Old world know-how

By Edward Hill - Goldstream News Gazette

Published: October 14, 2008 1:00 PM

Updated: October 14, 2008 2:11 PM “Eco-sense” house in Highlands on track for five-century-plus lifespanWith trowel in hand, Ben Scott makes lime plastering look easy as he layers ochre coloured mud along a cob wall. In Canada, working with earth plasters is something of a lost art, but done right and the “Eco-sense” house in Highlands could survive well beyond its fifth century.“In the U.K., homes with this exact material have been standing 500 to 700 years,” says Scott, a.k.a. “Scotty.” “Lime plaster and cob go hand-in-hand.”The layer of lime plaster is the last major element for what is now Canada’s most prolific “green” house, built by Ann and Gord Baird. At its core, the two-storey cob building is glorified mud on mud.

The Baird’s project has set precedent for B.C.’s building code, attracted busloads of government officials and sustainability experts, and earned airtime and column inches from media across the country. Royal BC Museum’s B.C. 150th anniversary display has a life-sized poster of the couple and is touring a model of the house with its mobile display. The Bairds “borrowed” Scott from The Land Conservancy, who funded the U.K.-based tradesman to work on a series of heritage buildings in B.C., under a program looking to revive lost or dying trades.The Bairds plan to give two weeks worth of work to the TLC, “ditch digging or whatever they need,” Gord says, for Scott’s plastering time. “I’m not bringing anything new to B.C., but I’m trying to bring awareness back to this material,” Scott says. “ (Lime plaster) is a carbon neutral, completely natural product that protects from moisture rot and gives better air quality.”Layering lime plaster and monitoring as it cures has that feeling of watching paint dry, but it’s a surprisingly detailed process. Properly mixed lime plaster insulates but lets walls breathe, absorbing moisture and carbon dioxide. Minerals in the plaster will flow into small cracks, giving the walls the ability to “self heal.”Modern cement-based stucco is the “fast food” of housing construction, Gord says — it’s cheaper and quick to apply, but doesn’t breathe, doesn’t last as long and isn’t environmentally friendly. “We’re lucky to have met Scotty,” Ann says. “Lime plaster has too many subtleties. It takes an expert to do it properly, but do it properly you’ll protect the building for 500 years.”The project is on year three, a year longer than their estimated construction time, but the pair have done most of the heavy lifting, day after day. Ann says they’ve accomplished what they set out to do: create a house built to code that is “off the grid,” has a vanishing carbon-footprint, while remaining affordable and allowing a high standard of living. The final cost is estimated at $270,000.Solar tubes heat water which in turn is piped through the house for heat. It has solar panels feeding juice to battery packs, uses its grey water for irrigation, among an endless list of “green” designs. With iron-oxide in the plaster, the house tries to fit in with nature, following the colour pallet of surrounding arbutus trees.Dozens of design innovations and building to code has attracted policy-makers and engineers from across North America, and hundreds of people curious about living sustainably.“Key for us was informing the building code and building within the bureaucracy that exists. It’s why the bureaucracy comes and visits,” Ann says. “People see this is a legitimate, comfortable, functional but affordable house. People are going ‘wow this is possible.’”The Bairds are now working on getting the house designated the first “living building,” under the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s “Living Building Challenge.” A living building needs design appeal, have zero net waste and generate renewable power. The Bairds reckon they are already there. Cascadia first needs to create a category for a single family home. “Getting living building status will help move us into the norm,” Ann says. “Right now we are still outside what is normal.”

For more on the Baird’s house, see www.eco-sense.ca.

Update

Ann and I have wondered why people are so interested in what we are doing. One response came back this month which made it all hit home for us.

“I love the updates. They inspire me to try to do more. The familiar tone and family life anecdotes make your actions seem less abstract and academic and more attainable and real. Keep up the awesome work.” Brenda Henderson. Yes, sustainability and reprogramming our way of being is possible, affordable, fun, and very rewarding. Thanks Brenda.

Wind
We have had some correspondence with a western Canada wind power company about their vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) for roof mounting. This company was prepared to give us a small token break on the price in recognition of the enormous publicity their product would receive, but unfortunately it was still way outside our budget. Wind will have to wait.

Lime Plaster
WOW! Ben Scott, known as Scotty, from The Land Conservancy (TLC) has been working with us for a week. He is an absolute pleasure and we are all teaching and sharing our knowledge. The TLC had been looking for someone to help with their heritage restorations for five years, and Scotty is their answer.

A work trade has been agreed upon with the TLC and we will do a labour exchange and well as consult and do a tour. Everybody wins.

Scotty was trained in the UK and is working to bring this old world trade back to Canada. There are very few people here with his level of training and skill. Lime plasters can be used inside or out for both lifetime protection of a building and beauty. Cob wall constructions and lime plaster are a perfect match and easily and simply create a beautiful net zero carbon home. Lime as a product is net zero carbon and will basically last many hundreds of years.

Lime is wonderful as it will outlast our western cement stucco plasters. It heals itself when it cracks, it absorbs carbon as it cures, and it sure is beautiful… when Scotty and Ann apply it.

If anyone needs interior or exterior plaster work on virtually any wall surface (lath and plaster included) Scotty can be contacted through the TLC.

Pigment
We have told hundreds of people that you have to be happy with whatever outcomes arise with natural building. Natural pigments vary in colour and effect in there application, and therefore being set on a specific outcome will make the process unpleasant, unlike our experience which is completely wonderful.

As we had completed 1/3 of the exterior of our home and bought another batch of red iron oxide, we experienced what we had been told by many… they are never the same. So we happily redeveloped our pigment mix and will be happy with the new shade on the home on the next 1/3.

Another result of using pigments is the personal effects it has. I have always been a lot like Emily, where I can become a pig pen doing the simplest of tasks. Well, add in yellow, red and black iron oxide pigments, with gusty wind and a little rain, and voila, I turn into Pigment Pen, a pigment of Ann’s worst nightmare. There I stand, in a muddy red oxide puddle, not allowed in the house or even the filthy the trailer. You can image Ann’s face when I put out my arms for a hug.

Also very surprisingly, Ann has provided liberal oversight to my mixing of the colours for the home… a treat for one who is red/green colour blind. Ann simply looks at all the variation in the colours on the wall and exclaims with much pleasure…”Our home looks just like the Arbutus trees which surround it with many variations in beautiful shades of reds and browns”. Scotty, very wisely always leaves the colour choices to the clients.

Tadelakt Plaster
Another experiment in progress. Upon Scotty’s first visit to the house a discussion ensued about our shower stalls. He commented on tadelakt plaster.

Tadelakt is a Morrocan plaster used in bath houses, tubs, and showers. It basically is a lime plaster with fine aggregates consisting of fine sand and marble dust. Once the plaster is applied, it then has to be burnished with a very smooth stone, and then finally rubbed with an olive oil soap.

The internet is amazing… so with reading about the requirement for very well trained installers and special products imported from across the globe we decided to do it our way. One part lime (slaked for almost two years), 2 ½ parts fine mortar sand, and ½ part calcium carbonate. The stone was found in one of the batches of clay and looks like jade. The soap, is Val’s Olive Oil Soap found at Lifestyle’s Market.

