Briony Penn

"I’m trying to make everything low energy. I kind of did my 100 mile house build, with all the materials being local," she says

Homeowner, writer and author Briony Penn is enjoying her new solar hot water system, installed on her Salt Spring Island home in 2009. She says she chose to go solar as part of the green plans for her entire home.

"I’m trying to make everything low energy. I kind of did my 100 mile house build, with all the materials being local," she says, adding that the solar hot water system came from Nova Scotia – so while it’s less local it is at least Canadian. She says her home has great passive solar gains but she wanted to take it a step further with the solar hot water system.

"Everyone said it was the most efficient use of solar," she adds. Her Thermodynamics system was installed by Ark Homeworks, from Victoria, in 2009 and while she’s happy to have had it done she admits she would have liked more information about the system and how it works. As well, being the contractor for the job on her house she did find the amount of information overwhelming at times. "The communication was a bit confusing with all the pre-heaters and pre-pre-heaters... so, it could be made easier."

While the system has been installed for almost a year she hasn’t been able to gage the energy savings because of the continuous construction on her property and the adjacent property of her sister’s. But she’s hoping after the summer when life gets back to normal she’ll start to see some energy savings.

"I’ll know next winter once I have a summer under my belt with no construction. But I’m assuming that it’s doing all sorts of good stuff," says Briony. "I love the sounds of it, wurring away."

Briony Penn Bio

Briony Penn is best known for her award winning illustrated Wild Side columns in various regional publications and hosting the TV magazine show Enviro/Mental for three years with CHUM TV, nominated one of the top three magazine shows in Canada.

A geographer from Saltspring Island, she has lived most of her life on the shores of the Salish Sea. She has operated a consulting business for environmental education and museum design since 1986 in Scotland and BC.

She is an adjunct professor and has lectured in the School of Environmental Studies and Restoration of Natural Systems Program of the University of Victoria for over 15 years.

An award-winning natural history columnist and feature writer, from Canadian Geographic to Explore magazines, and a BC Books bestseller with her book A Year On the Wild Side, she combines punchy media skills with her research affiliations at UVic.

pioneer of barefoot mapping, she has created maps and led workshops assisting communities to map their cherished places for over a decade, culminating in several books including Islands in the Salish Sea: A Community Atlas, nominated for the BC Book Awards.

As an activist, Briony has worked extensively with both local groups and provincial organizations such as The Land Conservancy of BC (TLC), which she co-founded in 1997, and Raincoast Conservation Foundation. TLC has won many awards for its pioneering work to establish models of land use that integrate cultural and ecological values and Raincoast has established an international reputation for combining research and advocacy for the temperate rainforest.