The Straw House Blog - Home of Glen, Gil and Declan Hunter

Massive Update Part Two: The Kitchen

Joanne’s brother-in-law Gene works at a company with a CNC routing machine and he graciously offered to help with the kitchen cabinets. This machine can take a 5x10 sheet of sheet stock (plywood, melamine, etc) and cut it to size according to plans programmed into the computer. It automatically drills all of the shelf and hinge holes as well as the holes for knock-down connectors and dowels (think Ikea, only much stronger). Gene programmed the kitchen according to my rough design. He also ordered us hinges, connectors, and drawer slides - and let me tell you these drawer slides are something else. They’re made by a company called Blum (Austrian) and they are the Rolls-Royce of cabinet hardware. Smooth as silk and they automatically close themselves when they get to the last 3 inches of inbound travel. Sweet.

Dad and I had to make a jig to finish some of the drilling that the machine can’t do but after two solid afternoons of work we have a pretty close to full working kitchen. We’re just missing the hinges (on order) and one cabinet (we ran out of wood).

Joanne’s favourite part is the large, tall pull-out pantry. Now we have to decide how to finish the wood. It’s all Baltic birch plywood, but we’re leaning towards a dark mahogany stain for the drawer and cupboard faces and Tung oil for the countertops. Tung oil is clear with a yellowish tinge.

Joanne has spent the day organizing the kitchen and has found, much to her amazement that she my actually have *gasp* too much storage space. But never fear, there are at least two more boxes of kitchen stuff at my parents.

Here are some pictures of the kitchen, and the cool machine.

Posted by: Glen: July, 27, 2003

Big Update Part Three: Septic & Landscaping

This update is actually one week late. The septic system is done and covered over and half of the final grading is complete. So we can now flush whenever we feel like and we don’t spend any more time worrying about the level of our holding tank. We’ve also got a layer of topsoil laid over the septic bed and I’ll be seeding it this week (if the rain keeps coming). We’ve had unseasonably cool and rainy weather this month, which is just fine by me, and means that the grass might get a hold before the August heat hits us. Of course we took pictures to document the whole process.

In other news we’ve started the process of getting a mortgage now that the house is largely done and we’ve started closing out our permits. The health department permit (for the septic system) is closed and on Saturday we had our final inspection for our building permit. The inspector, who has been great through this whole process, told us that although we had a few outstanding issues he would close the permit. So now all we have to clear is our electrical inspection.

That is looking to be the biggest hurdle. The inspector was happy with all of the work Dad and I did inside the house he had issues with the off-grid system. His problem wasn’t with the quality of the work, but with a bunch of stuff that ended up sounding to me more like he didn’t like all this new-fangled off-grid stuff than anything else. Anyway Simon and JP, calm as always, will be taking care of all that and I’m happy to let them. If you’re going off grid good installers are worth their weight in gold.

Posted by: Glen: August, 04, 2003

Huge power failure strikes East Coast

I think the word I’m looking for is ... schadenfreude.

Posted by: Glen: August, 14, 2003

Media #1

Several pieces of good news today: the bank came back with our appraisal, which directly effects our mortgage, and it was VERY favourable, and the insurance company is going to cover the generator, so we should be getting a new one soon!

Today we were visited by a reporter and photographer from the Peterborough Examiner. They were interested in people who lived off the grid. A topic that we expect will be of great interest for the next little while. The article is supposed to appear in tomorrow’s paper, I will post a link to the online version if there is one.

Hah! And everybody thought that when the media came to take a picture of me I’d be getting out of the back of a cruiser with somebody else’s coat over my head.

Posted by: Glen: August, 19, 2003

Media #2

Here’s the article on the Peterborough Examiner Website. No pictures in the online version, but I’ll be grabbing a couple of the paper issues today. I’m pleased that they put in Jo’s quote about there being no incentives for people to try renewables as well as J.P.‘s line about the artificially low cost of hydro in this province. How can we convince people to conserve when power is nearly as cheap as water? The bill for fixing the hydro rate at 4.3¢/kwh is now in the hundreds of millions and will likely exceed a billion dollars by the end of the summer. I can’t help but think that money would be far better spent on education and grants for renewables. Get some solar panels up on some roofs and some good metering so that people are more aware of what they are using.

All of the attention in the media is around which part of the grid failed, where it broke, and how decrepit the whole transmission network has become. But there has been very little comment on how overloaded the system is, how all of the power the air conditioners, incandescent lights, and billboards are constantly drawing. Small amounts of conservation can add up to huge savings. If you are one the grid look around your house, your place of business, your community and ask yourself, “Did the failure start in Ohio, or did it start right here?”

I’d like to believe that articles like today’s will make a change but really I think we’re just a form of oddity, “Step right up, gaze in wonder at the people who live off grid.” Just another stop on the blackout media tour. I’d like to think that this blackout could be the start of a change but really I suspect that they’ll cobble the grid back together and life will return to normal. And now I’ve just learned that CHEX TV is on thier way out to do a story on us. It is going to be an interesting day.

