In October of last year we bought our first house in Edmonton--and we've been renovating ever since.  Sound familiar?

Our initial attraction to the property was it's three-fold potential:

•  Potential to make this old house (1942) into a energy-efficient family home (hopefully for many years to come);

•  Potential to make this huge double lot (8000+ square feet) into a more environmentally sensitive/edible landscape (we love growing our own food); and finally,

•  The potential (and challenge) of being good neighbors/citizens in an older and struggling North Edmonton community (Build better communities, stop urban-sprawl, "improve, don't move", etc.).

Idealistic? Yes, whatever...

One of the biggest challenges to renovations and landscaping we are constantly up against is cost. Not making a lot of money, the cost of creating a space we can enjoy without guilt has called for some genuine creative thinking... and I hope some of the ideas we've come up with will be of interest to readers who can relate.  read more... »

image from sears.ca

One of the the underappreciated marvels of the modern age is the cooking appliance. The ability to so accurately channel energy to enable perfect cooking is a vast improvement over how we used to cook (I’m thinking open fire here, but there were probably some cultures that came up with more ingenious methods). I often find myself marveling at how effortless and clean it is to cook food these days.

Replacing or Buying New

Here are some questions, thoughts and consuming strategies when it comes to ranges and stovetops:

• Do you really need a new range? Ovens and stovetops have barely increased in fuel efficiency over the past 50 years. After all, wasted energy is usually lost as heat, which in this case is obviously not a waste at all. Consider just keeping using your old range or having it repaired.
• Can you buy a used range? Used appliances are a dime a dozen, and while I would almost never encourage buying a used fridge (old ones are way less efficient), a used range is probably as energy efficient as a new one.
• Consider gas. A gas range is much more efficient than an electric one because of the massive energy losses (covered here in regard to ground source heat pumps) involved in converting coal and natural gas to electricity.
• Buy the most energy efficient model. Let the range’s Energuide Rating be your guide.

Conservation

All of the following reduce coal burning:

• Use a toaster oven. Because they’re so much smaller, toaster ovens use less energy to bake any given thing.
• Use a pressure cooker and/or thermal cooker.
• Cook with the sun.
• Turn off the stovetop a few minutes before you’re done cooking. The thermal inertia of the pan or pot that you’re using will keep the food cooking for a while after the burner is turned off.

Embodied Energy

    the available energy that was used in the work of making a product (from Wikipedia)

Once we use energy to make something, we should keep using that thing as long as possible. It provides a service to us, and once we stop using it to provide that service we generally need to spend more energy to create whatever replaces it. Home Re-use-ables exists to extend the life of building products – to maximize the value that we get from their embodied energy.

This is Sherry at Home Re-use-ables. It’s located at 8832 62 Avenue, and it may just have what you’re looking for for our next renovation project.  read more... »

The construction of today’s modern house expends a lot of energy and creates a lot of waste. We’ve worked hard to reduce waste while building the Mill Creek NetZero Home.

Wood

Green Door Builders framed the home, and along with building us a very airtight double-walled system, they were extremely conscientious about keeping their waste to a minimum. Here is a picture of 100% of the OSB waste that they created:

(a tiny pile of OSB waste, considering that a 2000+ sq. ft. home was framed with OSB sheathing)

Our LEED inspector was very impressed with this tiny pile.  read more... »