Success Story - At Home
Environmental Stewards at Home, Work & Play It’s Easy Being Green, according to the Nelsons
Brian and Colleen Nelson look for ways to live lightly on the land. They recycle and compost. They grow their own vegetables. They live simply. Being green is a principle that is close to their hearts.
The Nelsons live on 240 acres, just east of Camrose. “Building our house was our first recycling project,” recalls Brian. “We live in a small house. When we first got started, we went out to Armena and Bawlf when they were tearing down the old grain elevators. We salvaged the lumber for our home from those elevators, instead of grinding up millions of board feet of fir to be trashed. We salvaged appliances, toilets, and bathtubs out of houses in Camrose that were being torn down. We got our bathroom cast iron tub that way. Twenty-five years ago, that’s what you did in the way of recycling. Now it’s easier to find reclaimed materials. You just go to the ReStore”.
“Once we built our house, we eventually got enough lumber to build a house around the house,” says Brian. “We super insulated the house with 12” walls and a new roof. That made the house more energy efficient. We also installed a super efficient furnace and added extra insulation. When we bought the furnace, people thought we were crazy, and said it would never pay itself off. Two years later, energy prices spiked. The system paid for itself in four and a half years. We’ve saved $45,000 in energy bills since.”
The Nelsons are members of the Solar Energy Society and they passively solar heat their house. “The house only loses a couple of degrees of heat a day in the middle of winter,” says Brian. “In the summer, we keep the blinds closed and open up the house later to keep it cool,” adds Brian’s wife, Colleen. “We have an airlock entry, which helps with energy efficiency. In winter, if it’s sunny outside, the house is actually hot. The furnace hardly ever comes on.”
“We try to live our lives with intention,” says Brian. “And we’ve found, you can get rich living an environmentally conscious lifestyle. That’s not why we started but it’s been a great by-product.”
“All along the way, people have been saying that we are crazy,” says Brian. “But we find it is an efficient way to live. We are not wasting money on things we don’t need. With the money we’ve saved, we were able to take time off from work to raise the kids. We take great vacations. We have no debt. We are financed by an environmentally friendly lifestyle.”
“We don’t spend beyond our means,” says Brian. “If it’s broke, we fix it. But we don’t go without. We have a big screen TV and all the comforts of a modern home.”
Three years ago, the Nelsons started introducing a new environmental idea every month. “We realized that most of the world lives on so much less than we do,” says Colleen. “So, we do look at what we can do to minimize our environmental footprint. We carpool one day a week. We plan our trips into town, to tie in shopping with extra errands”.
“We also drive an energy efficient car that’s easy on both gas and carbon emissions,” notes Brian. “We plant trees as a carbon offset.”
“It is really fun choosing one thing a month that we can do better,” says Colleen. “We negotiate. It’s important to negotiate around the house.”
“We strictly sort our paper, glass, plastic, and cardboard,” says Brian. “We look at our recycling practices in terms of ‘good, better, best’. Any change towards green is good (recycling pop cans for example). Better would be also recycling cardboard and paper. Best would be not buying them in the first place.”
“We do what we can,” adds Colleen. “We look at our practices to see what we can do better. We bring cloth bags to the grocery store. We stopped buying paper towels and rip up old towels and t-shirts to use as rags instead. We use cloth napkins. We use greener cleaner products around the house.”
“We compost a lot,” says Brian. “We put branches and straw bales, even tree chips from when the Battle River REA was clearing power lines into a big trench. We layer it with compost and leaves. Then we water it and put the soil back on top. With some peat moss and heat, we get a quick germination. The compost makes great soil. We have seen an amazing difference in our garden. We started with hard claylike soil but the compost loosens the soil and then the worms get started. It really helps the soil.”
“We have a big garden of our own,” notes Colleen, “and a cold storage for our carrots, beets, tomatoes, garlic, and new potatoes. We eat out of our garden. We grow our own apples and berries.”
The Nelsons believe in living simply. Both of their parents grew up during the Depression. “My mom and I are sewers,” says Colleen. “And both of our grandmothers were quilters. We grew our own food. We knew what to do with leftovers. For our parents, it was about survival”.
“My folks didn’t choose their lifestyle,” notes Brian. “We, on the other hand, are fortunate to be able to choose the good part of frugal living. Our kids chose the good parts too. They bring new knowledge back to us.”
How did the Nelsons get started? “I was doing my masters thesis in family studies on living alternative lifestyles, says Brian. “That opened my eyes to a whole different way of living”.
“Our son and daughter really pushed us to do more,” notes Colleen. “They pushed us to recycle more and to do more composting. We started to see things with new eyes. They saw what was possible in terms of recycling and saw that we could be doing more”.
What else do the Nelsons do to watch their waste?
“Being aware of electricity use, we try to always turn out the lights when we’re not in the room,” says Brian. “We put power bars on everything including our TV, stereo, computers, and entertainment unit. We measured our electricity use and found that appliances use 30 per cent electricity even when they’re turned off.”
A few years ago the Nelsons also changed their electric hot water tank to a natural gas tank with no pilot light. “We put a timer on it and we have a blanket around it. Our pipes have insulation around them too.”
“We have a carbon calculator,” says Brian. “We make sure any carbon credit organizations we support are accredited. We cold water wash our laundry and hang our clothes up to dry.”
“At work, I turn the lights off when I leave a room,” says Colleen. “On our summer camping vacation, we took our solar pac instead of a gas generator with us. We used it for lights at night and any other little electrical appliance we had along.”
“We also support businesses in Camrose that allow us to give things away for reuse,” says Colleen, “like the Emergency Shelter, the ReStore and the Thrift Shop”.
“We belong to the Co-op,” says Brian. “They buy food locally when possible, such as beef. And we participate in the Good Food Box Program, which allows local families to bulk purchase items once a month. And we buy local dairy and eggs.”
“We’re also members of the United Church in Camrose,” says Brian. “We did a green walk audit and asked what could we do good, better, best around our church. Our Properties Committee has done a lot of things to make our Church greener and more energy efficient. They have done things like renovating the church bathroom with light sensors and fluorescent lighting. We also bought energy efficient appliances and have upgraded our windows and insulation whenever a part of the church is being renovated.”
“Last year, the church also organized a ‘greener’ Christmas,” notes Colleen. “It was really fun. At home, Brian and I gave solar Christmas lights to each other for Christmas. We bought a watt-miser that measures our electricity use. Compared to our old Christmas lights, the new lights are 10 times more energy efficient. We gave away our old Christmas lights and ornaments to a family who didn’t have any Christmas decorations. We didn’t buy tags, bags or wrapping paper. We wrapped our presents in fabric. We had the best Christmas.”
What tips do the Nelsons have for people interested in reducing their footprint?
“Just start small,” says Colleen. “Ask ‘what can I do?’ Bring cloth bags to the grocery store. Ask ‘could I carpool with someone else?’ Could I borrow or rent instead of buying? Could I make it myself? Be happy with those small steps, and then consider what could I do next? Every small step makes a difference.”
Used with permission from Maureen Lynch and Vickie Cole, City of Camrose, Alberta. September, 2010