How do you clean it you ask? Well with olive oil soap of course. No bleach, no vinegar, noting acidic. But if you venture down this road, best to have thick substrate for the tadelakt plaster, as using it on a conventional framed wall requires a moisture barrier with thick absorptive media… but best of all just build your shower stall out of cob.

Occupancy
We are down to the last four items to complete for occupancy. Mom and Dad’s deck off their front door (actually with it partly complete Boo has already claimed it); our big front step out of our front door. (We have used a really big tire – you will have to come on a tour to see this one); A railing going up the stairs (almost complete…made in a most unique Gord fashion); and finally we need the final electrical inspection. (Mike (our electrician) and Ann are working to get everything all tidied up). There are still many other finishing items left to do but the list is finally getting shorter.

Lots of tours and Publicity
September was full of tours, from the Cascadia Green Skyline Tour, and several other private ones, and the monthly public tour. It seems like LEED is beginning to wear thin on people and they are interested in seeing the next step. A funny thing was when three years ago, we first began telling people we were going to build a sustainable home, we were questioned if we knew about LEED. Nope! And as we look back we are glad we didn’t. Again, ignorance and common sense took us in an even more sustainable direction. Check out this link for what one tour participant wrote. http://642blog.ca/2008/09/17/victoria-real-estate-board-green-task-force-tours-eco-sense-sustainable-home/

Next public tour is Sunday Oct 5th at 10am – noon. Tour is almost full so please reserve your spot soon.

September’s Rant

Yes, last month’s update was for August and September but it is 4 am and I have upset myself… once again. I was picking Parker up at school the other day when a young 10 year old boy named… well we should keep him un-named, walked by and yelled “F… you” at me, then proceeded to walk by the two people delivering kids books to the library, where he proceeded to give the man and woman in the van the finger. The fellow poked his head out the window and asked me “Did you see that?” I responded and said, “Yup. That is somebody’s sparkling charm.” I had encountered this child a year earlier on a class field trip where this same young fellow was bragging in the car about how his dad got to kill people, and how cool it was.

This incident is not what is keeping me awake, but the thought of what someone like this means for our future. What would an individual like this look like in politics?

What would it look like if a person were running for the leadership of a party, and in order to gain additional support to win, made a deal, a promise, not to join with another party if they won. It might look like what happened a couple years ago with the Alliance party, where two weeks after the election the winner gave the finger to his supporters and ignored a promise.

What would it look like if this person were made responsible for the environment of Canada. It would look like taking the oil company Encana to Bahli for the climate talks, rather than the well respected scientists that enlightened us on these issues, or the NGO’s that tirelessly work to educate our country with increasing cuts to their funding.

What would it look like if this person where responsible for educating and informing the public. It would look like passing legislation where all science reports had to go through Ottawa to be censored (I mean edited) before release; it would look like releasing reports quietly and hushed, and made hard to get. It would look like cutting funding to research on climate change in the Arctic.

What would it look like if this person was in charge of health and social issues? It would look like telling the world health care specialists their idea of harm reduction was a farce; instead their methods were harm creation, and that the misfortunate and misunderstood in the society should go to jail.

What would it look like if this person was in charge of crime prevention? It would look like more punishment rather than crime reduction. Instead of getting tougher on environmental standards maybe it would just be easier to get tougher on environmentalists!

What would it look like if this person was in charge of nuclear energy? It would look like firing the person who provides bad news that our reactors are not safe, and need repairs, then legislating them to start up again.

What would it look like if this person was in charge of our coastline? They might physically look like a round greasy slimy lump of oil… but that may just be the candidate supporting Tanker traffic on the coast. It would look like ignoring a moratorium and bowing to the energy companies while not listening to the people.

What would it look if this person was in charge of our arts and culture? It would look like cutting funding to programs that are not of monetary value to Canadians; Of all industries arts and culture have probably the biggest payback to the community with a very low carbon footprint. Arts and culture make us happy with out consuming much stuff. Would this mean cutting the CBC?

What would this person look like in Afghanistan? I won’t even go there…

What would it look like in the face of copyright legislation? Oh… you figured out where I am headed. Was I that obvious?

Of course we as citizens (not consumers), would never elect such a person. Social policies and ideologies aside, there is no way we would ever elect a person that has such obvious disregard for our country and it’s people.

What would it say about us, and our future? How would you handle this situation. Would you stand quietly aside and say “That is someone’s sparkling charm?”

When would you stand up and say “go to hell”! When would you act on your strong passionate beliefs and do something… write, rant, protest, inspire, VOTE…anything to ensure that this person doesn’t ruin the country? So, to this un-named adult we say… go to hell.

Get out there and vote for something GOOD!

Vote Swapping and tide changes
On facebook, there is a group called “Anti-Harper vote swap Canada”; an interesting idea. There are also many other groups such as “The Conservation Voters”, and “Vote for Environment” to name a few. If we had a fair voting system such as proportional representation, programs like this wouldn’t exist. They represent one way to make your vote count and still vote with your conscience.

As we end the month with an update that we had never planned on, it affords us one important outcome… sleep.

Cheers,

Gord and Ann

A mud hut for the 21st century

Julie Beun-Chown, Canwest News Service

Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008

You drive a hybrid car, use a composter in the backyard, push a rotary lawn mower and ride a bicycle to work.When it comes to going green, you’re practically chartreuse. The Joneses next door have nothing on you.Just don’t try keeping up with the Bairds.
Ann, 41, and Gord, 39, who live in the British Columbia highlands 15 minutes from Victoria, quit their jobs as co-op manager and autobody shop owner two years ago to build their dream home: a so-green-it-glows two storey cob (clay, sand and straw) house that generates its own solar electricity, uses virtually no ground water and is so exquisitely situated on eight acres of land visiting architects have been struck dumb.
Built with eight dump trucks each of clay and sand, 52 yards of pumice for insulation and 50 bales of straw, the house is a marvel of conservancy: it is made with 90 per cent locally recycled wood, has hot-water tubes running under the earthen floors for heat and a living roof that will be covered with pumice and soil to gather rainwater. The list goes on, but the bottom line does not. By the time the Bairds have lived in the $300,000 duplex for a year, it could become Canada ’s first dwelling to meet the Living Building standard, a 16-point sustainable building code that exceeds the current Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accreditation.
It’s already North America ’s first code-approved load-bearing, high-occupancy cob building.”We’re fairly pleased with what we’ve accomplished,” says Ann, who says that their groundbreaking building is setting so many precedents, they’re often left scratching their heads for solutions. “We’ve worked our butts off and we run into problems. But we keep stewing on it, and eventually the answer comes. It inspires us to attempt even more.”It’s hard to imagine what that would be.
The couple, who will live in half of the house with Gord’s young children, with Ann’s parents next door, have laboured for hours over every detail of the house they designed themselves, from the experimental high fly ash concrete foundation to the colourful and undulating earthen couches that stretch through the family room.
“I’ve been passionate about sustainability for along time. I even lived off the grid on a small Gulf Island for a while,” says Ann, who sold that waterfront property to co-fund the project. “When I met Gord, we wanted to do something that would maintain the standards our culture is used to, but do it in a different way, focusing on lifestyle and not life stuff. We wanted to live a life that we were passionate about.”
Their dream found its roots on a block of land previously owned by a junk collector and later, a holistic healer who intended to build a retreat there.By the time the Bairds purchased it, there was only an incomplete septic system, which they were obliged by building codes to finish at a cost of $30,000 but have no intention of using.
To reduce their water consumption, they use rain water for the garden, grey water for irrigation and a small amount of well water for drinking and washing, delivered through low-flow taps.
They also have a $300 composting system that treats all toilet waste with heat-generating bacteria that pasteurizes the manure and kills human pathogens.”Then we’ll use it for gardening. We don’t have waste,” she laughs.”The waste of one creates the food for another.”
The same goes for their electrical supply, which comes from 12 170-watt solar panels, which power their charge controllers and feed into the BC Hydro grid.
Their eco-efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by Jason McLennan, the CEO of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council and the architect behind the Living Building Challenge.”Their home is inspiring to see, because it was built affordably,” says McLennan, who is confident the Bairds will meet many of the Living Building prerequisites.”Some things may be more expensive, but it’s not unaffordable depending on your values and what you want to trade off on. If you decide you don’t want a three-car garage and you build with solar panels, there’s a cost savings.” For the Bairds, the bottom line remains to be seen.
For the moment, they anticipate that the long hours of making mud walls, mixing homemade milk paint and framing doors will pay off in next-to-nothing heating and water bills.
“The bank account is empty now, so we’re trying to make a living through education and doing things related to our core value of sustainability,” says Ann, who operates their website, eco-sense.ca. “But in the end, we wanted to create a home that was comfortable and functions as part of nature. Aside from being the first, we’ve love the challenge of doing it. It’s been our life’s work.”

