Next Saturday, September 28th, a number of homes throughout the city that employ green technologies will be welcoming visitors who want to discover how it’s done. It’s all part of the Envirocentre Green Homes Showcase. What a great idea. Here is a recommended bike route along roads, bike paths and alleyways to a few of those houses located west of Centretown.
This tour starts at the top of the Somerset St bridge above the O-Train tracks, easily accessible from the O-Train bike path.
First stop – 69 Fairmont Avenue.
Second stop – 15 Garland St, an infill house that you can tour mid-way through construction.
Third stop – 296 Royal Avenue. Lots on passive solar design going on here.
Fourth stop – 10 Firwood Crescent. Geothermal heating and more!
Fifth stop – 1288 Kingston Ave – isn’t included on the Envirocentre’s map or Showcase, so it won’t be open for tours, but it is a pretty amazing house that’s been turning greener and greener over the last 30 years. Here it is as seen from the bike path that runs between Kingston Avenue and the Experimental Farm. It’s my sister and brother-in-law’s place. The two big solar panels on the left corner are for water heating. The two smaller ones flanking them are for electricity. All the others covering the roof are for electricity too, that feed back into Ottawa Hydro’s grid. The window’s are triple paned fiberglass. Many, many years ago the weeping tiles around the bottom of the foundation were dug up, cleaned and reset. Before re-filling the foundation we added 3 inches of blue foam insulation to about 2-1/2 feet above grade, then parged before re-filling. That was a big job. It helped pay for my big bike tour around Europe.
OttawaVeloOutaouais 