Although electric under-floor heat in the bathrooms uses a fair bit of energy (9 watts per heated square foot), it is a little luxury that we can choose to use or not to warm our feet in the cool of our winters.

We bought the Flextherm heating system kit, which includes the appropriate length of green-covered heating cable for the size of the room, as well as round guides for the wire. The thermostat is purchased separately. I chose to donate the guides to the Habitat For Humanity Restore (whence cometh many of our building materials).

The Flexsnap system

Instead, I purchased the Flexsnap 12″ gridded squares to clip the wire into. It is easier, will raise the level of the tile equal to the 3/4″ fir flooring that meets it at the doorway, and at $2 each, for a small room, I thought I could justify the expense. Another advantage is that they stabilize the floor so that a second layer of plywood is not necessary before tiling. Some internet research suggested that one could just hot-glue the wires in place, forget about the guides or gridded squares. I’m very glad I didn’t try cheaping out on that step. It would have been constricting, and I would fret over whether I was damaging the wires.

The orange Flexsnap blocks are quick to install directly onto the plywood sub-floor with screws.

The heating cable clips into the tiles, 3 or 4 inches apart. It starts near the thermostat.

After installing, the wire needs to be checked with an ohmmeter (or multimeter) to make sure it is conducting electricity/verifying the resistance/not broken.

I’ve spent far too many hours cutting the white 1″ square tiles out of the all-white 12″ blocks of tiles and replacing them with brown ones. 88 x 25 = 2200!

The "renovated" bathroom tiles.

I hot-glued them into place, but found when it came time to install them, many of the brown tiles fell out of the blocks. Just made more work. I learned that only good-quality large glue sticks work, not the little craft sticks.

All the voids in the Flexsnap tiles have to be filled with the flat part of the trowel before the notched trowel is used to raise the mortar to accept the ceramic tiles. The 88 square feet of floor used up four 50-lb bags of polymer-modified mortar.

Raff came to help, mixing the polymer-modified mortar in the wheelbarrow for me, so I could steadily apply the tiles on top of the Flextherm  heating wires. This made the job go much more smoothly.

The bathroom floor

In between talking to subtrades and the regional district and shopping for  building materials, I usually just spend all my time on site painting, cleaning, painting, cleaning, making trips to the recycle depot, and more cleaning. Today, a break in the routine: Aaron and I installed Roxul “Safe and Sound” insulation (sound barrier and fire-proof, made of rock (??!)) between the main floor and the basement. It’s a messy damn job. This investment of about $500 will give us or guests or our nanny in old age peace and quiet. Our last home had this insulation between the two floors, and it was very quiet both upstairs and down.

Ron came up with a brilliant idea for the required rainscreen airspace behind our shingles (well, he saw it somewhere else, but taught it to us). Normally, cedar strips would be placed vertically to nail siding on a house, but shingles are nailed horizontally. If we put the strips horizontally, they would block the flow of any water caught behind the shingles. We would have to nail the verticals on, then the horizontals, adding nearly an inch of depth to the finish. Vaproshield does make 1/2″ deep strips for this purpose, but that adds substantially to the cost of the building envelope.

Ron’s idea is to cut the dimple board used for foundation waterproofing into 2″ strips, then staple them onto the sheathing 5.5″ apart. We nail the shingles on through this material, and any water that somehow manages to get in there has a free run down to the ground, in between the dimples.

Good, eh?

(D’s contribution. The following article is pretty detailed, for anyone considering using a masonry mass heater. Guest appearance by Liam if you read all the way to the end.)

Thermal mass fireplace kit installed

With masonry heaters the mass isn’t just with the masonry: really, they’re a mass of contradictions, too.  In a world that’s moving to high-tech heating technology masonry heaters work on decidedly old technology.  Where convenience is becoming more and more the hallmark of modern life, masonry heaters involve a little good old fashioned work and elbow grease.  It seems anomalous, but true, that burning wood can offer an environmentally better way of heating your home, and where the energy for most people’s domestic heating travels a long distance, the energy for mass heaters is extremely local.

