Now this home is the epitome of creativity

7 years ago

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/home-built-using-more-than-600k-recycled-plastic-bottles-hits-n-s-housing-market-1.4483733

A home built using more than 600,000 recycled plastic bottles is on the market in Nova Scotia.

Business partners Joel German and David Saulnier, of JD Composites, unveiled their project in Meteghan River earlier this week, and the home is believed to be the first of its kind.

“We decided to give it a go with 100 per cent recycled products from Armacell, a foam producer out of Brampton, Ont.,” Saulnier explained to CTV News Channel on Wednesday. “We used their raw product and we designed our [panels] and we were able to pull off a 2000-square-foot beach house made completely of recycled PET(polyethylene terephthalate) plastic.”

Saulnier said his crew started to design the home in May 2018 and took about three weeks to laminate the 172 panels the house is constructed from. At the end of September, the team erected the walls of the home in a single day and spent the winter finishing the interior.

“It’s a pretty fast build once all the panels are done,” Saulnier explained. “It comes together rather quickly.”

The designer explained the plastic panelling was tested to stand up to extreme weather and also to withstand “326 mile per hour winds… twice a Category 5 hurricane.”

The builder said the panels also act as the insulation for the house, which can maintain the home’s temperature very efficiently.

“There’s nothing to transmit the cold air from the outside to the inside of the home,” Saulnier said. “We have a unique way of preventing any cold from coming through the butt joints in our panels. We devised a pretty slick method of stopping the cold in its tracks.”

Saulnier estimates the energy efficiency of the house will save the homeowner up to $80,000 over 25 years.

As for the asking price? Saulnier said he’s still “kicking around the numbers.”

“Our price points are very competitive of what’s conventional out there right now,” the builder said. “I think the advantage is not only from the green aspect, saving the environment of course… I think the price points are going to be very close to conventional construction. However, in a 25-year mortgage, I’m estimating, with conventional energy costs, you can save between $50 to $80,000 in 25 years.”

For now, Saulnier plans to list the home on Airbnb.

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Mark Bischak, Architect

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

I designed a house once that was built with 600,000 beer bottles. What amazed me was that with all that consumption the carpenters never cut off any appendages and all the joints were tight.

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Comments (10)

worthy
7 years ago
I'd like to see the flame spread rating. Re-cycled plastic interior panels I've looked at, such as EchoPanel, have the highest flame spread rating.
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Virgil Carter Fine Art
7 years ago
I wonder what sort of off gassing the panels may have and for how long...?
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Mark Bischak, Architect
7 years ago
"However, in a 25-year mortgage, I’m estimating, with conventional energy costs, you can save between $50 to $80,000 in 25 years.”

I hope for their sake it is closer to the $80,000 savings rather than the $50 savings.
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User
7 years ago
Recycled plastic? Love it. Very innovative thinking.
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robin0919
7 years ago
I love it. My wife and I have been recycling for many many years. I just wish the US could get right. From what I've read, China bought 'most' of the US plastics but stopped at the end of last year because there was so much 'junk' in it and it cost too much to separate.
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remodeling1840
7 years ago
There are energy costs involved with recycling and no one discusses that issue. There is mileage for the recycling trucks, mileage to deliver the material to a recycling plant, energy to fabricate the new material. Is it really better for the environment? Before anyone jumps on me, I do recycle although I must drive to the pickup point, not having curbside pickup. Most of my furniture is recycled, being antique.
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Mrs Pete
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
I'd like to see the flame spread rating. Re-cycled plastic interior panels I've looked at, such as EchoPanel, have the highest flame spread rating.

Worse than mobile homes?

However, in a 25-year mortgage, I’m estimating, with conventional energy costs, you can save between $50 to $80,000 in 25 years.”

Poorly written article -- just sloppy. For example, do they really mean the lower end is $50? Or did they mean $50,000?

I wonder what sort of off gassing the panels may have and for how long...

Expanding upon that thought, we drink from those bottles. If this off-gassing thing is all that bad, should we be doing that?

There are energy costs involved with recycling and no one discusses that issue. There is mileage for the recycling trucks, mileage to deliver the material to a recycling plant, energy to fabricate the new material. Is it really better for the environment? Before anyone jumps on me, I do recycle although I must drive to the pickup point, not having curbside pickup. Most of my furniture is recycled, being antique.

I share your concerns. The right order is Reduce - Reuse - Recycle. We should use less and re-use as much as possible and eschew single-use plastics as much as possible. I'm pretty sure most people -- if they think about it at all -- imagine that your Coke bottle goes to the recycling plant, where it is sanitized and returned to the Coke plant, where it's refilled. The reality is far more messy and labor intensive. Recycling helps with the landfill problem, but landfills aren't our only problem.
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PRO
Simpals
8 days ago
reccling plastic is our future i'm a big fan of office chair clearance london hence i love your post and i love anything if it comes about recycling
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worthy
8 days ago
last modified: 8 days ago
Well, they're still around. And we can only hope that outgassing is limited to the recycling workshops. (Of course, I used plastic piping for water in our latest build. The alternative was an all-night guard service to prevent copper theft.)
Love stone homes thanked worthy