The Strandberg House, Light House's first 2010 Challenge participant and the only new build in the challenge, is striving to be the first LEED for gold house in Burnaby. The Burnaby Now published an article on their efforts last Wednesday, written by Jennifer Moreau.

"A Burnaby family is blazing trails of green while going for the gold.

Longtime local resident Coro Strandberg and her partner are building a green home near Deer Lake and hoping to get a golden stamp of approval from LEED Canada for Homes. If all goes according to plan, they will be the first home in Burnaby to land the LEED Canada for Homes gold level certification.

'This project is a case study in how to go green at home,' says Strandberg. 'This will help homeowners make sure their properties maintain their value in future housing markets.' ..."

[Story continued in Burnaby Now] 

Radha Yoga and Eatery, located at 728 Main Street, is a second floor restaurant and yoga studio with exposed brick walls and hardwood floors. Daylight is provided through large windows on the West side, and smaller windows along the south side.

To help Radha find alternative ways to light the space, an architect came for a two-hour site visit and interviewed the owners. The resulting 11 page report can be viewed here.

The report concludes that lighting a combined yoga and restaurant will present challenges, one in particular being that the owner must weigh the relative merits of energy efficient technology against teh environmental impacts of the building as a whole. Allocating a portion of the budget to a sophisticated lighting system may yield a smaller net environmental benefit than allocating those same funds to a better HVAC system or kitchen operations.

By reinstalling the ceiling with a high reflectant finish and adding high-reflectance wall panels to the north and south walls the rooms can be brightened naturally. The addition of a light-shelf, or louver, to the south windows can be used to bounce daylight from the south windows into the space.

After running about town to find a new furnace, Tracy Hayter tackled the outside-the-house issue of a dying tree in her front yard.

"After receiving a couple of quotes for the removal of the sickly fruit tree in my front yard, I decided to remove it myself (upward of $700 to remove one tree!).  In any event, we were out there sawing it down by hand and the neighbors very kindly came by and offered to let us use their brand spanking new-fresh out of the box chainsaw." With the tree mostly gone they need only a larger chainsaw to cut away the thicker part of the trunk.

While some people came in the night and took away the good fireburning pieces, Tracey was left wondering whether there were any eco-friendly ideas for disposal of what was left and what kind of ground cover would be the best for bees/bird/hummingbirds once a new tree is planted.

She jokes, "I was thinking of digging a big hole in my backyard and burying [the tree] back there as I can't grow anything under the cedars trees anyway and letting them decompose there--Nick thinks I am nuts so any helpful hints would be great." 

Tracy's experience rose two questions:

• What does the City of Vancouver do with yard waste? and
• Are there eco-friendly ways of disposing yard waste like tree branches?

In terms of ground cover, it's a good idea to choose drought tolerant speciesto minimize the need for irrigation.  You should also incorporate native species whenever possible.  They are better suited to the climate and will require less fertilization and irrigation. Evergreen Lawn and Garden Smart has a database of native species, and  the Washington Invasive Species Coalition also has a database of invasive species to avoid

Tracy, over at the Hayter House in Surrey, has been renovating in leaps and bounds. Following the completion of her energy audit, she embarked on finding a new furnace for her house. Below, Tracy explains the reasoning behind the choice she made and her experience in furnace shopping.

"I just bought a furnace today. I obtained 4 quotes - one for an American Standard, one for a Lennox, one for Carrier, and one for Trane. They all came in around the same price. 

In the end I purchased a Trane through Home Depot/CR Martin Heating. The salesperson, Sean, was courteous and helpful and answered all my questions without getting defensive, putting other companies down or making me feel stupid. He was very professional and CR Martin Heating has an excellent BBB rating... I have purchased one Trane XV95 TDH2B060A9V3V 95% efficient furnace. 

Aside from liking the company's history and that professionalism of the sales person, I chose Trane over the others because Home Depot offers 10 years Parts & Labour, and in addition to the prov/fed rebates I will also receive a Home Depot gift card in the amount of $400 and lets not forget the HRTC!  I have also taken advantage of the don't pay for six months promotion. 

So in the end money and company history were the driving forces behind this purchase. I have also been told that CR Martin takes away the old furnace (ok furnace but noisy, not very efficient, and 26 years old) and recycles it."

Three of the 2010 Challenge homes have recently completed their energy audits, identifying a combined total in potential GHG reductions of 12.6 tonnes per year.

Energy audits, also known as energy assessments, are one of the first and key steps to any green home renovation. These home checkups analyse the workings of a house and give an indication of how energy efficient the home is. At the end of the audit, a home is given an EnerGuide rating that shows where the house stands today and what its potential energy efficiency is.

