Restore a Cape Breton “Company House”: Green, Affordable HousingCape Breton University

We want to show how a vacant company house can be a model for green, affordable housing. A historic workers dwelling on Mechanic Street (c. 1890s) in the town of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia (home of 'The Men of the Deeps';), is being donated for the project. We're working with neighbors, local community groups, university students, college apprentices, environmental groups, and heritage activists to bring the house back to life to benefit Habitat for Humanity and a family in great need of safe affordable housing. We want to make this home super-energy-efficient and modernize the inside by using salvaged or surplus materials from other building or demolition projects. We'll then take what we learned and apply it to another vacant home so that the community impact of the project will be all the more. Our information, and the techniques we develop, will be publicized to help anyone else who is working to renovate and revitalize company houses.