It's June! One of my very favorite months of the year.....
This month I am featuring a one-of-a-kind couple and their one-of-a-kind home: Les MacDonald and Gwen Hoover have built an incredible Eco-home in the Quinte region and I am so excited to tell you all about it!
Their solar-powered and wind-powered "off-the-grid" house has been featured in Harrowsmith Country Life magazine and on David Suzuki's The Nature of Things......and this month they're talking to little ol' me!
Les and Gwen
I met Gwen and Les at St. Lawrence College in April. They were giving a lecture to an Environmental Issues class about their home and living green. I was so impressed by their sincerity, ingenuity, humor and modesty. I couldn't resist the urge to bring their story to you!
I thought I'd start with a bit of background on both Les and Gwen: where they came from, what brought them together and then, eventually, to Prince Edward County and the process of building green.
Gwen Hoover:
Raised on a Holstein dairy farm outside of Jarvis, Ont. (pop. 900) in the 1950s, Gwen grew up loving farm life.
Gwen's first tomatoes at PEC, September 2007
She later earned an Honours degree in French and Spanish at McMaster University and then went on a "Grand Tour" of Europe post-graduation.
Upon return to Ottawa, Gwen found Les and a niche at the Canada Council for the Arts/Public Lending Right Commission. She gave birth to two beautiful sons, Ian now in Toronto/New York/Paris and Alex in the UK.
Gwen describes her passions as "family, travel, the arts and gardening".
Les MacDonald:
Born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1948. Les was a, self-proclaimed, "army brat" whose family moved every few years, including a few years in west Germany from 1957-60. {So, he did his 'Grand Tour' of Europe a little earlier than Gwen!}
Les, in the London-Glasgow bar car with his favourite drink, in search of roots in the Outer Hebrides
Les spent his teenage years in Ottawa and then later earned an Honours BA at Trent University (Politics & Hist) in 1972, as well as a MA and PhD, both from Carleton University (Pol Sci, '74 and '85).
He met Gwen in 1973 and they married in 1974.
Raising their boys in Ottawa, Gwen and Les discovered the joys (and challenges) of a large Edwardian house in Ottawa East. Les describes the house they bought on a whim as:
"a persistent distraction from my doctoral studies, through which we began to discover the practical sides of restoration and conservation. Energy conservation became our priority when we found we were spending more on space heating than on our two mortgages combined."
The arrival of Ian in '80 and of Alex in '82 caused Les and Gwen to suspend most of their community and political activities, but not the renovations as room had to be found for the nursery!
The expenses of home renovation motivated Les to accept employment at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in 1979. "It was an exciting place, among people so committed to research, but the long hours, combined with our boys and the never-ending renovations, pushed the doctoral thesis completion further into the future. Ian's first word was "Da-da", and his second was "Archives", Gwen's oft-repeated explanation for where I was!"
Ian and Alex, New York 2007
So, why Prince Edward County?
"Once both our sons were in university and away from home we began to think about downsizing and picking a place to 'retire', whatever that meant. We had become interested in sailing and Les had been fascinated with astronomy since his boyhood days, so our next home had to be far from city lights as well as be close to where we could sail.
Prince Edward County, which we had 'discovered' as a convenient stop-over in our family travels, seemed a good place to look.
Also, through her work, Gwen had had the honour of meeting Al Purdy when he was awarded the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1986. When we attended Purdy's memorial service in Ameliasburg in 2000, we were again inspired by the region and got in touch with a real estate company to begin an active search for property.
The lot we finally found presented us with a quandary: build by the water and pay an arm and a leg to have hydro brought in, or build at the road and watch all the traffic go by.
We opted for the former. We then contacted Martin Liefhebber , finding out about his recognition for the 'Healthy Home' award from Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation for an off-grid house in downtown Toronto.
After 2 years of design discussion, municipal approvals for straw-bale, off grid, etc., we began the adventure!
Some Questions for Gwen and Les:
Jill: What are the specific features of the house that allow it to remain "off-grid" and eco-friendly?
Les and Gwen: Let's start with the basics: our house is designed to be an efficient collector of solar energy and at the same time an efficient energy storage device through insulation and thermal mass. These are the passive features of the house which will not change with time. As a result, the house needs only about 20% of the energy of a typical on-grid house of the same size. This makes it possible for us to live off grid.
