Congratulations to Peter Amerongen on winning "Net-Zero Energy Home Champion of the Year" and to the team at Habitat Studio & Workshop Ltd on winning "Net-Zero Energy Home Product of the Year" for their PV Awning.  I believe this is the very awning that is on Conrads house.

Check out: http://netzeroenergyhome.ca/2011-award-winners

A question from this comment thread:

Hi there Conrad, I am in the early stages of my Environmental Design (architecture, interior environments, landscape architecture, city planning) degree and I happen to be writing a paper on your project for an ecology class...so I have been reading all about it and I am quite inspired! So much so that just emailed a green design/builder to ask about summer employment :)

I have some questions about demolition. (I have no idea about this stuff yet, but it is the sort of thing I plan to do in practice eventually.) I know you salvaged a lot of stuff from the old house, and I see that it took you a huge amount of time, but I am wondering if more was possible? Not as a criticism, but as a query about just how much potential there is in demolition projects.

In an ideal situation where time/labour/cost were not issues, could this entire house have been salvaged with close to zero waste? Is there reuse/recycle potential in insulation, drywall or plaster, linoleum, nails, siding, window frames,shingles, fascia, soffits, etc.? And I'm even talking stuff that's not necessarily in a condition to just shine up and reuse/reinstall. I'm talking about stuff that may be damaged or completely outdated...is there any productive way at all to prevent these from going to the landfill?

My Answer:

Hi Jolene,

Thanks! More could have been reused and recycled.

The studs in the walls were the most valuable things left when the house was demolished. They could all have been removed and reused by a conscientious framer as lumber. I have envisioned some kind of hydraulic device that could pop walls off of the floor by applying pressure after being jammed between two walls. Or, someone hardier than me could do the job with a sledge hammer.

Old shingles are worthless. They are semi-decomposed asphalt. No value whatsoever that I know of.

We reused all of the windows, and the window frames could have been harvested as above for their lumber.

I believe that drywall scraps do get recycled in Edmonton. Plaster, not so much.

Linoleum is glued on, so it is impossible to remove without ripping it. Plus, there are some very cheap linos out there. Once they've had 20 years of use, they are truly degraded and worthless.

Nails can usually be saved, but the labour to do it is enormous. First you pull the nail out with a crowbar (no small feat), then you need to straighten it. Plus, carpenters don't use hammers and nails anymore! They nail use nail guns, staplers or screw drivers.

Vinyl siding is pretty much worthless garbage once it is removed. I guess if you took it off carefully, and you were willing to put faded siding on some building (a garage?), and there was enough to cover the whole building (you want the same colour on every outer wall, right?), you might find a use for it. If the building wasn’t there though, where would you store the siding in the meantime?

Insulation bats can definitely be reused. Same with the wood chip insulation that was in our attic and walls. The catch is again labour - this would take hours and hours, and then where exactly do you reuse it? I guess as garden mulch.

All of the huge (10 inches high) beautiful solid fir baseboards in our house were painted white. The effort to remove the paint would have been enormous. Plus, some of the baseboards got damaged  while they were being removed. I saved them all, but in the end we had no use for them.

The foundation bricks could have almost all been salvaged (with a huge labour input, I guess). However, the chimney bricks were crumbling due to the temperature fluctuations that they endure. I guess they could have been crushed for use as gravel (aggregate).

The house that I deconstructed was built before asbestos, but there is a huge number of buildings that are full of the stuff.

Conclusion

I hope that I didn’t ramble too much.

In conclusion, besides everything that did get saved, more of the house could have been saved.

These materials could have been saved:

1. Wood framing and ship lath wood (the latter for firewood).
2. Wood chip insulation.
3. Nails.
4. Some of the PVC drainpipe.

These materials would have been virtually impossible to save;

1. Plaster (there was and enormous amount in the house).
2. Linoleum or other plastic fixtures.
3. Asphalt roofing.
4. Drywall (for recycling, the drywall needs to be clean, without paint).
5. Painted wood (like baseboards).
6. Rotted carpet.

Luckily, the easiest houses from which to salvage building materials are the oldest (and most energy-innefficient) ones. They have the least amount of asbestos, plastics, vinyls and glues in them, and they have higher quality, usually better-finished wood in them.

In response to this question by Kristina:

“We want to build just West of Edmonton and are having trouble finding someone with knowledge of passive solar and super insulated building practices. Any recommendations?”

I wanted to list the builders that I know who have a track record of building truly energy efficient houses. From what I’ve heard and experienced, any of the following companies could build a house that truly pushes the envelope in energy efficiency and general greenitude.

It’s well known that I’m very happy with my experience with this Habitat Studio and Workshop Ltd. No one has built a greener and more solarized house in Edmonton than these guys!

I’m going strictly from word of mouth on this one. Effect Home Builders is apparently building a net zero project in Belgravia.

My friend Myles built an R-2000 house with Kensington Master Builders, and he loves them. They really know what they’re doing, and they are very professional.

The House Company could build more, greener houses. They definitely know how to though, if the client pushes them on it.

Do you have a green builder to recommend to Green Edmonton readers?

Last year we took possession of a new home that surpassed an energy rating of Energuide 86. Because of that, Climate Change Central, an arms-length government organization, mailed us a $10,000 cheque.

What we really need is a carbon tax. Economists (the good kind) and environmentalists agree, putting a price on carbon is the simplest, most effective way of changing people’s earth-destroying ways. And I don’t buy the argument that Stephane Dion’s doomed election campaign proved that Canadians don’t want a carbon tax. The nerdiest, least competent Liberal leader in a generation lost that campaign for reasons other than his Green Shift idea.

Since a carbon tax is a political hot potato right now, one behaviour-changing alternative is the green subsidy. I have to give the Progressive Conservatives credit, this is no longer Ralph Klein’s Alberta. Stelmach’s government recently enacted an excellent net metering policy, and they also introduced the new home rebate policy.

With the right builder, we estimate that the incremental cost to building a house to meet Energuide 86, which would include excellent windows (triple-pane, low-e coating, insulating spaces, etc.), at least R40 walls, R60 in the ceiling, and a very tightly-sealed envelope, is $20,000-$25,000. With the $10,000 incentive, that cost is now ridiculously low.

Build a house that is extremely cheap to heat, much more comfortable in the winter, and cool in the summer. And get paid ten grand to do it - it’s a no-brainer.

Climate Change Central has another three years of funding in place (it may be extended beyond that time). Ask your builder to save you $10,000 today. If your builder can’t build an Energuide 86 house, find another one.