The thing a lot of people assume about energy efficient homes is that they’re really weird. Upon visiting this home you would see that on the surface it appears to be as normal. Also normal, would the lifestyle of the people living there. That is, unless you take into account the added comfort of radiant heating and reduced energy costs.

It’s only once you start to analyze it from a builder’s perspective that you see the differences. I see no reason why we couldn’t use these system in more homes and one day make it the new standard.

The hardest part to change is not how we build, but how people think about building.

Ryan Coffey

Energy-efficient homes expected to save about 80% in power costs

By Darrell Bellaart, Daily News July 25, 2011

Nine months after construction began on Nanaimo’s newest highly energy-efficient home, owner Mike Legge is moving in.

Legge had a local builder with a reputation for quality craftsmanship build his the 2,200-squarefoot (3,000 square feet including basement) steel-reinforced concrete green home at 440 Johns Ave.

The building incorporates some of the most up-to-date designs in energy efficiency, from in-floor hot water heating through passive solar energy collection,

A grey water system recycles waste water for re-use in toilets, avoiding flushing potable water down the drain. Ventilation is through a “solar chimney” in the roof of the house. Everything is computer controlled to ensure constant comfort.

Construction took longer than an anticipated March completion date, due to design changes made midstream of the project.

Gallant Homes built it to platinum level, the highest rating on the four-step Canada Built Green scale. Exterior walls made of concrete sandwiched between insulated form or ICF blocks. From the outside, the home looks much like any other new home today.

The most noticeable element inside the house is the two-tone, fired porcelain appearance of the floor.

“It’s concrete,” Legge said. “They paint it on.”

Moving in, however, he quickly learned to be careful on it. Like any paint, in can be chipped if not treated with respect.

An open plan interior offers a friendly, livable environment.

Large south-facing windows offer a pleasing south-facing view of his cool, forest-shaded property sloping down to the Millstone River. Hard awnings keep the summer sun from overheating the interior, but the lowangled winter sun will warm the house by penetrating the bare branches of the trees.

Legge enjoys showing off the electronic and mechanical features of his house: A tankless hot water heater to heat the house on cooler days, with each room computer monitored to ensure climate-controlled comfort. A miniature weather station feeds wind speed and direction information to a computer to open louvres to release excess heat and moisture.

It will take a winter to know how energy efficient the house is, but Legge is hopeful.

“The fellow says it will be an 80% saving, but we’ll see,” he said.

This is why we are holding the following event.

Look to the bottom for the .pdf which gives additional info and if you have additional questions you can contact me via my main website or the email at the bottom of the .pdf

Tips On Making Your Home More Energy Efficient

@ DYS Architecture

#420-256 Wallace

Sunday, November 14^th

1-3pm

ADMISSION IS FREE

Presenters:

Ian Gartshore,President of Shore Energy Solutions and Founder of Energy Solutions for Vancouver Island

Michael Hill, a Senior Architect and Associate Partner of DYS Architecture

Speaking Event Nov 14th 2010 .pdf

Ryan Coffey

Below, he describes a service he offers which I think would be of benefit to any homeowner, whether you are buying a home or just trying to save some money on living in your existing one.

Ryan Coffey

Streamlining the Energy Usage of your Home

As a smart homebuyer you will likely have a home inspection completed before you complete your purchase so that you better know what to expect. But what about determining the amount of energy this home uses?

Within the next couple of years it is expected that the province will require all homes (new and resold) to have an energy audit completed before being sold. That way homebuyers will be able to intelligently compare the expected energy consumption of each home, just as we can do with motor vehicles.

In the meantime you can hire an energy consultant to help determine the relative energy efficiency of any given home. This can be done in a walk-about with the homebuyer, or the information can be provided in a written report. The advantage of walking through the home together is that the prospective homebuyer can see its relative strengths and weaknesses, learn what to look for, as well as discuss the various options of updating the home.

In some cases (such as installing a draft stopper in an open fireplace) a solution can be very inexpensive and very cost-effective.

The cost is $150, plus G.S.T.

A report can be given to that home buyer, or to all whom view the home. This costs only $50 extra.

The result is that the home buyer will be able to more intelligently compare homes and have a better idea what to expect.

For the serious home buyer who wishes to take advantage of up to $5,000 in government incentives toward energy upgrades (such as a heat pump, more insulation, a solar hot water system, etc.) a certified energy audit can be arranged.

Ian Gartshore of Shore Energy Solutions has been assisting homeowners in this way since 2004. His company also installs energy saving devices, solar hot water systems, and other renovations. Contact him at www.shoreenergy.ca or locally at 250-754-0698.

