2012-02-28 Building for Tomorrow

It seems today’s home owners and home builders would rather bury their heads in the sand than work at envisioning the future. Conventional, contemporary home building technology has been developed in a situation when energy for home heating was cheap. It still is cheap – but for how long?
As we make decisions about the houses we build today, we ought to be making our best guess as to what energy will cost twenty or thirty years from now, and build accordingly. But we don’t. We go to default mode, and expect implicitly that energy prices in the future will not change significantly. We all know that’s absurd, but we do it anyway. In reality, humans are remarkably uncomfortable with forward thinking.
These were the thoughts going through my mind at the information event Solar in the Southeast last Thursday evening. The South Eastman Transition Initiative had organized the event. Three southeast homeowners shared their experience with building and living in energy efficient homes. Listening to these homeowners, there was little doubt that they, at least, are convinced that most of us are headlong into a herd mentality.

An annual heating bill of $800 or $1,000 is acceptable today for most homeowners. But energy prices will go up! Then what?
Today it is practical and cost effective to build a house that can be heated for $100 annually. In Europe, where energy prices are much higher, passive house design is becoming normal. In North America, innovative builders, here and there, are building energy efficient houses. CMHC has a program promoting energy efficiency in housing. But interest in these housing technologies remains far from the main stream.
Donald and Randy Proven are strong advocates of energy efficient home construction. They have concentrated on infill housing. They have done both, built new houses as well as retrofitted old, drafty houses. Where standard construction today expects walls with R20 insulation, they strive for R60. Where many houses today have 6 air changes per hour, they strive for 0.6. Most of the heating their houses need comes from solar, but when the sun don’t shine, they do use electric heat.

Kyle Friesen, who lives near Mitchell, has put a large solar array on the roof of his house. The array is hooked into Manitoba Hydro. When Kyle’s array generates more electricity than his household uses, Hydro buys his surplus. When the sun don’t shine, Hydro makes up the difference. Manitoba Hydro does not pay much, so this is not a great money maker, nevertheless Kyle expects to recover his investment over the long haul. Kyle admits, “If I had invested this money in the Alberta Oil Sands, I would be getting a better return on investment, but” he adds, “an investment in the oil sands is not an investment in the future.”
Herman Unrau of St. Malo has had vacuum evacuated tubes on his roof for three years. He continues to be very happy with them.

-- Eric Rempel