Homesol won the EnerQuality Energy Evaluator of the Year Award today! Many thanks to the Homesol team and the EnerQuality judges!

I'm still at the party in Collingwood with my green building colleagues, celebrating our commitment to sustainable, energy efficient buildings (and ... beer) so will let the EnerQuality press release do the talking:

In 1999 the government launched the EnerGuide for Houses program, providing expert energy advice to Ontario homeowners. I was the 38th person in Canada to become a Certified Energy Advisor. In those early days it was thoroughly enjoyable working with clients who were just interested in learning how to make their homes more healthy, comfortable and energy efficient. Professional, knowledgeable advice, a thorough inspection and a detailed report on their home with a customized set of well-explained and prioritized energy upgrades were what they were paying for; they weren't simply paying the entry fee to the government coffers. There were no government grants in those early days! Almost fifteen years later the cost of an energy audit from some organizations is half what it used to be (adjusted for inflation); until this year a homeowner could get up to $10,000 in grants (currently only $5,000); and most people are only in it for the money. As a result, the quality of the energy audits across Canada as well as the motivations of the customers has declined substantially.

Now the program has been cancelled but the need for retrofitting our housing stock remains. The alternative to a government grant program? Truly useful whole-home energy audits, air tests, thermography and building-science-based energy upgrade advice and effective retrofits delivered by competitive, independent energy consulting businesses like the team at Homesol, advice you can truly count on to save you money on your energy costs over the long term. It's the best investment you'll ever make, and you really DON'T need a government grant to do the right and economically-intelligent thing. Good ideas fly on their own, bad ideas need government support.

You certainly won't hear that opinion from any other Service Organization except Homesol, the others are lining up at the government troughs right now and pressuring them to renew the program that's due to die on March 31st, 2012 (cue the crocodile save-ecoENERGY tears).

However, there are now thousands of trained, experienced and certified energy advisors across Canada who could easily continue marketing the same services they currently provide, only now as creative entrepreneurs freed up from government intervention. I hope they will let small businesses compete freely to deliver quality energy audits, I can't think of any other product so many homeowners really need and which actually pays for itself!

By the way, if you have already had your first ecoENERGY audit done, remember you have only 18 months from the date of your first audit to complete your retrofits and have the follow-up evaluation done in order to qualify for your grants. Although all work must be completed by March 31st, you will have until June 30th, 2012 to get your final inspection done. Despite my personal opinion that the program should not (ever) be renewed, I still strongly encourage you to call us to book your follow-up inspection and get rewarded by the government for making your home more energy efficient. We're here to help you, no matter who did your first evaluation. But your real lasting reward will be a better house that's future-proofed against inevitably rising energy costs. Homesol will still be here, providing you with expert advice, long after all the organizations who are just in it for the government grants disappear.   

After a long blogging drought I hope to get back to writing to you all once again. There's a tremendous amount of new developments in green building, and the pace of change in residential energy design is speeding up, particularly as we move into the new R-2000 standard. Passive House is capturing the imaginations of builders and buyers alike, and the specter of imminent peak fossil fuels has been replaced by shale gas and tar sands discoveries (as well as plentiful coal) that may be leading us to something far worse - the times they are a'changin'. But the primary message I bring back here from GreenBuild is one of hope.

I was incredibly fortunate to be invited to speak at GreenBuild, and presented on the Passive House / LEED Platinum candidate project built by Vert Design in Ottawa. Several hundred people attended my talk despite Amory Lovins speaking at the same time. Those of you who are in the know may be aware CanPHI (the Canadian Passive House Institute - specifically Malcolm Issacs and Guido Wimmers) contested PHIUS' (Passive House Institute of the US') certification of this project some eight months after the Passive House label for the home was delivered in Nov. 2010, with this dispute eventually contributing to the PHIUS / PHI split. Bottom line at our end, which I explained in the presentation (which I will post here if I can obtain permission from GreenBuild) is that this house, the first certified Passive House residence in Canada, WILL succeed in keeping its Passive House designation, once we make a couple of minor changes. More to follow...

