Vaccine Mandates in Canadian Workplaces: Legal Strategies for Workers to Fight Back

Author: A Concerned Canadian

Introduction

There is no question that the vaccine mandates being rolled out across Canada have crossed a line with a lot of workers, straying into their personal health choices and linking it to their livelihood in a manner that is invasive, burdensome and infringing on health freedoms. Over the past month or so I have been delving into the law and trying to understand whether my employer could be breaking laws in enforcing this mandate and looking for leverage and strategies for fighting back.

If you are fighting back or are planning to, first be clear in your mind as to what your goal is and where your red lines are. Do you want your employer to rescind their vaccine mandate? If so, you may need allies for that and a unionized environment may be more appropriate for that battle. If you can't live with the vaccine mandate and are ready to not work for this employer if they continue with it, then you may want to claim your employer has broken their employment contract with you and you want severance pay as a result. Note that typically severance is not offered to employees that have been working for an employer for less than two years, so this may not be an option if that's your circumstance. Do you want to continue working for your employer even if they keep the mandate in place? Then perhaps you are asking for some reasonable accommodation - the right to maintain privacy on your status, a medical or religious exemption or the option of doing rapid testing. Any of these options signify agreement with the overall mandate, but may be the middle ground you need if your alternative employment options are limited.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. I'm also still in a formal complaint process with my employer so this is an evolving situation with an unknown outcome, your mileage may vary! But I did want to put some ideas out there for other Canadians to explore and to introduce some terminology that wasn't that familiar to me, but could make a big difference in how much power you will have in this process.

Be Reasonable

If you are like me, you have some very highly charged emotions around these mandates, but it's very important for you to come across as a reasonable person in all of your communications if this ever ends up in court. Much of the privacy, common and contract law that I'm about to discuss relies on the concept of a reasonable person; so the more calm, clear and collected you are, the better your chances. Don't hold back if you are offended by your employers actions, but do it in a professional way that shows your thinking is coming from a place of reflection rather than a knee kerk emotional response.

For myself, being reasonable also includes not coming across as an anti-vaxxer. The mainstream narrative holds that an anti-vaxxer is not a reasonable person, because they are denying 'the science'. So be careful of this, it's a sticky one.

Your Privacy Rights

Your vaccination status is Personal Health Information and it is private. Making a statement to the effect that you only share this information with your physician or other health care provider is a good way to pre-amble your assertion of privacy rights. It's also fair to say that a highly charged political and social environment currently exists around vaccine mandates in Canada which makes your vaccination status even more sensitive than a typical piece of health information.

Your employer may be breaking the law in asking you to attest or show proof of your vaccine status, especially if they do not provide you with an option of "Prefer not to say" and compel you to attest or show your status based on some threat or other. Mine threatened me by saying that I was required to respond either way or I would be in breach of the internal code of conduct, which has a disciplinary process attached to it. This is more heavy-handed than other employers who have respected an employee's right not to disclose private information.

In terms of exactly what laws apply, Provincial health privacy laws are as follows:

⦁ An Act Respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector (Quebec)

⦁ The Personal Information Protection Act (British Columbia)

⦁ The Personal Information Protection Act (Alberta)

⦁ The Personal Health Information Protection Act (Ontario), "with respect to health information custodians"

⦁ The Personal Health Information Privacy and Access Act (New Brunswick), "with respect to personal health information custodians"

⦁ The Personal Health Information Act (Newfoundland and Labrador), "with respect to health information custodians"

⦁ The Personal Health Information Act (Nova Scotia), "with respect to health information custodians"

If you are in a province where these acts only cover healthcare providers, they likely do not apply to your workplace.

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act of 2004 (PIPEDA) applies to all private businesses and government agencies asking a client for private information - so it's a good one to review to understand your rights around a business asking for your vax pass, but doesn't cover most private sector Canadian workers. Interestingly, however, PIPEDA does apply to the workplace context of federal government workers and federally regulated businesses (banks, telecom etc.).

Under PIPEDA, there are set of fair information principles that govern the collection, processing, usage and disposal of private data. You can review these here and judge how well your employer had done in each category.

https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/privacy-laws-in-canada/the-personal-information-protection-and-electronic-documents-act-pipeda/p_principle/

One of the no-go zones of the PIPEDA information principles is:

⦁ profiling or categorizing individuals in a way that leads to unfair, unethical or discriminatory treatment contrary to human rights law.

You can also make the case that the request for private information is unreasonable based on a lack of clarity about how the information will be used, who will have access to it and whether it will be adequately protected from a data breach. Remember that a data breach isn't just an electronic event, it could be a co-worker inferring your vax status because you are clearly being treated differently.

The drawback with PIPEDA is that you can't directly sue an employer for breaching it, all you can do is make a complaint to your provincial privacy commissioner and they will follow up with your employer. So you potentially get them in trouble with their regulator and that might offer you some leverage if you played the card at the right time, but I wouldn't make it the cornerstone of my strategy personally.