www.eco-sense.ca

Termites

Ann is no skinny b itch and I am not really a fat b astard (at least not anymore). The kids don’t eat unidentified processed food objects and we have all learned to enjoy the subtleties of garden fresh foods grown locally. Our dinner tonight was another one dish meal comprised of roasted beets, potatoes, beans, onions, garlic, carrots and rosemary from our garden, a garden that we started while we began our home last year. For dessert, we had a homemade blackberry bar that was made with our own eggs, local goat milk whey, and blackberries.

As we listened to the CBC this evening discussing the new book, “Skinny B itch” about veganism, we agreed with the idea that if you eat right, your body will look after itself. If you eat too much meat… not good; eat too much fat… not good; eat too much anything… that’s right… just not good. (Though dark beer is OK, right?)

Your body doesn’t care what it looks like only what it is given to look after itself. A garden works the same way, and more importantly so does the rest of nature. When things are allowed to get their needs met in healthy natural ways they just turn out beautiful in all their shapes and foliage.

As a matter of fact as I am writing this, Ann is displaying wonderful foliage of her own. OOOps, wrong medium to share this.

Update

As the house is coming very near completion we continue to discover more things to inspire us, and our passions are expanding if you can believe it. Wow looking back over the past three years it is interesting to see where passion has led. From our first date three years ago, to marriage 6 months later, buying our land with mom and dad joining in the fun, completion of our cob wood working shop, building our sustainable earthen home, education programs, tours, publicity, policy, politics, and gardens. All while weaving much learning into each of these phases. Passions outside of our manufactured culture has provided us more personal reward in such a short period than either of us had known throughout all our previous years. We hear the stories about following your passions, or the importance to choose a job that fulfills your passion, but at every step of our lives we are veered away from them, towards… earning an income.

Even as the rains fell the day of the tour for the Board of Directors of the BCSEA, there was a passion for collecting rain water. In one day, our 2500 ft2 roof collected 1250 gallons of rain water. So despite digging into the damped humanure compost to show off our composted manure, with us soaking wet, we were happy as pigs in “good stuff” knowing that our recently emptied rain cisterns were being filled. One inch (2.5 cm) of rain basically gives us 1300 gallons of water. (For the nerds 2500 ft2 at 1 inch depth translates into 360,000 cubic inches; 1 imperial gallon equals 277.4 in3 thus 1 inch of rain equates to 1297 gallons).

When do we move in?

Seeing as we are speaking numbers, here’s another. Forty-Four! No not Ann’s age. This is the number of working days until we can move in, +/- 100 of course. Hopefully by the end of November we will be reuniting with old clothes that seem new, and be leaving our comfy little mildew ridden filth soaked (opposite of heaven) hole of a trailer. Yes a mud home never looked so good. All the used lighting is virtually up, all the ceilings done, most of the interior brown coat complete. Just have to finish the final plasters, build range hoods, finish the earthen floors, build exterior deck, bathroom cabinets, some window sills, install trim, sand and seal all the kitchen cabinets, some milk paints, and that is it. Wow does finishing ever take a long time!

Insulation

This past while we have observed how insulation of buildings has become the icon of green, from products sold from green businesses, to discussions on the radio, and with the redefining and greening of the building code. Interestingly many professionals seem to agree that in our climate, insulation is only one small part of building a sustainable home. Considering insulation as the end-all be-all while ignoring thermal mass, embodied energy of products used, and lifespan of the building is quite irresponsible. Even more irresponsible are the manufacturers of all these “products” who are driving green building in unsustainable directions. As someone pointed out to us, living in an insulated sealed plastic bag drives him crazy so he opens his windows… ahh building science defeated by good common sense, and fresh air.

Redefining Green

Talk, talk, talk and more talk about climate change, economic failures, and environmental degradation. And even more talk about what to do about it. From the debates on carbon taxes, cap and trade, political bickering, and the endless talk of where to get our energy. It is all sounding so complicated to get ourselves out of the expanding mess we created.

But wait a minute…we are trying to solve these complicated problems with the same complex thinking that got us into this crisis in the first place.

What if we took a step back and looked at the problem from a different perspective, a simpler perspective.

Instead of looking for solutions to maintain the current status quo of increasing energy use and increasing consumption of natural resources, why don’t we consider changing the entire way we think and live? Maybe we don’t have an energy crisis at all but instead a social opportunity; an opportunity to create a more fulfilling life.

We all complain about how busy we are working to pay for all of our stuff, from our mortgages and fuel, to our food.

Stop focusing on the problem…Focus on the solution.

How many people out there crave to have more time to work around the home, garden, attend community events, have friends over for family meals, or just some down time? Instead of having this big problem that makes all of our heads spin to the point where many of us actually prefer to remain ignorant, why don’t we just get rid of the problem and the guilt by creating a better way to live? A life built upon a close knit community where food and shelter become the focus of our lives enabling greater individual fulfillment.

Take housing for one. (Property developers and builders looking for big profit need not read further). What if we were to redefine what green building was? If all new dwellings were truly green or sustainable they would meet the following criteria.

1. Less than 400ft2 per occupant. This smaller size means less embodied energy to create the home, less energy to heat/cool the home, and less space to store stuff. More time spent outdoors means fitter healthier bodies and less health concerns. More time bumping into our neighbors and the natural environment translates into feelings of belonging and individual value.

2. Simple homes that have a life expectancy of more than 500 years. If simpler more affordable homes were created suddenly we have less homeless and struggling families, less social ills, and more land to grow food. Sustainable energies power these homes either from the grid, community power, self generating, and our own healthy well fed bodies.

