Greenovate Your Home

Greenovate Your Home

I had the privilege of being a panelist last night at Toronto East End Sustainability Network’s ‘Greenovate Your Home’ event with Judy Coffey (Certified Ecobroker and Sales Representative with Keller Williams Advantage Realty), Kay Valley (Proprietor of The Zero Point) and Russell Richman (Professor of Architectural Science, Ryerson University). The event was put on by the awesome Cheryl McNamara of the Citizens Climate Lobby. A great thanks to Matthew Kellway, MP, Beaches/East York and Moderator  Craig Scott.

I was mostly impressed to see about 50 people wanting to get information on how to renovate their homes to maximize efficiency and reduce the impact on the environment. Some good questions on GWP of foams, what’s better tear-down or renovate, questions about condo efficiency, if solar hot water systems can be used for space heating, on the merits of GSHP, on the performance requirements of OBC for existing buildings (Part 11 of the code only requires no drop in energy performance. Sadly. So existing uninsulated houses that are being gutted are not required to add a stitch of insulation.) and questions about insulating stone foundations.

Hat’s off to Dr. Richman who is doing important research on how to safely renovate existing solid masonry homes by using his home as a guinea pig! We need people like Russell to challenge the status quo and give us ‘double brick & rubble foundation’ dwellers some answers.

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