The concepts behind masonry heaters are not new: apparently in Roman times it was not all that unusual for smoke and combustion gases to be vented beneath floors and beds, thereby warming the rooms.  In Europe they are known as Russian or Finnish fireplaces, although they are typically designed as room-heaters, not whole-house heaters.

As Gail has described, a masonry heater, basically, is a high-tech fireplace.  What distinguishes it from the familiar fireplace, however, is

-            the air and smoke channels are carefully planned and more complicated;

-            the design requires at least 1800 lbs. (800 kg.) of bricks/rocks/masonry around the burn chamber;

-            the unit requires an air tight, closed door, much hotter burn;

-            the heater burns only intermittently, not continuously, even when intended to heat continuously;

-            location/siting.

Taking some of these features in order: probably the most important aspect is the channelling of the gases involved in the combustion.  The design makes this substantially more complicated or convoluted.  That’s why you purchase one as a kit and don’t build it from scratch; the kit includes all the pre-designed smoke channels. The incoming air is carefully controlled so that only enough for combustion is allowed (excess air will simply cool the burn and create smoke and soot) and for some the burn is top-down.  You prepare the fire, in other words, by loading the kindling on top.

The real difference in venting concerns the exhaust gases, which are, first, directed around inside the firebox so that there is a kind of double-burn.  Instead of having the initial gases from combustion going up a chimney, they are circulated around the burn chamber for a secondary burn.  After that the (heated, of course) exhaust gases are directed into channels throughout the masonry mass before heading up the chimney.

The mass is also part of the equation; you need at least 800 kg. to do the job which, in simple terms, is to absorb a lot of energy very quickly from a very hot fire and then release it very slowly into the home.  The rate of absorption/release is, of course, affected by the quantity of mass; the less the mass, the quicker the total masonry absorbs the energy and begins to release it.  Manufacturers suggest, for example, that cottages might be better suited to mass heaters with facings that are thinner , so that the heat release can begin more quickly.  For a conventional home you might want a mass that is thicker, typically 4”-5”.  The mass can take any form; it obviously includes the actual burn chamber, but also the surrounding masonry facing.  Interestingly, the burn chamber is separate and distinct from the facing, so much so that they cannot be connected by, for example, brick ties.  There must be space/joint between them that allows for expansion and contraction of the burn chamber.

Heater kit covered with 1/4" cardboard for expansion, before adding 4" facing rocks. Note chimney on the side.

With a burn chamber smaller than most fireplaces, the burn is much hotter than a typical fireplace.  The burn chamber is enclosed, generally using a close-fitted door and venting air (via a damper) from outside the home.  The damper can be used to create a slower, longer lasting fire for the occasional traditional fireplace feel.  The exceptionally hot burn means that the fuel is used more efficiently than with most wood-burning heaters, as this report confirms.  One of the collateral advantages to masonry heaters is that you can incorporate ovens into them, as these gallery photos show.  We’re incorporating one into our unit, and we’re really looking to using it for, obviously, baking, but also slow cooking in general.

The heater is not burned continuously.  This is almost counter-intuitive, but if you think about it it makes sense.  The idea is to create, say, two intense ‘burns’ per day; one in the morning and one in the evening.  With each burn the surrounding masonry is quickly re-heated, then, for 8-10 hours, slowly releases the heat into the home.  Continuous burning can actually damage the refractory lining, as this study and report indicates.

Where you locate the heater in the home is key.  The idea is to encourage as much free air circulation around the heater as possible.  For that reason the heater should be in a central location, and never part of an outside wall.  You can see this, and how various heaters look, in the gallery photos, above, from the Stovemaster site.  Clearance of at least 5” from adjacent walls or structures is best.

Masonry heaters, properly used, are more efficient than good woodstoves.  This is the conclusion of Omni Test Labs, a Portland, OR testing facility.  Their reports are online and, while technical, are certainly readable.  They show that emissions from masonry heaters are remarkably low.

To check out various manufacturers and vendors, go to The Masonry Heater Virtual Mall. For Canadian manufacturers or distributors, you could try Lakeshore Design or StoveMaster Expect to pay in the neighbourhood of $3000 plus shipping (it cost us $417 to have the kit shipped from Ontario to Vancouver).  We ordered a second door ($900) for a see-through effect.

