Thursday, December 3rd 2004
Greetings to all!
Already Christmas and 3 months since you heard from us!
Quickly, I must bring you up to date with the recent developments and discoveries. Most importantly we are making progress with municipal authorities. They have decided to ask for advice from their architect (a very conventional one) about the feasibility of our project and it came back positive, under certain conditions. The urbanist now has to prepare the text for the amendments before it all goes to the city counsel. After that, it takes about 2 months, which brings us to at least February.
They also confirmed that they will require an architect or engineer to sign the plans. That might limit the size of what we'll be able to build in a first stage since it will most likely require a big part of the budget.
A decision about the structure of the roof is being rethought. Many aspects of it are not decided but using logs doesn't seem feasible at the moment. Engineers nowadays are used to working with dimensional lumber and prefab trusses which would make it difficult to get a signature on our plans and we'd need to get all the logs graded. It would also complicate the insulation aspect of the roof. We think we'll have the trees milled for boards and purchase trusses that will be calculated by an engineer to support the snow, soil and plants.
The Fall issue of "La maison du 21e siècle" I discovered the charming idea of using sheep's wool to insulate the roof. I was lucky to meet the instigators of this technique here in Quebec at the "Fête Bio Paysanne" at Montreal's Tohu and at a reunion I will talk about later. They're a craftsmen coop that builds hewn log homes and distribute related ecological products: Les habitations Apex de St-Boniface-de-Shawinigan.
As for discoveries, I made contact with a group that promotes ecological construction: Archibio. In October, they wrote us a letter of support that we presented to the city. Last week, I attended a first work session and I'm very optimistic about their mission. There were lots of nice people, full of talent and enthusiasm. Comities were formed to cover a wide range of topics and things should start moving thanks to them. They share offices with EcoHabitation.com that have a very interesting website full of technical information (in French only at the moment).


I also found a link with the department of applied sciences at Queen's University on "Green walls" that clean the air inside buildings. I was wondering about ventilation for our house since it's now usual to have mechanical ventilation with heat exchange. It all implies an energy ... and many potential problems as far as I can tell. Most systems I've seen create a very dry environment. For our comfort, anything below 35% humidity is too low. If you add a humidifier to the system, you are likely to get mildew growing in the pipes... and since we're off-grid, we prefer not to run a fan full time, not to mention the noise and the friction of the air inside plastic piping.
At my brother's place, things are moving along and I hope with all my heart that everything will be finished as planned for Christmas. My wish is to be able to cook a nice meal in the new kitchen, jump in the hot tub surrounded by snow covered trees then play games around the fireplace. Denis is very proud of his masonry stove, covered with stones he collected on the grounds. The mason confirmed that it's the most efficient he's ever built since it's so centrally located in the house and because the stones are very dense.
Over 15cm of snow fell yesterday and it looks like a Christmas card scenery outside. It inspires me to wish you all plenty of happiness for the holiday season ahead. But don't forget, the most precious things you can't buy...