Sludge Watch ==> Guelph Ontario - suburban home built green: rainwater to flush toilets

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

This is a good start at  a model green home....
how about a whole subdivision of these?

And..how about adding a composting toilet?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Saturday, June 02, 2007


Going green in the subdivision
TAMSIN MCMAHON

MATHEW MCCARTHY, RECORD STAFF

Andrew Oding shows part of a geothermal heating unit that will be installed 
in an energy-efficient home in Guelph.



ILLUSTRATION BY TANIA PRAEG, RECORD STAFF

a green house


(Jun 2, 2007)

The greenest house in Guelph is in a rather unlikely spot.

Tucked away among an expanse of land scrubbed bare for development, the 
experimental home by a Cambridge-area developer is turning heads across the 
country as one of first mass-produced model homes designed to save energy 
and recycle water.

The 2,700-square-foot (250-square-metre), three-bedroom home looks much like 
its neighbours in the Westminster Woods subdivision, except for the 
10,000-gallon cistern buried in the backyard that pumps rainwater into the 
home's toilets, dishwashers and washing machines.

Missing are the furnace and air conditioning unit, replaced by solar panels 
on the roof connected to geothermal loops dug 174 feet (53 metres) into the 
ground that draw heat from the earth to warm the house or store excess heat 
to keep the house cool.

Inside, bamboo and slate floors replace wood, linoleum and tile. Recycled 
paint covers the walls and soy-based foam insulates the garage.

It's a unique project in Canada, more so because it's set in the rapidly 
growing south end of a city increasingly concerned about how to get water to 
its sprawling suburban population.

Such a home could save its owner as much as $2,500 a year on energy costs 
and halve water costs, said Andy Oding, project development manager for the 
builder, Reid's Heritage Homes.

But the benefits go beyond the individual homeowner. The City of Guelph 
spends about a third of its energy budget pumping water to residences."In a 
subdivision like Westminster Woods, we could literally reduce the water 
pumping costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars," Oding said.

The home is the first to get a city permit for a recycled rainwater system 
without active filtration, and developers expect it will be the first single 
detached home to earn a LEED gold certification in Canada.

LEED is a recognized U.S. environmental ratings system that evaluates 
everything from a building's construction, to its air quality, water 
recycling and durability.

"Right now, we're racing with another builder who is building his own home" 
in Toronto, Oding said.

The company has been working for two years with the University of Guelph 
engineering school on the demonstration house, which it's using to test a 
cheaper, and essentially filterless, rainwater harvesting system.

The house is set to open to the public next month as a pilot project for two 
years while the university studies whether the technology can work across 
entire neighbourhoods. After that, the developer plans to sell it.

But such a home doesn't come cheap.

In a city where new homes sell for an average of $368,000, the environmental 
enhancements could add as much as $150,000 to the home's $320,000 base price 
tag.

But Oding said the company has received three requests for similar homes.

Savvy and increasingly environmentally conscious consumers are beginning to 
see that the benefits of building green go beyond cost savings.

"We're scrambling right now to get the program going because we need to 
respond to consumer demand," Oding said. "There's absolutely no question 
there is an interest in this."

The home has caught the interest of water conservation authorities from as 
far away as Calgary looking for ways to handle growing populations and rein 
in rising water and electricity costs.

With water rates across the region expected to double over the next eight 
years, local authorities are looking to the most notorious water offenders: 
suburban homeowners.

The Region of Waterloo has taken an interest in the Guelph project and is 
looking at possible similar partnerships in this area, said manager of water 
efficiency Steve Gombos.

So far, the region has hired a consultant to study how such things as 
cisterns will affect groundwater recharge in hopes of encouraging the 
practice on a large scale.

Authorities still have to answer questions on how to use recycled water to 
make it safe for both outdoor and indoor use, and whether the region would 
be liable if water recycling systems caused an outbreak of water-borne 
disease.

"We're working on the policies this year," Gombos said. "In the next few 
years, hopefully we'll have resolved these questions and concerns."

Water rate hikes in Waterloo sparked new councillor Diane Freeman to ask the 
city to look at greywater systems for homes.

Greywater systems work by filtering water used in showers, sinks and washing 
machines and reusing it to water lawns and fill toilets.

Freeman met with Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller last month at a 
Queen's Park function, where he grilled the neophyte politician on the 
region's groundwater supply issues.

"I see a tremendous opportunity in terms of water conservation, provided 
everyone feels there's a value in it to the community," said Freeman, a 
civil engineer specializing in air quality.

"Greywater may not be the solution. It just gets people talking about 
conservation."

But so far, she said the community isn't clamouring for water conservation.