Shore Energy Solutions Ltd is a member of the Better Business Bureau of Vancouver Island, The Canadian Home Builder’s Association, the Built Green^© Program and B.C. Hydro’s PowerSmart Alliance

Ryan Coffey

A few months back I was talking to someone I know who is a fairly big player in the world of ecological reform.  I mentioned to him that I was involved with the “one percent for the planet” organization where businesses give 1% of their revenues to environmental charities. I wanted his advice because the time was coming for me to choose from my menu of charities to decide which ones were going to get the money. (There are quite a few.) As he’s more tuned into this world than I am, I asked him if he had any advice as to how be able to figure out which charities are more effective and honest than others.

His answer surprised me. He suggested that I start my own charity because it’s too hard to know for sure what a charity gets up to without being inside of it. So, I had the following thought process:

I was already doing my best to be as green of a Realtor as I reasonably could. I drive myself and my clients around in a hybrid vehicle, I donate 1% of my revenues to environmental causes, I try to use both sides of my paper, and  I occasionally highlight green home technologies on my real estate blog in hopes they will catch on. But apparently, I could be doing a lot more.

I believe there is a big shift going on in the world these days. Public concern for living in ways that are ecologically and socially responsible are no longer ‘just for hippies’ but becoming more and more mainstream and respected. The momentum is still growing but we still have such a long way to go if we want to ensure the survival of the human race let alone all the other species we share this planet with. Unfortunately, most businesses that are out there are still operating in their old fashioned manner with only token changes (like having a recycling bin). To boot, there is an awful lot of greenwashing going on and the voices that speak for truly green principles are getting lost in all the chaotic chatter of misunderstanding, assumption and plain old misinformation.

I knew I wasn’t the only businessperson trying to push the eco envelope in an honest fashion, so I decided to try to connect with others on the same path in hopes of:

a) Using our combined knowledge and influence to protect the environment.

b) Creating a business networking group (some thing like a BNI) where we can refer each other business/customers and promote our individual businesses and use ideas from each other to do our businesses better.

This way, what’s good for our businesses, is good for the environment and what good we do for the environment, is good for our businesses. There are no losers in this formula.

The result is what is so far being called “The Nanaimo Green Group”. A coalition of green oriented businesses that will meet once a month for about 90 minutes to network and make plans to further spread the green word. Our next meeting is scheduled to be in the boardroom of my office on Thursday April 9th from 5:30 to 7. So far, it costs nothing but 90 minutes of time to be part of this. The requirement is that attendees be a business owner of a business that is devoted to doing their business in a manner that is ‘ahead of the curve’ in terms of matters ecological.

The dozen or so businesses that are currently members are quite a collection of brilliant minds coming from a variety of backgrounds. I’m actually quite proud of this group so far, especially since we’ve only just started. The first project we are working on is getting funding to build a net zero home which will be a showhome for green technologies and products. That is, the home itself will be built using the latest (and sometimes oldest) green technologies and be filled with green versions of products that would normally fill a home.

Ryan Coffey

“Having said that…” was a favourite phrase used by a history Professor I used to hang out with. This fits the moment.  So… having said that, I’m going to touch on a variety of events that are going on of late and rather than my usual comments accompanied by an article or writing an article myself, I’ll provide links to articles for further reading.

Now, where to start… hmm….

I know! Downtown.

Mafeo Sutton Park is Getting a Facelift.

In case you haven’t noticed, our fabulous waterfront park downtown is getting some work done. Although I wasn’t overly pleased to see how many trees and other green they uprooted before starting the work, I look forward to seeing the work finished. This park and walkway that highlights the waterfront in the downtown area is one of my favourite features of Nanaimo.

I have to say “uh oh” to the reduced parking space though. We could certainly use a new parkade or two in the downtown area.

It does however seem quite a promising addition to the already healthy project of a revitalized downtown.

http://www.canada.com/Maffeo+Sutton+Park+gets+facelift+spirit+square/1360368/story.html

New Hotel Construction Downtown Continues to Be Debated

After a series of deadlines not met, and delays due to financial concern (maybe woes is a better word?) the new hotel that is supposed to attach itself to the successful and rather large conference centre is still in limbo. I don’t imagine the other hotels downtown are crying too much though, I hear they’re rather busy lately.

