Housing – Transition Cornwall +

10 overlooked low-tech ways of keeping your home cool

August 1, 2018 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

Summer is here and the air is full of the the sound of whining air conditioners, all seriously sucking kilowatts. Yet much of that air conditioning load could be reduced or the air conditioning season shortened if we did simple things, many of them common before air conditioning was common in North America. Here are some low-tech tips for keeping cool. The best ideas are those that keep the heat out of your home in the first place, rather than…

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10-Minute Neighborhoods: The Low-Tech Solution to Almost* Everything

June 11, 2018 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

Health. Energy. Climate. Crime. Education. Happiness. Water. Housing. What if it were possible to make headway on all these issues with simple changes to our neighborhoods? What if we could cut our medical costs in half? What if we could give the average American an added five years of healthy life? What if we could cut our energy use, our water use, and our greenhouse gas emissions by more than half while improving our happiness and prosperity? What if we…

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Why every house should be designed for multigenerational living

May 2, 2018 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

In many cultures, multi-generational households are pretty standard; your parents took care of you, and now you take care of them. In China, almost every apartment sold has three bedrooms: one for the parents, one for the kid, and one for grandma. But in the United States, Canada and many European countries, the natural progression has been to get a job or get married and move out to set up your own household. And from the end of World War…

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Top 10 Energy Efficiency Tips for the Home

March 14, 2018 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

In this story, we look at both of the modest and extensive ways you can improve your home’s efficiency—small and big steps that can add up to big savings, and a significantly reduced carbon footprint. To assemble our list of top ten actions you can take, we accompanied EnerGuide for homes auditor Jeff Paton as he conducted an EnerGuide assessment of Brian and Laura Finley’s 1956 home in Edmonton, Alberta. Then we pushed beyond the EnerGuide assessment and put together…

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Our Top 10 Most Read Posts of 2017

December 27, 2017 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

These are among the pieces that appealed the most to Transition Cornwall+ readers in 2017. Maybe you missed a few, or worth another read as we head into a new year? #10: The Monster Footprint of Digital Technology The power consumption of our high-tech machines and devices is hugely underestimated. #9: Truly Sustainable Economic Development For those of us thinking about ways to foster local, sustainable, green businesses, here are some wise words. #8: What Kind of Housing Do Aging Boomers Need?…the…

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TLTI thinking tiny (homes)

October 18, 2017 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

When it comes to new housing, the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands is thinking small. Tiny, in fact. Council members decided this week to embrace the tiny-house movement that has become the darling of environmental trend-setters in the United States and Europe. They asked planning director Elaine Mallory to prepare a zoning bylaw amendment that would remove the minimum size requirements for new houses, and include tiny houses in the township’s definition of permissible dwellings. The township’s building…

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How Shared Housing Can Help Counter Social Isolation Among Seniors

July 24, 2017 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

The term “elder orphan” describes a senior citizen who doesn’t have children, a spouse, or family nearby to help them out. Elder orphans are often socially isolated and at-risk of not having their basic needs met. As the Baby Boomer generation grows older, housing alternatives, such as senior villages, senior cohousing networks, and shared housing units, are emerging as community-focused solutions to the problem of isolation. While shared housing may be thought of a something young people do, it offers seniors social connection, an informal support system,…

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What kind of housing do aging boomers need?

January 11, 2017 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

I believe the obsession with wide doors with lever handles and corridors connecting the garage to the house is misplaced. If you look at data from the study Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population: Older Households 2015-2035, household activities (the blue line) includes driving, food shopping, taking medication and meal prep — and they are the first to go, hitting 65 percent of the over-80 crowd, twice the rate of the mobility issues like walking and getting out…

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Why Electrification Matters Now

November 21, 2016 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

Today, we’re seeing a combination of government action and market forces that could help push clean energy out of the background and onto centre stage. This blog digs into some of those trends. The basic recipe goes like this: cut energy waste as much as possible, and clean up your electricity supply so that it’s as low carbon as possible. Then use that clean electricity as your source of energy for activities that we largely power with fossil fuels today….

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Top 10 Green Home Improvement Upgrades & Their Costs

May 30, 2016 TCWordpress Comments 0 comment

In today’s fractured world it is nigh impossible to find one thing on which everyone agrees, but eco-friendly choices are one of them. Green is good. Good for the planet. Good for our health. Good for the future. Green remodeling means energy efficiency, resource conservation, and a healthy indoor environment. But some eco-friendly remodeling choices make more sense than others. Cost is always an understandable concern. Many green choices will eventually pay for themselves many times over in long-term cost…

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