Furnace Inspections and Outdoor Taps Shut-off Reminder

Submitted by Mollie Mithaug-Cook on behalf of the Buildings Committee

Dear Members,

We realize it's past due time for our regular furnace inspections. We have beenn unable to get a response on availability from Fagnans and have now reached out to ARPI's instead.

The furnace inspections will likely be pushed into the spring, since this is the busiest time of year and we have 66 units to inspect. However, if you have any immediate concerns with your furnace please let us know and we will have someone in to look at it right away.

Fall Reminders:

Fagnans has previously advised us to use the light duty furnace filters. Our older furnaces do not pack a lot of power for the thick hepa filters. So unfortunately these good quality filters only cause the blower to work harder and let less airflow through. It is recommended to change your filter every 1-3 months.

Homedepot has a 3 pack for $6 bucks, this can also come out of your unit fund:

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/hdg-16-inch-x-25-inch-x-1-inch-fibreglass-furnace-air-filter-3-pack-/1000417261?rrec=true

Also, please remember to turn off your outdoor taps. If you haven't done this before or can't remember where your shut-off is, please reach out to Buildings and we will be happy to help.

1. Remove hose and any splitter off your outdoor faucets

2. Locate water shut-off valve(s) on ground level. Often they are located near the outdoor spigot on the interior wall, or sometimes they are placed near the water main. It typically looks like this:

3. Close the water shut off valve until it cannot turn any further.

4. Go back to the faucet outside and open it to let out any remaining water. Leave it open for a minute to be sure it's empty.

5. Now that the water between the shut off valve and the faucet is drained, you can go ahead and close the faucet and you're done!

This is supposedly going to be a cold winter so please ensure this is done ASAP.

Thank you for your patience, and see you at the AGM this Saturday!

Sunnyhill and Lead Water Pipes

Submitted by Belle Auld on behalf of the Education Committee

We have had our water tested for lead and it came back negative (less than .5 micrograms/litre). This falls well below the allowable lead concentration levels set by the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality and the Health Canada limit of 5 micrograms per litre.

Based on these results, we can say that Sunnyhill probably does not have lead water pipes.

City Solutions for Sunnyhill Lane Water & Ice

Submitted by Pam Boyd

Regarding Sunnyhill Lane Stream from a neighbourhood friend:

I attended a flood-related meeting with the City and GHD Engineering last night, where they described what they are considering to be the solutions for Sunnyhill Lane water & ice.

They will be twinning the pipes on 7th Avenue, south of Sunnyhill Lane, to take away more water. They know that they need to improve the grade, from 9th Ave below the bluff, enabling the water to flow from the base of the hill to 7th Ave. They will also be looking at options of a slotted drain running down the middle of Sunnyhill Lane, that would empty into 7th Ave. Our fearless leader (Charlie Lund) also wants them to look at draining the water at the base of the hill into 9th Ave (to the west) towards 5th Street. The engineers know they have to do a few things to bring solutions to Sunnyhill Lane drainage issues.

They are only about 60% through their design right now, but we see progress and we are leading them in the right direction. It probably won't be in place for another year or 2, but work is being done!

Revisiting My 2014 Green Audit

Submitted by Bob Bott

In 2014, I was one of the last beneficiaries of Green Calgary’s “Healthy Home” inspection program that had run for about six years with support from the City. The non-profit then had to stop making individual home visits due to changes in their funding and organization. However, Green Calgary continues to provide other support for communities and households that want to become more sustainable: https://www.greencalgary.org/green-homes-communities. 

The inspection was friendly, thorough, helpful, informative--and free, although a donation was suggested. I undertook it both for my own benefit and to help inform Sunnyhill’s environmental Green Plan then being developed by our Vision 2020 Task Force (which later became the Planning and Development Committee). 

I originally wrote up the following account in November 2014 for the Sunnyhill newsletter, and I have added some updates in italics based on the subsequent six years’ experience. 

The 2014 inspection was conducted by Green Calgary advisor Jori Baum and involved two visits, June 30 (2 hours) and November 3 (1.5 hours):

While signing up, I was also asked to fill out a questionnaire to determine my “ecological footprint.” According to this tool (which they admit is far from perfect) my footprint is well below the Calgary average but only slightly below the Canadian average. That was the first surprise. I thought my recycling, composting, Spark Energy green power, car-free living, etc. would lead to a better score. Things like buying processed foods and taking airplane trips enlarge the footprint. Alberta’s dependence on fossil fuel-fired electricity (coal and natural gas) enlarges all our footprints. Spark Energy is now Alberta Co-operative Energy, and Alberta’s grid now uses much less coal-fired electricity. I no longer do as much air and bus travel. I have signed up for Communauto carsharing but have yet to use its vehicles. Bicycle, foot, and transit meet almost all by transportation needs.

