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It was a big payday for one Airdrie family, who were the grand prize winners of Canadian Geographic’s Live Net Zero challenge, a competition where eight families pulled out all the stops to reduce their carbon footprint.
After 14 weeks of competing in a series of challenges, Samantha and Kevin Shannon — along with their three young children and their dog Nana — emerged from the competition victorious, bringing home a cheque for $50,000. They accepted the award from honorary president of Canadian Geographic, Hon. Lois Mitchell in their Airdrie home Friday.
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“Because it was Canadian Geographic, part of it was how you told the story, as well as the quantifiable ‘how much emissions did you save’,” said Samantha.
There were a total of six challenges and an overall home improvement challenge that spanned from September until the end of February.
“We cut the natural gas line entirely, ditched the original 1980s furnace, dug five boreholes that go down 250 feet in our front yard, and we used ground source heat pumps to heat our house — it’s 400 per cent efficient to heat, 800 per cent efficient to cool — the highest efficiency natural gas furnace is high 90s, so four times more efficient.”
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In order to offset their electricity consumption, the Shannons put solar panels on the roof and got rid of the hot water tank in favour of an air-source hybrid heat pump hot water tank. “We’ve got an air-source heat pump for the garage, so that we can still use the garage as a workshop for the winter,” Samantha added.
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Competitors in the challenge received $5,000 in seed money, which the Shannons used for a product called AeroBarrier.
“It essentially pressurizes your house, and then it releases an aerosol sealant, and it tries to find all the little holes that you can’t see with the naked eye — even underneath the drywall — and it seals up all the holes, and given that you lose about 30 per cent of your heat energy through leakage, it helped make everything else more efficient,” said Samantha.
Kevin said the focus of some of the challenges was trying to find ways to make changes by doing less, or using less. “There were the big changes we made, certainly, but also changes to habits and changes to ways you do things around the house. It was also looking at your habits and little ways that you could do things differently in your everyday life.”
“We did the big things, but we had spent years doing the little things, and I think that’s the part of the competition that I loved,” added Samantha. “Because not all of us had the same kind of house, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Some of the houses were 1920s — you couldn’t do this; some had asbestos; you couldn’t do that, but we can all work from the same toolbox.”
“The contest was also largely storytelling and resonating with other Canadians, and I think that’s where Canadian Geographic did such a good job choosing their families, because they picked eight families that were passionate about what they were doing. They wanted to share their stories and inspire other Canadians,” said Kevin.
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