What do I want to get from making my home and my life more sustainable? How do I plan on getting there?

I have always wanted to have a career that would allow me to support my family and still have time to be with them.

I have been interested in architecture and sustainable homes from a young age.

My first career was in in aircraft maintenance but I switched to architecture to have more time with my family and to hopefully one day design and build my own home.

I started the architectural technologies program at SAIT in 2011 and was able to get a position with the Green Building Technologies office starting in my first semester and continued working there for the duration of my program.

My Sustainable Goals

I want to make my current home constructed in 1981 more sustainable.

I will start by monitoring the energy usage in comparison to the exterior temperature for at least a year. At some point after that I will complete renovations to drastically reduce the energy requirements of my home. After those renovations I will monitor the energy usage and temperature for at least a year following the renovations to confirm the exact energy improvements.

Through my monitoring I will be able to record my energy usage in comparison to the actual exterior temperatures using a measurement known as heating degree days.

Heating degree days and cooling degree days are used to design heating and cooling systems and calculate expected energy usage. They are based on average climate data for a given location and measure how cold (below a baseline temperature - +18 degrees Celsius in Canada) it is and for how long over the course of a year.

I tried to explain heating degree days in the podcast episode at 6:25 and I apologize if it came out pretty confusing. I did find a great article explaining heating degree days at http://www.degreedays.net/introduction

You can also read the wikipedia entry about heating degree days… but it is a bit dense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heating_degree_day

This end data will provide a comparison of energy usage per heating degree day before and after the renovation…. Not just “my bills are lower” which could also be attributed to a warmer winter….. Read the article at degreedays.net/introduction for another great illustration.

I will also possibly look at getting some sustainable certifications for my renovation.

My thoughts on certifications

Certifications are all slightly different and some have specific focuses. I think certifications are great to provide independent documentation and certification for what you have done to your home and can help increase the value of your home when selling. They can also help guide you on your path towards a sustainable home.

Some of the more known and used certifications are:

Passive House (Passive House Canada, Passive House Institute US, Passive House Institute) - Passive House is focused on low whole home energy use. It is based on building a highly insulated and airtight building and having low electrical and fuel requirements.

LEED for Homes (Canadian Green Building Council LEED for Homes, US Green Building Council LEED for Homes) - LEED for homes takes many different energy, health, and environmental concepts into account and gives you points based on the steps you take to make your home more sustainable.

EnerGuide for Homes (Natural Resources Canada) - EnerGuide for Homes is a Government of Canada program and gives you a rating for your home based on energy usage.

Energy Star for Homes (Natural Resources Canada, Energy Star US) - Energy Star for Homes is a program run both in Canada and the US. It is also based on home energy usage.

There are also many other standards available which offer certifications for meeting certain energy usage goal...