It certainly sounds like it’s a no go with the company in question but no one has come out and simply said it. There is also talk of other companies who would want to build a hotel yet, so we’ll see. My feeling is that like so many things it’s just a matter of time and, oh yeah… that money stuff. The question is, how much of each of those two things will it take to pull this together?

http://www.canada.com/City+goes+fishing+hotel+developer/1351807/story.html

http://www.canada.com/Second+vote+hotel+unlikely/1369642/story.html

Cable Bay: The Controversial Project Continues to Grow

You may have read my posts about the rather large Cable Bay development of a large golf resort and housing development which was in the media so much last summer. I noticed that at one point it seemed to fall off the radar so to speak. For some reason I haven’t heard much about it in a long time but it’s back in the media again and not only is it still kicking, but it’s poised to grow further. In the following articles that chronicle the events of the past week or so you can read the details of what the development is planned to be like at this point in time. If you don’t want to do all the reading, and you don’t already know, the expansion from 170 hectares to 191 hectares was approved by city council.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/nanaimonewsbulletin/news/40861388.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/nanaimonewsbulletin/news/41118944.html

http://www.canada.com/Council+encouraged+approve+Cable+expansion+plans/1364731/story.html

http://www.canada.com/Councillors+changes+Cable/1373065/story.html

and last but not least….

Low Interest Rates Continue To Entice Buyers and Cause Envy Among Those With Mortgages:

If you’ve been paying attention to the financial side of the real estate world of late, you’ll have heard a lot about two things:

a) Canadian Banks are awesome

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183670

b) Interest rates for mortgages are really low right now.

For buyers, it’s an exciting time to buy when not only everything is ‘on sale’ but also available with interest rates that make it easier to afford a more expensive home with a considerably lower payment for the privilege.

Local Mortgage Broker, Greg Nowik of Universal Mortgage Architects, has just sent out a sheet advertising their best rates that included the following paragraph:

When the grass looks greener…
Many Canadians are currently experiencing a little bit of “mortgage envy”. With fixed term rates at historic lows, and edging lower, many are wondering if it is worth-while to break out of their new mortgage, and break in a new one. The huge question at hand can often be the amount of the penalty, were you to break out of your current mortgage. Recently, many lenders have been exercising their right to charge a penalty based on the greater of three months’ interest or the interest rate differential (the difference between your old rate and current rates), as per their fine print mortgage clause. In order to determine the approximate penalty, you need to know your existing rate, time remaining on your term, the current rate for the remaining term, and a rather confusing calculation. Worth noting is that lenders can calculate the IRD differently, so you should always get the actual penalty from your lender. When breaking your mortgage, most lenders will include the cost of the payout penalty, as well as any additional costs, into your mortgage, so you don’t have to pay out of pocket, as long as you qualify on the new amount. It’s confusing. We know this, which is why we are here to help. Take advantage of our team of experienced mortgage planners, for your no fee, no obligation, realistic mortgage assessment. Call the Greg Nowik Team today to find out if the grass really is greener.

Wow! All that and I didn’t even give anyone tips on buying, selling, or maintaining their home or even talk about market statistics. There’s enough here for a month’s worth of posts, but as they’re all current events I felt it was necessary to put them all up at once.

Ryan Coffey

January 8th:      When Should I Buy My First Home?

January 15th:    Five things You should not do before buying a Home

February 22nd: Listing Tip #1

February 26th:  Listing Tip #1 (Part 2)

April 9th:          The Basics of Buying Real Estate in B.C.

June 2nd:          Whose Side is Your Realtor On?

June 11th:         Buyer on a Budget? Read This.

October 17th:   Up Markets and Down Markets, When to Buy and Sell (Parts 1 Through 6)

I suppose you could call this my “Coles Notes” for this blog. There are of course plenty of other posts that are also worth reading but these are the ones that contain information that everyone who is buying or selling should have a grasp of.

Enjoy the rest of the holidays. And don’t forget to get some exercise in there somewhere between all the eating and drinking!

Ryan Coffey

Ryan Coffey

This is a topic that I’ve been seeing popping up in the local papers ffrom time to time in the past few months. Plans to build a large development and golf resort in Cable Bay (next to a rather nice nature trail by the same name south of town in Cedar) have been controversial from the start. But according to the article below, which I found in the Nanaimo Daily News, the movement is gaining steam. They have until August 5th to collect enough signatures to make the city of Nanaimo stop it from going through.

Looks like they’re likely to pull it off from what it says below.

Ryan Coffey

Petitioners aim to stop development

Four thousand people have already signed on the first day of a campaign to prevent Nanaimo from annexing 90 acres of rural land for an 1,800-unit subdivision and destination golf course at Cable Bay.

Beverly Eert is leading a group of volunteers in a drive to get signatures from 5,815 Nanaimo residents and prevent the city from annexing 1260 Phoenix Way, an uninhabited property for the development.

