Fort St. John, British Columbia

Fort St. John, British Columbia money from natural gas and oil – that’s our livelihood. But we understand the cost to the environment.We like to say that one of the greatest forms of energy is conservation.” Thus, over the past several years, the City of Fort St. John has made it a priority to conserve water and energy, and ultimately reduce both costs and greenhouse gas emissions from its corporate oper- ations and at the community level. The City has also worked to become an environmental leader in the Peace River region through the use of perva- sive sustainable and environmental best practices. With that fealty to conservation in mind, a few years ago, the City em- barked on a unique, energy-saving project when it decided to build Can- ada’s third, certified, single family ‘Passive House.’ “It’s a building that is 90 percent energy efficient,” Rogers explains. “In the way that it is constructed, with proper insulation and very few air leaks and proper air circulation with- in it, it needs very little energy to run. So the house does not have a gas line to it; it only has electricity; it does have some solar panels; and, in a northern community in the winter,where we can have a couple of weeks in a row of minus 30 or minus 40 degree temperatures, that house uses less than $47worth of electricity, everymonth, over the course of the year. So, for us to spend so little on that house in terms of its operations and utilities is phenomenal.” The Fort St. John Passive House is a 1900 square-foot, two-story home, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office, and a living area. It is the northernmost passive house in North America. “Everybody said it couldn’t be done because it’s too cold here; a passive house won’t work. But it worked and the energy costs are crazy low,” Rogers exults.