So: all of this is talking through our hats, as we haven’t tried the heater and oven yet, but we’re really looking forward to it.  Gail has found a source of mill scraps very close to our home, so we can probably get a continuous supply of fuel there.  It all means being a little more involved in heating your home, whether it’s collecting mill scraps or taking the chainsaw down to the beach.  Either way, it will almost certainly give us the satisfaction that always comes with doing something yourself.  As my father used to say when he press-ganged me and my siblings into loading firewood: “You get warmed twice – once when you cut, load, and split the wood, and once when you burn it”.

Liam cuts firewood

my shingle-dipping system

Partly because of the classic appearance of shingled homes and partly because cedar shingles are produced locally, we are using shingles as our exterior cladding. We managed to find 48 bundles of #1 and #2 grade 18″ shingles, for an average price of $18/bundle, about half what you’d expect to pay at a shingle mill.

Shingles need to be pre-stained before application. They need finishing on both sides to prevent cupping/cracking after weathering. One could pay big bucks to have them stained at a staining facility. Painting them by hand with a brush or roller is a messy and time-consuming endeavour (and practically impossible after they are applied to the wall.) Dipping them is the best option.

Everyone I talk to about dipping shingles warns me to expect a real logistical headache. Visions of clothespins and laundry lines, or drilling holes in all the tops and stringing a wire through them.

view from the business end of the process

But the best advice I’ve received is the system pictured. In a morning, I was able to dip 4 bundles, quite painlessly. I’ve set up a relatively permanent processing corner, protected from rain by the deck above, facing south and east, so I will get sun on them to dry.

The components:

1. A set of  grooved 2×4s (from the skids of lumber previously delivered. They come with grooves for the metal bands that hold the skids together). They allow the wet shingles to be placed upside down, with spaces between them. I line them up in decending rows, so the ends will be accessible. If these and regular 2×4s are nailed down with narrow spaces in between, the thin ends of the shingles can be wedged into the spaces so they won’t touch each other (this latest design improvement courtesy of Tess.)

2. A garbage can about 18″ tall (the length of the shingles), filled with the stain, at the top of

3. A trough, made from 2×4 and plywood, covered by stovepipe to collect the drips of excess stain in

4. A pail at the bottom of the trough

5. Dairy cases (the kind with holes in them). After the shingles are dipped, they go into the dairy cases on the trough.

6. The shingles (which need to be dried and cleaned of insect casings, larvae, dirt before dipping.)

They only need to be dipped about 15″, which is the maximum that will be exposed with two layers of a 6″ exposure. Depending on the stain you’re using, and the weather, they dry in a few hours. Our builders recommend storing them by width to make application smoother. So I will invest in more dairy cases at the recycling depot.

Dave, the Vaproshield representative came by the lot to sell us on this green building wrap, GreenShield.

It’s a weather resistive vapour- and air-permeable membrane.  The construction of WallShield (triple layer spunbond polypropylene) allows moisture to continue to filter through to exterior of the building during and after construction and occupancy. Water vapour transmission is 212 perms.

To prepare the window openings for window installation, we used 15” strips of Greenshield membrane to layer with the red plastic upper corners and water-shedding sill pans with their clever glued-on sill pan corners. (VaproSillSaver components are made from reprocessed residual vinyl trim material from old windows.) Any water that somehow gets into the window cavity past all the flashings and building wrap and waterproof tape will be drained into the plastic sill pans to the outside.

The system is considerably more expensive than “tar paper” or “Tyvek”. Our 32 windows and 3000 sq. ft of exterior wall is costing us about $3200 to outfit in this wrap. I’ll report on the wrapping of the house later.

The windows were delivered a week or so ago, and we carefully stored them under tarps until we were ready for them (finished roof so they would stay dry.)

Now that the house interior is dry, and before D’s “holidays” (otherwise known as full time labouring on the job site) were over, the builders and D installed some of the heavier windows yesterday.

