- • Heritage Pays
- • Heritage Tourism
- • Heritage Conservation Saves Energy
- • Introduction
- • Recycle That House
- • Go Green
- • Heritage Conservation and Sustainable Community Development
- • Urban Ecology and Heritage Preservation
- • Heritage Workforce
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Older builidngs contain large amounts of embodied energy and require fewer resources to upgrade and restore than would demolition and redevelopment, or greenfield construction.
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Recycle That House!
Demolishing older buildings is wasteful – all the
material ends up as more landfill. The debris makes up
about 20% of the total waste Canadians produce! Reusing
older buildings saves the destruction of trees, saves
the energy used to transport them to mills and create
new construction materials, and saves more green space
from development.
Federal tax policies encourage demolition!
Owners of income-producing properties (including houses
and apartment buildings) can earn a tax deduction by demolishing
them. We need just the opposite: policies to encourage
repair and reuse of our older housing stock. |
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What Can You Do?
- • Ask your municipal government about its by-laws and policies
on demolition. Will your local government issue developers
a permit to demolish an older building “on spec”?
If so, ask your local council to revise its policies.
- • Ask your federal MP to raise the matter of “terminal
loss” in the Income Tax Act with the Minister of
Finance. Currently, the terminal loss provision goes against
responsible stewardship of both natural and built heritage
assets.
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Older Home Versus New Construction
We want – and need – energy-efficient homes.
But a new home isn’t necessarily more energy efficient
than an older one, at least not for 30 years! Yes, it
takes that long before energy savings will be realized
by building a new structure rather than rehabilitating
an old one. It is usually less costly, too!
A team of scientists headed by William Whiddon in the
U.S. has shown that “embodied energy” in heritage
buildings is like money in the bank. They calculated that
the shell of a two-storey, three-unit, brick apartment
building has embodied energy equivalent to 32,000 litres
of gasoline! That’s the non-renewable energy it
would take to replace the bricks.
BE AN ADVOCATE FOR HERITAGE CONSERVATION! |
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Resources:
- • Waterfront Regeneration Trust. The Waterfront Trail. Toronto,
1995. ISBN: 0-7778-4082-0.
- • John Marsh and Janet Fialkowski, eds. Linking Cultural and Natural
Heritage, Peterborough: Trent University, 1995. ISBN: 0-9693790-4-8.
Other Useful Links:
Want More Details?
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