3. Less stuff to plug in. These homes dramatically reduce their energy requirements because of their size, passive solar design, natural and LED lighting, and the occupants choosing to buy less stuff to plug in.

All we need to do now is to figure out how to get off of the current rollercoaster and onto fulfilling sustainability.

The grand finale of the month

What do termites and a cob house have in common? Absolutely nothing! Termites won’t eat our home! After dinner we talked about how scared our culture was to eat what some other cultures eat, like termites. But what about termites… actually Isopterans. (Ann used to work as an entomologist). Well Ann discussed how nervous she was to try one…and could only think about how unappealing they look under a high powered microscope during dissection, so Parker and Emily to the rescue. Emily was the first to eat a termite, tearing the wings off and eating the butt then the head. Then, not to outdone, Ann ate one, as I looked on disgustedly. Then Grandma Merrily and Parker, while Ann cheered. Boo of course had always eaten the flying protein morsels and his acrobatic leaps provided much entertainment. I couldn’t be shamed as they continued to go down the hatches. So… as Emily collected a whole pile of heads… which she is saving as dessert, I couldn’t be outdone. So I did it, tore the wings off and down it went, followed by a sip of rum of course. Papa Howie declined watching us all in disbelief.

I only hope after this update that the kids aren’t taken away…as the kids mom called while they were eating termites. Parker was explaining to his mother very matter of factly about eating termites, while he yelled at his sister, “Emily, those are my heads”! Hearing this comment, Ann collapsed laughing and rolling on the trailer floor trying not to be heard by the kids’ Mom on the other end of the phone.

We learned that organic locally processed (wings removed) protein is at our fingertips… goodbye Maple Leaf Foods. We spent the rest of the evening making sure the chickens got their share too as we all ran around in circles being chased by five happy hens.

I had finished the update… until we decided on tomorrow nights dinner. Ann suggested rabbit as we had one in the freezer shot and dressed (actually undressed) by our local goat farmer. Parker was the first to ok it. I can’t explain my reaction… to Parker’s response “If we can eat termites then we can eat rabbit!”

Welcome to reprogramming. As Papa Howie said, “Bugs Bunny it is then”.

Termites are also the world’s most efficient bioreactors turning cellulose into hydrogen. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termite#Termites_as_a_source_of_power

Do you enjoy our long wordy updates? We send out to about 400 and always enjoy your feedback. Thanks!

Ann and Gord

From Garden to Kitchen – Sustainably

The human species has this ego that they must know everything about everything. What good is this if it increasingly wrecks havoc on everything else. Ann and I have come to understand, the more we learn the more we realize what we don’t care to know. This makes us stand out a little as we prefer to look to nature for ideas, and accomplish tasks with some basic observations paired with on the spot solution creation (not problem solving). The solutions are not as complex as many may think they are. Whether it is gardening, house building or making appropriate climate friendly decisions, we think the less complex you make the task the more sense it makes in the bigger picture.

Gardening is a prime example of where the common sense and instinct from observing your surroundings provides plenty insight on how plants like to grow. We equate it to our compost system, where lots of different life forms keep everything in balance, and anything that gets too great in numbers always has a predator to knock it down. Nature does the complicated stuff and we can enjoy these simple tasty fruits from a garden that has lots of variety, insects, snakes, lizards, frogs, spiders and the list goes on. Our only rule is don’t worry, if it grows it will grow… if not then it won’t, just watch and observe and work with nature.

Two good sources for setting your mind in the direction that nature is a better and more efficient gardener are Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemingway, and The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka.

Our house is like this in so many ways… again we preferred to jump in with little knowledge and see where it took us. We didn’t have all the preconceived ideas (hence preconceived problems) and therefore didn’t have the answers, nor did we wish to, we just wanted to build a house that was “less bad”, and it happened. Oh yes at times we have had to learn some intellectual stuff, and this intellectual stuff also lead to the aspects of the home which had a larger ecological foot print. At every point where we had to use intellect (as a response to outside influences), these complexities meant greater cost to the environment. Hmmmm!

As we look to what our society can do to make steps forward the solution is really simple. What do you need and what don’t you need? All the fancy uppity useless crap (wants) we choose to buy… is all a waste of the environment, all for the sake of filling some void. What is the solution… well really it is simple… next time you buy something think if you need it or just want it. Once you determine what is actually needed, then choose something that is made locally with natural materials if possible.

Oooops! Then wouldn’t our economy collapse? But really, if we all just stop buying the stuff we don’t need and instead purchased local food and lived more simply where more of our incomes were spent on human labour and sustainable energies to provide for our needs, all would be fine. We would all still be employed and living quite well…probably with a lot less stress too.

Simply Cooking
The model of our cob home will be going on a tour around the province with the Free Spirit and BC Hydro Conservation Road Tour. BC Hydro and the Royal BC Museum have also decided on a full size photo of our kitchen for a backdrop for their theatrical presentations. Some of the cities to be included are Fort St. John, Prince George, Kamloops, Revelstoke, Courtenay, and Fort Langley. Check out this link to learn more. http://www.freespiritbc.ca/conservationtour/index.asp

Here is the list of the top 10 energy efficiencies in the kitchen photo that we took. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/eco-sense/2703115921/) .

1. Solar PV to generate sustainable electricity
2. Chest fridge
3. Solar hot water
4. Gas range with kettle (currently propane but hopefully methane in the future)
5. LED under cabinet lighting and LED ceiling lights
6. Natural lighting from tubular skylight above
7. Bread making table on lower counter top for kneading. (no electric bread maker) Bread will be baked in cob oven. More exercise with the kneading means no gym membership for us.
8. No electric dish washer (hand washing aids in digestion after a meal and for us, uses less water and detergent)
9. Non electric coffee maker on counter. We drink coffee fresh…not sitting around keeping warm for hours. No disposable filters… no plastic. Manual coffee grinder on counter (part of waking up in the morning means moving about a bit)
10. Telephone on bar (old style non-electric). No call display. Means we have to be telepathic if we wish to know who is calling.

Outside we will also use a Solar dehydrator so we can preserve our foods as well as the clay has preserved our hands, nice, dry and wrinkly-like.

Our kitchen is wonderful for us and who could say this is not a great space to prepare our healthy family meals. Our needs are being provided for in a simple and more sustainable way.

Distraction and the wonders of Observation
An observation of ours would parallel anyone who has left the big city and spent several months in a remote place with no excess colours, lights, sounds or any other unnatural distractions causing sensual numbing. As I sat on my chair outside, after a swim at the lake, I found this very tiny flower on my shoulder. The flower was no more than 2 mm long and ½ mm wide. I looked and wanted to show the kids; they took one look and said they knew what flower it was. They immediately went to an Oxeye daisy, snacked on an edible tender leaf while pulling the petals off, and plucked out several thousand flowers from the orange center. Two things amazed me. One, the center of the daisy wasn’t just a blob of stuff, and two the kids had observed so naturally something that I had missed for 39 years.

How many other kids in this day and age can draw a cabbage worm to detail; know that tomatillos live in hidden places on the land after the first glimpse of a purchased one; that daisies have little flowers; and that there are thirty some odd bird species that share our land and what they eat, when they arrive, and what their young offspring look like. It is not that these guys are special, they just don’t have endless distractions like skateboards, hockey, TV, or video games and their days are not fully booked and organized for them. They have had no choice but to observe and see, and use their surroundings as their playground.

