Tiny home or apartment?

I wrote a story about the tiny homes movement in today's Globe & Mail. It was a fun story to work on. The people involved in the movement are interesting, and Sasha McIntyre was absolutely delightful to meet. I'm also generally in favour of finding creative ways to live comfortably while using fewer resources.

But, much as I like many of the tiny house designs, there are problems with this approach to housing. Since one cannot tackle every aspect of an issue in an 800-word story, I'd like to discuss some of them here.

Size matters, but it's not everything
As Sasha McIntyre and others pointed out, it takes less natural gas or electricity to heat a house of 140 or 500 square feet than it does to heat a 2000 or 3000 sq.ft. house. In her case, it seems that home ownership was a top priority. That makes a lot of sense, since she and her husband, John Lei, both work in an industry prone to layoffs. Owning a house mortgage-free is an important safety net for them.

If the environment were the top priority of people in the movement, however, they wouldn't be in tiny detatched houses. They'd be in apartments. Apartments have fewer exterior walls and don't lose massive amounts of heat through the roof of every unit. They often have shared laundry and other facilities, and that can reduce duplication.

For the people in the story, it just didn't make sense. McIntosh and Lei could have had a condo, and did before buying a house. Will Pederson lives on a farm where he doesn't own the land, so his mobile Tarleton makes a lot of sense.

The answer: clustering
One interview I didn't have room to include in the Globe story was with Gregory Johnson. He runs the ResourcesForLife website, works on computers at the University of Iowa, and is a leading proponent of the tiny homes movement. His 140 sq.ft. house doesn't have a bathroom.

Why not? Because he'd prefer to share certain resources with other tiny house owners in a clustered community. Right now, his hosue is parked in his parents' backyard and he uses either their washroom or the one at work or the gym. Some might see that as cheating, but for him it's a sensible trade-off.

"I built it with the idea of it being part of a community, so there would be a larger, central shared community centre with shower and exercise room. There could be a composting toilet I could stow away when not in use," he said during our interview. Environmental (and cost) benefits come through reducing the number of kitchens, washrooms or exercise rooms, he noted. "It's less duplication. Rather than having ten of those, we have one."

But is clustering a solution?
Clustering helps with reducing duplication. It helps with creating strong communities of like-minded people, if you can find people you want to share facilities with. But it doesn't help with other big environmental drains, such as heating. You still have exposed walls, ceilings and, in some cases, floors, on everyone's sleeping areas. So still not as energy-efficient as a good apartment block. Maybe nicer to live in, but not more efficient.

Victoria architect John Gower pointed me to Royal Homes in Toronto, which might have an answer. They make pre-fab houses, including one model in their Royal Q line that's under 700 sq.ft. But where savings really stack up is when you take units and put them together into a multiplex. Fewer exposed walls and less duplication can lead to big environmental savings, and on a smaller footprint than a cluster of fully detached houses.

I live on the lower two floors of an attached Victorian house in Toronto. The shared walls make a big difference to my heating bills.

Building to code and beyond
I view the building code as an absolute minimum standard for construction. In my opinion, a well-built house will exceed the code requirements in many areas, notably insulation, and will also exceed basic LEED requirements.

My biggest complaint with some of the tiny house designs coming out of the United States is that they don't meet code. Some, like the Tumbleweed designs, are on trailers. As I understand it, this is at least partly because some jurisdictions don't recognize buildings that small as houses, and thus it's difficult to get the permits one would need.

We really should revise our by-laws in most municipalities to make it easier to build a diverse range of house styles and sizes. Then tiny homes would meed certain minimum standards. Because they're trailers, they're not necessarily hooked up properly to a power system. Some may have extension cords running to them, and that's worrisome.

From an environmental standpoint, insulation is also a problem. The Tarleton, for example, has 2x4 walls, not 2x6 as required for houses in most of Canada. This is a problem because most houses are insulated with fibreglass batts, and it takes a 6-inch cavity to accommodate an R20 batt. A 2x4 wall will only have R14 (though one could do better with three inches of sprayed foam). As for the ceiling, you need thick joists to have a cathedral ceiling with R40 insulation.

Because John Gower's houses are not trailers, the designs from BC Mountain Homes should meet code requirements in British Columbia, and therefore be more energy-efficient than the U.S. designs.

If you're seriously looking for a tiny house, carefully consider your options.