Homesol was also represented at the GreenBuild trade show, as a member of Passive Buildings Canada (of which I am Vice President). Although the PBC booth was tucked away in a far corner in the non-profit section, in the BIGGEST trade show I've ever seen (too big for just the main show venue at the Toronto Convention Centre, so there were actually two trade show venues, all on green building products - amazing how far this industry has come!), we still attracted quite a crowd as people actively sought out our booth, because everyone wants to know more about Passive Buildings. At every presentation I was at, there was at least one question about Passive House. And I had a very interesting conversation with Vancouver architect Richard Kadulski of Solplan Revue about how Passive House is being represented quite poorly by some well-meaning proponents who are woefully ignorant of the Canadian context, a topic that will certainly continue to develop. As one of only six Certified Passive House Consultants in Canada at this time, I can see this is really going places faster than any of us ever imagined.

What I came away from GreenBuild with was a sense that we are on the cusp of a new era in buildings, well beyond the baby steps we've taken so far, to where energy saving technologies are going to rock your world and change the building industry in ways we can scarcely imagine. I will tell you more about that soon....

I want to keep this post short, although with so many months since my last post I have a lot more to say. I'm heading to Ireland tomorrow for 3 1/2 weeks; will be visiting several Canadian-built SuperE projects over there as part of our Passive House research we're doing for CMHC; heading over to Darmstadt, Germany for a few days of Passive House Trainer Training with the Passive House Institute; then over to The Eden Project in the UK before heading back home, so watch this blog space for more Homesol Building Solutions news!

When it comes to “higher education”, I have tremendous respect for anyone who completes all the schooling required to become an accredited professional, like an engineer or architect – or physician, which at one time was the path I was on. Five or ten years in university will teach you a lot of things you’d never learn “on the street”. It’s not easy, and only the strong survive, so although a degree may not always signify brilliance, it at least proves perseverance.  

On the other hand, a lot of smart people find traditional classroom learning too slow, too rigid in thinking and too focused on regurgitation rather than knowledge. Many people in the latter category have no degrees to show for their knowledge, yet have life experience credentials to rival many PhDs. Unfortunately, most of those folks applying for high level jobs in government and industry get turned away from the door quicker than a Harper bouncer will bar someone seen with Ignatieff on Facebook, but I digress into Canadian election politics... 

Last week I went to San Francisco for the 25^th annual Affordable Comfort conference, and while I was there I dropped by to see Fred Stitt, the founder of the San Francisco Institute of Architecture. I wanted to talk to him about receiving advance academic credit towards completing my masters degree at his non-traditional design school.  

I met Fred on a warm and sunny late-March day at his marina-view office in Alameda, California, an architect, professor and author I have long known of but never previously met. I’ve read some of his works, including the Ecological Design Handbook, and particularly remember him saying "the only problem with all other architecture schools is…. everything". That got me intrigued, and I read through the entire SFIA website, at www.sfia.net . Since residential designers make peanuts it really makes no economic sense for me to go back to university full-time to become an architect just in order to design houses. And I’d like to design a lot more Passive and Net-Zero houses… Hence my meeting with Fred.

Fred subscribes to the notion that walking into a building should be like entering a piece of music. Good architecture should sing to us. Responsible architecture is deep-green regenerative, not just sustainable any more (the Earth is already past the point where breaking even will do – I love the analogy to a marriage: if someone asked how your relationship was and you said “it’s sustainable” would that be a good thing?… we should aim beyond that!).

According to Fred, traditional architecture schools stifle and destroy the creative thinking we need to bring to designing innovative organic, ecological, nature-based buildings. He says 20 years ago (and perhaps still to this day) the higher education needed for future-based architecture simply didn’t exist, so he founded the San Francisco Institute of Architecture.

We had a very pleasant chat, and he gave me a lot of good advice. For example, don’t waste my time learning to be good at AutoCAD, hire an architectural technologist instead. Don’t be afraid to design, I’m already far ahead of most people who claim to be designers. And that I’m unstoppable. I like that last part, it does pretty much sum it all up. He suggested I create my own program of study, and submit it to SFIA for approval, along with some of the design work I’ve done over the years, and get started on learning more about ecological architecture. I guess I'm going back to school!

