About 4Syte Green Building Science

I’m enthusiastic about better buildings that are gentler to the Earth: healthy, comfortable, affordable, carbon-negative and energy-positive.

Homes where everyone can breathe easy and feel safe, protected and happy. Where free energy harvested from the sky covers their utility bills.

However, we continue to fall short of these ideals with our building codes, while most of our new and existing housing is cold, uninspired, unhealthy, uncomfortable and disposable.

Homes are important for our physical and mental health. Better homes may even help people feel happier, which is why I believe they may even save lives as well as save on energy bills. Housing shouldn’t be depressing. Our families, communities and one planet all deserve better. So where do we begin? From the beginning?

I’ve been immersed in sustainable housing for over 45 years. I learned all about building energy efficient homes for three weeks at Shelter Institute in 1979 ( 22 years old and at the peak of my Dunning Kruger building expert curve on completion of the course). I apprenticed with Calendar & Associates in Perth, ON, and got both my Journeyman Carpenter and Energy Auditor licenses in 1983. I was at the first R-2000 Builder Training in Canada with Oliver Drerup, worked on the jobsite daily as a professional carpenter for 12 years, then spent 7 more years as a homebuilder (during a recession, got a business degree from the school of hard knocks) before becoming the 13th Certified Energy Advisor in Canada in 1999 and founding Homesol Building Solutions Inc.

Later I was certified as a Passive House Consultant (for both the PHIUS and European standards), a LEED-AP (BD&C), and eventually obtained a Master of Green Building Science, my mother would have been proud.

After 20 years of heading up an award-winning energy conservation / green building consulting business and NRCan Service Organization (delivering ENERGY STAR, R-2000, EnerGuide, ecoEnergy, Net Zero, etc.), Kathryn and I sold the company in 2018 to two of our Atlantic Canada employees.

Then we intentionally erased all our business web pages, posts, profiles, presentations and e-mail addresses, threw away our business cards, and headed off into permanent retirement, starting with a three-month Thervada Buddhist pilgrimage and backpacking trip through Viet Nam, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.

What’s retirement mean anyway? We decided it was time to make room for other priorities besides working, and prepare for a slower pace of life as we headed toward our seventies. We have enough of everything. Rather than working to “make a living”, we would rather be making maple syrup, stewarding our forest garden, growing in our greenhouse, finishing up all our carpentry projects, spending more time with our granddaughter Maya, making new friends, or hiking the world together (on our last hike in 2024 we walked 500 kms. in a month in Cornwall). Our intention was to never work at another job or run another business (except maple syrup) ever again.

That only lasted for about two years before Ecofitt (later merged with CLEAResult Canada) asked me to help with a project in the far North of Ontario. So I’m back at work part-time, but I’m being selective about what I take on. A good post-retirement work / life balance is a pleasure after running a business for 27 years!

Bottom line is I love working together with Indigenous communities throughout the North, and I’m not afraid of flying. How can I help?

“Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.”

This is it in a nutshell: Leveraging all our global building knowledge to create better homes, together, for real people, by applying green building science-based solutions can make a real difference, helping improve both our climate and individual’s lives. There is a continuing need for finding the most culturally appropriate and sustainable solutions. I have over 45 years worth of these skills and abilities to pass along, and am ready, willing and able to help where the challenge is the greatest and the changes are the most rewarding.