A Fresh Start: The Benefits of Greening Your Bathroom

Bill Semple is an architect, builder and environmental planner. He has extensive international experience in design and environmental management projects that promote sustainability and highlight the connection between the environment and culture. Mr. Semple is a senior researcher with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Canada Green Building Council and is Chairman of its Residential Committee.

What are the most important environmental benefits of a green bathroom remodel?
With bathrooms the first and foremost is water use, so ensuring that the toilets, faucets and shower heads that you put in use as little water as possible. In my house, for example, I switched from an old standard toilet to a much smaller, dual-flush toilet, and that alone reduced my water consumption by 22 percent. Remember, water has a large energy component—all of the energy it takes to pump it to a purification facility, process it, pump it to the house, and then take it away from the house and process the waste. Add to this the energy needed to produce hot water, and you get a more complete picture.

The second issue is another element in the energy equation: A renovation is the opportunity to change from incandescent to lower-energy-consuming fluorescent and halogen lighting. It is a time when you can avoid adding more energy-consuming features like heated floors while adding insulation and tightening the envelope of the exterior walls that you open up.

The third is the issue of durability, building to last. Remodels are often designed to last just a few years, so the amount of embodied energy that gets tossed out every year is enormous. The waste that goes to landfill sites from new construction and remodeling—remember, remodeling makes up close to 50 percent of the residential building industry now—is massive, something like 40 percent of what goes into landfill sites. A process that wants to be redone every 10 years or so just adds to the problem. So designing for longevity is an important part of the green equation, one that sometimes doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

What are the health benefits of the green remodeling process and of using a green bathroom?
Before I address benefits, I want to note the health impacts of a common oversight in the area of cleaning and personal care products. We can spend time putting in the materials we want—low-Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) building materials, proper lighting, proper ventilation, etc. But we also need to be aware of how we decorate and use the bathroom on a daily basis. For example, the rubber mat, plastic shower curtain and, even worse, the cosmetics we use can soon eliminate the gains we have made in reducing VOCs. The cleaning materials we use can completely defeat all that we gain because they emit a lot of VOCs. If you don’t use more environmentally sound products, then even if you did the best green remodeling job in the world, the benefit will be limited in terms of air quality.

Remodeling offers health benefits that come from reusing an existing house. Part of that is community—people walking around, walking to the store, passing by neighbors. You know the nature of your older communities. The front porch was there on houses because people sat on it and neighbors would say hello to each other. And that’s all part of the building’s relationship to the street. That changes of course when you get into condominiums and other ways of increasing density. In North America, we simply have too much sprawl. We are far too spread out and we’re paying the price in pollution and stress. We see this in California, especially in Los Angeles, and in Toronto, where I live. A couple of weeks ago in Toronto they were talking about how there had already been 21 smog alert days this year—a record. It is important to note that, on average, 50 percent of our energy consumption per household comes in transportation. Larger homes with larger lots are major contributors to this.

What are some of your favorite innovations or design ideas for a green bathroom?
I like simplicity and the clever, understated use of materials. More and more you see bathrooms that are getting larger and larger, with the Jacuzzi and a shower, as well as large counters. Things that are small and simple and elegant at the same time are more challenging to design.