It is frustrating at times to see all the fuss on how to solve our problems and that we have to think our way out of it. The more we think, the more complex we make the issue, and the more complex the further we move away from the solution. This includes all the magic bullets in the media (biofuel, carbon capture, hydrogen, vertical gardening, LEED, and high-tech buildings). Just keep it simple, cause if it can be done with your hands and hand tools made by your hands, it probably is sustainable.

Some of the simple things we have done this month along with gardening includes more earthen floors, completion of Mom and Dad’s kitchen, plastering, installing used fixtures, door making, along with helping some other folks with their homes. In keeping things simple we did cancel our tours for the summer, bitter sweet, as we enjoyed the tours and can certainly use the income, but they impacted our efforts in the finishing department. Public tours will start up again on the first Sunday of every month starting in September. Check our website for rates and details. www.eco-sense.ca

And in fitting with Masanobu Fukuoka’s approach, we suggest not to think too much, trust instinct, and do nothing… avoid “intellectual hell”, and if our politicians and public follow along (not thinking and do nothing), don’t worry as nature will play her cards in her own majestic way, shuffling the deck and burying the species that thought too much about the complicated things and not enough about the simple things.

Simply working!
Gord and Ann.

Mud Houses on Mud Houses
We start this month’s update with the realization that we have some explaining to do. Our land is not zoned for multi-family residences, and yet this spring we turned a blind eye and have allowed three families to move in with us. It seems that others have taken to our home as we have.

A few people might suggest we are a bit flighty with our endeavors, but we have enjoyed the comfort of community where birds of feather flock together. With this, two families of winter wrens and a third family of red breasted barn swallows have moved in, all wonderful additions.

The barn swallows are amazing, especially since they are a disappearing species in our part of the planet. They showed up unannounced at our door step, literally, and without a permit started to build. The husband and wife worked tediously, side by side, for hours collecting little clumps of mud and placing them layer on layer to make strong curved walls on our curved walls.

Their house is safely perched and protected from the wind and rain with good overhangs, overlooking the surrounding valleys, and pointed towards the sun for their morning warmth. A beautiful place to raise a family there is no doubt in our minds.

Food is abundant as the other velvet-green and tree swallows demonstrate as they all swoop and glide following the curves of the massive cob walls, collecting insects in the evening, warmed by the radiating warmth of the wall.

At days end the husband and wife settle on the clothes line, where the wife sits quiet (literary freedom here); the husband turns his head towards her every few minutes and speaks to her. Sure that she is not listening, he hops closer to her, again turning her direction and commenting on how lovely her red feathers are. Staring away she nods then turns and gives him a look. Foreplay is always tough.

Over the next weeks they make the mud house cozy, venturing into ours at times to get some ideas, or maybe to just poke fun at us for taking so long. Now the nest is inhabited by eggs, and soon the family will grow.

Just off the nest is their patio, a wind chime Ann made that has always been silent but now chimes with chirps, where the husband sits, watches and protects. I swear they have listened to every word we have said, even picking up on the joke told on all the tours how the house is “dirt cheap”, as we hear the husband joke to us and his other neighbors (the wrens), that his home is “chirp cheep”.

We like to say that there is no boundary between our home and the rest of nature, they are interconnected. Having the swallows build their mud house on ours symbolizes this, with the special knowledge that this disappearing species has chosen our home to be their home. The reality is that everything we seek in a home is shared by others.

Busy Tour Month
How lucky we are to share these observations with more people. With recent visits from engineering students from UVIC, grade ten students from Chilliwack, a home school group of parents and kids, Parker’s grade five class, a group of Emerging Green Builders (including lots of architects), two public tours, and 5 policy analysts from the BC Building and Safety Policy Branch. We have been busy promoting simplicity, natural systems, and sustainability. To read the outcome of the tour with the policy group please check out our website where it will be posted soon.

Daily Life
Within the midst of this we fit in gardening, parenting, and helping another couple start building their sustainable home. Progress on the house is slow but it’s really looking beautiful with all the plasters, floors, milk paints, cabinets, etc.

Our apologies go out to those who have asked us to participate in trade and green shows this past while, but we have chosen to hang onto our quiet moments, pausing long enough to take the family (all six of us) for a visit to the Royal BC Museum for an uncomfortable photo with the life size photo of ourselves.

A quick note on tours. We have decided to cancel public tours for the rest of the summer, but are still booking small private tour groups. The large groups are hard to manage with the wet plasters and wet floors.

RBCM Book
“Free Spirit: stories of you, me and BC” is a book by Gerald Truscott and published by The Royal British Columbia Museum in association the exhibition in celebration of 150 years of BC history. The front cover of this new book displays our sustainable earthen home complete with solar PV and solar thermal evacuated tubes. Follow this link to see the front cover of the book or better yet check out the full museum exhibition which also displays a wall size photo of us and our home powered by the sun, amongst all the other very interesting people that make up our local history… including Cougar Annie (Ann’s favorite character).
http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Shop/history.aspx?id=2897

Fundraising
Eco-Sense is participating in the TYEE program called “Green Your Campbell Bucks” to raise funds for our educational program. For every $200 donated we will give one tour to a grade 6 class this fall. Under this program we are the only organization called a family. It may seem odd for people to write us a cheque personally but we just say…”we are a family…NOT a corporation”. Check out this link to learn more or to vote for your favorite project.
http://contest.thetyee.ca/greenyourcampbellcash/projects

Climate Change and Kids
Of course our month wouldn’t be complete without some form of controversial observation, and especially one spawned by James Hansen’s speech to the US congress. James Hansen originally spoke 20 years ago on climate change, and re-addressed his discussion topic, pointing out that we have wasted the past 20 years and now are left with one or two at most to make some drastic changes.

While listening to this on the CBC, Parker asked me to turn the radio off, obviously causing him immense sadness. Do we all turn off what we don’t want to hear? What do we want our kids to hear?

Attending a recognition ceremony of grade five’s we listened to each student’s predictions of where they would be in ten years. It was clear their plans of being doctors, veterinarians, actress, athletes, dentists, and lawyers were in sync with what culture has sold told them. We were proud of Parker who wants to be a biologist (or a cartoonist). Not one kid stood up proudly saying, “I want to be a farmer and grow food”. What we hear through their predictions is parents telling them it is business as usual on our planet; a sad preparation for what is in store.

The adults seem to teach kids to turn off what they (the adults) don’t want to hear themselves. I see a reluctance in our society to teach kids the reality flowing down the pipeline, and hence their world view will be hard to change.

Who is teaching our kids about climate change and sustainability? We wrote on this topic 10 months ago but did not post as it is not palatable for public viewing.

After listening to James Hansen, I commented why Climate Change is hard for people. As I was driving the kids to school in Victoria (a 30 min drive from our Highlands home) I discussed with the kids what no car (or reduced driving) would mean in our family, (the kids alternating weeks in two different homes). The choice to reduce our CO2, would mean not making two daily trips into Victoria every other week, resulting in the kids spending a majority of their time at the home closest to their school.

For either parent to give up being able to see them as much is a hard decision. These “local love miles” are our biggest challenge to sustainability. Yet imagine what extreme fuel shortages/prices would prompt…it seems that being forced into such decisions are easier than making them for ourselves.

