my green home ...
... it CAN be done / it HAS been done
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Older homes can significantly reduce their use of energy and related carbon emissions, and contribute to the energy and environmental challenges facing Canada and the world.
Our 3,500 ft2 home in Ottawa was built in 1985. When we purchased it in 2006, we dramatically upgraded insulation levels and implemented basic measures such as insulating basement headers, adding water aerators, converting to CFL bulbs (we now are switching to LED lights to further reduce power consumption and to allow use of 12V DC), swapping to super-low-flow toilets, adding set-back timers and motion sensors, sealing walls against air leakage, decorating with solar blinds to reduce summer insolation, installing ceiling circulation fans, adding numerous rain barrels, planting dozens of trees, cladding with an Energy Star metal roof, and upgrading to Energy Star for all windows, doors & appliances (our latest window is triple-pane with Krypton gas). We installed small solar panels and a small wind turbine to recharge a battery backup inverter, and to assess the potential for more on-site renewable energy.
We refurbished our home's interior to comply with LEED guidelines (there was no residential retrofit standard in Canada) , including recycling most of the original construction materials and installing FSC-certified hardwood flooring. Our eco-sin was to import granite from Brazil for the kitchen countertops.
Under the ecoEnergy program, we installed a heat recovery ventilator (HRV) and replaced the propane furnace with geothermal heating and cooling.
The impact of our measures was to boost our EGH (EnerGuide for Houses ) efficiency rating to 85 and push our home into the top 2% of all residences in Canada (R2000 homes are rated EGH 80) , despite its quarter-century age. Our retrofit is in the top-10 of renovated units, and we hope to reach an EGH rating of 90.
For the 4.8 million households in Ontario (where average floorspace is 1,500 ft2), each square foot consumes 21.2 kWh every year for space heating, water heating, appliances, lights and space cooling (total combined electric AND thermal equivalent). As of June 2010, my green home was consuming 4.8 kWh per ft2 per year ... more than 75% lower than the provincial average.
We recently mounted 9.9 kW of solar panels on our roof under the Ontario feed-in tariff. This electricity is fed directly into the grid and can be used internally only in the case of a grid outage.
With tweaking, our home can surpass the concept of net-zero to become a 'carbon sink' for GHG emissions (on-site actions will remove more carbon from the atmosphere than our family emits from stationary energy use), with no need to purchase carbon offsets.
Our commitment to the environment means that our energy expenses have declined dramatically and will continue to drop under time-of-use (TOU) metering, as systems are programmed to avoid consumption in peak periods. Our home is primed for the next ice storm, and we have increased occupant comfort and safety, as well as increased the equity in my green home.
We're getting older and getting better.
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To put our investment in context: In 2005, the average EGH rating for all Canadian homes that had been assessed (a self-selecting universe of energy-conscious homeowners) was 66. Of homes built in the 1980s, the average 'start' rating ( before renovations) was 65, and 72 for the 'finish' rating ( after all upgrades are complete). On the international scene, a EuroBarometer survey (December 2009) of 27,000 citizens across EU countries found that 78% separate waste for recycling, and 41% avoid plastic bags. “Greener energy options are the least popular, with only 9% switching to a greener energy tariff or supplier, and only 6% having installed their own energy generation equipment" such as solar panels or wind turbines, the report notes. When asked about greener forms of energy, 25% said they were willing to pay 1-5% more, 20% would pay 6-20% more, and 4% were willing to pay a premium of 20%, but 27% were unwilling to pay any extra for renewable energy. Europeans have a reputation for being more energy-conscious than Canadians, and behaviour surveys skew to the positive (eg: respondants say they recycle even if they have done so only once). This makes a large after-tax investment in low-carbon options to be quite significant. |
Bill Eggertson has been involved
in the renewable energy sector since 1985, serving as senior staff
officer of the canadian association for renewable
energies (we c.a.r.e.), the Earth
Energy Society of Canada (geothermal heat pumps)
and the Solar Energy Society of Canada, as well as
contract positions with the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA)
and Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) among others. He
has been senior editor for major renewable energy publications in the
United States and Britain.
He was the first climate change programme manager for the UK government in Canada, and was trained by Al Gore under The Climate Project initiative to explain the implications of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.
His strong commitment to the environment was the rationale for his selection as a torchbearer in the 2010 Olympic relay.
Bill offers consulting services to homeowners who are serious about their environmental objectives. Contact him at < eggertson @ renewables.ca >