(Mill Creek NetZero House backyard)

Ron Berezan of Urban Farmer fame designed and constructed our yard. He thoughtfully helped us create a beautiful space with as little environmental impact as possible (I’ll discuss the permaculture aspects of the design in a future post).

We wanted a sitting place in the yard, as well as paths, sidewalks, and a large window well to let sunlight into the basement. We also wanted to minimize the use of concrete in the yard. Concrete has a huge carbon footprint, and is rarely reusable (it can be recycled, but only with a major downgrade in utility – it basically becomes gravel).

To achieve our goals, we used paving stones, reused sidewalk blocks, reused bricks, field stones and wood chip mulch.

Paving Stones and Reused Sidewalk Blocks

(sidewalk blocks and red paving stone sidewalk, Mill Creek NetZero Home)

We used sidewalk blocks that I salvaged from the yard (before we built the house) in combination with red paving stone to create our outdoor patio and sidewalks. The humble sidewalk block has a lot of potential to save concrete in Edmonton. It is found piled up in back alleys across the city in virtually the same shape as when installed in the 60s and 70s.

We chose paving stones for the front sidewalks as well. Although they are very energy-intensive to produce, they are extremely durable, and they retain their value as a reusable product for many years. A properly-made paver can be pulled up and installed elsewhere 50 years after it was first installed, and still look and act as good as new.

(paving stone sidewalks, Mill Creek NetZero Home front yard)

Actually, if we had known how well the sidewalk blocks would work, we would have used them in the front yard as well.

Field Stones

To build a retaining wall and a window well, we chose to use field stones.  read more... »

 This just in from resident Net Zero House expert and Edmonton green leader Bob Heath:

The latest issue of Home Power magazine has an article entitled "Blast From The Past" written by Martin Holladay. He tested a 33 watt PV module that he had bought in 1980 for $275.00 US. He found that the module was still performing at better than factory spec. A quote from the article - "A PV cell is a rock that makes electricity."
Another quote from the same issue of HP - "A PV module is the closest thing we have to perpetual motion [and] is the most reliable electric generator in the known universe." —Joel Davidson, SOLutions in Solar Electricity

Germany will install 6,000,000 kilowatts of PV modules this year. Shouldn’t we Albertans also be investing in these en masse in order to make our electricity supply more resilient (not to mention greener) in a future of declining fossil fuel availability?

 (fire-rated door, Mill Creek Net Zero Home)

Every interior door in the Mill Creek Net Zero Home was once used in a different application. There are thousands of doors thrown in the landfill every year in this city, which is a real shame.

Both Home Re-use-ables and Architectural Clearinghouse will come to you and pay you to pick up doors if you are tearing down a house or you’ve removed them for some other reason.

We saved a few doors from the old house that we deconstructed before building. For the rest, we paid $30 for old fir doors plywood doors, and $50 for solid core doors. That’s well under what they would cost new, but with two catches: they’re all different sizes, and they’re not pre-hung. Because of these two reasons, we paid more for the carpenter's installation labour.

We also bought antique hardware for the doors, including glass handles for $50/set. That may seem expensive, but it is competitive with brand new, mid-range door hardware.

I do have a few projects to complete (stripping and refinishing the more “rugged looking” doors), but I feel good every time I notice the character and beauty of the old-timey doors in our house.

(antique doors with glass knobs. They don’t make them like this anymore.)

(it’s tough to find reused 16” closet doors. Oak veneer? Hey, they’re reused, I’ve grown to like them!)

(bedroom closet doors. The blue one is from the old house that we deconstructed and tore down.)

The best way that I can think of to add a large amount (20+ tonnes) of thermal mass to a solar home is by adding concrete floors. By doing this, one can get two uses, thermal storage and a finished floor,  out of the same investment. Furthermore, since the mass of a concrete floor is so spread out around the home, thereby giving it a large surface area with which to absorb and release heat, it really is the ideal thermal storage medium for a house with large solar gains.

So we added a 2.5 inch topcoat of concrete over the subfloor. In order to support the extra weight we had to add (recycled!) beams that run the length of the house (north to south).  After it was poured, the concrete was simply trowelled as a preliminary finish.

pouring concrete floors over a regular subfloors (the walls had to be made 2.5 inches higher to compensate for the depth of the floors)

a freshly trowelled concrete floor

For the final finish, we were partial to an acid-stain because we've seen some gorgeous stained finishes. Peter Amerongen convinced us to go for a water-based dye for environmental reasons. Man those green types can get in the way sometimes!

A talented man named Skip from Desco Coatings did the final finish. Peter describes the finish as such:
”We sealed the concrete with lithium silicate, then dyed it with water-based dye. The final coat was an epoxy coating, 2-part , 100% solids (so no offgassing because the soldis do not evaporate)."

The finished product is wonderful – a bit different at first, with an organic, charactery type of feel to it (yes, I just made up the word charactery).

The floor has been growing on me by the day.

we love the saw cuts in this floor  read more... »