Saving Energy – Hammond Forever House

Wild Fire Smoke

This week CBC news reported that the city of Edmonton, Alberta had the worst air quality in the world due to smoke from British Columbia wildfires. The air is bad here in BC, too –another reason we’re grateful that we installed a Heat Recovery Ventilator in the house before we moved back in.

Our HRV was installed by Meadow Ridge Plumbing & Gas in September, 2016

The low air quality is due to the wild fires raging across the province as we experience the third worst fire season ever. The government has, once again, declared a state of emergency to mobilize resources. Fire fighters, armed forces personnel and other professionals are working hard and risking their lives to fight the fires. People are losing their homes and stepping up to help others in the same boat.

Doctors warn about the health impacts of climate change. People who are not under evacuation orders or alerts are curtailing outdoor activities and being advised to stay indoors. An oft-overlooked question is, how well-sealed is your home and how well-filtered is the air inside it?

Looking inside the HRV when it was brand new.

Sometimes it’s difficult to put your finger on the effects of climate change–I try to remember this and be forgiving when I pass people idling in gas-powered cars to keep their A/C running.

One easy way is to look at the filter in your furnace, air conditioner, or, in our case, HRV. It’s a lot like those cross-sections of smokers’ lungs. Unfortunately, in the same way those disgusting images of blackened lungs on cigarette packages don’t stop people from buying them, feeling the effects of climate change doesn’t seem to be speeding up our climate action.

In June of this year, 2018, I took some video of how a Heat Recovery Ventilator works and what a filter looks like after a bad season of wild fires (2017). The filter comes out at about the 5-minute mark.

As you can see in the video, an HRV is an important component in a well-insulated and sealed building. It removes stale air and exchanges the heat in it with fresh air drawn in from outside. It also filters the air so you can breathe easy.

This is a case where reducing greenhouse gas emissions by insulating and sealing your house also protects you against one of the indirect effects of climate change: severe wild fires.

Next week I’ll post a video showing you how I cleaned the filters and core of the HRV. In the meantime, check your filters!

Snowed in without Power!

I wish I could show you a photo of the house today. It is buried in snow. Unfortunately, Leanne’s computer is still too full and I can’t download the photos from the camera yet.

This photo from New Year’s 2017 will have to suffice.

We thought this was a lot of snow. (Ha!) Besides less snow, the other thing that is different in this photo is all the lights are on.

Over the past weekend, due to heavy snow breaking branches, we have had 6 separate power outages.

They are not the most relaxing events, but the kids love a good black-out. We light candles and revel in the adventure. “I love Earth-hour!” says my daughter.

Beneath the fun of it lies my worry that the decisions we have made on the house leave us vulnerable to power outages. Specifically, back-up power.

I have this insecurity that there is a silent mass of onlookers waiting for us to fail. “Let’s see how this ‘Forever House’ handles a power outage” they say in my head. “Bet they wish they had a gas generator!”

Well, I must admit it was a bit shaky, but we did okay and I remind myself that we’re not done yet.

Surprising to many, my master plan calls for no fossil fuels and no wood-burning. I want to keep the brick fireplace but insert an electric fire that looks good and gives a little heat. When the power went out, however, it was very comforting to be able to light a fire. It reminded us of the winter of 2014 when we challenged ourselves to live without buying more fuel oil and so we relied on wood and a little electric heat.

Leanne wants to keep the fire, but we don’t have to decide now, because we have a lot of other things to do before we come to that.

The fact is, we moved in before the house was done. I am not finished insulating and sealing the basement and top floor. The root cellar door is not sealed and insulated as well as we plan to. I’d also like to re-apply the weather-stripping to the windows, seal up the stained-glass transom lights in the front rooms, and improve the front door.

All this insulation and sealing is key, because we are counting on it to keep our heating bills down.

At the moment, our heat is supplied by the same water heater that used to heat our tap water before the renovation. Hot water is pumped through pipes stapled to the underside of the main floor and it warms the floor above.

Heating water with electricity is 100% efficient, but it is expensive, so I have been steadily trying to finish insulating wherever I haven’t reached yet.

The first time the power went out for more than an hour, I was anxious that putting our eggs in the electricity basket had been unwise. However, we noticed that the house did not cool very quickly. The insulation we had done so far was having an effect. It was the front rooms with their thinner walls and heritage windows that cooled the fastest and that’s where the fireplace was.

I also noticed that the bathroom floor, where the water heating pipes are embedded in concrete just below the tile, stayed warm for two hours or so. I realized that one great advantage to heating with underfloor hydronic pipes is that once the water is warm, it continues giving off heat for some time.

Once the house is finished, we will be able to last a long time without feeling the chill, but maybe you still think we need a back-up source of heat for longer emergencies. They tell you to be prepared for 72 hours without assistance.

My answer to that is my father-in-law Dave’s idea which he has helped us implement: the Toyota Prius as back-up generator. Read more about how we’re doing that here. When the wiring to the garage is complete, we can use the Prius or any other hybrid or electric car to power important stuff in the house like the fridge.

A more obvious solution is a large storage battery like Tesla’s Wall. Charge it in the daytime with solar panels and charge your car from the battery at night. If there is not enough to completely charge the car, BC Hydro will tip it up.

