Our Green Retrofit

“Free” heating

greenretrofit — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:52:05 +0000

In our basement, we wanted to have infloor heating but could not afford to lose any ceiling height. We decided instead to experiment… we’ve hooked up pex tubes to our water heater and wrapped it around the bottom of the chimney. Built like a traditional infloor system, it will be covered with cob. The cob is going on the pex tubes soon. Once done I’ll post the costs.

Basement to Studio Apartment

greenretrofit — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:16:17 +0000

Our low ceiling basement needed renovating. We decided we will make it into a visitors suite because we aren’t sure we would welcome having full time occupants.

Summer 09: Took down partition drywall and most of the ceiling. Framing was removed and all wood salvaged. Our furnace was new but the ductwork was awkwardly breaking up the space while being inefficient. We had the furnace moved and ducts repositioned.

Cost: $2500

Stripping paint off trim

greenretrofit — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:42:22 +0000

Whoa, what a job. We’ve tried environmentally friendly stripper and it worked great but it still only took off a layer at a time and made a real mess on the floor (fortunately one we aren’t worried about). I watched our floors being stripped and the work on the edges was done with an angle grinder so I decided to do the same.

Today I tried it and it worked like a charm. I used a 40 sandpaper. I then used an orbital sander we had bought ages ago for “finishing”. The only issue now is the mess that sanding makes. I am thinking that since I have 9 doorways just in the main hallway that I am going see about investing in a shop vac with an attachment for a vacuum and find some way of constructing a vacuum device on the angle grinder.

Cost: $34.99 King Canada angle grinder (cheap brand but hey, I feel like this gal won’t be too hard on it esp. since it is just for wood) and it comes with a 2 year warranty.

Tarps come down-its picking time!

greenretrofit — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:31:43 +0000

The tarps worked great for a while but then we realized that the apples had to be too ripe in order to fall on their own. Apples for eating need to be picked a few days early to keep them crispy and fresh. So while we used all those apples that fell into the tarp, they weren’t the best quality by the time we were finished. So today I picked buckets upon buckets of apples and have them in our cold storage until tomorrow when we will cut and freeze them for juicing later.

Apple picking without the picking

greenretrofit — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:58:18 +0000

We lost so many apples last year falling on the ground that this year we’ve hung tarps, a total of 4 of them below our tree and attached them to the tree with bungies. Its working like a charm. We get all the apples without bruising. OK, its not the most attractive thing in the world but food is that important to us. We would have chosen netting if it hadn’t been so darn expensive.

Cost: four 9 x 12 tarps @ $3.50 = $14
Cost: bungies (20 pack) = $12
(both items will be reused many many times)

Freeze apples for more juice

greenretrofit — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:49:33 +0000

Today a knowledgeable friend told me that instead of juicing apples immediately, we should cut and freeze them and then thaw and juice them. Apparently we will get twice the amount of juice. Somehow the freezing changes the cell structure… Trying it and will let you know.

Food Storage/Cellar

greenretrofit — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:53:40 +0000

We have a concrete slab foundation with basement. We used a section of our basement—framed it (paid a friend who needed some cash for this work), vapour barriered it, insulated it with formaldehyde free insulation and put a sealed door on it. Adhered the plastic to the concrete with acoustic caulk and sealed the seams with vapour barrier tape. We drilled two holes in the masonry at the top (the only places we could) for air to come in and vent out. We are still having problems getting the temp. exactly where we want it but had great success storing organic apples from November through April. We use about two apples each a day so we bought 300 apples locally. We lost a total of 6 apples. Not bad!

Cost: framing, labour plastic, insulation, used metal door $800

Knob & Tube + insurance issues

greenretrofit — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:37:18 +0000

Oh yey… our inspector totally missed this so my recommendation is to hire an electrician before paying money to an inspector on such an important issue… (rant)

So knob and tube mixed with updated throughout the house. Insurance said that we’d have to fix immediately or cancel coverage. To replace through an electrician the quote was between $10,000 – $12,000. BCAA allowed the option of a certified electrician making recommendations, you make the necessary fixes through another electrician and then recertify. For us this meant buying some of those pricey GFCI outlets for ungrounded plugs.

Cost: electrician’s certification $220, plugs x 12 $240

Refinishing floors without chemicals

greenretrofit — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:24:38 +0000

Finished unstained fir floors

We hired a company in Victoria to refinish our fir floors by using sanders and then applying a German product called “Osmo”. Osmo is almost VOC free and dries fairly quickly. When dry it you can bring your family back into the house including your babies and animals without any fear of VOC exposure. This is NOT true with water based floor finishes or solvent based varathanes though no one will tell you. Just take a look online at some of the toxicity info. Osmo has been really great for upkeep, it is not slippery so falls are not an issue and the wood continues to breathe so when you spill water it dries faster.

Cost for 1800 sq ft (7 rooms incl. closets): $4,000 (ouch, but so worth it to do it before we moved in!)

Removing a lawn without backbreaking work

greenretrofit — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:18:16 +0000

I started with a lawn over a high clay content soil. In the fall of 2007, I went to an appliance shop and got all of their boxes (thick wads of newspaper can also be used), removed tape, stickers and staples and laid that over the surface of the lawn. I then covered the entire lawn with 8-10″ of compost (not the pricey stuff but unscreened compost). No grass has come back but a few tulips have so I continue to try to dig them out. The advantage with the compost is that it has essentially provided a woodland surface and this will eventually help to break up the clay. I planted woodland strawberry and yerba buena as a ground cover. I do native plant salvages on development sites through the organization I co-chair so I brought A LOT of plants with me and just popped them into the compost. They overwintered and started getting settled. By year two they are overabundant and the woodland strawberry produced a lot of fruit (its small but there is NO strawberry that tastes as sweet and potent). And I can grow so much yerba buena that it is our only source for tea now.

Costs: cardboard $0, 12 yds compost delivered $500