Talk Green Vancouver | City of Vancouver

3 years ago (March 4th 2008) our Kitsilano house along with the contents for a family of four was destroyed in a fire.  Luckily nobody was harmed and we had good insurance coverage.  I was on maternity leave with my one year old daughter and took on the challenge of working closely with the insurance company, City Hall building & permits, house design, contractor & sub trades and replacing all of our contents. 
This was an opportunity to try to build a house and replace our contents in as environmentally friendly a way as possible.   We entered the 2010 Green Building Challenge with Lighthouse Sustainability Centre http://www.sustainablebuildingcentre.com/sites/default/files/lh-2010-brossard.pdf  as an unassisted project. 
We tried to follow their guidelines on energy efficiency, water conservation and waste diversion as much as possible. 
At each stage in the rebuild I would seek out the most sustainable options and analyze the pros and cons of implementing them.  Beauty and heritage was also important.  I spent many hours on Craigslist finding out where local houses were being demolished so that we could reclaim as much material as possible.  This is a list of local reclaimed items we incorporated all from different sources:

• 2600 sf of fir flooring
• 100 lf of fir baseboards
• 17 solid fir doors (& 50% of moldings)
• 5 cast iron hot water radiators
• Clawfoot tub, bathroom sink
• 25 ceiling/wall light fixtures
• 26 solid fir stair treads
• 2 x cast iron kitchen sinks
• 2 x kitchen granite counter tops
• 800sf fir wainscoting for cupboards & walls
• Fir shelving
• All interior antique door hardware (hinges, strike plates, handles)
• Iron deck railings
• 2 wood decorative fireplace surrounds
• 2 stained glass windows

We saved as much old building material as was feasible and gave away some that we did not need (e.g. old chimney bricks).  During excavation we saved any stones to build stone walls in the garden and broken concrete pavers made our new patio and pathway.  The fir windows are FSC compliant and incorporate low e and are argon filled.  Low or zero VOC paints and glues where used.  We tried to implement a gray water system but at this time there is no support for this in Vancouver. 
For the house contents we purchased mostly 2nd hand (Craigslist), consignment & thrift shop.  We bought all new appliances.
High on my list for our new home was for it to be toxic free and zero waste (including vastly reducing the contents of the blue box, blue bag and yellow bag).  I have achieved the toxic free part with regards to toiletries and cleaning products.  The zero waste is an on-going challenge.  As suggested by Lighthouse Sustainability Centre I began taking photographs of our garbage & recycling about 2 years ago.  I discovered our garbage was mostly dry plastic food packaging and food scraps.  This really opened my eyes to what was being sent to the landfill or incinerator. 
It also didn’t make a lot of sense to be putting beautiful glass jars & bottles in the blue box to be crushed.  Even the recyclable plastic containers such as shampoo and cleaning supplies seemed to be so wasteful in the production, removal and melting down as far as toxins and energy use are concerned. 
 
I began to create a ‘transparent’ kitchen, cleaning cupboard and bathroom with all the accompanying products in glass jars or bottles.  Unfortunately, today my green home ends at the front door as there is little supply for this economy except for Avalon Dairy’s glass bottle return and a few stores that sell bulk ‘organic’ dried foods within walking distance.