They have until Aug. 5 to get those signatures. The city applied to the province in February to extend the city limits south to accommodate the development. Under provincial rules, a land annexation is considered to have local support unless at least 10% of voters sign letters saying otherwise. Nanaimo has 58,155 voters.

When the city set the Aug. 5 deadline, members of Save our Strategy, a grass-roots organization that opposes the development, originally said it would be too difficult to collect the signatures needed. But Eert is convinced it’s doable.

She and several volunteers set up a booth, with a handmade architectural model of the development during Canada Day festivities at Maffeo-Sutton Park on Tuesday, where she said she people were eager to sign.

"We got 405 signatures," Eert said. "If we had another half-dozen volunteers, we would have got double that. There was tremendous opposition, mostly to the process."

So far, Cedar residents have been the most vocal opponents to the development, which would be right in their backyard. Eert, who lives in Cedar, said this proves city residents also oppose the annexation.

"Most of the people didn’t know much about the project. I would say it was ignorance. Once they looked at the model and listened to what we were saying about the process, people said it wasn’t democratic.

"Remember a few years ago, when Shaw (Cable) said they were going to add a few channels and bill us for it, unless we said not to? A lot of people said it was like that."

She said the city should hold a referendum. "If we get 6,000 signatures, we’ll have to go to referendum anyway. We will force them to do the right thing, however expensive it may be."

Only signatures of qualified Nanaimo voters can be counted under the so-called alternative approval process. Qualified voters must either live in or own land inside the city.

I’m currently trying to get in touch with all businesses in the area who are trying to do more than just what is expected of them in terms of doing business in an eco friendly way as I would like to start a local collective of local eco businesses. My vision is for us to get together so we can network, send each other business/clients while putting some pressure on the world around us to move towards a sustainable way of doing business. As a group, such eco minded businesspeople could certainly make a positive difference as well as help our businesses grow. If you happen to know of any businesses or business people in the central Island area who are trying to raise the bar in terms of doing business sustainably, would you mind writing to me and letting me know the name of the person/company? I have a couple already, but the list should be longer in my eyes.

Someone came up with a similar idea a few years back and I bought into it. I’d like to share it with you, it’s called "one percent for the planet ", and organization to which, I am a member. Another blogger has made a list of all the BC businesses who are part of it here .

And here is the explanatory video with music from Jack Johnson:

Later this month it will be my turn to donate 1% of my revenues to some charities which I’ll select from their long list. Looking forward to it.

Ryan Coffey

CREDIT: A social housing project to be built at 188 East First Ave. designed by GBL Architects Group.

The corner of First and Main in Vancouver is home these days to a sad-looking Burger King, a muffler shop, a tire store, Buster’s Towing and a steady stream of commuter traffic.

It’s not a place where you’d expect to find an architectural diamond.

But there will be one three years from now, when an unusual new building will rise on that corner. It will be a model of green architecture and innovative design, with an unusually rich exterior texture, in sharp contrast to the city’s ubiquitous all-glass towers.

It’s a building to which the city’s in-house jury of architecture critics — the urban-design panel — didn’t just give the usual approval recently. It also commended it as an exemplary project, with its repetitions of simple cubic forms, its graceful garden and common spaces, and the way its elevator will deliver incoming residents to a landing where they can look out over the downtown skyline.

That kind of praise doesn’t often come from the panel of architects, landscape architects and engineers who’ve been bombarded with mediocre designs in recent years as condo mania has run full-throttle in the city.

Besides its location, there’s another surprise to this building: It will be a home for 100 of the city’s most troubled citizens, its drug- and mental-illness-plagued homeless.

And then there’s a third twist.

It’s not a one-off, like Arthur Erickson’s building for the Portland Hotel Society on Hastings or Gregory Henriquez’s award-winning Lore Krill Co-op on Cordova.

Instead, this building is just one of what promises to be a wave of beautifully modern, environmentally cutting-edge buildings. It’s one of the almost two dozen projects the provincial government has committed to in a massive pre-Olympics social-housing boom in Vancouver, Surrey, Victoria, Kelowna and Nanaimo.

Two other Vancouver social-housing projects also passed through the urban-design panel recently. They too won praise for strikingly good design that, with their panels and use of colour, is faintly reminiscent of the city’s unique BC Electric tower, built in 1957 in the full bloom of modernism.

The two new projects — one at 1308 Seymour, the other at 1237 Howe — are part of a package of 12 buildings to go up in Vancouver over the next several years.

"They really are little gems" is how one panel member, architect Walter Francl, describes the models that are starting to appear at city hall for approval. "And they show a real respect for the community they’re serving. They are quite ennobling for a group that is generally not given that level of care."

