107–Robert and Eric interview Michel Loiselle on net-zero homes. The conversation provides a practical example of building and retrofitting for high energy efficiency and renewable energy use within an urban setting. It emphasizes the importance of self-generation, demand reduction, and addressing the non-monetized benefits of sustainable living. It also critiques systemic barriers to wider adoption of renewable energy and efficient building practices.

This is a con­ver­sa­tion about high-effi­cien­cy and renew­able ener­gy homes, focus­ing on prac­ti­cal steps home­own­ers can take, both when build­ing new and retro­fitting exist­ing prop­er­ties. Michel details his jour­ney towards sus­tain­able liv­ing in 2004, dri­ven by con­cerns about their envi­ron­men­tal foot­print and fos­sil fuel con­sump­tion. They first built a 2700 sq ft R2000 home with geot­her­mal heat­ing and cool­ing. This sys­tem worked well for 14 – 15 years, pro­vid­ing excel­lent tem­per­a­ture con­trol and elim­i­nat­ing their reliance on nat­ur­al gas. After mov­ing, they pur­chased a lot with a 111-year-old duplex and decid­ed to build a new, small­er home (close to 2000 sq ft includ­ing a granny suite). Inspired by pas­sive house prin­ci­ples, they opt­ed for a ​“near pas­sive” design to bal­ance cost and ben­e­fit. Key Fea­tures include triple-glazed win­dows, 18-inch-thick walls with R78 dense-packed cel­lu­lose insu­la­tion, R100+ insu­la­tion in the ceil­ing and roof, sep­a­rate air-source heat pumps for the main house and granny suite, high-effi­cien­cy hot water tank, and 18 solar pan­els on the roof (grid-tied). Michel reports sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er ener­gy bills in the new home com­pared to their pre­vi­ous R2000 house. They even had a cred­it with Man­i­to­ba Hydro dur­ing the sum­mer due to solar pro­duc­tion. Dr. Renew­able empha­sizes the impor­tance of self-gen­er­at­ing renew­able ener­gy, even in provinces with a high pro­por­tion of hydro­elec­tric­i­ty, to dis­place coal use in oth­er juris­dic­tions and reduce the strain on util­i­ty infra­struc­ture. He reit­er­ates THE RED CUP con­cept: address­ing needs (heat, elec­tric­i­ty, trans­port) with renew­able ener­gy, effi­cien­cy, demand reduc­tion, and con­sid­er­ing scale (peo­ple, com­mu­ni­ty, util­i­ty). Michel’s home exem­pli­fies the ​“peo­ple” scale of THE RED CUP. The con­ver­sa­tion touch­es on the non-finan­cial ben­e­fits of liv­ing in a high-effi­cien­cy, sus­tain­able home, such as increased com­fort, quiet­ness, and peace of mind. Michel sug­gests that builders could eas­i­ly improve ener­gy effi­cien­cy by adding an inch of exte­ri­or insu­la­tion and reduc­ing ther­mal bridging.