The Sokolics moved to St. Albert from B.C. about two years ago. Joanna, her husband, Schaun Goodeve, and their daughter, Isla, settled into a cozy 1960s-era bungalow in Grandin with tall trees, funky wallpaper, and a giant yard for Isla to play in.
But there were problems, Joanna says.
Cold drafts blew in through the doors, and the windows froze solid during the winter. Poorly insulated walls meant that Isla's room was particularly chilly.
"We have a child and we'd like to have a green Earth for her," Joanna says. She and Schaun wanted to save money, reduce their carbon footprint and live more comfortably by making their home use less energy.
They were exactly the kind of family I sought.
Last year I'd done a story on net-zero home renovations where people had renovated their homes to use next to no fossil fuel energy over the course of a year, and it'd driven me nuts that I couldn't find any examples from St. Albert.
I wanted to change that. If St. Albert wants to meet its own greenhouse gas reduction goals, it needs the efficiency gains net-zero homes provide.
This year, I've teamed up with the Sokolics to see how close we can get a home to net-zero with a little help.
Why audit
I called in Godo Stoyke of C Returns – an Edmonton non-profit dedicated to greening homes – and had the Gazette pay him to do an energy audit of the Sokolic home.
Stoyke showed up a few weeks later in his Prius with his auditor's kit. As author of three books on energy efficiency and founder of the eco-audit firm Carbon Busters, he's well versed in advising homeowners on how to save energy and money.
Energy audits are a good starting point for an eco-renovation, says Jim Andrais, environmental policy program manager for the City of Edmonton (which backs C Returns). These inspections give you a benchmark for your home and an idea of what improvements are worth your money.
Most audits cost about $300 and take an hour and a half, says Jason Nyyssonen of Energuy Canada, who has some 5,000 audits under his belt. The federal government used to give a $150 rebate for such audits, but they stopped after 2012.
Stoyke says he does about 30 audits a year through C Returns.
"The biggest motivator for us is to fight climate change," he says. Albertans have the second highest per-capita emissions rate in Canada, and homes account for a big chunk of those emissions – about 40 per cent in St. Albert, according to the city's greenhouse gas inventory.
"The least we can do is address those areas we can address."
Searching for leaks
Stoyke cracks open his toolkit, which includes a screwdriver, an infrared camera, and a sophisticated hydraulic calibration tool that resembles a measuring cup.
Isla shows him around the house as he looks for opportunities for improvement.
"This is a pretty nice fridge," he notes, taking a picture of its model plate to look up later, and dates back to just 2012.
Stoyke says the fridge is a very common point of improvement in the kitchen, as modern ones are about six times more efficient than those from the 1970s. The best ones use just 200 to 300 kilowatt-hours of power a year. He'll look up the Sokolics' fridge later to see if it's worth replacing.
As Isla kinetically redistributes her toys in the living room, Stoyke notices the fireplace – one of two in the home. Fireplaces can suck warm air out of your home and cost you energy, he notes.
"One option is to install a chimney cap," he says, which will seal the chimney shut when not in use.
The dining room chandelier also catches his eye, as it's one of the few fixtures in the home that still has incandescent bulbs in it. LED bulbs would provide about the same amount of light for a third of the power, and would last eight to 25 times longer, Stoyke notes.
Down in the utility room, Stoyke cracks open the furnace to find the model and efficiency rating. This one happens to be about 92 per cent efficient, which is pretty good, as most homes have ones that are 60 to 80 per cent. The Sokolics probably don't have to worry about replacing it, but they could improve it by cleaning it (cost: $100).
"The washing machine's a front-loader," he observes – another good sign.
Front-loaders use about a third as much heat and water as top-loaders to wash the same volume of clothes, Stoyke says. The best use less than 100 kilowatt-hours a year of electricity and have a high spin-cycle to shake water out of your clothes to reduce drying time.
The Sokolics could improve their dryer by replacing it with one that uses a heat pump instead of a coil, Stoyke says. Relatively new to North America, heat-pump dryers tend to use two to three times less power than coil models.
An even more efficient clothes dryer is the drying rack, which the Sokolics also have.
"It takes quite awhile to dry clothes, but we like the extra moisture in the house," Joanna says.
The Sokolics have a relatively new hot water tank that's about 80 per cent efficient – 60 per cent in practice, as the water loses a lot of heat as it sits in the tank, Stoyke says. They could do better with an on-demand water heater (95 per cent efficient), but as this tank is pretty new, it'd be hard to justify the $3,000 price tag.
Instead, Stoyke recommends they put some insulation wraps around their tank and water pipes. At just $20 to $40, these wraps have an extremely short payback time.
Next, it's time to break out the ladder and check the attic insulation.
Stoyke finds that the Sokolics have about eight inches of insulation in their attic – equivalent to an insulation value of R-32 – not bad, but it could be better. (Higher R-values mean less heat loss.) They also don't have weather stripping around the attic hatch, which means more heat loss for the home.
The windows and doors aren't much better.
"These are the original window panes," Joanna notes of the living room.
"You can literally feel the cold as you're sitting there."
The Sokolics have taken a good first step by putting plastic film over some of their windows, Stoyke says. Window films can cut heat losses in half and pay for themselves in less than a year.
But the windows themselves have aluminium frames. "Aluminium is the second best conductor on the planet," Stoyke notes, which makes aluminium frames a great way to lose heat. Get fibreglass ones instead.
Most double-pane windows are an R-2 for insulation, compared to the best triple-or-more pane ones that rate up to R-20. New windows are expensive, though, so it's best to wait until you have to replace them anyway.
The doors in the home are wood and probably rate as low as R-2 for insulation. Modern doors come with foam cores that boost their insulation to R-12, but it's the air seal around them that's the big factor – a leaky door can account for up to eight per cent of a home's heat loss, Stoyke says.
"Do you have a green power subscription?" he asks Joanna. Green power doesn't have a payback (unlike other conservation measures), but it gives you the biggest impact on your carbon footprint on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
"For $200 a year … you can basically eliminate the carbon footprint of your electricity," Stoyke says – equivalent to about six to eight tonnes a year per home. (The average St. Albert resident produces about 12.3 tonnes a year, the city's greenhouse gas inventory reports.)
Stoyke finishes his audit and heads off to crunch the numbers. He'll come back with a report of recommended improvements for the Sokolics in a few weeks.
I'll check back with the Sokolics later this year to find out how they choose to green their house.