The best choice is to not look at what is given up, but rather to look at the positive benefits for all. If the kids spend the weekdays with Mom, step dad, and baby half brother and walk to school in the city they are able to be close to their friends and participate in all the culturally normal activities such as swimming lessons, drum lessons, violin lessons, day camps, etc, etc, etc. They then spend 3 out of 4 weekends here living close to nature, gardening, walking to the local lake for swimming, running around outside, playing without TV or gadgets, participating in tours, and learning about our biocentric way of life. In this scenario the kids continue to benefit from both homes and the driving is dramatically reduced. A bicycle commute would even be possible when the kids are a bit older and there are fewer cars on the roads.

Looking forward to the future and the challenges of adaptation,

Gord and Ann

The ECOnomics of ECO-Sense

Almost two years ago now we jumped a big leap of faith and quit our jobs to embark upon this project. Our fears were pretty much muted by our excitement and belief in what we were doing. Something bigger than fear was driving us as we dove head first into the mud…of bureaucracy, only to emerge a couple years later even more determined and quite a bit thinner.

Rant
We have ranted as we piled the mud higher on such subjects as peak oil, climate change, species extinction, environmental collapse, our consumer culture, economic collapse, and all of our laws that protect us from every possible little thing that could go wrong…except food shortages, dried up aquifers, extreme weather events, poverty, disease, cancer, and the big one, the collapse of our life support system.

Do we really need all these laws?

This month we came across an article that put into perspective much of what we seek to dismantle, explaining how complexities of our society make us more fragile. www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=97741 Over the months we have argued that complex codes, regulations and policies limit our ability to build ourselves a simple and more sustainable home.

Building code policies as David Eisenberg (of DCAT) notes, develop out of the need to address failures in past building practices. In our BC climate we have the leaky (sweaty) condo which has led to even more complex systems to seal and move air around in buildings, and rain screens on the outside of buildings. Every time our society tries to fix individual problems by adding more layers of complexity we actually create larger problems which lead to a more fragile economy and ecosystem.

The law of diminishing returns explains this well. We believe that in order for our society to evolve into a sustainable one we need to simplify. This means problem solving by reducing complexity and acting locally with the primary guiding force of the bigger picture. This also involves the fundamental acceptance and comfort in knowing that the earth is in charge and all will ultimately be good. Problems can more easily be solved when we look to nature for the answers.

The above article also pointed out that as a civilization moves away from simple systems, and becomes more complex, there reaches a point where the individual functions played are so specialized it opens itself up to fragility in the face of change.

Food security works the same way. On the Island we have a limited supply of food, three days I believe is the number. What if a hurricane/tidal wave/earthquake wipes out the transport links to the mainland? Our Grandparents used to grow and share food among their communities; they were not as efficient as the greenhouses in California, but their food source was more secure.

The power grid also demonstrates what happens when we rely solely on one power source. Blackouts when a node fails. Would a decentralized power system be as efficient…probably not, but a decentralized system would be more secure.

Who’s the most important in our Society?

If we all lived much simpler lifestyles where the majority of us were directly involved in producing items to fill our needs (food, shelter, education, health), then each of us is a contributor. In our current societal arrangement, we actually have very few contributors, most of us are non-productive consumers; each of whom fills a role outside of the production of basic needs. What this means is that those who produce the basics to fill our needs have to do so more efficiently. This tends to mean that we centralize production, mechanize the systems, and production becomes more complex. This places our civilization in a very vulnerable position.

Fear of No Money

So where does this leave us. Currently our home is almost finished and our bank account is almost empty. (Check our website for our updated cost spreadsheet) Both of us are actually fearful of the empty bank account. Logically we know we will be warm and safe in our home, (once we finally finish and move in) and we can grow most of our food if we work REALY hard. We also have abundant clean water, for now anyways. But even knowing all this we are scared of not having any money. We are still trying to get to the bottom of our fears but we think that most of it is irrational cultural programming. Money represents power, stuff, and security.

But really, we do need to earn enough to buy our local goats milk, our used clothing, tools, maintain our computer, pay property taxes, go to the dentist, buy our $900 liability insurance so we can participate in green building shows, you know the essentials.

The future for us is not in the green home building industry where we have to travel and spend time away from home. So what makes ECOsense for us?

Ideas

1. Sustainably Suite
Picture the demand for eco-density, more population living within city boundaries, with the need for kitchens, bathrooms and the other necessities. Where do we fit in?

Take the need to renovate and install a suite, with a kitchen made out of beautiful recycled materials, with cob countertops; where floors are heated with the sun, light clay infill walls for sound and fire proofing, natural plasters, and where simple composting toilets are installed in bathrooms. What is even more interesting is the idea that the green home owner filters tenants by their eagerness to use a composting toilet and live more naturally. This is even suitable where regular toilets are too costly or impractical in certain applications. Every suite renovation and install of a composting toilet would require the owner to read the “Humanure Handbook”.
Grey water re-use and rain water harvesting may also be incorporated.
Sustainably suite! Sustainable home renovations… by… Eco-Sense.

2. Tours and Education
We are definitely going to continue with our tours for the public, professionals, and students. This is very important to us but generates very little income relative to the effort. Oh…slight tour change for June. There will be NO tour on Sunday June 8th but instead there will be one on Saturday 10 am to noon June 7th. This is great news for all those church going folks who have been very interested in our progress.

3. Consulting for natural building and system integration.
Though all of our work here we have learned a great deal and are eager to help others with this process.

4. Workshops
In the years to come we have many hands on workshops planned.
Next year we will build an 8 x 8 cold storage shed out of cob. This design can be adapted to many backyard projects and the CAD plans will be given to all workshop participants. This short course will occur on two consecutive weekends in the 2009 season.

Also next year we plan on building a covered outdoor cooking, meeting area in front of our gardens that will include seating, bread oven, food prep area, etc all out of cob of course. This will be offered as a five day workshop. Plans will also be given out.

5. HOW TO Presentations in the Circle Room
Two hour presentations given in the circle room starting with a half hour quick tour of the home, a one hour power point presentation on the given topic, and then half hour for questions and discussion. Groups of about 10 people.

Topics to include:
Natural plaster (including Ann’s secret plaster recipes), composing toilets, simple grey water systems (including the ‘WORM BIN’), rainwater harvesting, living roofs, earthen floors, infill wall systems, sustainably suite, solar PV, solar thermal, and anything else YOU think will be useful to YOU in our changing world.

For the series we are also partnering up with others like Angela Evans with her amazingly empowering presentations on community building in YOUR neighborhood. Check out Angela’s new website at www.localsolutionsplanning.com to learn more.
We hope to put a schedule together for this fall. If anyone has other ideas or would like to present a topic in the circle room please let us know.

So there it is…the beginnings of a sustainable future doing what we are passionate about.

If anyone is interested in learning about timber framing check out the series of hands on courses offered at Our EcoVillage. www.ourecovillage.org

Please share any ideas you have…we are all ears.

Cheers,

Ann and Gord

A Day
As April came to a close we had one of those regular days. It started by watching our weeks worth of milk squirting out of goats, while sharing easy conversation with the squatting goat farmer on the history of my own milking experience and admitting that not only have I never milked a goat but nothing has ever milked me and then explaining that my kids are step kids and not baby goats…(kid is the technical term for a baby goat).

