SPEC House is born
Creating an energy information centre for Vancouver.
by Ivan Bulic
“The whole idea for the Energy Information Centre started after Habitat in about 1977,” said Cathy Fox, SPEC executive director in the early 1980s. SPEC was a member of the city’s conserver society steering committee formed during the 1976 UN Habitat Conference in Vancouver and chaired by Mayor Mike Harcourt.
“The committee decided it wanted some kind of demonstration project and SPEC was thinking about doing the same kind of thing in a house,” said Fox. So SPEC president Cliff Stainsby did a lot of fast talking and the two ideas slowly merged. The city would provide the building; an old electrical workshop at Maple and Sixth Avenue in Kitsilano. The feds and provincial government would kick in $105,000 while SPEC would raise the balance of $15,000.
“There was a lot of lobbying and cajoling before things worked out and the project almost fell through several times,” said Fox. “Work finally resumed early in 1981 and then things moved fast. The 339 square metre building was gutted and solar energy expert Chris Mattock redesigned the interior. The result was a demonstration project that works. It incorporated the latest in solar technology, is packed with energy information and developed into an education centre on the conserver society.”
SPEC House has double glazed windows, rooftop solar collectors and heavily insulated walls and floors. It also contains airlocks between outside and inside doors and low energy lighting. A gas furnace supplements heat when needed but the building insulation is so effective the furnace is seldom used except on the coldest winter days.
“Nothing in this building is very exotic because we wanted to show only things that are applicable to any household or small commercial building. Everything is cost effective but some of the equipment took only a few years to pay for itself in energy savings.” In the solar greenhouse the north wall is made of steel cylinders containing plastic tubes full of water which radiates heat back into the greenhouse. A fan switches on automatically at 24 degrees C. and blows hot air from the greenhouse into the basement. SPEC still operates the Environmental Information Centre which takes up the front offices in the SPEC House. An extensive library of periodicals, bound publications and archives are open to public. Students can often be found researching projects in the library.
“We didn’t have all the answers when we opened, but were always able to refer people to the right places for information,” says Fox. “What we tried to do was get the building used as much as possible.” Seventeen years later, SPEC House is busier than ever. Environmental and social justice groups share office space while the landscaped back yard garden is home to the Vancouver Demonstration Gardens and City Farmer’s Compost Hotline.
This article is based on an interview with Cathy Fox at the opening of the SPEC House. Fox currently works at the Western Canada Wilderness Committee’s Vancouver office.
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