Incidentally, this is the same principal we hope to implement with the solar hot water panels someone handed down to us: heat a large tank of water in the heat of the day and use it (or simply let it warm the basement) in the evening.

It seems I have to get used to the idea that the house will be completed bit by bit. There will probably not be a ribbon-cutting ceremony. That fantasy of moving back in with all systems working perfectly is just that, a fantasy.

Meanwhile, it looks like it will be sunny tomorrow so the kids will go back to school. Then, later in the day, another winter storm is expected. At least now we know we can handle it.

Oops, we’re a little low on dry firewood…

Anybody got some?

Trump the Planet

Does Donald Trump’s victory mean the end of Climate Action in the United States?

Does it mean the end of the Paris Accord?

Does it really mean that half of the American people think that Climate Change is a hoax?

I don’t know about the first two, but I can’t believe people who voted for Trump don’t understand that Climate Change is a thing that we have to do something about.

Some of them, maybe…

I suspect they are mostly sick of having it pushed in their faces as if its their individual problem to solve.

Leanne and I can relate.

At this stage in our renovation and retrofit we’re just trying to finish enough of the house so that the building inspector will let us occupy it and we can get homeowner’s insurance again.

We’d like to spend Christmas in our house for a change instead of next door.

I haven’t been writing the blog because I simply don’t have energy at the end of the day. Weekdays I wake up early to make lunches for the kids, teach a class til noon, pick the kids up from school, and then work on the house til dinner time. Leanne works full-time and keeps up the electrical work with our electrician and her Dad. On weekends its all house all the time.

If this is what it takes for average folks to fight climate change, its no wonder we’re the exception, not the rule. My Eco-Warrior Badge is heavy.

Trump often railed against “the Mainstream Media”. Apparently, it struck a chord. Maybe when you are struggling to eek out a living and the media reports that climate change is the single greatest threat we face, it’s a little hard to swallow.

The truth is that the media have been under-reporting climate change. There is no confusion among scientists, researchers, NASA, the UN and everyone else who has looked at it for ten minutes but nobody seems to have any solutions besides buy more eco-friendly stuff.

One problem is that most mainstream news is delivered in a context of commercialism. Every story is steeped in commercials for stuff we don’t need and the solution for climate change is presented in products. Buy a more expensive car to reduce emissions. Replace lightbulbs, shop local, buy organic. The market has consumed environmentalism as an opportunity to sell more stuff and that has made everybody cynical.

CBC radio had a story on today about some people who say that Canada should reconsider its commitment to introduce a carbon tax.

Wrong! A carbon tax is precisely the kind of tool we need!

The BC example has been good for the economy while reducing greenhouse gases. It provides incentives for communities to take climate action which takes the pressure off the individual consumer who is already wracked with guilt for buying a new…anything.

What will happen if the US stops taking action on climate change? Will Canada’s economy suffer?

Can I answer that question with a question? Can we stop thinking about the profits of large corporations as if their well-being is more important than anything else for a second?

The Natural Resources minister under Stephen Harper, Joe Oliver was on the radio programme I was listening to. He was so full of misinformation I was yelling at the radio.

One thing he said was that the best way to fight climate change is to push forward in science and technology so that cheaper and better ways to solve the problem come into the market.

Sound reasonable? It’s hogwash. What makes me angry is that he is in a position to know better. All the best information was at his fingertips, but he continues to soothe the shopping public with the message that we can keep doing what we’re doing until technology fixes everything.

One of the biggest lessons we have learned as we work to make our home as energy-efficient as possible is that technology is not the issue.

The technology and techniques have been around a long time and they are so simple that most people can understand easily:

Insulate your house
Insulate your house some more
Insulate your house to the point where people look at what you’re doing and say, “holy crap that’s a lot of insulation”
seal your house (doors, windows, chimneys, vents…)
ventilate your house (you need fresh air now that you sealed it so well) with a Heat-Recovery Ventilator

Now that you have done all that you should not need very much heat in the winter nor cooling in the summer. Now you can decide how you want to provide that little bit of heating and cooling. (Hint: try not to use fossil fuels, including Natural Gas)

Here are a few fun options for heating your house without emitting GHGs: an air-source heat pump, a ground-source heat pump or a sun-pump.

SPOILER ALERT: Leanne and I have decided to deliver heat in the house with water pipes under the floors (and radiators on the top floor) and heat that water with electricity. We’re eschewing a heat pump for the time being but we may be able to partially heat the water with solar panels.

Yes, there are best-practices and some gadgets which help with all this, but the technology is available.

The problem is that not enough people are doing it.

Why are solar panels expensive?

Not enough people are buying them.

Why is it so hard to find a contractor who knows how to retrofit a house?

Not enough people are doing it.

Why does it take so long to retrofit a house?

Not enough people are doing it.

Does this cycle right back to blaming the public for not taking action? No. How can we expect the 99% of people who are not rich to spend a year and a lot of money retrofitting their house when the return on investment will be at least a decade away?

So, let’s not blame the media for ringing the climate bell without offering solutions. The solutions have to come from the people we elected to manage our future. Unfortunately, I don’t think Donald Trump has any solutions and I pray that Canada stays strong and doesn’t get sucked into the past.

Til next time,

James

Super Thick Wall

I haven’t made a time-lapse movie in a while.

