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How an Edmonton couple refitted their home to be net zero

The converted 1950's box bungalow now generates as much energy as it uses

From the outside, Jesse Tufts’s Edmonton home looks like a modernist paradise, with ample windows a glass verandah and charcoal and pine siding. But it’s not like every house on the block: the 900-square foot house, located in Edmonton’s Glenora neighbourhood, is net-zero energy, which means it consumes as much energy as it produces.

Tufts, a mechanical engineer, and his wife, Jena, a development engineering manager, purchased the two-bedroom, 1950s box bungalow in 2011 for $400,000. They liked the location—within biking distance to downtown Edmonton—and the big backyard. But after their first winter, they realized that the home’s post-war construction couldn’t keep the cold out; in Edmonton, temperatures regularly dip below -20 degrees Celsius. Blankets would freeze on the bed if they were pushed too close to a wall. Frost formed on the ceilings, and condensation froze into ice on the windows. Any time they stood next to a wall or a closed window, they could feel the draft. The couple replaced the windows, sealed baseboards with spray foam and added insulation to the basement’s bare concrete walls, but the house was still too cold whenever temperatures plummeted

By 2016, the house needed more upgrades. The asphalt shingles on the roof had begun to peel, and things were getting cramped: Tufts’s sons, aged nine and four, were sharing a room. The couple planned to replace the original roof and add dormers—small rooms that jut out from the roof— to squeeze some extra square footage into the house. But when Tufts asked a carpenter friend for his opinion on the renovation, he was told that he might as well rip off the roof entirely and build a new second storey...

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