The most expensive window is a French casement window for the ensuite (like a French door – opens fully). It was installed yesterday. Much to my surprise, it is obscure glass, probably because it is listed for a bathroom.  But, that’s not what I ordered. Why would you have a beautiful window if you can’t see out of it? When it was delivered, I thought it had a protective film over it for transit. But, it’s the actual glass.

Westeck Windows was closed by the time I discovered the error, so I don’t know how they will resolve this problem. Here is the window installed, and the view of snow-covered mountains I would be able to enjoy from my bath if the glass were transparent.

In the continuing saga, begun from my point-of-view on Nov. 19, the day I first applied for a Hydro connection, we have progress.

The “T-connection” could not be found by our electrician in either the stated location (the first lot line when the developer subdivided a dozen or so years ago) or 3’ inside our altered lot corner, as it was supposed to be. It could not be found by the Hydro crew, who then applied to BC Highways to trench a line from across the road (a two week permit delay.) In the meantime, Hydro hired a private crew, who found the line and inserted a new T-connection. Our electrician did a temporary service last week, and then re-applied for Hydro hook-up. We waited 8 more days, and now, finally, Hydro has hooked up our temporary service. They could only charge us for the actual hook-up ($885), not all the work that was, somewhere in the history of the development, not done or not properly located.

Now we have electricity to our temporary home, and the infernal noise of the generator can be silenced.

Our house will be finished with cedar, because it is harvested and milled on the coast, plus it suits the traditional aesthetic of our home (see post: 2) Design Considerations.) Cedar has the extraordinary ability to naturally repel insects and is very slow to rot. It is conceivable that the cedar will last over 100 years, as long as we (and future owners) take care of it.

If left to weather naturally, cedar will all turn silvery-grey, and it will eventually rot as water finds its way into the wood. To  increase its life expectancy, it needs to have some preservative to repel water. Naturally, I want to use a product that is kind to the environment.

First stop: Greenworks Building Supply in Vancouver. The product: Broda’s PRO TEK TOR (”tough, natural, wood protection”). The brochure notes that it “contains oxide and trans-oxide pigments…suspended in linseed oil, tung oil and water. The water opens the spaces between the cells of the wood, drawing in the oils and protective pigments. Easy to use. Cleans up with water. Looks good longer.” “Get ready to enjoy years of beautiful durable wood colour.” Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

The catch is, according to the salesman, your stain only lasts up to 2 years before it needs to be reapplied. We don’t want to have to re-stain every 2 years. What’s sustainable about that (especially for our bodies!)? Add to that the cost of the product (about $60/gallon), and I decided to start asking around at other paint stores.

Benjamin Moore (”we will be launching our enviro-stain in April.”) Then Sherwin-Williams (”we’re working on it.”) And finally Home Depot (”our eco-stain is the water-soluble Varathane.”)

What I finally decided on was Behr’s wood stain, which is water-cleanup, but has the UV protection and Mildew-resistant finish  like the Broda product, and costs about 2/3rds the price. The clincher: it’s guaranteed to last 8 years on vertical surfaces. As we applied the stain to our faschia boards yesterday, we didn’t notice any obvious smell (although I know that some very bad gases don’t smell.)

So, once again, a reality check about how “green” we can be.

Our winters are generally cold rainy seasons, with temperatures between 0 and 8 degrees Celcius for about 6 months. How to heat our home has been the most difficult decision so far. We are lucky to have a southern exposure, for passive solar gain, and we have included a big bank of windows on that side.

In my dream world, we would harvest heat from the sun, using photovoltaic (PV) cells in our roof tiles, and solar collectors. We would sell our excess electricity to BC Hydro.

A town in Germany (Marburg) has legislated this approach. Germany is the leader in solar PV technology. It is an industry that is in active development, and not yet either effective enough nor affordable for a little homeowner. In our cloudy climate, PV technology doesn’t work. However, solar hot-water assist is feasible, and I will discuss this later in a post about plumbing.

D is keen on a masonry mass radiant wood fireplace, placed in the home’s center (i.e. not on an outside wall). It burns very hot, for a short period of time, then stores the heat in the masonry, whence it radiates out. Wood in British Columbia is a renewable resource, and quickly grows to replace the harvested timber. Much construction wood waste goes into the landfill, so perhaps we could harvest it from building sites. This type of heater is popular in Scandinavia and other European countries. D will write more about it in a future post.