I made this one on Thursday afternoon working in the basement. It’s important because I can finally show you what is going into those walls.

In this first video you can see me struggle to get the top-plate in above the 2X4 stud wall I built and then start insulating behind it.

That was the first wall I’d ever built. Our Rescue Contractor (He Who Fixed The Structural Issues Left Us By Another Contractor) taught me to build the wall flat on the floor, then lift it into place and attach it to another 2X4 attached to the ceiling (called the top-plate). I did that three months ago and then got distracted by more urgent tasks.

In the meantime, the electrical team (Leanne, her Dad and Golden Ears Electric) went ahead and roughed-in the wiring. That made it more difficult to get the top-plate up there.

Notice the stripes of sealing foam I had already added around the edges of the exterior sheathing. That was a tip from Walter.

Here is a play-by-play:

-James slides top-plate into position and balances it on a board so he can screw it up unassisted (he is screwing stuff up unassisted a lot lately)

-James notices that a wire is on the wrong side so he pulls out the top-plate and tries again.

-James notices that another wire is on the wrong side so he pulls out the top-plate and tries again.

-James puts two screws through the top-plate into every ceiling joist, careful to avoid the wires running through the joists.

-James uses a flashlight to confirm that yes, he put a screw right through one of the wires running through a joist.

-James curses, marks the damaged wire, and considers how to apologize to Leanne who is going to have to replace that wire.

-James uses a hammer to bash the top and bottom of the stud wall into place under the top-plate because he didn’t leave that 1/4 inch space that contractors always say you should leave.

-James grabs some Roxul batts from the huge pile that was taken out of the attic and has been cluttering up the basement for months and starts fitting it into the spaces in the exterior 2X6 stud wall.

-the battery dies.

We’re finding it very helpful to have short-term goals to work toward. A big one lately is the spray foam. That’s the kind where the people in space-suits show up with a van and hoses. We’re planning to fill the rafters under the roof with about 5 inches of 2-pound spray-foam insulation and there are a number of things we have to do before that can happen.

In the basement, the spray foam is going only into the rim joists–sometimes called box joists–which are the spaces at the top of the basement walls between the ceiling joists. It’s very difficult to seal and insulate those spaces, so spray foam is a good idea in there.

The walls, however, are easy to insulate so you can save money on that expensive (and not so environmentally-friendly) spray foam.

Shout-out to Monte Paulsen again because I am finally following through with his advice for an inexpensive super-insulated wall.

The building code requires new construction to have 2X6 stud walls instead of 2X4s. That means a thicker wall that can be insulated better. Roxul batts that fit 2X6 walls have an insulation value of 22 (R22).

However, the building code is only a minimum standard. Once you have your 2X6 wall and the structural engineer has signed-off, you can make your walls thicker. It’s easy!

More than simply adding insulation, you can interrupt the heat transferred through the wood studs in your wall. This is called thermal bridging and I am obsessed with eliminating it.

With Monte’s idea of adding a 2-inch thick sheet of styrofoam between and then building another wall inside it, the heat can’t use the studs as a bridge. On the inside of the interior wall, a sheet of plastic keeps the moisture in the warm interior air from getting into your walls. Over that goes your gypsum drywall.

Since the Rescue Contractor and engineer have already made sure the house is structurally sound, I’m free to fumble around learning how to build walls without worry. (I like to think the Rescue Contractor is very busy and has faith in me and those are the reasons he didn’t return my texts when I wrote to ask if I can publish his company’s name.)

And space? Yes, we will lose about 6 inches of space around the exterior walls, but after a week we won’t notice anymore.

In the second time-lapse, taken after I plugged my phone in, the sun goes down as I gleefully insulate.

There are two parts to this wall: the concrete and above the concrete (AKA the pony wall).

The concrete has almost no insulation value (and, if you remember, I didn’t consult with Monte in time to know we could put Terrafoam rigid insulation under the footings–a nagging regret.) On the outside, under the ground level, is 2 inches of EPS styrofoam with an R-value of 8. Above the ground the concrete is bare until the shingles start.

The basement wall below the ground will be insulated like this:

2″ Exterior styrofoam (insulation value R8)
Concrete (R0)
2″ Interior styrofoam (R8)
Roxul batt in 2X4 stud wall (R14)
Total: R30

In the wall space above the concrete foundation–the pony wall–there are three types of insulation. There are Roxul batts in the 2X6 stud wall, Roxul boards and styrofoam. Roxul board is the product I told you about which fits perfectly in this unexpected inch-and-a-half space between the 2X6s and the styrofoam. The white EPS styrofoam is much, much cheaper than the higher density blue or pink rigid foam insulation you have seen around. It has a lower R-value, but is less carbon-intensive to produce. Finally, the interior stud wall will be insulated with more Roxul batts.

Looking at insulation value above ground we get this:
Roxul batt insulation in the 2X6 wall (R22)
Roxul board (R6)
Standard EPS white styrofoam (R8)
More Roxul batts (R14)

That makes for a total insulation value of R50 when the wall is finished. The shingles outside might even add a little more.

Incidentally, you can buy all these insulation types at your local building supply

Inside Plastifab's local facility. Photo taken without permission (I hope they don't mind!) — Inside Plastifab’s local facility.

store, but I went straight to Plastifab for the EPS styrofoam. I bought a lot of that stuff!