Summer
Winter
In summary, the passive features are:
1) orientation: major axis of house is exactly East-West
2) most of the South side of the house is fitted with dual seal, fiberglass windows, with few windows facing other directions
3) straw bale construction on 1st floor in East, North and West for superior insulation and better vapour transmission to avoid condensation and mildew; various techniques to enable superior insulation in other walls and roof
4) thermal mass in the interior: concrete slab on grade foundation (no basement), concrete 2nd floor, interior window sills, stone interior walls and masonry heater.
The active features:
1) solar water heating panels provide at least 90% of our hot water
2) solar photo-voltaic panels provide about 90% of our electric power (average of about 4 kwh per day)
3) a 900 watt wind turbine provides additional power, especially useful from November to January.
We also have propane for cooking and, occasionally, for heating water. The main and 2nd floors are also equipped with hot-water radiant heating tubes, the hot water for which can be supplied either by a propane boiler or, to some extent, by the solar hot water panels. However, we prefer to heat the house by burning wood in the masonry heater (about 2 and 1/2 cord a year).
Our propane usage averages out to about 200 liters a year.
What we do WITHOUT:
1)clothes dryer - we hang laundry on the 3rd floor deck, or indoors on lines or a clotheshorse
2) incandescent lights - we use mostly compact fluorescent, some of which we plan to convert to LED this summer
3) a generator - as far as we know we are the only off-grid setup which does not rely on a generator to charge the batteries during periods of cloudy weather
4) a gas mower - we use an electric mower, amply powered by our PV/wind setup
5) air conditioning - strategic window placement, superior insulation, thermal mass, passive convection ventilation and the green roof all help keep the interior comfortable on the hottest days.
Building the Gazebo
Jill: Living "off-grid" seems to fairly labour intensive. What motivates you to stick with it?
Les and Gwen: Living in the country in itself is generally more labour-intensive than city living (wells, septic systems, larger lots, more do-it-yourself situations instead of reliance on servicemen and contractors). So, in a sense, whether one is on or off grid in a rural setting doesn't make much difference.
Some of the additional environmental choices we have made are those that anyone living anywhere can make: pushing an electric mower instead of riding a gas-powered machine, hanging laundry to dry outside instead of using a clothes dryer, washing dishes by hand.
Some of our neighbours seek to avoid exertion through the use of fossil fuel energy, but it doesn't mean they live a better life. They often don't get enough exercise and suffer the resulting effects. Perhaps that is why obesity is such a problem in small towns and in the countryside. Maybe labour-intensive is better if it leads to a healthier lifestyle. Gardening is another 'labour-intensive' activity. It would be easier to buy all of our summer vegetables at the market. But we enjoy the hope and promise of a garden, it keeps us active and the rewards are amazing. There's nothing better than the taste of a fresh-picked tomato from our garden, still warm from the sun. We call it a taste of summer.
In other words, it all depends on how you wish to spend your time.
Jill: Are their any luxuries, from your less eco-conscious days, that you miss?
Les and Gwen: We can't believe how much water we wasted in the city. We treated it like a free good. We're now very conscious of water usage. Actually, most rural people are, so this is not necessarily an 'off-grid' issue.
You think about things differently a) living in the country and b) living off grid. The additional difference with off-grid being we have to be conscious of the power we use to pump the water. Fortunately, pumping water from the bay for the garden is normally done on sunny days when there's lots of power anyway.
Jill: There seem to be a million products on the market and even more (sometimes conflicting) information out there. How did you choose what systems to put in place/products to use?
Gwen and Les: We did a ton of internet research on every item, every decision, and sometimes our architect had advice for us. Occasionally, we had advice from other people who had gone that route before (eg for green roofs, we visited a couple of other people who had installed such roofs.)
Jill: Can one home/one person really make a difference?
Les and Gwen: We hope we have made a small difference by participating in various eco-tours. Several hundred people have visited our home over the past 4 years. We've been featured on The Nature of Things and in several publications.
Everyone has the capacity to do something to help the environment and we feel that they ought to take responsibility for that. We've chosen one path, but there are many variations and you don't have to live off grid to make a difference.
