Day 26: The Three R's

We celebrated our first trip to the dump this weekend: 667 kg of carpet and vinyl tile and masonite (from upstairs) and ceiling "tile" and wood paneling and homasote (from the basement). It cost $48 to toss such a heavy load, which further encouraged our attempts to salvage and recycle or reuse as much as possible. Can you imagine how much waste could be diverted from the landfill if people had to pay for every kg of garbage thrown out? I know we pay for this through taxes but it's hard to make that connection unless you see the garbage on a scale and have to pull out your wallet for that load. Picture it: no more garbage cans filled with recyclable bottles and compostable food waste. We can only dream.

The weekend also involved the reuse of someone else's demolition remnants. As described on the house tour, one of the changes we're probably going to make is converting the balcony door in the upstairs bathroom to a window. One of the challenges with this will be to match the existing brick with its "raked" look and distinct edges.

"I dare you to find something that can replace my not quite red but not quite orange-y tones."

While browsing around on Kijiji, I stumbled on an ad for "red rug bricks" from a family doing some renovations of their own. While not identical, they are a pretty close match and even have that "lip" on the edges so we decided to take them and gave our little Elantra a nice workout.

Thank goodness for hatchbacks!

How fantastic to stumble on something that may have been a challenge to hunt down, save some money, and reuse a perfectly good item that may have otherwise been tossed or wasted!

Continuing on this three R's theme: we got our ecoENERGY evaluation back last week. No surprises here: they suggested we insulate the basement and attic and focus on air sealing. We've always planned to insulate the basement but, with the potential for double rebates, it makes sense to try to do this before March and get some of our money back. To do this, we'll need to finish gutting the basement and frame the walls before bringing in the contractors to do their closed cell 2 lb spray foam magic. For the rim joists/headers, we've decided to pull out the plaster and bricks and fill them with spray foam for both insulation and draft proofing. The attic is something that we were considering insulating but weren't set on. It would certainly help reduce energy use and is also eligible for the double dipping. Since it's already pretty small and we want to maximize useable storage space, it looks like the optimal route would be to spray foam the sloped ceiling and end walls instead of blowing cellulose into/onto the floor and building a platform. Decisions, decisions.

Finally, we've made our biggest purchase yet: a high efficiency laundry pair. The pair that came with the house was bought in the 70s (as were all the other appliances) and have been sitting unused for months. We did some looking around and found a pair we liked at an appliance store that was pretty heavily discounted because it was a floor model. We talked the salesperson into matching a deal we could get at Future Shop for a similar, slightly inferior pair ($100 less and no taxes). A brand new pair would have cost $2200 + tax and the floor model was listed at $1300 + tax. We picked it up for $1200, taxes in. This washer has just about the lowest EnerGuide rating (104 kWh/year) of all the pairs we looked at and both it and the dryer are Energy Star certified. Pretty sweet!