There are two million reasons why excitement is spilling over at a new home in Gilbert’s Cove, Digby County.
Homeowner Vic Penner can’t wait for a really big windstorm to come passing through. His home, he says, is ready for it.
And Joel German and David Saulnier are excited Penner’s new home has helped them hit a significant milestone. Their company JD Composites has now exceeded the two-million mark when it comes to using recycled plastic bottles in construction projects.
“It’s quite a feeling when you can say you’ve hit those numbers,” says German. “We’re ecstatic.”
This new home, which is just shy of 1,300 square feet, has seen about 560,000 recycled plastic bottles incorporated into its construction. It’s the second house the Meteghan, N.S. company has constructed. Its first was a show home turned rental property in Meteghan River, Digby County, in 2019. For that, more than 610,000 plastic bottles were turned into energy efficient, structurally sound, patented panels in what many considered the ultimate recycling project.
News of the home not only travelled fast, but travelled far.
“It went viral,” says German, saying they started fielding both questions and skepticism. “A lot of people who had questions came to see. There was no more skepticism. What we build is solid and it works. We’ve seen the performance on the beach house. It’s been rented since the day we opened it up to rentals. It’s performing great, better than we had thought it would.”
Over two-million recyled bottles...watch this video to hear Joel German and David Saulnier talk about it some more.
The company’s website reads: “Our patented structural insulated panels (SIPs) represent a major new application for recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles. Armacell ArmaForm is the heart our SIPs.”
German and his business partner David Saulnier explained the technology when they built the Meteghan River house. There’s much more to it but to summarize, tiny pieces of mulched up bottles are made into pellets following a heating process. The pellets are put into big vats and eventually a hopper. Things are mixed and melted and come out of that process as a foam. The material is initially soft to the touch as it expands and hardens the end result is energy efficient, durable panels.
How durable? Test panels sent to testing facilities in Mississauga withstood 326-mp/h (524-km/h) sustained wind force, which is twice the strength of a Category 5 hurricane.
Hence, Penner’s excitement for a big windstorm.
“We’re building him the shell. We’re not doing the interior. He looked at all of the options and looked at the savings over time and this came out to be, over time, a much better option for him,” German explains. “He’s going with in-floor heat and he’s doing polished concrete floor. He’s going to paint the outside, not clad it like we did with the other house.”
For Penner, the biggest selling points were permanency and zero maintenance.
“We compared it to regular stick build and it came in fairly comparable, except when you add in the cost of maybe doing shingles in 10 years or your siding blows off in a storm or wind drives water in the window, all the stuff we’ve had in most of the houses we’ve had,” he says. “Just to think that 50 years down the road you just throw a coat of paint on it, that’s massive.”
It’s obvious Penner appreciates things that last. You can see evidence of that with the ‘84 LT 28 Volkswagen camper van he has parked in the driveway. It drives up hill slow as dirt, he says, but it’s dependable and he likes that.
He also likes the environmental aspect of his new home that he and his wife Krista will be living in.
“I worked in a recycling plant in Fort McMurray so I understand how much plastic comes in. I also understand there’s not a lot of places for that stuff to go. It was stacked up for years sometimes,” he says. “This is a phenomenal way to use that stuff up, because we’re not going to stop using plastic.”
The Penners call this their forever home. They had four homes prior to this, including one in Fort McMurray they lost to a wildfire.
As the couple looks ahead, Penner also points to the vision of JD Composites.
“David and Joel are both very innovative. They’re looking for how to make things better, how to change it, how to be more efficient, how to impact the environment less," he says. "That’s cool to see.”
The two men say they’re still learning along the way. Saulnier says they refined the number of seams and panels on this house project. “We did the perimeter of the house in 16 panels, as opposed to the beach house which would have been 150 panels,” Saulnier says, saying the walls went up in about five-and-a-half hours. And with the roof added in, the whole process took about 12 hours.
A new precision cutting router the company invested in has also made a big impact. The visibility of this project, just off Highway 1, has also been great.
“We’ve had a lot of traction. Really good leads on people that want to build with this system, maybe homes, retirement homes, cottages,” Saulnier says. “People have been really impressed.”
Since their Meteghan River home last year, JD Composites has done about 35 types of projects using the recycled bottles technology.
They’ve done waste oil management containment systems for harbour authorities and DFO. The Municipality of Clare has been a client. The company made restroom facilities for the beach in Mavillette, along with garbage containment and recycling bins spread throughout the municipality.
Other projects have included decks and commercial roofing and the company’s website outlines other opportunities.
And JD Composites sees more house construction in the future.
German says they’ve been approached with business propositions and partnerships. They’ve been in the process of inking some deals to share the technology so it can expand to other areas.
German says they’re proud of what they’ve accomplished so far and are up for any challenge that comes their way.
“We’re seeing that we’re developing the technology more than we’re marketing the technology. Anybody that throws us a project we love to try it – we’re still pushing it out there to see how it’s going to perform. How it’s going to work,” says German. “Everything has just been going perfect in that route.”
And as for diverting more than two million plastic bottles from the waste stream, German says, “we like to think our social responsibility is on track.”
