In recent months, we’ve encountered a few situations in which a client approved a preliminary design, only to find that estimated costs to build were greater than expected. In some cases, this entailed an overhaul of the design; in others, the project was put on hold or abandoned completely. This led us to assemble a few thoughts on how to build a new home in this time of escalating costs.
Let’s look at the reasons that costs are higher than they used to be. [Read more…]
Last week I attended a memorial service for an old friend in the Slocan Valley. As many of you know, I’ve maintained a strong anti-flying stance for years in order to minimize my CO2 footprint. As usual, I intended to drive to the service, thinking this to be the most carbon-responsible means of travel.
However, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to test that assumption. [Read more…]
April is finally here! Now that we’re putting away our woolly scarves and getting back into the garden, many of us are preparing to turn off our furnaces and put our wood-burning stoves to bed until next fall. And as those stoves go dormant, it’s a great time to think about upgrading to an appliance that burns more efficiently.
Some pretty heated arguments (no pun intended) have been made for and against wood stoves in letters to the editor. Many people see wood as a cheap and renewable energy source — although it could be argued that firewood prices around here are gaspingly high (about double what’s charged in rural Quebec, for example). Some Valley residents are gasping for another reason: wood burning has a seriously detrimental effect on air quality, which in turn, threatens our well-being and impacts health care costs. [Read more…]
Having examined the ways that we’ve already saved energy in our workplace, we’ve come to the hard part – looking at our remaining carbon footprint. Calculating this hasn’t been easy. There have been frustrations along the way, and some lessons learned. [Read more…]
The data’s been crunched, and we’re nearly done summarizing our 2016 net-zero project. We reported previously that our office saves 1.41 metric tonnes (mT) of CO2e annually by going mostly paperless in our daily operations: sending and receiving electronic invoicing and correspondence, limiting paper subscriptions, eliminating paper consumables in the kitchen, etc. [Read more…]
In January of last year, inspired by the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, our office took on the challenge of trying to achieve carbon neutrality. We read articles, books and blogs; investigated various carbon footprint calculators available online; examined our own consumption habits; and mulled over possible strategies. It was clear that a perfect tally of our energy use would be impossible, since the carbon footprint of goods and services extends back through infinite steps in the production and transport chain. We agreed to work with best estimates using a variety of reliable sources online and in print, starting with the excellent book “How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything” by Mike Berners-Lee. We also decided to forego hiring a consultant, preferring to hack this thing on our own, thereby deepening our own knowledge in the process. [Read more…]