Jill: What can city dwellers do to improve the efficiency/sustainability of their homes?
Gwen and Les: Easiest choice first - Ontario residents living on-grid can make the choice to power their homes entirely with sustainable electricity, simply by subscribing to Bullfrog Power.
Once you know what choices are available, its your responsibility if you choose to live in a non-sustainable fashion. However, even "sustainable" power has its environmental and social costs, so then look at reducing your electric power consumption:
Dry clothes outside or on a line inside.
Perform an energy audit on your home. Depending on the results, look into the possibility of using solar hot water.
Turn any power device off when not being used (stand-by power on your TV, stereo system - it's like idling your car!).
Better yet, get rid of your TV. Read and exercise instead; use radio and internet to stay connected.
Use public transit instead of private automobile.
Jill: Last question. Where is the most sustainable place to live: city or country?
Les and Gwen: It depends more on how you live, rather than where.
We see some of the worst examples of energy profligacy here in the country. Even for people who want to conserve in the country, the biggest challenge is transportation. Most city dwellers at least have the option of public transit. However, generally the existing infrastructure in cities makes it difficult to be environmentally responsible (urban sprawl causes public transit to be inefficient; it's difficult to take advantage of solar energy in cities because of pre-existing building orientation and construction) - and there is little opportunity to change that infrastructure.
In the country, there is little infrastructure to begin with, which therefore allows one to innovate in a responsible way. That's essentially why we moved to the country. In terms of the transportation challenge, we dealt with it as best we could by using a small, efficient, gasoline automobile and planning our trips to accomplish as many errands as possible with as few trips. We also car pool with neighbours whenever possible. Once electric automobiles become readily available, our off-grid setup would permit us to charge car batteries during sunny periods, for both transportation and reserve house power. This would make off-grid living even more sustainable!
A BIG thank you to both Les and Gwen for their insight, information and inspiration!
If you would like to read more about their Eco-home check out CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki ("Build Green", June 17, 2007), Green Homes: New Ideas for Sustainable Living. (New York: Harper Collins, 2007) and/or Harrowsmith Country Life (April, 2008).
This month I am featuring a one-of-a-kind couple and their one-of-a-kind home: Les MacDonald and Gwen Hoover have built an incredible Eco-home in the Quinte region and I am so excited to tell you all about it!
Their solar-powered and wind-powered "off-the-grid" house has been featured in Harrowsmith Country Life magazine and on David Suzuki's The Nature of Things......and this month they're talking to little ol' me!
Les and Gwen
I met Gwen and Les at St. Lawrence College in April. They were giving a lecture to an Environmental Issues class about their home and living green. I was so impressed by their sincerity, ingenuity, humor and modesty. I couldn't resist the urge to bring their story to you!
I thought I'd start with a bit of background on both Les and Gwen: where they came from, what brought them together and then, eventually, to Prince Edward County and the process of building green.
Gwen Hoover:
Raised on a Holstein dairy farm outside of Jarvis, Ont. (pop. 900) in the 1950s, Gwen grew up loving farm life.
Gwen's first tomatoes at PEC, September 2007
She later earned an Honours degree in French and Spanish at McMaster University and then went on a "Grand Tour" of Europe post-graduation.
Upon return to Ottawa, Gwen found Les and a niche at the Canada Council for the Arts/Public Lending Right Commission. She gave birth to two beautiful sons, Ian now in Toronto/New York/Paris and Alex in the UK.
Gwen describes her passions as "family, travel, the arts and gardening".
Les MacDonald:
Born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1948. Les was a, self-proclaimed, "army brat" whose family moved every few years, including a few years in west Germany from 1957-60. {So, he did his 'Grand Tour' of Europe a little earlier than Gwen!}
Les, in the London-Glasgow bar car with his favourite drink, in search of roots in the Outer Hebrides
Les spent his teenage years in Ottawa and then later earned an Honours BA at Trent University (Politics & Hist) in 1972, as well as a MA and PhD, both from Carleton University (Pol Sci, '74 and '85).
He met Gwen in 1973 and they married in 1974.