Ask the Rescue Contractor how much I have been looking forward to insulating those walls. Every time he added another 2X6 to a wall to make it stronger, I would whine about thermal bridging.

That’s why I pushed through dinner and, at 9pm, Leanne showed up with some sushi leftover from her dinner meeting.

I don’t know if you can tell in the video, but she forgave me for damaging her wire.

Afterthought: watching me cut up that styrofoam into little pieces to fit it between the studs, I think you can see how much more sense it would make to insulate the pony wall and add the styrofoam in big sheets before building the interior wall. The building inspector is going to let us do that with the rest of the walls instead of insisting all the electrical work is done before inspection. Thank heavens for flexible officials!

The NDP Visits

Back in December, we made a couple of new political contacts.

John Horgan, James, Leanne, and George Heyman in The Little Yellow House

They were John Horgan, MLA for Juan de Fuca, Leader of the Provincial NDP and Leader of the Opposition in Victoria as well as George Heyman, the MLA for Vancouver-Fairview and the Opposition Spokesperson for the Environment, Green Economy and Technology.

Mr. Horgan’s office contacted me in November about visiting Hammond Forever House and talking about energy efficiency retrofits. They battled traffic from Vancouver and made it out just after sunset. The house was in darkness and still hovering above the ground on 6 Nickel Bros. legs with a skirt of newly poured foundation wall around it, so we couldn’t go inside.

The house as it was when the NDP came to visit.

We stood in the street in front of the house and talked for a while and then went next door to the Little Yellow House to warm up.

Now, I don’t know what your political views are, but I welcome any public official who wants to learn more about our project. I have met both the MLAs from Maple Ridge now. I met our former MP and our new MP, Dan Ruimy.

Mr. Horgan and Mr. Heyman were, by far, the visitors best informed about climate change and the challenge of getting off fossil fuels. Like you, I was curious about their political agenda (there is always a political aspect to these things) and it soon became apparent.

Have you heard about the $8.8 Billion Site C Dam project? I posted about it a while back. It’s the hydro-electric dam project that BC Hydro and the current Liberal BC government is pushing for. If it is built, it will generate a lot of electricity.

The NDP is opposed to the Site C Dam project and in December, when they visited, they were working on an energy strategy. It makes sense that if you’re going to oppose something, you should have something to propose as an alternative. It was a great conversation and I was able to list a number of barriers to regular folk retrofitting their homes.

I don’t like to take a strong position on something like the Site C Dam project that I haven’t had time to research properly. If only we had people whose job it was to research this stuff.

But wait, we do!

It was mere weeks ago that 250 of scientists and academics–those professional truth-seekers–wrote a letter of concern about Site C. Here is a link to the story in The Globe and Mail. And here is a link to the letter itself on the Royal Society of Canada’s website.

You know the Royal Society doesn’t normally weigh in on this political stuff, so it’s either they are crazy and/or on the payroll of the tiny clean energy lobby, or the issue is important enough that they felt a duty to speak up. Given how much academics like to stay out of the spotlight, I tend to believe the latter.

Personally, I would like us to first reduce our energy needs drastically. Contrary to a gut reaction most of us have–doing that doesn’t require going back to the Bronze Age. Secondly, I think we should spread more of our power generation out with solar and wind generation closer to where people actually live.

Scientists and academics are recommending this stuff, but we’re not really listening, are we?

I have heard critics of the project say that this push to build Site C is really about generating a massive amount of power for the Liquified Natural Gas industry. Is that true? I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m pretty sure that forcing more fossil fuels out of the ground by Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) is a terrible justification for such a project.

So thank you very much John and George for taking the time to come out to Maple Ridge and learn about what we’re doing at Hammond Forever House. Now, can you help to regulate the home renovation industry so that homeowners never get put in the position we are in with our former contractor?

Storms of Protest

We’re entering a new phase in the renovation and retrofit of Hammond Forever House.

If you would like to visit and learn more, send me an e-mail at [email protected] and we’ll try to arrange a time for me to show you around. There is lots of work still to be done and if you are willing to pitch in, we will not say no!

This past week was a difficult one. To make it possible to build the addition and upstairs dormer in the middle of winter, our contractor erected a huge plastic tent over the house. Smart, right?

Unfortunately, it leaks. Leanne and I have been mopping up the floor and setting containers under drips so that not too much water gets through. It’s not too much of a problem if water gets through to the new construction which will all dry out, but we have been noticing signs of water damage on the ceiling of the living and dining rooms which makes it hard to sleep on these rainy nights.

This photo might be upside down on mobile devices–sorry!

On Thursday evening, January 27th, Leanne and I contributed to a panel discussion after the screening of a film about environmental activism. The film was called “Disruption” and it was screened in Maple Ridge Council Chambers by Cinema Politica http://www.cinemapolitica.org/ridgemeadows.

Here’s what the movie synopsis says:

Disruption takes an unflinching look at the devastating consequences of our inaction. It lays bare the terrifying science, the shattered political process, the unrelenting industry special interests and the civic stasis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We’re the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and the last generation that can do something about it. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future. We still have much to do.

The film echoes my own belief that climate change is a crisis that demands immediate and radical action from all of us. The normal processes for changing the systems in our societies to respond to a threat are too slow and so mass protest is appropriate and reasonable to accelerate government response. It pointed out that many people are looking for a “silver bullet” to “solve” climate change, but that the problem is not so simple.