1. Does the design I'm looking at meet or exceed building code requirements where I live?
2. Can I share facilities to reduce duplication?
3. Can the design be clustered to reduce exterior wall/ceiling space?
4. How much land will I use? Am I using part of my land for something other than housing?
5. Is mobility more important than environment?
6. How much space do I need to live?
7. Is my family likely to grow? Can my house expand to accommodate that?

In any case, tiny houses are more efficient than the monster suburban houses that typified 1980s and 1990s construction. In a tiny house, you're only heating the space you're actually using, not countless empty rooms. And your cooking, exercising, computing, breathing, help keep it warm in the winter.

Hopefully this movement spurs us to start thinking more economically. The way things are going, John Gower might be right that those monster houses will quickly lose resale value and become seen as "dinosaurs."

A $250, low-carbon vacation

There's nothing like a bit of time away, and last weekend's trip was a wonderful one. As an added bonus, it had a minimal environmental impact. Also, it combined some of my favourite things: camping, dancing and eating.

We headed to Richmond, Quebec, for the Ooh la la festival, a weekend of music, contra dancing and quebecois folk dancing. If you like twirling about on the dance floor and are not fiddle-averse, it's an excellent little festival in an attractive town.

So, what made this trip an economical and environmentally friendly one?

Carpooling
I've always enjoyed a road trip. They so often seem to lead to adventure. Reminds me of this time in Montana...but that's another story. The round trip from Toronto to Richmond is 1362 km. In a Ford Windstar van, that means about 0.43 tonnes of CO2 (according to the calculator at Kuzuka). That's a lot of carbon to pump into the atmosphere. But with five adults in the van, that's less than a tenth of a tonne each, and about $40 in gas each for an out-of-province vacation. Not bad.
The trick to carpooling is to plan ahead, make sure there's enough room for everyone to be comfortable, and make sure the travelling companions are compatable. It doesn't work if some people really want to get to their destination quickly and others want to see the sights along the way. To futher save time and money, consider stopping somewhere pretty for a picnic along the way. We happened upon a nice roadside turnout along the St. Lawrence River, and enjoyed the wee break very much.

Camping
Camping is not necessarily environmentally friendly. Campfires and inefficient cookstoves can be a problem, and hauling trailers increases fuel consumption by a lot.
We were in Richmond to dance, so didn't tend to hang around the campsite, so no need for fires. And all our food was provided, so no need for cookstoves. Because we all used tents, the fuel cost of hauling our gear was minimal. Also, we chose a campsite within 2km of the dance hall, which made it possible to walk home (possible, though not always an appealing option after many hours of dancing). Also, our site came to $44 for the weekend, so pretty cost-effective.

Food
One of the best things about the Ooh la la festival is the food. It's mostly vegetarian and locally produced. It's also beautifully presented and delicious. Vegetarian food is almost always better for the environment.
But why was a vegetarian diet so welcome last weekend? Because we were dancing. It's vigorous activity, and heavy meals don't lend themselves to good nights of dancing. Lighter fare keeps you light on your toes, though a good dose of carbohydrates helped to keep me dancing all night long. That said, a little chicken on the Saturday night was welcome.
(If anyone did need something less healthy, the chip shop down the road had decent ice cream, as well as almost two dozen kinds of poutine...what exactly is the point of vegetable poutine?)
Communal cooking is a great way to save energy. It takes much less to cook for 200 people than it does to have 200 people cooking their own meals. Also, the festival provided plates, cutlery and mugs, so very little garbage was produced.

Entertainment
While the bands, incuding Crowfoot, provided fantastic music for dancing, a lot of the joy of dancing comes from the people you're with. Contra dancing is a wonderfully social pasttime. The halls tend not to be air conditioned, so it can get hot, but eveyrone expects that. The main energy draws are lighting, sound equipment and fans. But the sound systems aren't very big, and the workshops tended to be acoustic, so I'm not terribly concerned about the energy draw. More efficient lighting would always help, but it's tough to find good, affordable dance floors.


All in all, it was well worth the roughly $250 my mini-vacation cost. And it was a chance to get out of town, have a great time dancing, and not have to worry about the environmental cost. For anyone who likes dancing, I certainly recommend Ooh la la. I'm certainly looking forward to the Toronto Island Dance in a couple of weeks.

How to survive the LCBO strike

What a summer it's shaping up to be! First there's the garbage strike (click here for tips on how to survive). Now LCBO workers are poised to go on strike. We could have, as Toronto writer Carl Wilson phrased it, "the stink without the drink."