My first assignment I've set for myself is to read A Pattern Language cover-to-cover and write a report on every chapter explaining what I learned and what I feel about the information presented, since although I’ve never read the book in any formal sense I have skimmed through it enough to know it’s a basic residential design text. I already know I disagree with the way some designers get obsessed with meeting every detail in the book, and I can always recognize a house designed by someone who has taken A Pattern Language a bit too much to heart; the unnecessary ceiling level changes and silly extra corners flying in the face of the simplicity of someone like Frank Lloyd Wright (an architect I can also disagree with in a lot of ways) who said: “Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”. Sounds like Passive House, I think Fred Stitt would agree… and I look forward to having him as my mentor along with the rest of the faculty at San Francisco Institute of Architecture.

After driving from Eastern Ontario to Toronto in a classic Canadian snowstorm, I can safely say my passion for next-generation green building remains steadfast. The 401 Highway route approaching Toronto continues to sprout suburban tract housing projects in various stages of completion. I'd wager that few if any of them has a LEED Platinum rating, and not a one could be certified as a Passive House.

And yet, I'm going to spend the next two days learning from, presenting to and enjoying the company of similarly committed people who are going to help solve this problem at the High Performance & Sustainable Building Summit.

In my role of Vice President of Passive Buildings Canada I will be co-presenting with Terrell Wong, who is President of that organization in addition to being an Architect at Stone's Throw Design Inc. We're going to prove to our colleagues from the building industry that Passive House design can and does work in the Canadian climate. Our goal is to assess the successes and challenges for passive buildings in Canada, show case studies that meet the passive house standard from various climates and suggest a strategy for expanding the use of passive buildings in Canada.

If you're in Toronto Wednesday morning come and see us at the conference!

(Ross Elliott, CPHP, LEED-AP, RASDT, RHSD, is CEO and President of Homesol Building Solutions Inc., located in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.)

The Ottawa Citizen's "Green Issue" was published on February 19, 2011 and Homesol clients received great coverage.

One story, on page E1 (front page) of the Homes section - Deeper shade of Green: Tough energy standards are the new normal for rental townhomes - profiled Ontario's first LEED Platinum certified multi-unit residential project. The RGB Group’s LEED Platinum project in Ottawa’s south end features nine 1,750 sq. ft. executive townhomes that boast green building features such as locally sourced L.E.D. lighting, extensive use of “chain of custody” lumber (traceable to responsibly managed forests), energy star-rated appliances and low-flow toilets and water fixtures.

Homesol Building Solutions consulted to The RGB Group throughout its LEED Platinum Certification process, and I certified the project. In the Ottawa Citizen story I also commend the company President Rolf Baumann. More builders should learn from the dedication and persistence it takes to achieve the highest standard in green building. Rolf does, and he makes it pay.

Another story, same issue of the Citizen profiled Canada's First Certified Passive House. I've already blogged about Ottawa architectural designer, Chris Straka's project and the role Homesol played in getting this house to certification here. After read that, please also read the Ottawa Citizen article by Patrick Langston on this green building success story: The Green Issue: Not So Passive

(Ross Elliott, CPHP, LEED-AP, RASDT, RHSD, is CEO and President of Homesol Building Solutions Inc., located in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.)

Last summer Kat and I were invited to beautiful St. Johns, Newfoundland, to give a presentation on our bubble insulated and shaded greenhouse, which we built back on Sept. 11, 2001 (strange how you remember what you were doing on that day.... in our case we were pouring concrete while listening to CBC's coverage of events).

Following that wonderful visit to one of the very best parts of Canada, complete with the hospitality (and pubs) Newfoundland is known for, we developed a set of construction drawings and specifications so anyone can build a bubble greenhouse like ours. It took quite a while for us to get around to posting these plans on the website, since we had to first figure out how to allow people to contribute a bit of money towards the sweat & tears & cash that went into developing this idea and then putting it all on paper, but we finally got the plans out there last month.