So why is this happening? One might be tempted to speculate that the province wants some model projects to show off to visiting reporters during the 2010 Winter Olympics to forestall criticism of the city’s large homeless population.

But the changes are actually driven by a different provincial mania than the Olympics. These buildings are among the first government construction projects to fall under the province’s new mandate to achieve LEED Gold standards and near-zero greenhouse-gas emissions.

Having to meet those environmental standards pushes all the architectural teams to incorporate certain elements into their designs. A green building typically requires less glass because glass produces heat loss.

Usually, the walls are no more than 40 per cent glass; the windows are punched in. Think of the way buildings used to be built, with rows of windows set into brick walls.

The insulation has to go on the outside, so that means the exteriors are covered with materials like brick, clay tiles or Swiss pearl. (Swiss pearl is a kind of concrete, but the name tells you what higher-quality concrete looks like.)

Green design means taking advantage of natural light as much as possible, so there are skylights that flood interior hallways with light. To take advantage of the differing amounts of sunlight they get, each of the four sides of the building has a different design.

Finally, because these projects will be built on small sites and because the builder, BC Housing, isn’t asking to maximize the density, they’ve got an unusual shape for Vancouver these days. Instead of being sky-high skinny towers on flatbeds of stacked townhouses, they’re solid rectangular buildings of about 10 storeys.

"The scale is really pleasing to the eye," says Tom Bell, the architect of the First and Main project.

"It’s not the huge project that you would typically see in Vancouver," said Bell, a partner in the firm Gomberoff Bell Lyon. "And the interest comes because we’ve been free to design them, we’ve been able to respond to the orientation. When you walk about the Main project, no two sides are the same."

All of this makes them remarkably different from previous eras of Vancouver social housing, from the postwar military-type public housing at Little Mountain to the co-ops of the 1970s and the social housing of the ’80s and ’90s, much of which consisted of four-storey wood-frame buildings.

Alice Sundberg worked in the social housing field for three decades in Vancouver before retiring recently. She remembers the changes.

"There was an era of ‘build it fast, quick and dirty.’ That ended up with some real problems.

"Then the response to that was building really high-end, and there was not so much of it.

"In the ’60s and ’70s there was a lot of emphasis on making the buildings fit in so it wouldn’t look like social housing. The problem now is they’re not getting the money to maintain those buildings, so they are starting to not blend in."

The aim now is to ensure that they blend in and their high quality will endure.

"It’s a whole different housing type," says Bell. "Previous buildings had a look of social housing."

The environmentally driven changes are being accompanied by other changes that reflect the people who will live there. The rooms are small, so intense care is being taken with how each small space is put together.

Equal care is being given to the many common areas — essential for people who need to be able to alternate between places to be together and places to get away from one another.

Some of the buildings incorporate dining rooms and kitchens set up to serve communal dinners. The many common areas are a mix of big rooms for crowds and spaces big enough for just a few people.

That’s partly driven by suggestions from future residents.

Part of the design process for the First and Main building, which will be run by Lookout Emergency Aid Society, was to bring in people who live in some of Lookout’s residences in the Downtown Eastside to make suggestions about what the building should include.

It all sounds like a humanitarian paradise.

But, as always, there is one lead lining to this silver cloud: money.

There has always been a delicate balance that the province’s housing authority managers try to strike. They aim to build housing that lasts far longer than market buildings. And they want something that fits into the community.

Larry Adams, who designed the Seymour Street building, said architects often try to make the case that this is one kind of government service where there shouldn’t be any skimping.

"These people are marginalized already and they deserve nice homes," said Adams, of the firm Neale Staniszkis Doll Adams.

But no group is more wary of accusations about gold-plated government buildings than government bureaucrats. And, ultimately, budgets have limits.

"We are being challenged on them by BC Housing because they are concerned about the cost," admits Stu Lyon, who, like Tom Bell, is an architect with Gomberoff Bell Lyon. He designed a 110-unit building on Howe, between Davie and Drake.

BC Housing promises the quality won’t be undermined by "value engineering," the current construction lingo for cost-cutting. Craig Crawford, its vice-president of development service, said the goal is to try to preserve the original concepts as much as possible. The agency is bringing in the cost consultant and construction managers early for suggestions on ways to save money without altering materials or design. Sometimes, just changing the construction schedule can make a difference.

"We don’t want to promise something to the urban-design panel that we don’t think can be built," says Crawford. "I personally am really pleased with what they’re doing and their collaborative approach to design."

In a couple of years, when the buildings start going up, we’ll know how all of that worked out.