My major concern is that we don’t want to be chopping and hauling wood when we’re old. D loves to chop wood, though, and so we will install this type of heater, and let the chips fall where they may when we’re too old. We have ordered the kit from www.lakeshoredesign.info. Our mason will install it.

However, we will have a back-up heating system for when I’m home alone and lazy.

An air-to-air heat exchanger (or “pump”) works like a refrigerator condenser, taking the temperature differential to heat the home in winter and cool it in the summer. It also needs a back-up furnace for when the outside temperature goes below -9 C. The exchanger sits outside, and does make a noise that can be irritating, so we are advised to keep it away from the quiet areas of the house. The cement pad it sits on must not be connected to the foundation wall, because the vibrations would increase the noise in the house. We considered a geothermal system with radiant heating in the floors, but have been convinced (mostly from this article) that radiant is not cost-effective for a well-sealed and insulated single family dwelling in our climate. The cost for a geothermal system is about 3x that of an exchanger. It is more cost-effective for multi-family developments, where the developer can recover the cost from many owners (We have heard that the strata fees in this type of development are very high, as the developer “sells” the heating system back to the owners over time). In-floor radiant heat, which is all the rage, doesn’t cool in summer, nor is it particularly cost-effective in a well-insulated home (50% more). The heat exchanger is a 96-98% efficient cost-effective source of heat and cooling.

In comparing the various heat pump brands and what kind of efficiency we will need for our home, we are offered the SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) rating. According to one reviewer, this really measures the unit’s ability to cool the home in the summer heat. It’s suggested that a better comparison for its heating ability in a colder climate such as Canada’s is HSPF (Heating Season Performance Factor). A rating of 5, 6, or 7 is considered high, and some systems even rate 9. One manufacturer, at least, uses an AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) rating. Hard to compare.

A Natural Resources Canada – Office of Energy Efficiency web site has a table comparing the cost of various heating systems in 7 locations across Canada. Very interesting, and supports the choice of a heat pump (exchanger.)

(The following section applies to grants available for heat exchangers, and will be of interest only to those considering installing one. It is excerpted from this website, because the official EcoEnergy web site appears to be Canadian Government propaganda. )

Conditioners
In the case of air-source heat pumps and central air conditioners, a manufacturer’s new ENERGY STAR qualified matched condenser coil (outdoor unit comprising a condenser coil, compressor and cooling fan) and indoor evaporator coil (typically located with the furnace) must have a SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) of 14.5 or higher. Under no circumstances will the replacement of only one of these coils entitle the homeowner to a grant, just as components that are not certified by the manufacturer as being matched (i.e. tested together) will not be accepted.

Currently, some manufacturers match their low SEER air conditioner/air-source heat pump coil packages with one of their brushless DC motor-equipped furnaces (i.e. blowers) as a method to reduce the power consumption requirement for ENERGY STAR compliance and labelling. However, this arrangement is not accepted under the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program because NRCan already provides separate grants for furnaces that have an energy-efficient brushless DC motor.

To be ENERGY STAR qualified in Canada, in addition to the minimum requirement of SEER 14.5, air-source heat pumps must also have a minimum heating seasonal performance factor (HSPF) of 7.1 for Region V, which is more reflective of the Canadian climate.

If the heat pump is only rated for Region IV, which is used in the United States, it must have a minimum (HSPF) of 8.2.

Mini-split (ductless) air-source heat pumps must have at least one head per floor, excluding the basement, to qualify for a grant.

In the case of mini-split (ductless) air conditioners that do not have at least one head per floor, excluding the basement, each head will be considered a room air conditioner and the grant amount will be reflected as such.

When having your new central air conditioner or air-source heat pump installed, ask the contractor to indicate on your invoice the manufacturer’s name (not the model name) of the condenser coil and the model numbers of both the new condenser and evaporator coils. Preferably, the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) reference number should also be referenced on the invoice. The energy advisor will request to see this information when performing the post-retrofit evaluation of your home.