Coming home with fresh milk for my family (Husband, two step kids, and parents) to find more family visiting excites the social senses. The sharing of stories and a beer was saddly interrupted by “Dad! Dad! (Sob! Sob!) I think Kozy (the visiting dog) just bit a chicken!” On heightened alert we rush to the coop only to find our finest laying hen… lying… LIFELESS. Explaining to the kids that black labs are bird hunters, we share what Spring (the deceased chicken) will become as we bury her quickly (and rather unceremoniously) into the thermophilic compost pile. Emily, through sobs and sniffs, explains to Uncle Brian that Spring laid double yolks! As we take in all the emotions comforting kids, sympathizing with visiting family about their dog’s
natural instinct, and observing the eight circling Turkey Vultures directly overhead, we keep in our mind that we have a wedding to attend to in 30 minutes.

As Spring the hen met her fate, on her way to starting many new lives in the compost, the phone call came that Rick, Ann’s brother, was to be married in Las Vegas and the 6 minute ceremony would be a live web cam broadcast. As we hugged family goodbye we rushed to conquer technology to view the wedding.

In our simple life in two trailers, we have, sadly, three computers. The first, a Mac that woudn’t view the web cast. The second in the midst of a virus scan and unwilling to shut down, so we scramble to the third in the den. In the den we find the power is out. (Later, Emily and Ann learn that Spring’s feathers inside the chicken run, hide the disconnected power cable). Back to the trailer where the virus scan finally quits and allows us to see the vows. We fight back more tears of happiness as Ann’s friend since grade two is wed to her brother.

Emily, after all was said and done, tied some of Spring’s feathers together with Grandma Merrily’s finest twisty, and remarked “We can have a Spring flower on our Christmas tree”. More tears!

The day was rich as we shared family, tears, weddings, death, life, local milk, and eggs.

The Children

“If you want to know what the future looks like,” asks Clifford Stoll, “don’t ask a scientist with grey hair, ask a kindergarten teacher; and not just any kindergarten teacher, but an experienced one. They will tell you what the future looks like because they’re looking at it”.

The kindergarten teacher at our kids’ school, is an amazing man with an amazing ability to empower all his students, making each one feel like a leader, filled with self confidence, creativity, and an unfettered understanding that they can change their world, for the better. It makes sense that Mr.Crisp sees the future… and this is why he invests so heavily in it.

This month we have been contacted by students from Glenlyon Norfolk, Esquimalt, Spectrum, and Belmont, all primarily through their own action. They all want to know what sustainability looks like, how it takes shape, and they have lots of questions.

Sustainability is more than just a house and its systems, it is a mindset.

Interestingly adults and youth share different mindsets. This month we have had several conversations with adults and there is a fairly prevalent series of stages that adults are going through. The stages seem to be denial, fear, powerlessness, acceptance, anger and empowerment. The kids luckily for the most part have escaped this and are at the empowerment stage.

The feeling of powerlessness is understandable as it is easy to look at the global picture, ignoring the small pieces that make it up. The Gestalt view is that the whole is a sum of the parts, and despite “feeling like an ant run over on the highway”, it is the combined action of the ants that demonstrate the success of the whole colony.

Think globally and act locally is in our opinion admirable but tough as the global thinking paralyzes us and can make one feel powerless. We like to think local and act local. Kids are naturally focused on the local… they provide the smaller parts that make up the bigger picture.

Here are the questions posed by grade five students from Glenlyon Norfolk, and our answers.

Jamie
How much did your house cost?
Our house cost $270,000 or $125/ft2.

Did it cost more or less to build than an ordinary house?
A conventional house without any custom work costs $150//ft2. A house with custom furniture, cabinets and finishing ranges from $190-$200//ft2. So Our home costs a lot less than an ordinary home… plus our costs include all our power for the next thirty years!

How do you use technology in an eco-friendly way?
First off, we USE LESS; we have changed our lives to use less water, to use less electricity; we have built a house to require less. This means whatever technology is used can be sized smaller. Even though we use sustainable energy there is still a cost to the environment to manufacture it.

Are you happy with your choices?
I think so. After living a year in the house and we see how all the systems perform, and how we perform, we will have a better idea.

Julia
What tools did you use to build your house?
The two most important tools we used were (and are) our hands/bodies, and our minds. Our cob tools we used are the rototiller, gloves, shovel, wheel barrow, cob saws, buckets, and level. For our carpentry to build our roof and cabinets, we required regular carpentry tools, (hammers, saws, drills, etc.).

Are there any pests that could ruin your house?
No. Pest look for food, and cob does not provide any nutrition. Even in areas of the world that have termite problems, cob is seen as a pest free building style. The straw in the walls has no food value; straw is different from hay, where hay is a food source.

What maintenance will you have to do on your house?
We will have to refresh the lime plaster on the outside with a lime wash (lime paint) every couple of years. We will have to replace the roof in 80-100 years, and check on it to ensure an arbutus tree is not sprouting.

Sarah
What is the foundation made out of?
The foundation is made out of concrete as specified by the building code… BUT we used a high flyash mixture. This flyash mixture means we were able to remove 40% of the Portland Cement out of the mix, by the addition of flyash, a cementatious material that is a waste by-product from coal fired power plants.

What type of flooring do you have?
We have earthen floors. This means we have floors made of straw, clay and sand, that are sealed in many layers of linseed oil and wax.

What type of insulation do you have?
Our cob walls are very thick which gives them mass. Mass has the ability to store heat. Within the cob wall is pumice, a lightweight volcanic rock with air pockets, which provides insulation to the cob. On our ceiling/roof we use a formaldehyde free fiberglass insulation. Our roof is a living roof with three inches of pumice and soil.

Are most of your materials local?
By volume and amount of materials – yes. By cost of materials – NO. The materials made elsewhere, by non-natural sources cost a lot more.

What type of power runs your home?
We use solar PV to make electricity for the home.

What is the most environmentally unfriendly material you have in your house?
This is a hard question. The first is the concrete for the foundation. It is one of the highest carbon footprint items. The second is the EPDM membrane (pond liner) for the roof, which is a petroleum product. Thirdly, one of the most toxic products produced, is a material that coats all our electrical wires; this is PVC (polyvinyl chloride), a type of common plastic.

We wanted to share these questions with all of you to show what the future looks like.

Eco-Sense in the BC Legislature

Last month we spent a wonderful two hours giving our local MLA John Horgan a tour of our home. He was so supportive of what we have accomplished here that he spoke for two minutes about Eco-Sense in the BC Legislature. Check out this link to read his speech. Http://www.islandnet.com/~anngord/downloads/legislative-report-april10-08.pdf This was a real honour for us. Mr. Horgan also puts out a monthly e-newsletter where he introduced our home.

http://www.islandnet.com/~anngord/downloads/john_horgan_mla-april08-newsletter.pdf

The adventures building our sustainable home have been followed by many other politicians and political candidates from municipal, provincial, and right up to federal. Check out Brian Gordon’s Blog at http://www.greenparty.ca/en/blog/815 and for specific items on Eco-Sense check out these two entries. http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/4209 and

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/3614

Tours:
Our first two tours of the years were fully booked and we even had to turn some away. Oddly enough though, we had to cancel our third tour as we had only two bookings. I guess we need to do more to get the word out. Two public tours are booked for May: May 11 and May 25. 10 am until noon. $12. Please call or email to book you spot. ann@eco-sense.ca 250-478-2680

All the Best,

Ann and Gord

Highlands house a part of history
By Edward Hill - Goldstream News Gazette - April 04, 2008

Ancient apples unearthed

At Highland’s Caleb Pike Heritage Park, the once thriving apple orchard is dying off. But Howie Chadderton, Ann Baird’s father, is going to use some old-fashioned grafting keep the genetic lineage alive.

