The Front Façade … Are We Sustainable?

We finished the month with great breakthroughs, mostly through the roofing membrane, with each new puncture leaving its shadow of fear; fear of weakening the structure, leaving the membrane as a mere façade of its intended purpose. The membrane is a symbol of what has hit home this month for us, as we scramble to get moved in, haunted by critical self evaluation trying to balance the true meaning of sustainability to what we are attempting to do. This month is a dichotomy of good and bad, of truth and lies, and real and façade.

One real and good thing is we have completed the upstairs cob infill. With help over two weekends from friends and new faces, we have filled the gaps, and the final result is simply stunning. Ann took charge of teaching, coordinating, greeting, cleaning up, feeding Gord, and well everything else. Gord over three days mixed and moved 38,500 lbs of cob from the pit (6 mixes, at 128 buckets each mix with buckets at 60 lbs a piece, carried two at a time up the stairs for the infill frenzy).

Other milestones include the finishing of the interior wall framing (thanks Ben), the installation of the solar panels (thanks Mike), the plumbing almost complete (thanks Byron), and the roof membrane finished (thanks Gord).

One truth which was kept a secret was the realization that the CSA policies for hot water heating marginally exist and that systems in Victoria are being pulled out by some building inspectors due to no CSA certification. Interestingly there is not a policy to certify evacuated tubes as individual components, nor is there a policy to certify combination systems that provide both hot water and domestic heating. These policies are expected out in 2009-2010. It seems a lot of people were surprised with this knowledge, as the industry for the most part had kept it hushed. There are even federal grants available that cover evacuated tubes for heating hot water but the irony is that the tubes must be CSA approved! Some places like Ottawa have made a policy to allow these systems based on generic system diagrams in an effort to fill the void until CSA policies are brought into place. (For individuals interested in this issue, please contact us directly as we will provide our communications on this topic with relevant references and sources).

A late addition to this update and embedded right-a-bout here is a quote from David Simms in response to the new Federal Government Pilot project on solar hot water heating under their Eco Energy program. To preface his response, he directly quotes from the pilot project which … you’ll understand:

Here, we see the Bigger is Better school of thought, hard at work.

“To be eligible, applications must aim to install systems on at least 200 homes, scheduled for completion by October 31, 2010. Also, no more than 50% of the proponent’s project costs are to be covered by government subsidies (including federal, provincial, and municipal). ”

The Tories must think it better to pad the corporate bottom line than to trust that individuals could actually succeed with this technology. While a societal movement toward solar hot water is undeniably positive, the imbalance that exists between corporate encouragement and individual discouragement is glaring. An individual homeowner would not only have to pay the full shot on his solar water-heating installation but would probably have to pay GST and PST as well.

Canadians are being molded into a nation of consumers rather than managers of their own self-sufficiency is undeniable. This program is but one more example. (David Simms)

Working towards sustainability has resulted in a change of direction with our water system as we process the information we learned from the meeting about the Highlands Groundwater Protection Program meeting two months ago. At this meeting it was discussed that other than flush toilets, the most egregious waste of ground water is for irrigation. In our original system design we had planned on using the rain water as potable, with excess being shunted off to a third cistern for irrigation. This would mean as we used up our larger cisterns in the summer we would be relying on ground water for both irrigation and potable uses, just at peak demand. So in an effort to remove our irrigation from adding to peak demand we are keeping all 6400 gallons for irrigation, and will rely on the well for our potable source (25 gallons/100 litres per day total for all six people). We felt this was more important an issue than to show how the rain water harvest system works for a potable system. We will be plumbing the rain water cistern to provide potable water if ever needed in the future (like if the ground water becomes contaminated or dries up…both entirely possible due to current rates of development and climate change).

Another sustainable reassessment is the installation of a wind turbine. This requires much embodied energy in the concrete (5 cubic yards) and metal for the tower…not to mention the actual wind generator. Our site, although quite windy in the winter, is subject to a lot of gusting…this translates directly into high maintenance repairs to the turbine. Huge environmental cost and financial cost; all to ‘demonstrate’ wind power. We will wait for improved low wind speed and gusting wind technology and then install a sustainable wind turbine. In the meantime we are doubling the number of solar panels on the roof.

Before the second world war the average family home was 700-800 ft2, which encompassed all their needs and probably a few of their wants as well. Here we are, with almost 2200 ft2 housing two families, almost 600 ft2 more room than my grandparents felt happy in. (Can you tell we are overwhelmed with the size of our home right now?) With this space comes the determination of what space we “need”.

What really do we need? If we were to be truly sustainable as the majority of the Earth’s population has no choice, we would be shunned by society. Parker and Emily would be removed from our custody for providing an ASSUMED unfit environment. People would not be interested or even willing to visit; there would not be articles, filming, interviews or speeches. What does true sustainability really look like? I suspect none of us dare to even go there.

