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Is this Canada’s Most Affordable Green Home?How Victoria designer Keith Dewey transformed eight used shippingcontainers into an airy residence.By Monte PaulsenArticle first published on April 13, 2010 by TheTyee.ca.One of Canada’s most affordable green homesstands not in the swaggering “Green Capital” ofVancouver, but in B.C.’s actual capital, Victoria.Designer Keith Dewey built his own home out ofeight end-of-life shipping containers. In so doing, hesaved five years worth of electricity and spared about70 trees -- all while cutting the cost of his new homeby roughly 28 per cent.“Initially, everyone’s perception is that steel containersmust be cold, cramped and uninviting,” Deweysaid of the reaction to his custom home, pictured inthe slide show above. “That perception dissipates assoon as they step inside.”Dewey, who will talk about his home this Thursdaynight at the Quick Homes Superchallenge, added,“I was trying to create a green house that was wellwithin the realm of feasibility for an average builder.So I didn’t get too extreme with anything.”Victoria inspector supported the plan“The idea of using shipping containers came to myattention back in 2000, when I saw a magazine coverabout a project called Future Shack, which was developedin Australia,” Dewey told The Tyee. “That reallycaptivated my imagination.”The designer toyed with the concept over the nextfew years, and, “when the opportunity arose for us todesign our own house, it was a natural development ofthe ideas that I’d conceptualized.”ABOVE: Zigloo Domestique is a custom home in Victoria,B.C. Architect Keith Dewey reused eight 20-foot-long shippingcontainers to create its frame. Open floor plans suchas this can cost less to build using shipping containers thanwood or concrete, because long steel beams are includedin the price of the used container. Photo courtesy of KeithDeweyDewey built the home he calls Zigloo Domestique in2006. The 1,920-square-foot home is nestled into asmall L-shaped lot in the Fernwood neighbourhood.The open-plan home rests on a typical residentialfoundation.The City of Victoria’s building inspector requiredDewey to employ a structural engineer and a buildingenvelope specialist, but otherwise treated the projectlike any other single-family residential home.“We found ways to harmonize what is already knownabout the residential building industry with things thatare already known about the shipping container industry,”Dewey said of his approach.For example, he framed two-inch interior walls at6
two-foot centres, and sprayed foam insulation into thevoid.“It ended up being closer to four inches of foam,because there’s a little bit of an air gap between thetwo-by-two wall and the steel, and then there’s thecorrugated nature of the steel wall itself,” Deweysaid. “We got R-28, which is well above the minimumrequirement.”He topped the house with a conventional woodframedroof, and dry walled much of the interior-- leaving strategically placed sections of corrugatedsteel as accents.The house carries a traditional mortgage.“I was able to convince the mortgage and insurancecompanies of the fact that this is a steel frame building,which just happens to have steel cladding. Oncethey were able to categorize it that way, then it wasnot problem,” he said.‘A natural resource of consumer society’“The sustainability issue was important for me. In mymind, a sustainable concept is one that makes use ofmaterials that have already served their purpose. SoI went out looking for end-of-life containers... thingsthat were between 12 and 26 years old,” Dewey said.“These shipping containers, of course, we’ve got themall over the place. In a way they’ve become a naturalresource of consumer society: everything comes to usin this box, but we have no use for the box now,” hesaid.Dewey bought eight used shipping containers, eachmeasuring 20 feet long by eight feet wide by 8.5 feethigh. He paid between $2,000 and $2,400 per container.“A lot of them had dents and dings. One even had abreach on the side,” he said. “By itemizing our inventory,I was able to use those in areas where I would becutting out portions of the wall.”Thousands of old shipping containers like the onesDewey bought are melted and recycled into newsteel every year due to a variety of economic factors,including ocean-going insurance requirements, thehigh price paid for scrap metal, and North America’songoing trade imbalance with Asia.By reusing -- rather than recycling -- most of the steelin those eight containers, Dewey saved something inthe range of 50,000 kilowatt-hours of energy. That’senough hydro to light his home from the day hemoved in through sometime next year.Dewey also saved a small forest. Though Zigloo Domestiquemakes extensive use of manufactured woodproducts such as paneling and cabinetry, it employsless raw framing timber than a wood-frame house.“I figured that I saved 70 trees worth of wood by reusingthe containers,” Dewey said.The house has a concrete floor on the main level,which was poured atop a grid of hot water lines thatprovide radiant heat. The hot water is supplied by anon-demand (tankless) hot water heater.“It’s a very efficiently heated house... by heating thebasement and the main floor, the residual heat rises upthe stairwell and flows through the remainder of thehouse,” Dewey said.“It’s easy to cool, too. By strategically placing operablewindows, we are able to get really nice summerbreezes,” he added.A custom home for a spec-house price“My idea was to design a custom home, using sustainablematerials, and do it for the same price theywere building spec quality houses out in the low-costsubdivisions,” Dewey said.In Victoria, spec homes run about $150 per squarefoot, while custom homes average about double that.In addition to the engineer and envelope specialist,Dewey contracted professionals for all the trade worksuch as electrical, plumbing, drywall, painting, etc.The only cost he avoided was his own design fee.“I didn’t cash in any favours on this one. I wanted tosee what the costs really were,” he said.7
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