Jori started out by examining my utility bills:

• Electric: She noticed a small increase in my consumption since January compared to the previous year. She suggested checking for “vampire” gadgets draining power when not in use. I borrowed a vampire power tester from the Calgary Public Library, and I found several things that could be unplugged or turned off when not in use. She said Spark Energy was good – less reliance on coal-fired power – and noted most of my bulbs are compact fluorescent. The EnergyStar fridge and stove were good, but she recommended minimizing use of the clothes dryer and air-drying as much as possible. I do some air-drying but don’t have much room for a rack. One idea might be a rack on a pulley in the high-ceiling part of the unit, but I’ll probably try one of those folding, apartment-type racks first. I probably still have too many vampire power drains, and I never followed through on air-drying; maybe this year.

• Natural gas: My gas usage was not too bad for an end unit, considering our insulation and windows, and I do a pretty good job of controlling the thermostat. At her suggestion, I’ve put that shrink-fit plastic on my windows this winter. I’ve also put insulation on the copper pipe from the water heater. In the long run, we need to improve wall and roof insulation in our buildings to become really efficient; windows will just be a start. She was surprised that my furnace, installed a few years ago, doesn’t appear to have an air filter; she recommends the pleated type of air filters. I got a furnace filter, but after a couple of years I stopped doing the plastic on the windows each winter (tsk tsk). Our proposed retrofit will deal with the bigger energy-efficiency issues.

• Water: We couldn’t judge usage because it’s not individually metered and the co-op pays for it. She checked my taps and toilet for leakage (none leaked). She replaced the “low-flow” shower head and sink aerator with more efficient units. She recommended watering yard in the evening, no more often than once a week, and no more than one inch at a time – put out something like a tuna tin to measure how much. I don’t have a dishwasher, so there were no comments about that. She tried to convince me to get a rain barrel, especially for watering the big spruce, but the downspout already empties onto treed and grassy area, so I don’t consider it a priority. No change.

We also talked about things like food, waste, chemicals, yards, etc:

• Recycling: Co-op gets good marks for using Blue Planet (one of Green Calgary’s sponsors). No change.

• Composting: Helen and I share composters. Green Calgary will provide composters if you need them. We now have composting for the whole co-op.

• Food: She tried to convince me to shop more at farmers’ markets, natural food stores, etc., and to buy less packaged, prepared, processed stuff. The Sunnyside Market and Community Natural Foods are located close to the Co-op and Safeway stores where I usually shop, and I’ve started visiting them more often. I used to do more of that stuff, like making my own granola, but it seemed a lot of hassle for just one person. She gave me an information sheet about sustainable food choices that has some good suggestions. I have continued doing part of my shopping at Sunnyside Market, and I do a lot of cooking “from scratch” especially since the Covid restrictions.

• Household chemicals: This is probably the biggest single behavioral change for me. She went through the ingredients of my laundry and dish detergents and the liquid soap I’ve been using in the bathroom, and they were all full of stuff that is either bad for the user or bad for the water treatment system and downstream water users, or both. She convinced me to throw them all out immediately and provided me with non-toxic replacement products. She said Green Calgary used to collect the bad products during their visits but had to stop because the City ruled they would be “transporting hazardous goods” and would require special licenses. I gave them to JP to take to the toxic disposal at a fire station. I’ve been buying the replacements and they work fine. I’ve continued to use less-toxic household products as much as possible and to follow guidelines for safe disposal of things like batteries and fluorescent light bulbs.

• Yard chemicals: We get good marks for our pesticide-free policy. She was skeptical about some of the new non-toxic products like iron-based weed killer, but these have been approved under Ontario’s ban and should be safe to use. No change.

• Yard maintenance: She recommends three-inch grass height and leaving clippings to improve moisture retention and eliminate disposal need. The Grounds Committee has asked Curbside to increase lawn height (still not three inches, but at least two inches). However, they have been insistent about collecting the clippings. Grounds will have to continue discussing this with Curbside. It would be okay if the clippings were composted, but this will have to await large-scale municipal composting. If we were to consider a different contractor, Green Calgary recommends Pixie Gardens http://www.pixiegardens.ca/wp/ or Eco-Yards http://www.eco-yards.com/. The Grounds Committee continues to address these issues, and the Permaculture Pilot Project illustrates how we can further improve.