Just as we look to find a single solution, I think we also search for a single cause–a single group we can blame. However, consumers, governments and industries are all part of the system that needs to change. Our problem is the status quo. Our problem is inertia. One wheel can’t turn the car around, we have to work together.

It’s not going to be easy, but it could be exciting.

I did my best to share what we’re doing with Hammond Forever House but we’re in the middle of perhaps the most challenging part of the whole process, so it was hard for me to say how wonderful it is and how everyone should do it because I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.

Certainly I don’t want to simplify the challenge of reducing home energy use to something like, “homeowners should buy more insulation” because, as I’ve said before, homeowners are stretched in time and money. Only the rich among us can really “afford” to perform deep retrofits on their homes, but they are also able to afford paying high gas bills to heat their large houses, so few retrofits actually happen. People like Leanne and I with limited budgets and inefficient homes could make a big difference, but we don’t have the cash.

Do you see the opportunity there, Mr. Trudeau? TrudeauVan

I say we don’t have the cash, which is true, but, as you know, Leanne and I are doing it anyway. This is my personal form of protest. It’s only impossible until we do it, right?

I rambled a bit in the discussion, but that’s understandable. Leanne and I were both exhausted because the night before (Wednesday night) the plastic that was supposed to be covering the rear half of the house pretty much blew off, exposing it to the rain. For two hours we clambered all over the house in the middle of the night trying to secure the rain cover in a rain storm.

It’s hard to describe what happened, but Leanne did take a little video. In it you can see the top floor as it was last Tuesday and then what happened the following Wednesday night in the storm.

If the video is not playing for you here, you can watch it on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKLthhmZe2Y

The next day we found some more plastic and secured another layer over the top. Now that the dormer and addition have been framed and the roof has its plywood sheathing, the rain cover can sit right on the roof instead of above it like a tent. The wind can’t get under it so easily now and, so far, it looks like the insides are drying out.

Soon we’ll have a new roof put on and then we’ll sleep a little better.

UBC, BCIT, Light House and Us

[UPDATE MARCH 2016: since this post was written, Leanne and I have entered into a contract dispute with Ridgewater Homes. For more details, click here.]

We can’t do this alone.

There has to be people who know how to take an existing home and make it energy efficient without tearing it down and wasting all that energy and resources. It’s not rocket science.

With the climate changing and everyone aware of why and even what we have to do about it, why do most contractors still stare at you blankly when you say you want to insulate beyond what is required by the building code?

These are questions I asked myself when we started to plan the renovation and retrofit of our house.

I took this quote from DesmogCanada:

“Frankly, we need an army of carpenters, electricians and contractors going out to plug leaky buildings,” federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May said during the August 6 leaders debate. “Thirty per cent of carbon pollution comes from the energy we waste and the money we waste heating the outdoors in the winter and cooling it in the summer.”

and she is 100% right except that we needed it 30 years ago.

However, if you take a few years to work up to your renovation and you connect with people like Lorraine Gauthier of the Now House Project and Monte Paulsen of City Green Energy Solutions, you start to not only meet people who know how to do this, but a few who are willing to help you do it.

I told you about our relationship with the BCIT Building Sciences Centre of Excellence who put sensors in the house for a year to analyze the indoor air quality. One student wrote a report using three months of the data which you can read in a series of Hammond Forever House posts here.

I also told you about the design charrette we held in Maple Ridge to hash out a plan for a community home energy retrofit project (hey, if our government won’t do it, I guess we have to). With insufficient support, the project has been shelved pending the completion of our own retrofit which I hope will set an example.

One of the participants at the charrette, Light House Sustainable Building Centre, has made it possible for more students to get involved in our humble little Forever House. These ones are 4th-year Environmental Science Students at the University of British Columbia who will put what they have been studying to practical use.

With UBC involved, BCIT has agreed to help with the post-retrofit air quality analysis so that students will be able to study the practical effect of the water and energy saving measures we are able to implement. I love this idea because, although the techniques are not new, we need more people out there who know them and we need to get the word out about what is possible for ordinary homes.

Here is the synopsis that Light House put together. They are taking the lead.

Hammond Forever House: Carbon Neutral Retrofit
UBC Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences
ENVR 400 2015/2016 Community Partner Project
Date: July 27, 2015

PROJECT SCOPE OUTLINE

Project Concept:
Retrofit a 1923 Part 9 residential building, Hammond Forever House, with heritage designation in Maple Ridge, BC to near net zero or carbon neutral. Conduct pre and post-retrofit analysis, which will include on-site testing & insulation installation:
• Energy consumption
• Water consumption
• Airtightness
• Temperature
• Humidity
• CO2 concentrations

Compile a case study describing Hammond Forever House’s pre and post-retrofit conditions, regulatory, financial and logistical barriers to carbon neutral retrofits, successful project outcomes and resources for other homeowners wishing to retrofit their homes. Case study appendices should include construction photographs and copies of all reports and associated analysis. The final case study will be provided to the homeowner, published on the Light House website and distributed via a webinar and at conferences, as opportunities arise.