We are pretty happy with trying to cut our power usage down to rely on solar… 12 solar modules, at a price of $12,000 to power our two fridges costing $3,200 (Sunfrost full size upright for Mom and Dad) and $1,200 (small chest fridge for the four of us), and a small shared freezer also $1,200. Most of our lighting will be LED, no cordless phones, no coffee makers, no clock radios, or other continually running unnecessary electronics. We have given up having a bathtub for having two showers, hard wiring water conservation into the plumbing, and collecting our rain water. I can’t say we have given up a flush toilet for a composting toilet, as the composting toilet is absolute luxury over its counterpart.

We have sadly given up on achieving the living building certification because we don’t see ourselves as being 100% sustainable. We do see the house as being an interconnected system with its energy, heating, water, grey water and composting. Ann and Gord are willing to learn to cook with a two burner stove (alcohol ) and no inside oven. Outside we will rely on a solar cooker and our cob oven; we see these as needs. Ann’s Mom sees an inside oven and a four stove top burner as a need (as does the majority of North Americans). An electric stove/oven is out of the question with our solar power budget (both financially and environmentally), the biodiesel and alcohol ovens are too small and impractical, and so fossil fuel (propane) it is. Cooking sustainably has been our biggest challenge on many levels and we have not found a sustainable solution that meets the needs/wants of our family. Ann and Gord are a little overworked these days but thanks to Mom (and fossil fuels) we have been enjoying warm healthy home cooked nutritious meals every night to fuel our working bodies.

Our house is a real dichotomy of what we want and need and what the building code allows. Though there is very little waste the code forces it upon us; examples of this are our septic system, and the huge number of wasted electrical outlets throughout the house (four in Parker’s bedroom alone and three in our sleeping area not much bigger than a queen bed). These superfluous outlets will be switched off with a master switch. It is a dichotomy of no TV but two computers with internet; no bathtub but two showers; a living/green roof but sealed with Firestone’s EPDM rubber membrane; some efficient appliances and some inefficient appliances; no PVC pipe but two 2000 gallon HDPE storage tanks; less space than conventional homes but more than what was required in the past; locally grown foods along with a bowl of citrus and bananas. Our house is a dichotomy between what we need and what we want.

Our life goal is to attain a reasonable life, where in achieving this we become more sustainable. Our dichotomies are wishing to teach the kids sustainability and yet battling to be sustainable ourselves; wanting to drive less yet seeking legal solutions to allow this to occur (due to split custody). Our biggest dichotomy is ourselves and our rationales about what we need, about what we want!

You know, it has taken a couple generations to go over the deep end, and now we are faced with having to turn the pages back, and in turning those pages back we unfortunately have to see what we have done, and the hardest part is to admit that we let our wants become our needs. We became used to making excuses why; “we have waited for it”; “we have earned it”; “you can’t live without it”. We need to teach our kids to be true to themselves in drawing the line between need and want which means the removal of the façade. We need to remove our political façades of aspirational goals, our societal facades of the haves and have-not’s, and the personal facades of rationalizing our excess and that “doing without” will only result in dire consequences. Our politicians, our society, and the little voice inside tell us that anything less would be the same as living in the bush like the uncivilized tribes that live in the disappearing jungles. We need to redefine ‘civilized’. And I question what is wrong with that? There seems to be good social structure, equity, balance, happiness and connectedness, all the things that are amiss in our culture.

It’s a challenge. We are truly trying, and at least we see our failures and hopefully are humble in our successes. I hope that we can inspire others to start down the road of removing the facades they all have hiding their wants as needs. I hope that being as different from the norm as we are, that we inspire others to better our efforts.

Respectfully,
Gord and Ann

You may be wondering who we are…and why are we talking to you!

We are a couple of people that asked ourselves three years ago WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE. I guess we’re not the only ones that ask this question, and there have no doubt been many answers. Three years ago our answer was TO LEAD A REASONABLE LIFE; today if you asked us this question, in light of what science is saying about climate change, we would say that the meaning of life is to achieve sustainability.

Sustainability means many things but in the most basic sense it means balance…living in balance with our planet.

So why are we talking to you? So we can share with you what we are doing to work towards sustainability, and lead a healthier more reasonable life, and hopefully inspire one more person that they can too.

So here’s another question we trouble ourselves with… WHAT IS THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS? We have all heard the saying that whomever dies with the most toys wins. I am pretty sure that most of us here know that happiness is so much more than toys.

We feel that happiness comes from balance. Balance within family, community, and the environment. Happiness comes from being able to balance these with working to earn ENOUGH… enough to cover our needs.
Happiness comes from balancing our needs and wants with others and with the planet. Whether social, economic or environmental, BALANCE is about giving and receiving, NOT JUST TAKING.