The visits passed very quickly. I found the presentations effective and persuasive without being too didactic. We should consider getting Green Calgary to do a presentation for the whole co-op when the weather warms up and/or when Covid restrictions ease. Their Community Waste program might also be relevant to us: https://www.greencalgary.org/green-homes-communities/community-waste-exploration 

Permaculture Potential #2: Water Management

Submitted by Debbie Willis on behalf of the Grounds Committee

Permaculture Potential #2: Water Management

Welcome to Permaculture Potential! This is a column from the Grounds Committee; we are excited to help educate co-op members (and ourselves!) about permacultures principles and techniques, with the eventual aim of proposing more permaculture projects to membership. This week we're talking about something that has been on many of our mind's lately, as our sidewalks cover with ice and Sunnyhill Lane fills with puddles: water management.

What is water management, permaculture-style?

Permaculture always focuses on whole systems, and manages inputs and outputs in a way that ensures the health of the whole ecosystem. In permaculture, water is optimally used while respecting the overall health of the watershed. We must always be mindful that water is an essential resource.

At Sunnyhill, we have issues with water on pathways and flooding in the common area and so we on the Grounds and Planning and Development committees feel that it is worthwhile to explore the possibility of managing and using this plentiful resource—wonderful water—in ways that could be productive and beautiful for every member of the co-op. These are all dreams for now; I want to stress that we don't yet have concrete plans or detailed knowledge of what might be possible at the co-op. But in the name of education, I want to give you a general sense of how permaculture approaches an abundance of water like we are fortunate to have at Sunnyhill.

Two approaches:

There are two basic strategies of water conservation and management on a permaculture property: storing water in the soil and diverting surface water to dams, ponds and/or tanks for later use.

First we want to slow, spread, and sink water as it falls from the sky into the soil.

Following this, the secondary goal, as Ben Falk writes in Resilient Farm Homestead, are to:  capture as much water as is reasonably possible, store that water for dry periods, and distribute that water when necessary across the site. 

1) Let's talk about the first objective: slowing and sinking water. We want to disperse the flow of water so it can infiltrate into soil, turning runoff into soak-in. Essentially, we want to make the water stroll, not run, through the landscape and for this we must shape the land in a way that facilitates getting water into the ground and storing it there. In permaculture, one harvests water in this way by directing it through terraces, seasonal rain gardens and ponds, water-infiltration swales, slow moving waterways, and dry creeks. Slowing and sinking the water allows it to feed trees and plants, produce food, and create lush, self-sustaining landscapes appropriate for leisure—children playing, adults sitting under the shade of trees, green-thumbs who want more space to garden.

See below for an image of swales:

(You can also see wonderful examples of swales in the film The Biggest Little Farm, where they make use of the technique in their orchard.)

2) Once you’ve made the best use of the fallen rainfall and stored that water in the soil, you’ll get runoff as the field capacity of soil is reached. (You might get this runoff straight away if your site’s watershed is in a bad shape.) At that point, you begin diverting and storing that water on the surface in ponds, rain barrels, and tanks. Please see below for an image of a permaculture pond:

Right now, many feel that we have a water "problem" at Sunnyhill. By using permaculture principles and design, we may be able to change that problem into an opportunity. This is something that the Grounds Committee and Planning and Development will be exploring to improve our sustainability score for funding as plans for the new-build unfold, with the aim of presenting a cogent and realistic plan to members.

Hail Hydrant! But hang on to the water for a bit.

Submitted by Richard Harrison

Hi everyone,

The water is back in the pipes. Excellent. The work on the hydrant is done. However, I've been talking with the same worker today who gave us the heads up about the previous delay, and he points out that, given the problems with the spring in the hill, and the need for the water table to reestablish itself after the hole around the work is filled in, etc, there is still a chance that some mishap or leak might appear in the system.

So his advice is for everyone to keep the water that you have on hand for another day just in case there's another stoppage.

It's been great to see the communication coming through on other platforms, and some of that is in more detail than I need to share right now, but there are going to be some things that we as Co-op alone, and along with our neighbors, will want to be doing to see if we can help mitigate if not solve the water issues around Sunnyill Lane in particular at this point, and McHugh Bluff in general in the long term.

Thanks.

All the best,

Richard.

Before the Light Fades and More Snow Falls ...

Submitted by Richard Harrison

Hi everyone,

I've just heard from the crew working on the hydrant that it's possible they won't finish until tomorrow, and until the work can be completed, they can't turn the water back on, so we're probably looking at another night without running water.

I hope you're all well. See you by the water wagons.

All the best,

Richard.