coil pulls heat from the tank so it can circulate hot water through our floors. All very simple.

Code requires we have a backup source of heat, just in case it is unreasonably cold and dark for 3 months, which is unlikely on the coast, right? If we had electric heat, a backup wouldn’t be needed as the power never goes out here for more than two weeks at a time. This is where our education begins to heat up. At first we thought of having two woodstoves on either side of the house, and incorporate water jackets into them. Illegal. Despite that water jackets are sold, and systems with water jackets are built in Victoria for the Ontario market, our code does not allow it. We learned quickly that wood stoves with water jackets burn cooler (thus dirtier), have a relatively low efficiency, use tremendous amounts of embodied energy in the chimneys, extra pipes and the stoves themselves, and create Green House Gasses (GHG’s). Four strikes; its out.

The next option was to gunnysack the stoves for one high efficiency wood boiler, 85% efficient, burns at 2000 degrees F, and has exit gas at chimney of 300 degrees. One benefit is one chimney. The main disadvantage was Ann was going to make Gord move the 2500 lb monster, chop and stack all the wood, and being over 38 years old… The price tag would come in at near $10,000 for this backup. Yikes! The other downside presents itself in the face of whether it is truly sustainable.

Wood is generally considered sustainable, you cut it and it re-grows, and all the carbon cycles within the wood, right? The wood to feed the stove would have been derived mostly from branches and blow-downs on the property, and in some ways this is sustainable. But what about all the fungi, bugs, birds, etc. that depended upon this rotting wood? Burning of this wood still creates GHG’s, as would the decay of these materials on the ground. So the question arises, can we equally label burning wood and rotting wood as sustainable? In the decay process carbon is released, but is done so at a slower rate right on the ground where primarily fungus break it down. This natural decomposition of the wood actually allows the surrounding habitat to take in the CO2 more completely. Burning wood places it higher into the air and more quickly, (further away from the sources of absorption). Nature’s systems are a web with everything connected and viewing systems in overly simplified isolation is probably our greatest flaw.

Morals suck! We then decided to look at an alternative, an electric element. We could use this $10,000 to finance 6 more solar panels; idea being that we transfer our excess electricity onto the grid all summer, so pull from the grid in the winter to heat a backup element in the tank. Feasible no, moral no. First off the 6 panels would not generate the excess power over the summer to compensate for so much heat in the winter. Secondly, what would happen if the grid went down again for a week or two? Lots more snuggling going on! More importantly, despite being net zero, we would still be drawing power off the BC Hydro grid at the times when there is peak demand. Since BC Hydro sizes its capacity based on peak demand, we would only be adding to the supply problem of BC Hydro building more infrastructure. Hmmm! What next?

Well, what if we decided to purchase a bio-diesel generator for a fraction of the cost. Sounds like a great solution as the bio-diesel is locally made from waste cooking oils, some methanol and some lye. The generator is cooled by way of a water loop which we could plumb into another coil the hot water tank, while at the same time use the electricity to heat an electric element. Let’s get real; there is a cascading inefficiency of converting chemical energy into mechanical energy into electric energy, then back into heat energy. Not to mention all the sound energy! At each step there is energy loss.

Now what! As usual Kevin Pegg from Energy Alternatives was reading our minds, rapped our knuckles and said that it would be more efficient to use a bio-diesel hot water heater. Wow, what a solution, a concept that has been around in the boating industry for years. This small relatively inexpensive 72 lb bio-diesel hot water heater produces 55,000 btu/hr from one liter of fuel. Problem solved.

Part of the reading program this month was a brilliant book. Full of pictures and words, and good information, with a real important message. The message was “This is how you plumb your house in BC”. The new BC Building code 2006, Section 7, Plumbing Services should be the next book sponsored on Canada Reads. I wanted to learn how to side step code, and hard wire the house to conserve water, while at the same time control gray water flows. Sunday morning over my fourth coffee it finally hit me. Hydraulic volume! I had to go! The problem is there is only a limited amount of flow through the supply line, and I quickly realized the similarity of my fixture to those in the house.

Just as you would expect, the BC Building code had a table all about hydraulic volumes, and fixture units. I had to play around a bit, (with the tables), but I was able to devise a plan to reduce the standard code-dictated fixture units, and drop them down, so that our 2 inch grey water pipe would be an adequate size to handle our volumes. We wrote an “alternative solution to meet the intent of the code”, for our inspector, which he then researched and came back with some more offerings. Voila, simple as communicating a need, and we had the plan.

The plan in a nutshell is to drop supply lines from the code’s ½ inch, down to 3/8 inch, and at each fixture use a flow reducer. House and Greywater systems now are sized properly to work together and achieve our goals of reducing water flow at the fixtures.

Now that we can sustainably heat our home we need to keep it warm which brings us to insulation. We have been racking our brains on what to do next in replacement of our fowl feather experience. The feathers were meant to add strength and insulation, but as you are aware the strength was in their smell, and insulation was best utilized in their addition to the compost pile. So the research continues. On our living roof we are using pumice, and have decided that it would add insulative resistance in the walls. There are two local BC sources; white pumice from Squamish, and black from Quesnel. The use of pumice within lightweight structural concrete increases the R value 260% from that of standard concrete. We will be doing some tests, but we expect the R value to increase by only 100%, changing our walls from R 10 to R 20. The small mountain of Pumice has arrived and our thanks and gratitude goes out to the truck driver John. This was not just a truck but 120ft plus monster with two trailers that had to maneuver and dump in a very small place and then back up the metal serpent all the way along Compton road to Munn’s road. John was exceptional!

We have some last bits of additional news – we made rototiller cob… it works beautifully, (with carbon offset credits)! This will greatly speed up the wall construction on very little fuel.

Everything is on track for our first cob building workshop on May 6-12. Elke Cole is looking after the whole series; times, dates and prices are on her website, www.elkecole.com and ours www.eco-sense.ca . There are still a few spots available.

Our friends, Ryan and Christie came by a few days ago with chicken presents. One beautiful hand raised rooster and an eight week old hen. They raised eight chickens in their home but when 6 of them turned into roosters they had a problem. Roosters are not allowed in the city. This rooster is smart, friendly, very curious and already very protective of his hen.

Finally we have a surprise… that we will share once it happens, but be assured we will keep you on the Leading Edge!

Respectfully unemployed,
Ann and Gord Baird