Sustainable real estate

Cash in, turn out, drop off.....Over the next four years, Ron Taylor plans to drop off the grid.

The oil-fired furnace is already gone, replaced by electric heat, and Mr. Taylor is collecting rainwater at the century-old, five-bedroom farmhouse he bought last year near Mushaboom, N.S., a seaside town immortalized by singer Feist.

The next step is to put on a new roof with solar panels, then throw up a windmill on the two-acre property.

It sounds like a tree-hugging, back-to-nature renovation. Except Mr. Taylor is no hippie. He's a Toronto-based veteran real-estate developer with a high-end firm called Arcturus Realty. He has worked on monster projects such as London's Canary Wharf and the redevelopment of Halifax's harbourfront. And he is dropping big money to drop off the grid in Mushaboom. The project is budgeted at upward of $40,000.

"My goal is to work on sustainable real estate, projects that work on the environmental, social and financial level. With that professional goal, I felt I also had to do something first-hand," said Mr. Taylor, who will use the Nova Scotia farmhouse as a second home to play host to an extended family that includes grandkids.

Going green in a reno ain't cheap, but it is becoming chic.

The New York Times Style magazine noted recently that designer Calvin Klein redid his Miami apartment with reclaimed wood; Bill Gates did the same a few years back at his $100-million (U.S.) cedar-clad Seattle mansion. And Robb Report, a bible for the free- spending set, devoted an entire magazine to the concept of "Living Green: Homes that Tread Lightly on the Land."

Proving that you can live year-round in Levi's jeans, one California home builder is offering to replace old insulation with a layer of recycled denim.

Even the process of renovating is being revisited, with tear-downs sometimes donated to Habitat for Humanity, rather than being chucked in a landfill.

Monster home theatres and 5,000-bottle wine cellars still top wish lists when high-end homes are gutted. But developers report a growing interest in improvements that cut a home's environmental impact.

"Two elements at play here: Homeowners are doing this because they want to save the environment, and they are doing it because they want to raise the value of their home," said Elden Freeman, Toronto-based executive director of the National Association of Green Agents and Brokers. He added that real-estate agents are beginning to promote simple green renos - upgraded water heaters, triple-pane windows and energy-efficient appliances - as selling points on homes.

Peer pressure helped motivate Mr. Taylor's green revolution. Before he started fixing up his Nova Scotia property, he watched his brother slash his carbon footprint and heating bills by installing a wood stove and heat pumps.

"The first question on these improvement is always how much more will this cost," says Mr. Freeman. "The answer is always a lesson in environmental economics. Solar panels may be expensive up front, but can pay for themselves in 10 or 15 years."

Geothermal power - cooling and heating that comes out of the earth - is the big-ticket item for anyone hoping to get the David Suzuki seal of approval on their mansion. With the price tag in the $40,000 (Canadian) range, such systems are still rare in residential renovations, but they're coming up more frequently in conversations as the technology becomes better known, Mr. Freeman says. Solar power is not far behind on the cost front - expect a bill of $30,000 if it is added to an average-sized Canadian home.

Its not just homes that are being made over. Low-impact gardens are increasingly common. Backyard swimming pools are seeing their footprint eliminated, with chlorine replaced by ozone and saltwater purification systems.

High-flying real-estate developers, in particular, seem to be early converts. Developer Joe Van Belleghem began tracking the carbon footprint at his own Victoria home by replacing the traditional thermostat with a system that captures all energy use. Once he was certain the $3,000 upgrade worked - it comes from a company called Reliable Controls that also greened Research in Motion's head office - Mr. Van Belleghem wired the units into harbour-side Victoria condos that sell for up to $1.3-million.

"The challenge is doing renovations that are cost-effective, yet environmentally sound," Mr. Taylor admits. His view is that as the cost of going green falls and awareness rises, there will be an increasing number of homes falling off the grid in Mushaboom and every other Canadian community.

(prepared by Andrew Willis/Globe & Mail)