Raising their boys in Ottawa, Gwen and Les discovered the joys (and challenges) of a large Edwardian house in Ottawa East. Les describes the house they bought on a whim as:
"a persistent distraction from my doctoral studies, through which we began to discover the practical sides of restoration and conservation. Energy conservation became our priority when we found we were spending more on space heating than on our two mortgages combined."
The arrival of Ian in '80 and of Alex in '82 caused Les and Gwen to suspend most of their community and political activities, but not the renovations as room had to be found for the nursery!
The expenses of home renovation motivated Les to accept employment at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in 1979. "It was an exciting place, among people so committed to research, but the long hours, combined with our boys and the never-ending renovations, pushed the doctoral thesis completion further into the future. Ian's first word was "Da-da", and his second was "Archives", Gwen's oft-repeated explanation for where I was!"
Ian and Alex, New York 2007
So, why Prince Edward County?
"Once both our sons were in university and away from home we began to think about downsizing and picking a place to 'retire', whatever that meant. We had become interested in sailing and Les had been fascinated with astronomy since his boyhood days, so our next home had to be far from city lights as well as be close to where we could sail.
Prince Edward County, which we had 'discovered' as a convenient stop-over in our family travels, seemed a good place to look.
Also, through her work, Gwen had had the honour of meeting Al Purdy when he was awarded the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1986. When we attended Purdy's memorial service in Ameliasburg in 2000, we were again inspired by the region and got in touch with a real estate company to begin an active search for property.
The lot we finally found presented us with a quandary: build by the water and pay an arm and a leg to have hydro brought in, or build at the road and watch all the traffic go by.
We opted for the former. We then contacted Martin Liefhebber , finding out about his recognition for the 'Healthy Home' award from Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation for an off-grid house in downtown Toronto.
After 2 years of design discussion, municipal approvals for straw-bale, off grid, etc., we began the adventure!
Some Questions for Gwen and Les:
Jill: What are the specific features of the house that allow it to remain "off-grid" and eco-friendly?
Les and Gwen: Let's start with the basics: our house is designed to be an efficient collector of solar energy and at the same time an efficient energy storage device through insulation and thermal mass. These are the passive features of the house which will not change with time. As a result, the house needs only about 20% of the energy of a typical on-grid house of the same size. This makes it possible for us to live off grid.
Summer
Winter
In summary, the passive features are:
1) orientation: major axis of house is exactly East-West
2) most of the South side of the house is fitted with dual seal, fiberglass windows, with few windows facing other directions
3) straw bale construction on 1st floor in East, North and West for superior insulation and better vapour transmission to avoid condensation and mildew; various techniques to enable superior insulation in other walls and roof
4) thermal mass in the interior: concrete slab on grade foundation (no basement), concrete 2nd floor, interior window sills, stone interior walls and masonry heater.
The active features:
1) solar water heating panels provide at least 90% of our hot water
2) solar photo-voltaic panels provide about 90% of our electric power (average of about 4 kwh per day)
3) a 900 watt wind turbine provides additional power, especially useful from November to January.
We also have propane for cooking and, occasionally, for heating water. The main and 2nd floors are also equipped with hot-water radiant heating tubes, the hot water for which can be supplied either by a propane boiler or, to some extent, by the solar hot water panels. However, we prefer to heat the house by burning wood in the masonry heater (about 2 and 1/2 cord a year).
Our propane usage averages out to about 200 liters a year.
What we do WITHOUT:
1)clothes dryer - we hang laundry on the 3rd floor deck, or indoors on lines or a clotheshorse
2) incandescent lights - we use mostly compact fluorescent, some of which we plan to convert to LED this summer
3) a generator - as far as we know we are the only off-grid setup which does not rely on a generator to charge the batteries during periods of cloudy weather
4) a gas mower - we use an electric mower, amply powered by our PV/wind setup
5) air conditioning - strategic window placement, superior insulation, thermal mass, passive convection ventilation and the green roof all help keep the interior comfortable on the hottest days.
Building the Gazebo
Jill: Living "off-grid" seems to fairly labour intensive. What motivates you to stick with it?
Les and Gwen: Living in the country in itself is generally more labour-intensive than city living (wells, septic systems, larger lots, more do-it-yourself situations instead of reliance on servicemen and contractors). So, in a sense, whether one is on or off grid in a rural setting doesn't make much difference.
