Building a house is akin to giving birth

This past weekend, the Chelsea Passive House clients of Mark’s, invited everyone who worked on their home over for a wine and cheese mixer. It was really special and in many ways, the carrot at the end of the stick for me. I asked Mrs. Chelsea Passive House, ‘was it all worth it?’, because if you read my last blog post you will know that I’m a stress-case at the moment. Her response was on-point. She said, “it’s like asking a pregnant women while in labour if it’s worth it”. Couldn’t have said it better myself :) Right now I'm in the thick of a really long one...

What's keeping Mark up at night

A cold house and throwing our heat/money outside. Whadda waste.

We are currently renting a home from some (wonderful) neighbours. It's an older home, a townhouse. And they've done many things to improve it over the years. However, Mark's been noting the depressing frequency with which our furnace turns on. His last count clocked it at 8 minutes. Which is to say that in 8 minutes, our house is losing one degree of heat to the great outdoors. If the furnace conked out and we lost a heat source, for whatever reason, our house would reach the outdoor temp, let's say a balmy -8° C for this scenario, in just under 4 hours. Half way through sleep. A couple hours and it's inhabitable. I find this shocking.