According to an hand-drawn 1883 map, the Pike property had 27 trees, but about a dozen survive to this day. Chadderton plans to graft eight or nine shoots in the Baird’s orchard. Chadderton says the shoots need to be cut with a extremely sharp, sterile knife. The shoot’s cambium layer is then matched to an a branch on an existing tree and bandaged watertight. “The new piece has all the DNA of the original piece,” he says.

If the grafting is successful, he expects to have original Caleb Pike apple trees within three or four years.

Amid the historical curiosities lining the Royal BC Museum’s 150th provincial anniversary display is a wall-sized photo of Ann and Gord Baird, two modern-day pioneers of sorts.

The Highlands environmentalists are creating what may be the most sustainable building in North America. With the museum’s nod, the Bairds and their cob home are now a celebrated piece of B.C.’s history.

“They are a good example of two people willing to go to the limit,” says Kelly Sendall, RBCM manager of natural history.

The Bairds share part of the Free Spirit exhibition with two other eco-home builders, both on Salt Spring Island. The Bairds have loaned the museum a model of their house. Sendall says the RBCM wanted to demonstrate how British Columbians are stewarding the natural environment.

“Because everyone makes a home, it’s not hard to think twice about natural resources, ecological footprints how to deal with power,” Sendall says. “(The Bairds) are an example of going the extra mile to make and build a sustainable house.”

For their part, the Bairds are working furiously to finish building, when they are not guiding house tours or giving interviews to magazines, newspapers and documentary filmmakers.

“Our goal was to make a little difference in sustainable homes,” Ann says. “To be included in the museum is a real privilege.” “We just want to set an example locally and globally,” Gord adds. They’re young, but they finish each other’s sentences like an old married couple.

The Bairds expected to finish construction before last Christmas, but spent the winter in their cramped trailer with a dog and Gord’s two kids. There is light at the end of the tunnel. The interior needs finishing but the hard parts are done — and there were many.

Their pride and joy is the solar tube system that heats water for domestic use and pipes it through the house for warmth. The dual system isn’t exactly rocket science, but the Canadian Standards Association didn’t have a policy for it, leaving Highland’s building inspector and the Bairds in the dark.

“There was a lack of policy with evacuated tubes. It was new to Canada and essentially illegal to use,” Gord says. “So we wrote an alternative solution to the (building) code,” Ann says. “The heating system is new. It broke huge ground.”

Now dozens of small pipes snake under the floor radiating from a custom-designed hydronic control system. Not content with creating precedent for future sustainable homes, the Baird’s electrical engineer designed the controls to use 50 times less power than a conventional system.

“Power conservation is key,” Gord says. “We’ve designed the system for super-low energy consumption.”

The year-long experiment has become a lifestyle unto itself. The Bairds pioneered enough design innovations to become sought-after green-building consultants. They’re ramping up for school and public tours of the house to finally start bringing in income again. Their income taxes are simple for 2007 — zero dollars.

“What we do really well is the system integration side — working with water and so-called waste disposal. We call it resource capture,” Gord says.

Some design features seem disarmingly obvious but are rarely or never done in conventional homes. A dozen solar panels feed battery packs, in turn feeding appliances — fridges, computers, stereos, and lights. The house collects rainwater and organically filters its grey water to feed an orchard. Most of the wood is salvaged from Skirt Mountain, Mayfair Lanes and Glanford School. Even the nails were yanked from old lumber. Perhaps less obvious was adding pumice to North Americas first legal, load bearing cob walls - a mix of clay, sand and straw. Cob won’t burn, repels bugs, and the pumice helps it breath like “nature’s Gortex,” Gord says.

Despite seemingly endless “green” design details — a compostable toilet, organic interior insulation — the house including labour only cost about $270,000. It will house six people comfortably, including Ann’s parents.

“If it’s not affordable it’s not sustainable,” they say. “The idea is to have less income and more family time,” Ann says. “You have more time for growing food, for your community and for your kids,” Gord adds.

The Bairds hope to start pressuring policy makers to support homeowners for adopting sustainable, eco-friendly technology and lifestyles. Some large developments tack on so-called “green” planning with little substance and are hailed as environmental saviors, they say.

“This house isn’t a ‘green wash,’” Gord says. “Some developments say they are green, but it’s pure bull.”

To learn more or to book a school, public or private tour see www.eco-sense.ca or call 478-2680.

editor@goldstreamgazette.com

This past update has generated a huge swell of responses. We are seriously considering setting up a posting on the website for anyone who wishes to have their responses posted (in part or in full)… with permission of the commenter of course.

We would like to re-summarize the intent of the update, in a form without the “rant”.

Faced with the dire need to change quick and look at options that will work, we have been critical of some of the aspects of the green movement to date. I preface this with the knowledge that Ann and I have been our own worst critics, and knowing this we are also critics of the green movement we are a part of.

The underlying message in the update is that the monetary incentives will only play a minor role in creating positive change, and that to address the exponential shift in behaviours required, our “business as usual” methods will not work and other methods need to be used.

A simplified way to view our update is to compare it to the carrot and stick method to direct and guide behaviours. You can use a stick to change behaviours. If you offer a carrot to someone who is already satiated on carrots, then the carrot is of little value, and an alternative should be used.

In the above case climate change is the stick; it will force us to react at whatever level we are pushed to, call it survival mode. The well intentioned grants and programs, spawned by the well intentioned advocates, use monetary means as the carrot. The fundamental argument could have been more clear in our update, but we are suggesting that the grants though nice and well intentioned are not what it is going to take. First off - those citizens that are open to the grants are more likely to be in a “satiated” position, where true needs are long since met. So in light of this we have a consumer society that sees the grant as monies they can put into something else… basically nullifying the forward step that the grant initiates. (This is where the comment fits that more efficient technology lends us to be more efficiently unsustainable, as the gains from saving power or saving money are spent in other places.) This is not the fault of the green movement but the habit of our behaviours.

The alternative is emotive value; social recognition, non-monetary rewards. This is why Ann and I have manaage to progress our house and project to where we are… because of the support that comes from other means. We are suggesting that for change to happen quickly, and people to jump on board, the programs or incentives need to heavily satisfy the emotive needs of the citizens.

There needs to be recognition for more than just the Eco-Sense project, but for the Eastwoods, the Browetts, the Cruises, the Nelsons, the Georges, the Mccaughertys, the Penns, the Youngs, and a multitude of other innovators right here in BC doing the right things (few to none of which qualify for any program, but do it for deeper reasons).

Gord and Ann
Less life stuff… more Life Style!