Will open source change Canada? Democratizing sustainable housing in Canada (part 2)

Will democratizing sustainable housing be enough to change Canada? It’s too early to tell, but there’s a start. Open source can make sustainable designs available. Nobody owns it, everybody can use it, and anybody can improve it. The Now House is one sustainable housing design project created by one small team. What would happen if one hundred teams created projects like this?

Toronto-based firm Work Worth Doing created Now House™, a project whose mission is to turn a 60-year-old WWII house into a near zero energy home—one that produces as much energy as it uses. The idea for this one house, coupled with the benefits of open source, has the potential to affect millions of homes and demonstrate how open source thinking can be applied to one of the biggest problems facing the world today. Canada shoulders its own share of this burden and is currently way off-track from meeting its Kyoto Protocol goals.

Over the next ten years, how could open source thinking continue to play a role in the Now House project?

The process for retrofitting one house to become a near zero energy home, will serve as the basis for future phases of the project.

The homes within a wartime housing community are similar in structure, making the national rollout of the Now House model possible. There are an estimated one million wartime homes across Canada (see figure 1). As the project gains momentum, the scale will necessitate the participation of many different players located throughout the nation. Creating an open source platform allows multiple partners–builders, governments and homeowners–to contribute input and provide resources.

Sources for the data in figure 2:

• About 12 million occupied homes in 2004. Source: “Population and dwelling counts, for Canada provinces and territories, 2006 and 2001 censuses — 100% data,” Statistics Canada.
• 57% are single detached homes, equaling 6.84 million homes. Source: “Improving Energy Performance in Canada” page 17, Figure 3-1.
• GHG emission reduction per year in tons: The residential sector produces 77 mega tons of GHG emissions. Source: “Improving Energy Performance in Canada” page 17.
• 57% of the residential sector (single detached homes) produces 43.89 mega tons of GHG emissions. 43.89 mega tons of GHG emissions x 60% estimated Now House GHG reduction for detached housing.