Project Background:
In BC, residential buildings represent 40% of total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs); in Vancouver, the figure is 55%1. In response to climate impacts, federal and provincial governments have identified GHG emission reduction targets for BC building stock, including the following:
• Energy Efficiency Act: 17% reduction in GHGs below 2005 levels by 2020.
• BC Climate Action Plan: 33% GHG reduction below 2007 levels by 202 and 80% by 2050.
• BC Energy Efficient Building Strategy: Average 20% energy demand reduction per home by 2020.
• BC Climate Action Charter: Carbon neutral corporate operations by 2012.

In August 2015 Light House released the results of a multi-year, multi-stakeholder engagement process with industry, government and utilities titled: Towards Carbon Neutral & Near Net Zero Energy Residential Buildings, a Roadmap for British Columbia. Our Roadmap identifies major actions which can move existing residential buildings towards retrofits which result in carbon neutrality. We recognize the significant impact of carbon neutral pilot projects across a wide range of home sizes, ages and regions, and are therefore pleased to partner with this homeowner to deliver a carbon neutral pilot project in Maple Ridge, BC.

One of the key things that interests me is the inclusion of “regulatory, financial and logistical barriers to carbon neutral retrofits” in the study. This speaks to the fact that we have the technology and expertise necessary to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of our existing buildings, we just have to work together and do it. It was Now House who helped me understand that it is not a technical problem, it is a social engineering problem. [For more details on their involvement in Maple Ridge, check out the news page on the Now House website.]

It is my hope that by telling our story, warts and all, we can be part of the shift of our economy from doomed to renewable by getting the word out.

And that’s why I’m very happy with the snazzy new sign outside celebrating our key partners.

It turns out that our contractor, Ridgewater Homes, is very talented at making signs. As part of our heritage agreement, we are required to post a sign explaining that this is a Heritage Site and the fine for any vandalism, etc. Ridgewater was able to add the logos of some of our supporters and even leave room for a few more, if any suppliers would like to sponsor the project and attach their name to it.

The portable toilet is not designated heritage.

Steel Tube Extraction

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the moment you didn’t know you were waiting for…

the incredible James Rowley will extract a two-and-a-half-story steel tube from the pinnacle of the roof of a 1923 Craftsman-style cottage!

Can he do it? See for yourself!

Modern chimneys are built so that no liner is needed. But in an old brick chimney like this one, even if it is only being used by an oil furnace, the risk of fire is too great so my in-laws put one in.

Another way to avoid the risk of fire posed by chimneys is not have one and turn your home 100% electric like we hope to do. Electric heat pump, electric hot water heat, electric everything. That way, when we can afford solar panels, we can move our BC Hydro bill downwards and avoid burning fossil fuels.

Read more about the chimneys here, here and here!

The Missing Contractor

[UPDATE MARCH 2016: since this post was written, Leanne and I have entered into a contract dispute with Ridgewater Homes. For more details, click here.]

I only want to name people if I can say something nice about them.

I have a few nice things to say about Kingswood Builders Group but we’ll never know how good a company they really are because I can’t get them on the phone.

Let me clarify that they are not the contractor that we hired this year (but they could have been). We hired Ridgewater Homes after some careful research this year and I’ll tell you about that next week.

I can only guess Kingswood were sick and tired of giving me quotes and didn’t believe our project would ever actually happen. Fair enough, we did get two quotes and three meetings out of them over the course of three years without going ahead. They were the only company to do that for us and we appreciated it. It’s just too bad they went off the radar when we finally got our ducks in a row this year.

Anyway, here is their quote from January 2014, insulated concrete form (“quadlock walls”), insulation, interior finishing and all:

KINGSWOOD BUILDERS GROUP LTD

2655 KINGSWAY AVE PORT COQUITLAM BC V3E1P8
TEL. 604 941-4849 FAX. 604 941-0241

ESTIMATE
NAME JAMES ROWLEY

THE UNDERSIGNED PROPOSES TO FURNISH ALL MATERIALS AND PERFORM ALL LABOR NECESSARY TO COMPLETE ALL THE DESCRIBED WORK
REQUIREMENTS
THE SCOPE OF WORK IS AS FOLLOWS.
TO LIFT THE EXISTING HOUSE AND REMOVE ALL THE EXISTING FOUNDATION
TO DIG DOWN APPROX 1’9” PLUS FOOTING AND SAND AND DISPOSE
TO SUPPLY AND INSTALL QUADLOCK WALLS OVER FOOTING AS PER PLAN
TO FRAME ADDITION AND NEW ROOF LINE AS PER PLAN
ALL SIDING AND TRIM AS PER PLAN
ALL HOUSE SERVICES FROM CITY HOOK UPS TO HOUSE
R/I PLUMBING & ELECTRIC
INSULATION & DRYWALL PLUS PAINT
ALLOWANCE ON VANITIES $3000.00
ALLOWANCE ON BUILT-IN DRAWS ETC $2500.00
ALLOWANCE ON LIGHTING $2500.00
ALLOWANCE ON CERAMIC TILE $1600.00
ALLOWANCE ON PLUMBING FIXTURES $4200.00
ALLOWANCE ON FLOORING $800.00
THIS HOUSE HAS BEEN PRICED WITH OUT THE SPECIAL ITEMS THAT THE OWNER WOULD LIKE TO HAVE IE: HEAT RECOVER ITEMS ETC,AT THIS TIME

TOTAL PRICE $314,789.00 PLUS GST

ALL PRODUCT TO BE CONFIRMED BETWEEN BUILDER AND HOME OWNER IN WRITING
HOPING THIS IS THE INFORMATION THAT YOU REQUIRE AND PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL.
YOURS TRULY
PETER
________________________________________________________________ ALL OF THE ABOVE WORK TO BE COMPLETED IN A GOOD AND WORKMANLIKE MANNER

ANY CHANGES IN THE WORK AND THE PRICE SHALL BE MADE IN WRITING.

