Extreme Makeover Home Edition, step aside. Let the Canadians show you how sustainable home design television is really done.

Code Green is a two-part television special, shown on CBC British Columbia this week, in which four sets of homeowners will be given C$15,000...

...and each will then be asked to employ those funds in a 6-week competition to gain the greatest reduction in energy and water consumption, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. All homeowners will benefit from the renovations they’ll complete... and the winner of the competition will further receive the grand prize of a hybrid car [A Honda Civic Hybrid].

C$15,000 (about US$11,850 or €9,400) isn't enough to install a significant solar photovoltaic system (of debatable utility in British Columbia, in any event), let alone to completely rebuild a house to LEED H specs. It is, however, more than sufficient to retrofit many of the home components often most responsible for energy wastage: leaky windows, old furnaces, poor insulation in the walls and attic, door seals, and appliances.

The first episode of Code Green is this Thursday, May 26th; the second is the following week, on June 2nd. If any of our British Columbia readers get a chance to watch this program, we'd greatly appreciate a review. And if someone knows of a BitTorrent of it afterwards...

(Thanks to the pseudonymous "mp" for giving us a heads-up to Code Green in the comments here!)

Here's my entry into the burgeoning solar TV field:

Your Southernmost Window

A series of half hour programs for TV, VCR, and DVD

What you can do with one south-facing window, or how to live within a solar budget, including designs viewers can replicate at home to provide heat, light, ventilation, and/or stimulate ecological growth.

Program 1. What You can See from a Window - one square foot of sunlight, orientation to the sun, design principles, window types, glazing, heat loss, infiltration, insulation, heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), air purification, breathing

Program 2. Every Window in the House - window types take 2, radiation and convection, caulking and weatherstripping, drafts and infiltration, how to chart your airflows, how to use them, window insulation, whole house HVAC

Program 3. The Electric Window - solar electricity/photovoltaic/PV, small battery charger, solar/dynamo flashlight radio, one window systems, permanent emergency capacity, battery switching and your car

Program 4. Hot and Cold Windows - windowbox heaters, passive and active ventilators, advanced airflow usage, active and passive water heating, your northernmost window and a nod to refrigeration

Program 5. The Greenhouse Window - windowsill gardens, bubbling out/bubbling in, heat storage, aquaculture, vermiculture, and ecological housekeeping, the neighborhood

Program 6. Most Windows in Town -what if everybody did it?, the economics of sunlight, physics is international, a range of possibilities, systems thinking from community to region to country to world

Posted by: gmoke on May 21, 2005 9:21 PM

I should be home to watch it. I'll keep an eye out for a torrent file too... though I have yet to find a good Canadian TV torrent.

Posted by: mp on May 24, 2005 8:14 AM