Climate Friendly Homes Tour

Visit energy-efficient, climate resilient homes across BC

552-1 Amess St

New Westminster

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Note:  This is one of three homes and a laneway house with Sustainable Home Info Sessions and (free) registration is required. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. View schedule and registration.

Our home was built in 1956 and we have owned it for over 35 years.   Over the years, we have made changes to decarbonize, increase energy efficiency, promote biodiversity, enhance food security and adapt to climate change.   Rooftop solar and EV chargers have been incorporated.   Additionally, we have densified our property by incorporating a basement suite and a laneway home (zero carbon & Step Code 3 – refer to separate entry), which supports community climate action by enabling viable transit, active transportation and walkable communities.

The journey to make our home more sustainable started in earnest in 2008 when we started to be concerned about climate change, and most of our retrofits were completed before rebates were available.

First up was gradually replacing all the lights with LED as the old ones burnt out and most windows were replaced with double pane.   Also, some exterior walls were ‘firred out’ during renovations to allow for a wider wall with more room for insulation, and the vapour barrier was updated.

The heat pump was installed over 10 years ago and was retrofitted to work with the existing gas furnace, which needs to be used when temperature fall below zero.  We are looking forward to switching to a newer all electric heat pump which can handle our winters when our current older model needs to be replaced.

In December 2021, we had an energy assessment done with help from Energy Save New West and benefited from the provincial and federal rebates available at that time as well as the federal interest free loan.  The rebates were used to complete the additional retrofits; included additional attic insulation and upgrading some windows to triple pane.  The energy assessment also identified areas of heat leakage and air sealing was completed in many locations with simple DIY work.

The most recent actions in our climate resilience journey was to replace 2 gas stoves with electric stoves, (one being a fantastic induction range!), and reimaging the landscaping to incorporate more native plants and create a healthier bird and bug habitat.

Additional climate adaptation work has been done to improve stormwater management on the property using the key principles of: “Slow it down, Spread it out and Soak it in”.  Permeable surfaces were incorporated, a rain garden was built, and underground drainage was installed to slow and direct water.   Larger scale water collection is also in progress, which slows water down and also provides water to irrigate the vegetable garden.   To adapt to more extreme heat,  green infrastructure has been strategically incorporated.

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Note:  This is one of three homes and a laneway house with Sustainable Home Info Sessions and (free) registration is required. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. View schedule and registration.

This Step Code 3 laneway home (LWH) was built in 2020 and it is a zero carbon build.

Building to a higher step code in a smaller space was challenging and the primary lesson we learned was that finesse was required in specific building practices where historically it was less important.   Higher levels of step code require a well sealed envelope with appropriate ventilation. An Energy Recovery Ventilation unit (ERV) and appropriate ventilation was incorporated, but sealing the building envelope was challenging. It is crucial that the vapour barrier installed after insulation does not have any holes, however the crew that did the install did not pay enough attention to the details and that required significant ‘re do’ time to make it right.  We failed the first blower door test and needed a smoke test to identify leakage points before we passed the second blower door test that enabled us to meet Step Code 3 standards.

As every square inch is important in a laneway home, the indoor fan coil unit selected was a horizontal unit and it is installed on the ceiling of the laundry room.  Also, to conserve space an electric hot water on demand system was used, which is also challenging and has some issues to be considered.

An induction cook top was selected and has proved to be impressive.  A professional chef was a tenant and was very pleased with how fast it brought water to a boil and how precisely cooking ‘temperatures’ could be controlled.

Consideration to climate adaptation was incorporated into the build. This home is very close to the Caribou Heights Forest so fire resistant materials were used, such as a metal roof, hardy plank siding and rock wool outsulation.   Other reasons we decided on a metal roof was the life span of 40 years, which is about the same as solar, so both can be replaced at the same time, and the metal is recyclable.  Additionally, larger scale water collection was planned and a metal roof* was a good fit for that purpose (this project is currently in progress).

*Note:  not all metal roofs are appropriate for water collection.

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Note:  This is one of three homes and a laneway house with Sustainable Home Info Sessions and (free) registration is required. It will be open from 10 a.m. to Noon. View the schedule and registration.

Our heritage home was built in 1912. We have owned it for almost 20 years, and in that time we have taken many steps to improve the home’s energy efficiency and move away from fossil fuels. We added insulation, double-glazed windows, solar panels and electric heat pumps.