THIS PROPOSAL IS MADE ON THE CURRENT MATERIAL AND LABOUR COSTS
A DELAY IN ACCEPTANCE OF MORE THAN DAYS WILL REQUIRE A
REVIEW OF THE PROPOSAL AND RE-DATING BEFORE THE AGREEMENT
BECOMES BINDING.

As I mentioned before, setting a goal of obtaining 5 or 6 quotes is all very well, but finding 5 or 6 contractors who are interested enough in meeting us, let alone submitting a quote on the project, is another matter entirely.

I can understand that contractors are hesitant to provide quotes. It’s not that they are unscrupulous or trying to cheat you. Putting together an estimate that is at all accurate takes time. How many times have they worked for a week on an estimate for a customer only to never hear back from them? I imagine after a few experiences like that you might start getting a lot more vague with your numbers.

That’s why I really appreciated Peter of Kingswood Builders Group coming out and giving us some solid numbers for us to get our heads around. The first estimate was for a simple bathroom and kitchen remodel but after we engaged Annabel the Architect, Kingswood gave us a second quote based on her design.

Did we hem in our design because we were worried about how much it would cost? A little (but not much!). We imagined the existing basement would stay the same even though the ceiling is too low and it leaks air and heat. “We’re not made of money” we said to ourselves.

We’ve had several reality-check moments in our journey and this was one of them.

It’s there in black and white: TOTAL PRICE $314,789.00 PLUS GST

If you’re thinking that you could buy a whole house for that, you’re right (but, ehem, not in Vancouver). We bought the whole property–a double lot with two houses–from Leanne’s Mom for $425000.

What’s the rule again? Don’t spend more than half the value of the house on renovations?

We were proposing to spend over 3/4.

Monte Paulsen, our energy designer, first pointed this out on his first visit. It has been the elephant in the room ever since. “This is a wonderful plan, but how can we afford it?”

I question everything and I questioned that rule. Why shouldn’t you spend $300K on a $400K house? Is this about re-sale value? It’s true we would feel pretty stupid if we sell the property after sinking so much into it, but what if we never sell? It’s been kept in the family this long, why not another generation or two?

Where do we get this idea that we should limit our investment in an existing home? Is this the calculation that lenders (banks, credit unions) and real estate agents will tell you–that you should plan based on the assumption you may have to move in 5 years? This is good for them because it gets you thinking about “upgrading” to a bigger or nicer house, instead of making the one you’re in suit you over the long term. Every time you change houses, they make money.

I would add that the longer you stay in a home, the better for the planet. Your recycling system gets efficient, you learn the tricks of saving energy, water and money that apply to that particular house, and when you make yourself comfortable, you increase the likelihood that the house will not be torn down.

However, my willingness to spend too much on our home renovation in order to do everything at once hasn’t altered one inconvenient fact: Leanne and I don’t have $300K nor can we borrow $300K. Is that going to stop us? No!

Well, maybe, but we’re going to try anyway. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a stubborn person on certain things.

Yes, I want to make our house more comfortable to live in (including adding the bathroom upstairs for the kids) and that may be seen as selfish, but it also means we will be happy to live here longer and that is good for the planet. Every time a property changes hands there is a risk it will be torn down. In this way a more comprehensive renovation is better for the environment than the piece-meal approach most of us are forced to take because we don’t have the up-front cash to go bigger.

Again, making your home more comfortable for you and your family is good for the planet!

Now, if most of us can’t afford to renovate more than one room at a time, we certainly can’t afford to add energy and water saving measures at the same time even if those measures will save us money in 10-20 years. We just don’t have the cash. The result is upgrades like countertops, remodelled bathrooms, new decks, but very little comprehensive insulation or sealing of whole houses.

We can’t expect homeowners to lead the charge and retrofit their own homes when it means borrowing heavily to do it. What would help is if the costs were lowered and I know of at least three ways to do that.

1. Do more of the work oneself. Listed in the Kingswood estimate are things like vanities and tiles. We took those things out of the contract we ended up with (with Ridgewater Homes). We also took out insulation, wiring and other things we can do ourselves. (We’ll see how long it takes us to be truly finished).

Another way is by means of grants and rebates. As I mentioned, these do exist for energy efficiency in BC from BC Hydro and Fortis BC. However, there are large gaps that only a government program, like the cancelled LiveSmart BC grants, could fill. The Federal Government inexplicably ended the popular EcoEnergy Grants in 2012 (but let’s talk more about that later).

Another way that I stumbled upon when I heard Lorraine of Now House speak is economies of scale. Buying in bulk. When Now House retrofit 100 homes in Windsor Ontario, they brought the costs down from about $66K to $11K per house, just by doing the same work on 95 very similar homes. Wow.

