Do you believe in New Year's resolutions? I don't. I just hope next year is better than this year.
One must not think that the residents or the city of Kitchener knows when and how to clear snow and ice off sidewalks (and streets). I don't care too much about the streets right now because I don't commute by bus and so far the roads cleared simply by having cars driving on them but the sidewalks matter - to me at least. I don't think to too many other people because most Canadians keep their ass attached to a (heated) car seat during the winter so what do they care what the sidewalks look like. Argh! Two days ago it first rained, then snowed fairly wet snow. Clever people would have gone out that evening and cleared the slush off their sidewalks before it could freeze. And they would have burnt off a lot of turkey calories at the same time! But nobody did. So yesterday my daughter and I stepped out the door and after my first step I thought, "oh shoot, ice!". By that time my daughter was already lying flat on her back, slipped in the ice (no, we did not have to go to ER). Poor baby, she will not be walking much outside this winter. Salt seems the most common "tool" in the fight of winter here in Kitchener and I don't like it. The slush sticks far too well to the stroller. Never mind the puddles we leave behind every time we go into a shop or other building - stop starring, I am not going to clean it up. Get out the snow shovels and sand., they are much more effective and better for the environment. But I have not seen any yet.
So, I got a little book for Christmas called Life Lines. One of the first ones is, "We own nothing, everybody rents." It's true, especially when it comes to our planet. I received an email today from CPAWS asking for donations and listing their achievements for this year. I am not even happy about the achievements, even though I probably wrote letters to lots of MPs telling them to help protect this or that space or area. But the tarsands are still there, still operating, still expanding. No change. Kyoto, a disaster - Canada, the big loser, bailed out. F*** this. The Canadian government ought to be jailed for it. Or have above phrase tattooed onto their foreheads. Do they really not get it? No they don't. That's far more than embarrassing.
Oh, and the worst, last year at this time we did make donations to different environmental organisations, this year we are far from it, low tide in the bank account due to a dead job market. Instead, we have the prospect of taking our building management to court over our windows. Hey, there's a new experience looming! When it rained inside our bedrooms the day we moved in we were told this problem is new. Recently I found out leaking windows have been an ongoing issue and the windows were apparrently repaired last spring. With no improvement obviously! Our building management is well aware of the problem, it has been contacted by our superintendents verbally and by us in writing at least twice. Nothing has happened. As soon as the temperatures dropped the outside window panes froze shut they were so wet. (Are they going to burst when too much ice accumulates?) The inside panes are daily covered with water and mould grows everywhere on the frame and surrounding area unless I clean it off every week. We think the windows do not comply with the local building standards. Neighbours have unsuccessfully tried to change the situation, with the management getting away with their poor maintenance. How can that be, I wonder?
I read an article recently from an engineer who wrote a letter to The Record suggesting Canada should produce pre-fabricated houses, just like they put up here everywhere but smaller, and ship them overseas to help with the housing crisis in poor countries. After all, Canada has plenty of forest to turn into lumber and it would help the economy. My quick thoughts on that: Safe the forest, and safe the rest of the world from these poor constructions called houses. Unless of course they come without windows. Maybe new houses like in all those ugly suburbs are better than the oldish apartment buildings we live in but then again I don't want to live in suburbia. That's for car-addicted people, not people like me who dream of giving their bike an upgrade and have fenders and other handy things installed. That is once I earn money of course.
Over Christmas we rented a small car and unlike in Edmonton we got one too. Wow! It was a Toyota Yaris and with the three of us, car seat, stroller, Christmas gifts etc. it was well loaded too. It worked well and still it was very fuel-efficient. We need more of those, the cars I mean, and rental agencies that rent them out.
Showing posts with label prefabricated houses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prefabricated houses. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Blue Vinyl and other plastics
In the documentary Blue Vinyl a young woman is worried about her parents' decision to pull the wooden boards off the house and put blue vinyl on instead. They live on Long Island, New York, and have as so many Americans sturdy, cheap vinyl around their house and garage. Vinyl, aka PVC, is a very common plastic that is hazardous in its production and recycling as toxic substances are needed and released, including dioxin. The woman meets lots of people, all kinds of experts, around the country, from the representatives of the Vinyl Institute, oil refinery and plastic producers to scientists and people living in homes made out of "alternative" materials. The people from the Vinyl Institute want to make her belief that the biggest ingredient in the material is similar to table salt and that's found in our bodies anyway because we can't live without it. (I am always amazed by the stubbornness that industry representatives show when they defend their product, no matter how bad the product is for health and environment.)