Some of the additional environmental choices we have made are those that anyone living anywhere can make: pushing an electric mower instead of riding a gas-powered machine, hanging laundry to dry outside instead of using a clothes dryer, washing dishes by hand.
Some of our neighbours seek to avoid exertion through the use of fossil fuel energy, but it doesn't mean they live a better life. They often don't get enough exercise and suffer the resulting effects. Perhaps that is why obesity is such a problem in small towns and in the countryside. Maybe labour-intensive is better if it leads to a healthier lifestyle. Gardening is another 'labour-intensive' activity. It would be easier to buy all of our summer vegetables at the market. But we enjoy the hope and promise of a garden, it keeps us active and the rewards are amazing. There's nothing better than the taste of a fresh-picked tomato from our garden, still warm from the sun. We call it a taste of summer.
In other words, it all depends on how you wish to spend your time.
Jill: Are their any luxuries, from your less eco-conscious days, that you miss?
Les and Gwen: We can't believe how much water we wasted in the city. We treated it like a free good. We're now very conscious of water usage. Actually, most rural people are, so this is not necessarily an 'off-grid' issue.
You think about things differently a) living in the country and b) living off grid. The additional difference with off-grid being we have to be conscious of the power we use to pump the water. Fortunately, pumping water from the bay for the garden is normally done on sunny days when there's lots of power anyway.
Jill: There seem to be a million products on the market and even more (sometimes conflicting) information out there. How did you choose what systems to put in place/products to use?
Gwen and Les: We did a ton of internet research on every item, every decision, and sometimes our architect had advice for us. Occasionally, we had advice from other people who had gone that route before (eg for green roofs, we visited a couple of other people who had installed such roofs.)
Jill: Can one home/one person really make a difference?
Les and Gwen: We hope we have made a small difference by participating in various eco-tours. Several hundred people have visited our home over the past 4 years. We've been featured on The Nature of Things and in several publications.
Everyone has the capacity to do something to help the environment and we feel that they ought to take responsibility for that. We've chosen one path, but there are many variations and you don't have to live off grid to make a difference.
Jill: What can city dwellers do to improve the efficiency/sustainability of their homes?
Gwen and Les: Easiest choice first - Ontario residents living on-grid can make the choice to power their homes entirely with sustainable electricity, simply by subscribing to Bullfrog Power.
Once you know what choices are available, its your responsibility if you choose to live in a non-sustainable fashion. However, even "sustainable" power has its environmental and social costs, so then look at reducing your electric power consumption:
Dry clothes outside or on a line inside.
Perform an energy audit on your home. Depending on the results, look into the possibility of using solar hot water.
Turn any power device off when not being used (stand-by power on your TV, stereo system - it's like idling your car!).
Better yet, get rid of your TV. Read and exercise instead; use radio and internet to stay connected.
Use public transit instead of private automobile.
Jill: Last question. Where is the most sustainable place to live: city or country?
Les and Gwen: It depends more on how you live, rather than where.
We see some of the worst examples of energy profligacy here in the country. Even for people who want to conserve in the country, the biggest challenge is transportation. Most city dwellers at least have the option of public transit. However, generally the existing infrastructure in cities makes it difficult to be environmentally responsible (urban sprawl causes public transit to be inefficient; it's difficult to take advantage of solar energy in cities because of pre-existing building orientation and construction) - and there is little opportunity to change that infrastructure.
In the country, there is little infrastructure to begin with, which therefore allows one to innovate in a responsible way. That's essentially why we moved to the country. In terms of the transportation challenge, we dealt with it as best we could by using a small, efficient, gasoline automobile and planning our trips to accomplish as many errands as possible with as few trips. We also car pool with neighbours whenever possible. Once electric automobiles become readily available, our off-grid setup would permit us to charge car batteries during sunny periods, for both transportation and reserve house power. This would make off-grid living even more sustainable!
A BIG thank you to both Les and Gwen for their insight, information and inspiration!
If you would like to read more about their Eco-home check out CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki ("Build Green", June 17, 2007), Green Homes: New Ideas for Sustainable Living. (New York: Harper Collins, 2007) and/or Harrowsmith Country Life (April, 2008).
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