The project is stated as being GREEN, question: how green is demolishing a home to build another home? Wouldn't it be more green to use the existing home and add or subtract from that? Or to do what they do in japan and take apart the previous home in small parts and recycle/ reuse the components? Sure the new home might have a GREEN/LEED quality to it, but the energy that was used to build the old home is now and null and void and all the destroyed parts to it will end up, where?

I am gap-jawed.

Wasn't there a fixer-upper or an empty lot in the area? That's an ENTIRE HOUSE you're throwing away.

Who does this and calls it green?

I fail to see why this can be called 'green' I think a better phrase would be 'really don't want to pay massive energy bills so I'll just go fill a landfill site with my old house instead, then erect some concrete monstrosity with all the latest hi tech evil plastic products in an effort to reduce our energy bills and thus saving the world'

Am I missing something?

Thanks for the comments and critiques - I definitely appreciate the dialog as I think it keeps us honest. Without a doubt, our "greenness" has been a topic of debate since the beginning, and the demolition itself is usually the largest critique.

Our initial goal was to move into a larger home, however that proved to be unsuccessful. Toronto is filled with great homes, but anything we liked was either out of our price range or out of the city… and neither of us wanted to commute. And let me say this - Toronto DOES NOT have empty lots laying around. They just don't exist.

We then decided to simply “top up”, which is to say add another story to the home. This is pretty common in our area, however it became problematic mainly because of issues with our foundation, the size of our lot, and the proximity to our neighbors. It was around this time that we decided to completely tear down the home and build entirely new.

Keep in mind, our initial goal was not to build the a greener home, but rather a larger home. I would assume this is probably pretty common for renovators, however we came to realize along the way that we should build ’smarter’. My wife and I hadn’t a clue what would be involved with so-called green construction, but we were determined to figure it out.

Of course keeping the original structure would have been the greenest of options, however I don’t think people truly realize what’s involved with that. I’m not suggesting it was cheaper to do the full demolition, but when we ran the numbers it became quite clear that building on top of the existing foundation was not the way to go… mainly because of the work that would have been required to extend it, underpin, restructure, insulate and so on. At this point, it just made more sense to completely demolish and start over.

We recycled or gave away as much of the previous structure as possible before the demolition. Our hardwood floors, windows, and doors were given away and reused, and the demolition crew recycled as much as they could as well (metal was recycled, stone was separated for crushing, soil will be reused elsewhere… and the rest, unfortunately, will end up in the trash. We looked into a true recycling program for the demolition, but it was incredibly cost prohibitive and time consuming. Heck, we even called Habitat for Humanity, but they weren’t interested in what we had.

Regardless, a project such as this is all about managing tradeoffs. Toronto doesn't have any 'new' green buildings... anything claiming to be green would have been built after some sort of demolition, or a significant renovation. Other than that, we would have had to move out of the city, which would have resulted in us commuting.

Oh, and it's a complete stretch to call this a 'concrete monstrosity' - only the foundation is concrete, and it's actually less concrete than most foundations (because it's a 6" ICF block). The rest of the house will be stick framed.

It is interesting to read the dialogue here, and while i can see the immense amount of waste created from tearing down a house, it is also evident that there is a lack of infrastructure available (in this case in toronto) to assist homeowners in "green" demolition of buildings. It will be interesting to see how this project turns out. Good luck!

It's great to check back and see that many of my questions were answered by Jeremy, and it's great to read that he had every intention and really thought out the issue of making a GREEN statement. Here in Grand Rapids, they go nuts with the GREEN LEED building plug, every new building is said to be GREEN and LEED certified to it's own precious metal. And it's crazy to see the new projects try and market themselves as firsts, we have the first gold certified art museum... and the first yadda yadda.. but it's grand rapids... 2nd largest city in michigan big woopie... they are working on a building now in downtown and they have this " first multi-use LEED certified building"? Multi use...cmon it's been done .. who are they trying to impress. Alas I have strayed from the subject matter.. whats great is that Jeremy says they have recycled or passed on much of the usable parts of the old home and what was left.. which still might be a quite an amount that went to the dump. But cost always is absolute in this type of budget project, glad you could make it work. It's great to follow the diary images.