Airdrie family achieves net-zero home, wins Canadian green challenge

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It was a giant payday for one Airdrie household, who had been the grand prize winners of Canadian Geographic’s Stay Internet Zero problem, a contest the place eight households pulled out all of the stops to scale back their carbon footprint.

After 14 weeks of competing in a collection of challenges, Samantha and Kevin Shannon — together with their three younger youngsters and their canine Nana — emerged from the competitors victorious, bringing house a cheque for $50,000. They accepted the award from honorary president of Canadian Geographic, Hon. Lois Mitchell of their Airdrie house Friday.

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“As a result of it was Canadian Geographic, a part of it was the way you advised the story, in addition to the quantifiable ‘how a lot emissions did you save’,” mentioned Samantha.

There have been a complete of six challenges and an total house enchancment problem that spanned from September till the top of February.

“We minimize the pure gasoline line completely, ditched the unique Nineteen Eighties furnace, dug 5 boreholes that go down 250 ft in our entrance yard, and we used floor supply warmth pumps to warmth our home — it’s 400 per cent environment friendly to warmth, 800 per cent environment friendly to chill — the very best effectivity pure gasoline furnace is excessive 90s, so 4 instances extra environment friendly.”

To be able to offset their electrical energy consumption, the Shannons put photo voltaic panels on the roof and removed the recent water tank in favour of an air-source hybrid warmth pump scorching water tank. “We’ve bought an air-source warmth pump for the storage, in order that we will nonetheless use the storage as a workshop for the winter,” Samantha added.

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Rivals within the problem obtained $5,000 in seed cash, which the Shannons used for a product known as AeroBarrier.

“It primarily pressurizes your home, after which it releases an aerosol sealant, and it tries to search out all of the little holes that you may’t see with the bare eye — even beneath the drywall — and it seals up all of the holes, and given that you just lose about 30 per cent of your warmth power by means of leakage, it helped make every little thing else extra environment friendly,” mentioned Samantha.

Kevin mentioned the main focus of a number of the challenges was looking for methods to make adjustments by doing much less, or utilizing much less. “There have been the massive adjustments we made, actually, but additionally adjustments to habits and adjustments to methods you do issues round the home. It was additionally your habits and little ways in which you can do issues in a different way in your on a regular basis life.”

“We did the massive issues, however we had spent years doing the little issues, and I believe that’s the a part of the competitors that I beloved,” added Samantha. “As a result of not all of us had the identical sort of home, it’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Among the homes had been Nineteen Twenties — you couldn’t do that; some had asbestos; you couldn’t do this, however we will all work from the identical toolbox.”

“The competition was additionally largely storytelling and resonating with different Canadians, and I believe that’s the place Canadian Geographic did such a great job selecting their households, as a result of they picked eight households that had been enthusiastic about what they had been doing. They wished to share their tales and encourage different Canadians,” mentioned Kevin.

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