Posted by: Glen: August, 20, 2003

Some Links

Wired article on distributed power generation (micropower):

The Energy Web

A look at the Ohio power company that seems to have been the start of the trouble:

Lights Out on Deregulation

Interested in Off-grid or Grid Inter-tie? Home Power magazine is a good place to start:

Home Power Magazine

Posted by: Glen: August, 20, 2003

Canadian Press Article

~~It looks like finding a online link for the Canadian Press article is going to be problematic so for now (or until CP sends me a cease and desist) here’s the article text:~~

Canoe.ca has picked up the article, thanks to Art for the heads-up.

Posted by: Glen: August, 21, 2003

Media #3

Yesterday was fairly hectic around here. We had an electrical inspection to hopefully close out that permit but there’s apparently still some debate around our battery box. So we wait again.

In the morning I received word from Simon Boone (Generation Solar) that CHEX TV (our local CBC affiliate) had seen the Peterborough Examiner article and wanted to do an on camera interview with me for the six o’clock news. The CHEX guy showed up while the inspector was still inspecting so he did some shooting around the house. Then he did a segment outside the house looking up at the panels and a short interview with both Simon and myself inside. Unfortunately he cut Simon’s piece such that it appears Simon is almost recommending against solar power (based on cost). Off-grid and grid-intertie aren’t all beer and roses but I doubt that you’ll find many people on the east coast expressing great support for the status quo. From what others have told me I looked and sounded fine, it’s hard to judge personally since it’s always just sorta freaky seeing yourself on TV.

One of the things that bothers me a bit about this media attention (and yes, I knew it was coming after last Thursday) is the natural bias of the media to see us as radicals. Not in that we choose to live differently but in that since we choose to live this way we must also be out blocking whaling ships in Zodiacs on the weekends, churning our own butter, and such. Each reporter, upon learning that Joanne is pregnant, asked if we will be doing a home birth (we aren’t). I tried very hard especially with the CP interviewer to reinforce the idea that we are just normal people, living our lives in a normal home, except of course that we generate our own power. I have found with some people that as the environmentally friendly buzz words about our home (passive solar) start to pile up (straw bale) I can sense that (off grid) we are being further and further marginalized in their minds. This perception definately appears in most of the media surrounding houses like ours. In a way I end up trying to seem less green that I really am in the hopes that people might start see renewables as a reasonable option.

What I would rather see is some indication from the media, from the government that there are lessons to be learned from the events of last Thursday, and that some of them might be learned by looking, really looking at houses like mine and the thousands of other people around North America who produce their own power. Or they could just patch the grid, everyone can crank their air conditioning and hope that the problem solves itself. Guess which I think is going to happen.

Posted by: Glen: August, 21, 2003

Kitchen & Closet

With Joanne due in less than three weeks the house has once again been the focus of frantic activity. The kitchen is done except for an upper shelf and kickplates.

I bought some rough aromatic cedar which we planed, jointed, ripped and routed for a walk-in closet and coat closet for the mudroom. The walk-in closet is pretty much done but the coat closet will have to wait a bit. The benefit to using rough cedar is the thickness. Regular aromatic cedar that you buy pre-cut is barely 3/8” thick and won’t withstand many sandings, our cedar is over 3/4” thick and should last a lifetime. Aromatic cedar is Eastern Red Cedar which only grows in the south, while regular cedar does smell it isn’t “aromatic”.

I designed bookshelves to create a wall separating the bedroom from the rest of the house. We cut the wood on Gene’s big machine and we’ve been busy sanding and staining the shelves and uprights. Installation should happen tomorrow. I will take pictures, until then here are some pictures of the kitchen and closet, including a very pregnant Joanne.

So far as power goes we had mostly been breaking even but all of the extra work (sanding, sawing, vacuuming) has been putting us into a deficit. Fortunately the insurance company came through and gave us the money to buy a new generator. This proved to be harder than expected since we got the money right after the big blackout so of course all of the good Honda generators in Southern Ontario were sold, but then Honda was diverting all shipments of new generators to the west coast to help fight the forest fires. Stores were telling us that they weren’t expecting a shipment until late October at the earliest. But we got lucky and found one in Uxbridge and drove out there the same day.

Ideally we’d like to put four more solar panels on the roof but that’s going to cost nearly $4K and I’m not sure that’s in the cards right now.

Posted by: Glen: October, 07, 2003

Shelves & Ends

The shelves are up and my Mom is currently applying a coat of urethane - she likes painting but hates sanding, I don’t mind sanding but hate painting, we’re a good team. This afternoon we’ll slide (ha! - they’re huge and heavy) them into place and start laying in the books! We’re leaving the backers as wood for now, but I want to replace it with 1/8” translucent polycarbonate sheets. These look like sandblasted glass but are actually cast in place with the texture. They allow light through but only show the faintest of silhouettes. At night they should have a gourgeous glow from the bedroom lights. The drawback? $102.50 per sheet and I need 5 sheets.

Here’s some pictures, including close-ups (by request) of the kitchen handles.

Posted by: Glen: October, 09, 2003