Hi everyone, i'm brand new to the forum and hopefully moving to the Calgary area in the summer of 2009.

This may sound like a silly question (probably the first of many) but does anyone have any idea why all the houses are so open plan in such a cold climate, is it not nice to cosy up in front of the fire with the room door closed to keep the heat in?

Heating basements, bonus rooms and garages all sounds very expensive!

If you leave a space cold you will likely get condensation problems and your (wooden) house could well rot around you.

Who heats unoccupied basements and garages though? We close the vents in the spare "musicroom" most of the time and rely on ambient heating to prevent problems, and our garage has no heating at all.

Open plan is not necessarily the norm in older homes, so its a good question.

You don't heat garages or at least most people don't, if it is done it certainly isn't to the same level as the interior of the home.

Virtually all heating systems in Calgary homes are forced air so you get a more even flow of heat to the entire house, rather than hot and cold rooms.

Besides modern homes are well insulated even the basement and heat loss is minimised.

That being said there nothing stopping a person from having a fireplace and heating the room your in while turning the thermostat down temporarily for the rest of the house. Of course some of that heat will bleed to the rest of the house but that's not such a bad thing.

Personally I would far rather have my whole house at a relatively even temperature than having hot and cold rooms through out.

Hi bielbs

Its cheaper/quicker to build open plan houses and gives you more space without halways etc. Generally the modern wooden houses in Canada are heated by hot air and not as controllable as gas fired hot water radiators. We lived in a modern house near Calgary 11 years ago. It was made of wood and which had 4 inches of glass fibre insulation, so it should have been easy to keep warm apart is was "boom time" built house so doors and some windows did not seal properly. Be careful of build quality of some houses in Canada.

My wife refered to it as the "Shed" as it felt like a large shed or wooden holiday Chalet.

When we moved to Ontario we purchased an old farmhouse and reinstated the doors and it seem much more cosy in the living room with wood burner in winter.

As for heating it will most likely cost you more than the UK, due to larger homes and very cold winters. If you read some more recent ex pats posts $300(£150)/mth for heating is what some members have posted they pay.

I would take this into account when you move to Calgary especially with high oil/gas prices at present and make sure you find out heating costs of the house you may want to purchase. Found heating/electric bills can be "scarey" especially in winter when we lived in Canada.

All the best with you move.

hudd

If you look closer at the locations of those who have the $300 per month heating bills they are mostly in eastern Canada not Alberta.

To have heating bills of $300 per month in Alberta lately you have to have a very large home and keep the temperature very high.

Currently our natural gas bills average $100 per month on an annual basis and our electricity is $55 that's not so scary is it. Both of those averages include all extra management and transmission costs.

That is in a home built in 1972 with the old 2x4 external wall construction not the modern mandated 2x6 construction with the associated 6" of insulation.

Edit: Oh and by the way we cook with natural gas and have a natural gas fireplace that is used nightly from late October through April.

Yep, its those of us with the choice between oil (expensive) and electric (very expensive) who pay through the nose. What I wouldnt give for a nice gas main running outside my house....if only.


Good point about open plan being cheaper to build and more sq ft. That makes sense.

Why not go and see Hank Hill?

I always thought it was just American sitcoms where the front door opened into the living room.

Agree totally with this post. Living in the 'peg I paid on average $300 a month to heat my house but this was due to the fact that my house was uninsulated and my furnace was almost 20 years old. (Which has now been changed).

Now i'm still paying $300/month due to the fact that they base there 'budget' plan on the previous year but so far my usage is $180/month down on what it was last year.

As long as you've got a newer furnace and a well insulated house you should not really get expensive heating bills.

I think its just as expensive as oil in practice, only the tanks are more expensive to replace. Its a moot point as I would have to invest in a new furnace and waterheater anyway, which would wipe out any savings.

Something a bit worrying about having a couple of potential bombs sitting in the backyard too.

Neighbours went from electric to propane to cut costs, and are frantically insulating before winter arrives, I'll have to ask them what its costing them.

Thanks for all the top tips,

any thoughts on ploughing your hard earned cash into a house made of chip board? Being from Blighty I'm used to bricks and cement (call me naive, but seems a bit more permanent!) Any reassurance appreciated.

I take it that question has been exhausted on other threads, anyway thanks for the previous comments

Very much so and I apologise for my previous post.

Brick is not a practical building material for most of Canada.

Primevil cave dwellings trump your brick built house / Victorian era slum hovel.

Now who's clever ?

R.

Steve P
We had a 1905 brick house in Ontario and the bricks were in excellent condition. Issue wir brick laying you need good frost freeze weather. Wooden houses can be built when its sub zero.

Steve you can buy wood frame houses in the UK. We looked a them a few years ago. You can clad the oustide with brick, stone, slate, wood etc. They are mainly self build kit homes. 2300 sqft was £80K, but then you need land to build it on, which is an issue in the South of England.

hudd