Kenora resident captures CMHC award.

Invention eliminates need for traditional utility services

A Kenora man has captured one of this year's five Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) Housing Awards for an invention that virtually eliminates the need for traditional utility services while sparing the environment.

Udo Staschik says his combined mechanical utilities container, dubbed the EcoNomad, is a self-contained unit that provides on-site heating, electrical and plumbing systems to any structure or building more efficiently than conventional methods.

"It's basically a shipping container that has all the utilities in it to run a single family house or a tourist lodge or a small commercial operation independent from any grid utility system," Staschik says. "That means the container has an entire wastewater management system in it, a potable water system and power generation, and all that is remotely controlled.

"Attach this EcoNomad unit to any house and you're totally unplugged from any grid and nothing else is required except fuel for the engine and getting potable water somehow - that can be rain water, lake water, trucked water. That's the only input required."

The EcoNomad, which earned the Technology and Production Award at the CMHC's Housing Awards Gala in Ottawa on Nov. 16, provides utility services to off-grid residential, small commercial or institutional buildings via a container that combines already proven technologies to create a complete micro-infrastructure.

Louise Dunn, the manager of research planning and liaison with CMHC's planning division, says Staschik's invention was selected for a CMHC award because it was among the entries that best addressed housing issues of the future.

"The projects had to improve housing quality and offer affordability and choice for Canadians," Dunn says of the contest's criteria. "It also had to be an on-the-ground innovation or practice. It couldn't just be a design or concept; it had to actually be implemented."

The CMHC Housing Awards are presented every two to three years to people with projects that best reflect the theme selected for the corresponding CMHC two-day forum. This year's theme was Tomorrow's Housing Today: Meeting the Housing Challenges of the New Millennium.

The November forum, Dunn says, offered Staschik, his four fellow housing award winners, and eight other finalists an opportunity to showcase their projects and network with key housing representatives from across the country.

The prize, Dunn says, was an investment from CMHC to help develop a presentation for the CMHC forum and a trip to the event. Among its capabilities, the EcoNomad has integrated systems for potable water storage and purification, biological wastewater treatment, water and space heating, electrical supply, fire protection and the capability to remotely monitor and troubleshoot all integrated functions.

The unit provides enough 110-volt electricity to power all appliances that furnish a home, while the wastewater system is powered by an electrical pump.

Staschik says the EcoNomad is completely built from typical, "off-the-shelf" materials that are modified and optimized by between 10 and 20 per cent.

"By having all the pieces of equipment that are usually spread all around your house and outside in one box, we get very high efficiencies," Staschik says. "For example, the wastewater system can recycle up to 60 per cent of your water and we can use nonpotable, recycled water for toilet flushing and outside non-contact applications like car washing and gardening. So you automatically save 60 per cent of your potable water. That also means you don't have to dispose of 60 per cent of your wastewater. It's all recycled."

"The engine that we use for heating is producing electricity at the same time or vice versa. It's like a car engine: basically, when it runs, you have your electricity generated, and the heat. We use that heat - which is usually dumped by means of a radiator (like in a vehicle) - and store it in hot water tanks, and use it for the inflow heating of a house or your domestic hot water.

Staschik says the EcoNomad would be especially beneficial in remote areas where the infrastructure is not in place for things like running water or electricity. The utility container is portable and can be transported by road, rail, water or air.

"I have been doing work in Native housing and in remote housing for the last 15 years and I know that, for example, a single-family residence in a northern, fly-in community can cost up to $200,000 just to install infrastructure," Staschik says. "Factory costs are always cheaper than on-site installation costs; basically it's $20 for an hour's work compared to $80, and we're also very environmentally concerned, so this unit lends itself to way higher efficiency."

There were a variety of reasons for building the unit, but it's basically a response to the problems that he's learned of through experience in these Northern communities, he says.

The price to build an EcoNomad, however, is still fairly expensive, running between $85,000 and $100,000 each.

"I know it sounds expensive, but we can get the price down by building three or four at a time," Staschik says. "Also, when you look at expenses that mining companies, for example, have to put in temporary camps, it's not that expensive. We are very much in the same ballpark. It just sounds expensive for housing applications right now."

Despite the cost, Staschik has found buyers for the first two units and he is gearing up to build his third EcoNomad.

"If we find any clients, we can go ahead and build as many as required," he says. "We're basically geared up for a manufacturing operation in Kenora."

With financial backing from the CMHC, the Northern Research Council and Industry Canada, Staschik began working on the EcoNomad in 1997. The first unit took about a year to make, but the second unit took only three months to put together, he says.

He predicts the third unit will take even. less time to build, likely only about three weeks.

And while he looks for more potential buyers, Staschik says he'll spend more time perfecting the EcoNomad.

The unit, he says, will be even more environmentally friendly once the diesel engine that currently runs it is replaced by an engine that burns a more environmentally friendly fuel.

"We will develop a unit that runs on vegetable oils," Staschik says. "If you spill vegetable oil it's a mess, but it's not an official, legal environmental disaster. When you spill diesel, you definitely have the world involved in the clean-up."