Green Edmonton

On July 30th, 2008, we demolished the 92-year-old house at ####- ## Avenue.

The awesome power of the trackhoe was immediately apparent, as it effortlessly tore through the front wall of the house. Given that we can dispose of such a huge (historically speaking) building in such a short time, it's going to be a while before it becomes worth it properly recycling these buildings. Hmmm, should we spend 300 person hours and very little fuel taking this house apart, or should we spend 15 person hours and burn off 300 litres of diesel? It's a no-brainer, really.   read more... »

100 year old houses are relatively convenient to take apart because the original structure contains no screws. Two by fours will come out just by being banged with a sledgehammer if there are no screws. My friend Ed and I saved about 50 2x4 studs from the old pink house that stood at #### - ## Avenue until last week.  read more... »

Maple Leaf Metals is located at 4510 - 68 Avenue. They are the place to bring scrap metals of all kinds. I had heard that they pay the best money for the scrap, and overall I was happy with my MLM experience.

Last week I borrowed the Habitat Studios truck and loaded up the metallic material that I collected out of the house that stood at #### - ## Avenue.  read more... »

Composting Toilet

For the longest time, I wanted to put a composting toilet in the Mill Creek NetZero Home (MCNZH). My reasoning is that, at some point, I think we're going to be forced to compost our waste for food production (*reader rolls eyes at raving hippie communist blogger*). Seriously, once the fossil fuel-based fertilizer is gone, how else will we keep our land fertile?   read more... »