Seen above in the EnerGuide rating, the Hayter House, a two storey detached home located in Surrey, BC, has the potential to reduce its energy consumption by up to 56% per year, raising its EnerGuide rating from 64 to 82. The reports issued also give suggestions for what changes can be made to the home to improve the EnerGuide rating.

Some suggestions for improvements in the Hayter House energy audit include:

• replacing the home's heating equipment with an ENERGY STAR qualified gas furnace
• increasing the insulation value of the attice to achieve a value of R-50
• improve the air tightness of the house by 11 percent

The two other houses to complete energy audits, the Norman House and the 21st Ave House, are also two-storey single family detached homes. The three homes' individual potential GHG reductions are:

Hayter House: 2.8 tonnes GHG reducation per year
Norman House: 5.6 tonnes GHG reduction per year
21st Ave House: 4.2 tonnes GHG reduction per year

The creators of two laneway house projects have been adopted as the final participants of the 2010 Challenge.

On October 30, 2008, Vancouver City Council directed city staff to begin amending current bylaws to allow for laneway housing in order to increase density in the city. Laneway houses are small buildings, typically located where a garage is set (along the alley, or laneway). Set to be no more than 1.5 storeys high, they are only to be rented or lived in by family members of the home who's property the laneway house is located on. They are to meet the highest standards set by the City's Green Homes Program.

These 600(ish)sqft structures will be some of the first laneway homes to go up in Vancouver once the bylaw is passed - expected in June or July this summer.

More information about laneway housing in Vancouver can be found on the Vancouver EcoDensity webpage.

What was to be a 12 month series on the 2010 Challenge appeared this month in Today's Vancouver Women Magazine (formerly known as Shared Vision magazine).

The first article, [online here] outlines the complications arising out of waste removal as old homes are torn down - particularly in finding people to do deconstruction (essentially construction in reverse, allowing as many materials as possible to be reused and recycled).

The article highlights Coro Strandberg and Phillip Legg's new construction - Light House's first 2010 Challenge project participant.  Full text of the article below.

Green Building Challenge
By Amanda McCuaig

Light House Sustainable Building Centre is challenging Metro Vancouver residents to green their homes and workplaces in time for the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. First up: Coro Strandberg and Phillip Legg

Coro Strandberg has lived in a heritage home all her life. “I had ‘power-smarted’ and brought in the improvements that I could,” explains Coro of her regal 96-year-old home. “However, as much as I love this house, my life is changing, and I want to start a new chapter.”

Her new chapter began when Coro decided to give up the old place and, with her fiancé Phillip Legg, build her dream home. They partnered with the non-profit Light House Sustainable Building Centre and became a pilot project for Light House’s 2010 Green Building Challenge.

Coro and Phil’s new home will be the first of 10 Vancouver households and businesses to receive free technical assistance for their green renovations. Coro and Phil’s “reno” will include the deconstruction (read: not demolition) of an existing house and the reconstruction of a new one. In other words, the house currently on their property will be taken apart and recycled, and a new energy-efficient, water-saving, toxin-free home will be built in its place.

All Challenge participants will work with Light House to meet ambitious targets in waste, water, and energy efficiency—with each home targeted to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by four tonnes per year (the average Canadian household produces 13 tonnes annually.

“We have decided to work with the Built Green checklist,” says Coro of the method they’ll use to guide their decisions. “We’re going for the highest level we can.”

Built Green is a voluntary rating system that helps homeowners find and use technologies, products, and practices that can help meet environmental goals and earns them points for choices they make. “It’s very user-friendly,” adds Julie Hardy, the Light House consultant working with Coro and Phil. “The list just acts as a guide for the design process to help you see all of your options that can be used for your green home.”

“It’s curious to note the environmental trade-offs that one is forced to consider,” notes Coro of their experience reviewing the Built Green list. “For example, some synthetic products get a higher ranking than wood products because of their energy efficiency. We found this result surprising because it leads the builder to choose synthetic products over those made of renewable materials.”

Owners using Built Green should involve contractors from the start to outline the costs and desired materials and products for their green goals. “We found ourselves playing catch-up to the construction process,” says Coro, who had enlisted a contractor before getting involved with Light House and the Built Green program. “While the bulk of the sustainable options are still available, the rapid pace of development foreclosed some options for green innovations.”

Coro and Phil’s experiences are valuable lessons for upcoming Challenge participants, who will be choosing which green technologies they want to incorporate into their own renovations. Many own heritage homes or the oft-derided “Vancouver specials.”

Despite some initial hurdles, Coro’s thrilled with how the construction is progressing. “I’m looking forward to living in a first-class, high-performance, environmentally responsible home.”

Next month, we’ll look at Coro and Phil’s initial challenges in deconstruction.