The Daley family approached 5th World shortly after the 2013 Alberta Floods to help them design a self-sufficient, regenerative homestead that would be resilient to natural disasters and grid outages.
“I was well-versed with who Rob [Avis, Chief Engineering Officer, 5th World] was. He was definitely out there—like on YouTube with DIY tutorials” said Sheri Daley. “ So, basically, we bought the land, and then Rob was the first call. We said we want to build an off-grid property, we have no idea what we’re doing, and you need to help us with all the things.”
The Daley property is over five acres in size and is located 30 minutes south of Calgary. Several issues were to be addressed using regenerative food, water, and energy solutions:
- The property has little protection from the western and northwestern winds, making food production difficult
- The well onsite produced water that was unusable for drinking or irrigation, making water access challenging
- The property has a significant mole issue making septic system design difficult
- The land has a slight slope to the southeast, with significant catchment. Every spring, a significant flow of water moves through the property—which is both a threat and an opportunity
“ [The process] was really thorough and Rob made sure our concerns were addressed all the time,” said Scott Daley. “He gave us quite a number of different package options for how far the design was going to go and was very clear about designing the whole system around our priorities. It was a very, very custom job.”
Rob designed the water catchment and filtration, as well as the integrated solar thermal and propane boiler floor, and water heating system for the Daley family’s 1800 square-foot passive house. With both form and function in mind, the house consists of beautiful, fully certified wood—cross laminated timbre—and wood fibre board with a slab-on-grade foundation.
The house features significantly lower heat loss than average because it was designed with high thermal efficiency. And, a solar microgrid was implemented on the Daley property, allowing the seamless integration of solar photovoltaic generation and a back-up generator. As a master electrician, Scott did all of the work setting up the system for his family. With unparalleled energy efficiency and solar providing the majority of the power for the site, the Daleys have saved significantly on energy bills.
The Daley home is heated via multiple sources such as interior heat (e.g., lights, appliances, and humans) and windows (passive-certified windows). A solar thermal collector (placed on the roof) and a geothermal ground loop (placed under the driveway) have dual functions of domestic hot water, as well as additional space heating.
Rainwater harvesting was also installed, enabling the home to collect 80% of its own water. Rainwater for drinking is filtered through a sophisticated three-stage water filtration system, producing the cleanest water on Earth while saving on utility bills. And, a food forest and garden provide fruit and vegetables to the family, reducing grocery costs.
More recently, a pond was installed to capture the excess meltwater in the spring. It will also be used for aquaculture, swimming, irrigation, fire suppression, and aesthetics.
“Scott’s been running a business since 2010 and working from home just makes sense. When we were building the house, there was a time when he had an office in the city and he would commute, work in town, and be using utilities on the grid,” said Sheri. “As soon as the house was done, we built him an office. It’s just, why would you go and use utilities somewhere else when the sun’s shining all day here? Not only is our life and house off-grid, but the business is off-grid, so that’s saving us three to four thousand dollars a month.”
Scott added:
“[Our favorite aspect of this lifestyle is] just being self-sufficient—not having to rely on anybody. We don’t know if the power goes out around us until we notice it’s pitch black and all the neighbors have their lights out.”
The Daleys have more ambitions for their property and will continue to work with 5th World: They would like to build a passive solar greenhouse as well as a root cellar to provide year-round food production and storage.