So how do we organize something similar in Maple Ridge among individual homeowners with quite different houses? Well, I have concluded (partly out of impatience to get our house done) that a first step might be to share an example to get people talking.

And that’s what Hammond Forever House is. Watch as we challenge ourselves to reduce our energy and water use while retaining the character defining elements of this beautiful old house. Hopefully some of you will start to imagine how your own home could be retrofit. Then we’ll talk.

Wood and wallpaper

Speaking of the living room, here is a little photo essay of that time in 2013 we got fed up with waiting for the renovations and refinished the living and dining rooms.

The floor was covered by old mangy carpet, the wood was pretty beat up, and the old heat registers were coated with asbestos.

Part of the reason was our tenants in the little yellow house were wood artists expert at finishing wood. They replaced the cabinets in the yellow house beautifully for us, so we hired them to work on “the big house”, too. We would never normally be able to afford such expertise, and they gave us a deal.

As you might expect, it wasn’t as simple as taking the carpet out, sanding everything, staining and then lacquering.

First, some of the slats on the wainscotting were cracked, so we wanted to replace them. Our tenant couldn’t find a matching size of wood in the stores, so if we had wanted the slats to match, he would have had to plane a thicker board very carefully down to half it’s thickness. He recommended replacing all the slats so they would all match, and that’s what we decided to do.

The blown-in foam insulation shows when the slats are removed. We put green tape on cracked wall boards.

Even back then, in 2013, we were planning to put the house on posts to dig down the basement, so it was a little crazy to be finishing the floors–there would inevitably be cracks between the boards as the house shifted–but we went ahead anyway. Two years later and just starting the reno now, we’re glad we did.

We started on the living room, the room with the fireplace. It took some planning. All the furniture was moved into the dining room and we put a plastic sheet between the rooms to contain the dust. Then we started sanding. First sand, stain and lacquer the wood around the windows and mantel, then do the same with the floor and finally paint the walls. The sanding and lacquer (he sprayed the lacquer) can make a mess of your paint, so leave the painting for last.

Please click on the photos to enlarge them.

With the mantel and window done, next the fir floor.

Leanne and I agreed easily on colours. Her parents believed the walls should be light to make them feel bigger. We felt the wallpaper print, with it’s gentle texture, cream colour and tiny flowers, was pretty bland. We thought darker, bolder colours would make the rooms warmer, cosier and more fun.

The problem I wrestled with for a few years was how to get around the wallpaper. We knew that there are several layers of old wallpaper going down to a very thick base layer. It would be a big job to strip it to get down to a paintable surface. I learned that there is something called “paintable wallpaper” you can buy and I almost did, but the idea of putting up wallpaper AND painting seemed like a lot of work.

Then it hit me. Why don’t we just paint THIS wallpaper? Is it “non-paintable wallpaper”? Will it dissolve if you paint it?

Apparently not. And it has a nice texture to it now.

The primer is tinted so you don’t need so much of the coloured paint

The dining room is larger and, with its wooden wainscotting, more complicated. When we removed the slats on the exterior walls, we discovered gaps where the blown-in foam had not reached. I was determined to fill them.

You may recall that Dave the father-in-law helped us by paying for half-pound foam insulation to be blown into the exterior walls through holes drilled from the outside. In these rooms, that’s the only way we could insulate those walls without ripping the exterior siding off or ripping apart the beautiful interior walls.

Unfortunately, it was very difficult to fill the irregular cavities to the max without over-doing it and bursting through the interior walls. That happened in a few places. I used a simple can of expanding foam to inject more foam into the cavities that I discovered. It was satisfying, but that stuff is not a cost-effective way to insulate a whole wall.

Here is the room with the carpet remaining but the slats removed:

On the wall of the dining room between it and the kitchen is a patch where an old stove pipe used to connect to the central chimney. We think there was a heating stove in each room at one time because the uninsulated house was so cold in winter.

Originally, of course, there was that great big sawdust furnace in the basement which would radiate heat up through those registers I showed you at the top of this post. Carl would get sawdust from Hammond Mill where he worked and Leanne’s mom Julie would play in the pile of it in the basement. But that’s another post, I think.

Our tenant suggested a lacquer with a glossy finish, but we thought a satin finish retained the original character of the room better. We ended up with glossy slats, which were stained and lacquered in his workshop, and everything else satin. It looks quite nice, but I learned a lesson about being firm and clear.

In the photo above left you can see the air compressor he used for the nail gun and sprayer. Next came the floor:

Iago and a doomed gerbil — Iago, Othello and a doomed gerbil.

And then the paint:

When people talk about electric cars, solar panels, energy efficient appliances, etc. they often tell you how long it will take for the thing to “pay for itself” in savings. The same standard never applies to other improvements like refinishing floors or walls. We do these expensive and challenging improvements because we want to, not because we’ll get cash back. I suppose we do talk about “resale value” which is a term probably invented by the real estate industry to keep us in the mindset of selling our home and “moving up” when we could retrofit and put down roots, instead.

These rooms are where we have had big Christmas dinners for the past 5 years. I would post a photo but my Dad doesn’t want to be famous.

Firewood after Christmas: one branch at a time.

They are also where we work on projects, like my nice big Home Energy Retrofit Project sign. When will that make its next appearance?