As in most other documentaries where an inquisitive, concerned citizen wants to get a closer look industry will keep its doors closed. The woman was not allowed to visit a petro-chemical factory. She moves on to investigate other outside wall finishes but none satisfies her parents. The material does not blend in with the neighbourhood, the (natural) colour is not great, the price is not right. A young man that helps her convince her parents to get rid of the vinyl lives himself in a house made of straw, covered with a mixture of lime, sand and a bit of concrete which creates an "adobe finish" that the mother finds unacceptable. Meanwhile he refuses to stay at the house due to the vinyl and sleeps in a tent in the garden. In the end the woman has the house recovered in reclaimed wood - ignoring the by far biggest decision point in the issue: the price. It does cost her dearly but she's happy to have done the step towards a better world ... without vinyl.
Her parents soon sell the house and "downsize" (from a bungalow) to a townhouse in a brandnew retirement park where every single building is covered in vinyl.
At one point she went to see a Habitat for Humanity project where within a couple of days 25 houses for low-income families are erected. Each of these simple houses can be put together from single parts within a few hours. Sponsored by the Vinyl Institute, the houses are completely made of vinyl, from the flooring to the walls, the window frames, the ceilings, everything is made from vinyl. Of course the woman wanted to talk with the people involved about the health hazards, inform and warn them possibly, but when she sees the crying-out-of-happiness families that are about to move in she does not do it.
This morning then my husband asked if I thought it would be possible to get rid of ALL the plastic in our household. I said no straight away. Plastic is everywhere. It often could be replaced: storage containers, bowls, pitchers, soap dish, toys, hangers, coat hooks, blinds, plant pots, shoe rack, toilet seat, shower curtain, ... but a tooth brush without plastic? And what about the parts on the stroller, the radio, kitchen appliances like fridge and kettle, ... and what about all the packaging? If I did not want any plastic I would have to take lots of glass or ceramic containers to a store that sells everything in bulk from soap & hair shampoo to dishwashing liquid to all kinds of dry foods, meats, fish and drinks. That would be tough, not only to find that store (although the Earth General Store would score high here, mind you, they still use the bulk plastic containers) but to carry the containers around, without breaking them. Toys, I have been looking for wood but there's also tin toys, are somwhat harder to find but it's not impossible. Last but not least, comparing prices for all the named items it becomes very obvious that wood, tin & co. cost way more than plastics. As oil gets more expensive this might slowly change though ... Turning my head I just looked at our book shelves ... well, book covers are also coated in something plastic-like so they'd have to go too. And the laptop I'm writing on of course. Not too sure if my husband still wanted to get rid of plastic once it comes to his laptop.
As in most other documentaries where an inquisitive, concerned citizen wants to get a closer look industry will keep its doors closed. The woman was not allowed to visit a petro-chemical factory. She moves on to investigate other outside wall finishes but none satisfies her parents. The material does not blend in with the neighbourhood, the (natural) colour is not great, the price is not right. A young man that helps her convince her parents to get rid of the vinyl lives himself in a house made of straw, covered with a mixture of lime, sand and a bit of concrete which creates an "adobe finish" that the mother finds unacceptable. Meanwhile he refuses to stay at the house due to the vinyl and sleeps in a tent in the garden. In the end the woman has the house recovered in reclaimed wood - ignoring the by far biggest decision point in the issue: the price. It does cost her dearly but she's happy to have done the step towards a better world ... without vinyl.
Her parents soon sell the house and "downsize" (from a bungalow) to a townhouse in a brandnew retirement park where every single building is covered in vinyl.
