Hmm, let's see now.  I guess our heads weren't completely in the sand.  Afterall, we had sold our second car two years ago, even though it was paid for and we loved it.  We just couldn't rationalize having two cars for one family living in a city well-served by public transit and in a community conveniently close to bicycle paths.  We were already entrenched in the 3Rs and were raising our kids to mind their eco footprint and eschew conspicous consumerism.

However, in the past month we sat through An Inconvenient Truth, The Corporation, Why We Fight; and if that wasn't enough of a reality check, we read The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century. 

It's clear we have to change our ways collectively, but it's got to start individually and at home. And, there's no time to spare. So the question is: do we run off to a small town somewhere and build ourselves a net zero energy efficient healthy home, or do we retrofit our home in the city? Well, we're all in this boat together; and building more houses ain't the answer.  We truly appreciate our community and we'd rather contribute to sustainable urban development than further encroach on potentially arable land.

So, we've started to do some homework (so to speak) on what it would take to retrofit our house.  And we'd like to share what we learn with friends and neighbours who are interested in doing this for themselves.

We have a ton of questions about alternative energy sources, radiant heat, insulating and draft proofing our house.  Do we call in GreenSaver for an energy audit now, or do we wait until we understand what's entailed with our other options? What government programs exist?  How much is this all going to cost? It can quickly get overwhelming, when you start to think about it.  I wish we could consult with a home retrofitting planner, who has no vested interest in a particular product, like most of the suppliers do.

I mentioned this to my friend Julia last week, who use to run the Festive Earth Society -- that is until the funding ran out. [I would have linked you to the old site, but it's been appropriated by one of those link referal services.] So Julia calls me the next day about a story published in the Globe and Mail on a home retrofitting initiative called the Now House. It's one of 12 demonstration projects selected by the CMHC as part of its EQuilibrium Housing competition (as it is now called) for the creation of an energy efficient home.  However, the Now House is the only project that involves retrofitting. All other proposals selected were for building brand spanking new Net Zero energy efficient homes. 

So, there seems to be a dearth of holisitic energy-efficient-healthy-home retrofitting consultants, which gave me the idea to start this blog. But, now I've got plenty to wade through for the moment.