So for, Ann and I, we have taken steps to balance ourselves, to leave less of a footprint and more of a mark. We believe in LESS LIFE STUFF and MORE LIFE STYLE.

So, basically, when we focus our energies on living sustainably our level of happiness increases as we are nurturing our relationships, our creativity, our bodies, and our planet.

What are we doing different than anyone else? Nothing, we are building a beautiful comfortable home, for three generations, that … OH I guess that is a little different. Balancing future caregiving needs, social value transfer between generations, sharing household tasks (gardening), and combining economic resources. A first step to happiness… not saying that a full house is always happy.

The house is a little different. It is not very green, but is VERY SUSTAINABLE.

We want to clarify the difference between GREEN and SUSTAINABLE. Green expresses the idea of efficiency, manifested in more manufactured products to ensure the building has less operational footprint, and less of a carbon footprint. Sustainable on the other hand doesn’t promote itself as super efficient, but sustainable within the ecological footprint… sustainable in the embodied energy to make the building and systems, sustainable over its full life cycle, and sustainable in how it is occupied, and of course how it returns to the earth. Green building is a small, but important piece of sustainable building.

Just imagine what your back yard or neighborhood would look like if all of the waste and toxins used to build your dwelling and manufacture all the materials were actually contained in your yard. Is this a place that life could exist?

We always promote using less as the first option. Then we promote sustainable and efficient technologies. With this in mind here is our home in a nutshell:
• Solar PV for electricity with a BC Hydro grid intertie
• Solar thermal water collectors to heat the hot water and the hydronic in floor space heating
• Living roof incorporated into rainwater harvesting system (Potable and irrigation)
• Grey water systems for irrigation of fruit and nut trees
• Waterless no flush toilets
• Hard wired… or plumbed for water conservation
• Hard wired for both AC and DC, to use power efficiently for the right uses
• Passive solar design to incorporate thermal mass, heating, cooling, and air quality
• Our home will produce zero waste in it operations…just like nature
• We view this home as a living building where all systems are connected…just like a simple ecosystem

Our home is made of cob, a centuries old building style using clay, sand and straw. Buildings the world over like those in England have been continually lived in for 500 years. They don’t rot, are immune to termites and other critters, are strong, and beautiful. Our home is slightly different in that it is a code approved load bearing two story, high occupancy building, the first of its kind in North America.

We have literally built a house out of earth…exterior earth walls, earth floors, living roof, interior earth walls, some earth furniture, and of course earthen plasters.

The wood we have used is 95% recycled (coming from the Mayfair Lanes and St Michael’s University).

We have been having some creative fun with our house. By adding BC pumice from Squamish into the mixture we have achieved a remarkably strong and INSULATIVE wall; strength is 3 X’s stronger than what it was engineered for. We also estimate at least R20 walls and will be doing some testing with our engineer.

We call this new cob SLIC…which stands for Structural Lightweight Insulated Cob. The use of a rototiller to mix the cob has saved many months (perhaps half a year) of foot mixing and has only used 12 liters of gas.

So if this kind of construction is so good why don’t we hear any advertising for it? Because there is no big money to be made.

The most difficult part of the construction has been the roof…It has taken us longer to frame the roof than to build the monolithic 20 inch cob walls.

We have also experimented with making our own straw board from white glue, fiber, old sheets and clay… no flame retardants and fireproof.

Ann has designed an ingenious worm biofilter to filter the grey water, and collect worm castings.

Cooking has been a challenge. We will not be using any fossil fuels for cooking, or heating, and will rely on an alcohol or electric stove, a solar oven, and our cob oven.

We have had many architects visit our site during the tours this summer and there have been many compliments on our design.

We can’t take all the credit though as it was the shape of the bedrock and the passive solar design features that shaped our home.

Last winter we lived in a 27 ft trailer and were fighting nature. The future will be different in our new home as it works with nature and not against it.

Our present costs including all labour factored in has demonstrated a truly affordable house, even with all the systems (solar, heating, rain water, etc) and appliances, and never a hydro bill in the future… we are estimating about 110$/ft square. The conventional market… $170-$190. And we have produced very little landfill garbage. We will prepare a full cost analysis this winter and post on our website.

Once complete in November our next goal is to create a series of educational programs for schools, trades, and policy makers.

Our goal is to earn ENOUGH to do what we are passionate about; to teach, give tours, consult and build, with the idea of balance and sustainabiltity as the guiding light.

So three years ago we set out to live a reasonable life by balancing our lifestyle, and in so doing, a more sustainable life emerged. Today we are happy, and we suspect that any steps you take to LESS LIFE STUFF and MORE LIFE STYLE will take you naturally down the same road.

Thanks! We also wish to thank the BCSEA for being so supportive of what we are doing and providing much of the technical information to help educate and inspire us.

If anyone wishes to contact us we can be reached through our website at www.eco-sense.ca