Last week, we shipped out our first set of plans, to an innovative greenhouse grower in North Carolina.

Some day I really do believe people will be driving down the road and will say "Look Martha, it's going to be a cold night / hot day, the greenhouses have their bubbles in!", because using soap bubbles to shade and insulate greenhouses just makes sense.

For more on this interesting twist on cooling and shading greenhouses, check out our bubble greenhouse section...

(Ross Elliott, CPHP, LEED-AP, RASDT, RHSD, is CEO and President of Homesol Building Solutions Inc., located in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.)

Since Homesol Building Solutions certified Canada's first Passive House, I have been doing more media interviews than at any time in Homesol's history. Click here to see our growing list of news stories. Christopher Straka, architectural designer and owner of Canada's first certified Passive House, has also shared the Passive House celebrity with us, as he should. Based in Ottawa, Chris is Prinicpal of VERT Design Inc.

Homesol Building Solutions certifies Canada's first Passive HouseChris has proven that a certified, cost-effective, urban duplex using standards set by the Passive House Institute can be built in Canada, with available-in-Canada construction materials.

On our home turf, the Ottawa Sun and CBC Radio's All in a Day ran stories on Canada's first certified Passive House. You can hear the full CBC radio interview with Stu Mills by downloading the audio mp3 file here.

Our Passive House story was also picked up by Green Building Advisor by Taunton Press, publisher of Fine Homebuilding. The story that Richard Defendorf wrote for Green Building Advisor garnered some very positive comments:

Very nice project.
by James Morgan
"The best green model housing ever shown on GBA. Community and context are as essential as insulation and weatherproofing. Study and learn, people!"

Congratulations!
by Richard Clark
"Lets hope for many more."

It's been a great couple of weeks for the Passive House movement in Canada! Thanks again Chris for taking on the Passive House adventure and thanks to all the media who covered our news – from the Tyee in B.C, to the Financial Post in Toronto, to the International Passive House Magazine and California's Construction Digital. We've loved reading the news stories, and I hear from our PR firm, market2world communications, that there are several more to come.

(Ross Elliott, CPHP, LEED-AP, RASDT, RHSD, is CEO and President of Homesol Building Solutions Inc., located in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.)

Front view of Canada's first certified Passive House

By Ross Elliott

Despite skepticism about building to the Passive House standard in Canada, Homesol Building Solutions Inc. has proven otherwise by certifying a cost-effective urban duplex by Ottawa’s Vert Design Inc. Using standards set by the Passive House Institute, Homesol has given Canada’s first Passive House Certification to a residential home built in the world’s fourth-coldest capital city (after Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Astana, Kazakhstan and Moscow, Russia).

When he started designing his home in Ottawa’s New Edinburgh district, Chris Straka, Principal of Vert Design, was told it likely wouldn’t be possible to build a Passive House inRear view of Canada's first certified Passive House Ottawa’s cold climate unless he imported expensive European technology. Straka then shelved the Passive House objective. He built his house using conventional building materials sourced from North America, as well as his experience honed by consulting on 35 residential green building projects since starting his company in 2006. Though his intention was not to build a Passive House, when he called in Homesol’s President Ross Elliott to evaluate the duplex’s energy efficiency, both men were astounded to learn that the home also met the Passive House Institute’s strict energy efficiency standard.

Recently this old dog learned a new trick: how to perform a really accurate and thorough economic analysis of energy efficiency upgrades, well beyond the usual "payback period" simplistic calculations commonly used in this industry. Looking at interest rates, fuel cost inflation, amortization period and upgrade costs vs. annual energy savings, I have repeatedly found that higher levels of building envelope performance always result in a net DECREASE in annual ownership costs. In other words, even adding 10% to the cost of a new home in order to save 90% on energy consumption (Passive House) is a great investment. Of course, so is adding 1% to save 10% on energy costs (ENERGY STAR). The difference between the two really comes down to the difference in taking baby steps and meeting the 2012 Code, or going straight to where the 2030 building code should be. The question to ask when deciding which path to take is not "how long will I live in this house", but "how long will this house last".