"I haven't heard it that strongly," she said. "But at the same time I don't 
find it's being pushed that strongly."

Waterloo used to be one of the region's pioneers in pushing homeowners to 
conserve water.

In 1989, the city launched a pilot project requiring developers to install 
underground cisterns in 20 per cent of new homes. If the feedback was 
positive, the city planned to make cisterns and drywells mandatory for new 
buildings across the city.

But the feedback was apathetic. Instead of expanding the program, the city 
scrapped it three years later on the advice of a committee struck to give 
developers more say in city policies.

Homebuilders installed just 30 cisterns, all in the Westvale neighbourhood. 
They cost as much as $4,000, but netted just $16 a year in savings. "The 
payback would never occur in the home buyer's lifetime," said a 1993 report.

The cisterns drove up house prices and homebuilders complained the units 
with cisterns were the last to sell. They ended up cutting deals with buyers 
to lower the price of the home.

When the city surveyed residents, just six of the 30 said they bought the 
home for water conservation.

But water rates are much higher now than they were in the early 1990s, which 
could be an incentive to start looking at the program again, said Waterloo's 
public works manager, Tim Anderson.

"We're in a different place and time now," he said.

Freeman would like to see the city consider reviving the cistern program, or 
provide rebates for homeowners who unhook their weeping tiles from the sewer 
system. The city has said a deluge of stormwater from such homes is one of 
the major factors in boosting water rates.

Greywater technology isn't new, said Duncan Ellison, executive director of 
the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association. All the equipment needed to 
install a greywater system can be picked up at many local hardware stores.

Such greywater systems can reduce water use by as much as a quarter, he 
said.

Canadian cities are starting to pick up on the technology.

Toronto's "Healthy House" has existed for more than 10 years. The home, 
funded by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp., isn't hooked up to the 
city water supply and has its own filtration system for drinking water.

In Ottawa, the new Canadian War Museum draws toilet water directly from the 
Ottawa River untreated. Edmonton is proposing to sell treated wastewater to 
industrial users, such as petrochemical refineries.

Internationally, persistent drought concerns pushed Australia to require 
rainwater harvesting systems on virtually all homes.

Singapore is using treated wastewater for up to 10 per cent of its drinking 
water supply. (Water experts contadict this statement and say Singapore is 
not using treated sewage water for drinking water)

But Canada likely won't face intense pressure to legislate water 
conservation technologies until it starts to see a shortage in the country's 
seemingly inexhaustible supply of water.

"The technology is here. We just happen to be 10 years behind other 
countries," Ellison said.

"But making us move in this direction has got to be a combination of demand 
in this direction and permission to move in this direction."

So far, the savings from water conservation still aren't high enough to push 
many developers to invest in the technology.

Homeowners spend on average less than $600 a year on water, or about as much 
as they spend on high-speed Internet.

"Many people pay more monthly for cable," Freeman said. "I think a lot of 
water conservation opportunities are overlooked because it won't result in 
huge savings."

There are also regulatory hangups in getting water recycling programs going 
in the region.

Cisterns and greywater recycling systems used inside the home require dual 
plumbing systems to separate filtered water from the drinking water supply.

Pressure from landlocked Saskatchewan and Alberta finally led the Canadian 
Standards Association to develop new plumbing standards for non-drinking 
water systems.

Health authorities still have to work out exactly how clean the non-drinking 
water supply should be in order to be safe for toilets and washing machines.

Health Canada has been studying the issue for more than two years and 
Ellison said non-potable water quality standards are expected to be 
published later this year for public comment.

Plumbing standards then must be adopted by the Ontario Building Code. That 
likely won't happen until they're adopted by the National Building Code, set 
to be updated in four years.

"It's really a chicken and egg situation," Ellison said. "The government 
won't do anything unless there's a demand for it."

tmcmahon at therecord.com

GOING GREEN

OUTSIDE

Buried 10,000-gallon cistern pumps rainwater into the home's toilets, 
dishwasher and washing machine.

Geothermal loops dug 174 feet (53 metres) into the ground provide hot water, 
heating and cooling.

Soy-based foam insulates the garage.

Solar panels provide hot water, heating and cooling.

BATHROOM

Low-emission, recycled paint covers all walls.

Sensor automatically turns light and fan on or off when people enter or 
leave.

Rainwater recycled from backyard cistern.

LAUNDRY

Rainwater recycled from backyard cistern.

KITCHEN

Countertops are a mix of concrete and blast-furnace slag, a byproduct of 
iron manufacturing.

Durable slate floors, the production of which emits less greenhouse gases.

FLOORING

Floor made from bamboo, which regenerates more quickly than a forest.