For those of you unfamiliar with Ontario's arcane liquor distributions rules, the LCBO has a near monopoly. Because it has almost exclusive rights to sell booze to the province's 13 million residents (well, the ones over 19, at any rate), it's one of the world's biggest buyers.

Fret not, oh thirsty Ontarians, for the monopoly is not complete! Here are ways to slake your thirst during an LCBO strike. Oh, and as an added bonus, most of them work on a locavore diet!

1. Drink Beer
   The strike will not affect Beer Stores (we have such creative names in this province), so domestic beer will be almost as easy to get as it usually is. The fine imported beers that the LCBO carries, however, will not be available.
   
   
2. Visit a brewpub
   Many Beer Stores do stock very good Canadian (and some imported) beers. But if your tastes are, like mine, a bit on the snobbish side, then go to a local brewpub or microbrewery. Bartowel has some great suggestions, and they're not all in Toronto. In Toronto, my favourites (so far) are the Mill Street in the Distillery District, and C'est What? on Front Street. Please add your own suggestions in the comments. I'm always on the lookout for a good pint of ale!
   
   
3. Go grocery shopping
   Thanks to another part of Ontario's arcane liquor laws, some winemakers have their own stores, often set up in grocery stores. These stores, such as the Wine Rack stores, will not be affected by the strike. However, they have a limited selection from one company. You'll notice that Wine Rack also allows online ordering.
   
   
4. Visit a winery
   A generation ago, an LCBO strike would have been unbearable. Back then, local wine was awful! But today, the province isn't only producing drinkable wines, it's producing some very good ones. The best I've tasted have not been available at the LCBO stores, so it's always worth going to a winery. There are great wines to be found in batches too small for the province's liquor stores.
   I've toured quite a few on the Niagara Peninsula, and have always enjoyed the outing. There are excellent suggestions in Linda Bramble's guidebook, Touring Niagara's Wine Country (disclaimer: I worked on one edition of the book). There's also a directory of Ontario wineries to help you find one near you.
   
   
5. Seek out the hard stuff
   The biggest problem during the strike will be getting hard liquor. Most of the major distilleries do not have their own stores. However, there are small ones that do. Kittling Ridge is probably the main one. They have seven stores in Barrie, London, the Toronto area and at their main facility in Grimsby. While I'm not a big fan of their wines, I have found some of their harder products, such as vodka, rye and rum, suitable for my highball needs.
   
   
6. Order a Canatini
   Many apartment-dwellers, including me, are living the car-free lifestyle. While this is usually great, it does limit one's ability to traipse about from winery to winery. The solution is the home-grown martini, or Canatini as I'm calling it. Magnotta, which makes some very good wines, also produces beer, grappa, vodka, gin and vermouth. And they deliver using Canada Post.
   Yes, you read that correctly: You can get a martini delivered by mail. Well, some assembly required.
   
   
7. Go visit Uncle Jim
   If things get really bad, you might have to dip into the dandelion wine that some strange relative makes. Or, if you want to try something really different, Downey's Farm northwest of Toronto makes all sorts of berry wines. Not my taste, but it could be a fun change for some, and it's a nice place to visit in the countryside. As always, you can make your own beer and wine (let's hope the strike doesn't last that long!), but home distilling isn't legal here...yet.
   
   
8. Cross-shop
   There are bizarre laws in Canada about transporting booze across provincial boundaries. Folks in provincial border towns, such as Ottawa, can perhaps fill us in on how much policing there is during the strike. You can buy booze in the States (or elsewhere) and bring it back. You will have to pay duty on anything over the rather paltry limit, though.
   
   
9. Hit the border?
   There's a rumour afoot that some of the Duty Free stores may be open for business during the strike. However, we're not sure at this point whether they will be open to the general public or just border-hoppers, as usual. This item will be updated when more information becomes available. This could be good news for folks in areas around Windsor, Niagara Falls and Fort Erie, Cornwall and Thunder Bay or Rainy Lake (is there a duty-free store at the Rainy Lake crossing?)
   
   
10. Go on vacation
    This is especially true for folks in Toronto and Windsor, where garbage strikes continue. Go to Barcelona, pick up a case of cheap Cava, head down to a beach somewhere and ride out the strike season in style.
    

Green Tenant welcomes your additions to this list. Please share your ideas and updates in the comments section, especially ideas that will work for car-free people.