At one point she went to see a Habitat for Humanity project where within a couple of days 25 houses for low-income families are erected. Each of these simple houses can be put together from single parts within a few hours. Sponsored by the Vinyl Institute, the houses are completely made of vinyl, from the flooring to the walls, the window frames, the ceilings, everything is made from vinyl. Of course the woman wanted to talk with the people involved about the health hazards, inform and warn them possibly, but when she sees the crying-out-of-happiness families that are about to move in she does not do it.
This morning then my husband asked if I thought it would be possible to get rid of ALL the plastic in our household. I said no straight away. Plastic is everywhere. It often could be replaced: storage containers, bowls, pitchers, soap dish, toys, hangers, coat hooks, blinds, plant pots, shoe rack, toilet seat, shower curtain, ... but a tooth brush without plastic? And what about the parts on the stroller, the radio, kitchen appliances like fridge and kettle, ... and what about all the packaging? If I did not want any plastic I would have to take lots of glass or ceramic containers to a store that sells everything in bulk from soap & hair shampoo to dishwashing liquid to all kinds of dry foods, meats, fish and drinks. That would be tough, not only to find that store (although the Earth General Store would score high here, mind you, they still use the bulk plastic containers) but to carry the containers around, without breaking them. Toys, I have been looking for wood but there's also tin toys, are somwhat harder to find but it's not impossible. Last but not least, comparing prices for all the named items it becomes very obvious that wood, tin & co. cost way more than plastics. As oil gets more expensive this might slowly change though ... Turning my head I just looked at our book shelves ... well, book covers are also coated in something plastic-like so they'd have to go too. And the laptop I'm writing on of course. Not too sure if my husband still wanted to get rid of plastic once it comes to his laptop.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Living small
According to a recent article in the Metro small houses are becoming more and more popular, especially the Katrina cottages. Katrina cottages http://www.katrinacottagehousing.org/index.html were invented for the victims of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. They can be used as guest house, cottage, for affordable housing projects, for every day living. The reasons for this trend are the recession (high unemployment versus costs for a large house e.g. for energy), the desire "to live more ecologically and less wasteful", demographic changes (more singles). Also, with the population growing older there's plenty of people willing to downsize and lots of widows and widowers. Whatever the reason I like this trend. I would not have wanted the former trend to continue where in 55 years since 1950 the average square footage of a home went from 983 to 2,340! I know people get bigger and bigger but we can't expand forever and put concrete infrastructure up all over the place.
The Katrina Cottage can be delivered in pre-manufactured elements or be built on site. It's designed to withstand hurricanes. Pre-manufactured sounds good to me, too. Smaller houses will already have a smaller ecological footprint for using less material, consuming less space and energy, but pre-fabricated does all that again compared to the house built on-site that needs all materials delivered separately. I just found this article about "green houses" Green Prefab Homes - Prefabulous! on a website called Low Impact Living.
And I just had another thought. Cities, or all communities, should have a set percentage of houses that are allowed to be empty within the community boundaries before any other house gets erected. I don't know if such a rule exists anywhere but it certainly would stop the unnecessary expansion of suburbs while more central areas, more mature neighbourhoods, empty out. As well, it would be better to support home owners or potential buyers to renovate a house instead of just building a new one somewhere else. Neglect is not only ugly it will also contribute to the deterioration of a neighbourhood as it expands from one building to the next.
The Katrina Cottage can be delivered in pre-manufactured elements or be built on site. It's designed to withstand hurricanes. Pre-manufactured sounds good to me, too. Smaller houses will already have a smaller ecological footprint for using less material, consuming less space and energy, but pre-fabricated does all that again compared to the house built on-site that needs all materials delivered separately. I just found this article about "green houses" Green Prefab Homes - Prefabulous! on a website called Low Impact Living.
And I just had another thought. Cities, or all communities, should have a set percentage of houses that are allowed to be empty within the community boundaries before any other house gets erected. I don't know if such a rule exists anywhere but it certainly would stop the unnecessary expansion of suburbs while more central areas, more mature neighbourhoods, empty out. As well, it would be better to support home owners or potential buyers to renovate a house instead of just building a new one somewhere else. Neglect is not only ugly it will also contribute to the deterioration of a neighbourhood as it expands from one building to the next.
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