Things are looking a whole lot ‘greener’ at Lacombe’s historic St. Andrew’s United Church.
A series of renovations to bolster the building’s energy efficiency continue, and congregational members are thrilled with the results.
They want to spread the word and also encourage others in Lacombe to consider taking on a more ‘green’ stance.
“We don’t want to just encourage other people to be environmentally responsible; we want to do that ourselves as well,” explained Rev. Dave Holmes, adding that a group of folks interested in strengthening that environmental vision has formed at the church.
The Green Team was officially formed this past February, and on Oct. 22, the group hosted a Renovation Celebration to bring members up-to-date on what projects have been wrapped up so far.
“We also wanted to honour the really important work that a lot of people within the congregation have done, along with the contractors and other community people that have helped us out.
“We wanted to celebrate them and to say thank you.”
Looking back, Holmes said there were some energy gaps throughout the building, so the first round of upgrades was aimed at taking care of the ‘low hanging fruit’ — replacing old doors and outdated lighting systems, for example.
As their efforts continued, the team also realized that the church was empty through much of the week.
So another vision was sparked.
“We want our building to be a resource for Lacombe, and a lot of our own people are also involved in the community as well,” he said, adding that the emphasis on building stronger ties with locals falls right in line with the mission of St. Andrew’s.
This made the work of bolstering the building’s energy efficiency that much more vital.
Team member Bob King explained that initially, they started out with an overall audit.
“I know buildings, and I’ve been around construction all of my life. I also had my own electrical business, so I agreed to do a first-time audit,” he said.
“We wanted to find out what needed to be done, so we went up and looked through the attic, checked out the wiring, the furnaces, and the insulation in the ceilings and all of the different areas,” he explained.
That examination showed that there was even more room for improvement.
“The windows were all single-paned, so there was a huge amount of heat loss there and through the lack of insulation of course,” he said, adding that the building essentially consists of two parts — the back part dates from 1956, while the sanctuary was constructed in the early 1900s.
First up, the lighting throughout the building was replaced with energy-efficient LED lighting.
Two HVAC units that had been installed in 2001 were also found to have not been used, so they are now prepped and ready to go — enhancing St. Andrew’s energy efficiency that much further.
“They bring fresh air into the building all of the time along with the heat,” said King.
“They work perfectly; that was a huge benefit to us to have them up there running.
“So it’s just been general and basic upgrades to the whole building to make it more energy efficient, and to make it nicer,” said King. “I mean, the lighting was pretty bad — particularly in the basement.
“When people walk around here now, they say, ‘Wow! It’s like we have a brand-new building’. It’s made a tremendous difference.”
Doris Thesenvitz, another Green Team member, emphasized, as Holmes also mentioned, that one of the goals is to make the church more accessible to the community.
“We also hope that we set a precedent for other organizations in the community to start looking at their own buildings, and to do that same,” she said.
King agreed.
”We are hoping that we can make quite a change in our footprint. That’s the whole idea of doing this.”
Meanwhile, St. Andrew’s is one of about 330 United church congregations that has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2030.
It’s also part of a national program called Faithful Footprints, which included granting St. Andrew’s $30,000 to help cover the work.
The stream of projects has had a very positive impact on the congregation as a whole, said Holmes.
“There is a lot of good energy in this place. It’s good to take concrete steps towards this because I think that a lot of people are feeling a kind of environmental despair.
“There is something going on in this church in a wider way — these are good initiatives, and there are good community connections on several levels now,” he said.
“This is just one of the concrete, practical ways that we are moving things forward that is making the congregation feel good,” he added.
“We are moving in the right direction.”