If your workplace privacy rights are not covered under a Provincial Privacy Act or PIPEDA, your only other source of remedy is common law. Under common law there is a tort called 'intrusion upon seclusion', which essentially protects your right to be left alone and not be unreasonably intruded upon. The key aspect of success of any claim of intrusion upon seclusion is that the intruding act was highly offensive - so would a reasonable person think that your employer asking for your vax status is highly offensive? That might be a tough one to argue with a judge, in an environment where so many places are asking for a vax pass as a condition of entry. However the relationship you have with your employer is very different from your relationship with a rock concert or a restaurant. Speaking personally, I was highly offended when my employer asked me for my status. It really is none of their damned business and this is not a historically normal or proper thing for an employer to be asking for, especially with intent to discriminate.

Trespass

Another common law area that potentially comes into play with these mandates are the torts of trespass that deal with persons. Your body is your property; by enacting vaccine mandates and rapid testing in the workplace, your employer is claiming jurisdiction over your body. Claims of assault may be possible, or even battery if vaccination is forced. I would expect this argument would only work where no religious or medical exemptions are offered.

Fraud

If you did not respond to the request from your employer for an attestation over privacy concerns and then they mark you as "unvaccinated' in their database, that is arguably an act of fraud in your name, as they have no factual basis to do that. This is even more likely to win in court if you were actually fully vaccinated at the time that the employer made the record.

Human Rights

Your human rights are outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in the Canadian Bill of Rights. The language in these documents is open enough that it could be applied to vaccine mandates, but in my opinion, may be too vague to land a killer blow legally.

Also, it really doesn't look like our Provincial Human rights Commissions have Canadians' backs on this at all if you read their policy positions:

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/ohrc-policy-statement-covid-19-vaccine-mandates-and-proof-vaccine-certificates

So while our human rights are certainly being infringed upon, I don't hold out any faith in these organizations to advocate for those that are opposing the mandates - they have closed ranks with the government.

Employment Agreements

Employment agreements or contracts are generally a document that you sign when you accept a job offer; a verbal working agreement is also a legally binding contract. Employment agreements contain explicit terms like hours, salary and place of work. There are also, lesser known implied (unwritten) terms of an employment contract which are:

⦁ The implied duty to maintain mutual trust and confidence

⦁ The implied duty of fidelity

⦁ The implied duty to provide a safe place of work

My impression is that employers are hanging their entire legal strategy on this third implied term i.e., they are ensuring a safe workplace by enforcing the mandate. Employers may say they have taken advice from government public health and in the case of larger organizations, their Chief Medical Officer. It would be wise to ask for exactly the guidance your employer is basing their mandate on and seeing whether it really gels with their policy or approach.

Health and safety measures also need to be reasonable and I think an employee has a decent shot at arguing that invasive medical procedures were never an implied term of their agreement, especially if that is not customary in your profession. I am using the phrase 'invasive medical procedures' because it covers both vaccination and rapid testing, so in one sentence I can also reject the option of twice weekly deep swabbing of my nostrils as an alternative to vaccination. Some people are finding that rapid testing option generous where it is offered and I suppose it is better than losing your livelihood, but honestly it looks very much like collective punishment and coercion to medicate to me. Submitting to rapid testing is agreement with the change of employment terms, so you will lose any leverage that you have to claim breach of contract.

For the employer's argument of health and safety to hold, they need to provide evidence that mandating vaccines will reduce transmission of Covid-19 in the workplace. There is, to my knowledge, no scientific literature to support this position. The vaccines were designed to reduce a person's risk of severe illness or death from Covid-19 and were not tested to determine the level to which they would reduce transmission. Given the substantial change in working conditions, workers are owed a substantial explanation of exactly how the workplace will be safer under a vaccine mandate. I haven't been provided such an explanation by my employer, have you?

"Mandatory vaccination policies are not without some risk for the employer. Employers with a unionized workforce run the risk of their policy being grieved and subjected to arbitration. In the non-union context, employers are at risk of facing a constructive dismissal claim from a disgruntled employee who considers the vaccination policy a unilateral and substantial change to their employment contract."

Sheila Lanctôt and Evan MacKnight, Stewart McKelvey LLP

Make no mistake, claims of constructive dismissal and union grievances are the number one thing that employers are afraid of at the moment; it is their weak spot, their Achilles Heel - let's use it!

Constructive Dismissal

Claims of constructive dismissal are notoriously hard to win in court, but it may not need to get there. All you have to do is look like you have lawyered up and are ready to go to court over this and your employer might cave - i.e., offer you a severance package. It is kind of like a game of chicken and it takes some bravery to do this. After all, you have to be willing to lose your job in the course of fighting back; perhaps your employer is allowing exemptions for now and making allowances, perhaps you have been told to work from home so the rules don't apply to you yet. But if you are going to fight back, you need to do it now as the change is enacted - failure to act now is aquiescence to the change and you won't be able to use this legal remedy at a later date.

Building a case of constructive dismissal has a natural flow to it; you need to show that you followed all the internal procedures available to you to challenge the change in employment terms prior to you either being fired or quitting. Here is what that flow looks like:

⦁ Begin to document a timeline of when the vaccine mandate was announced and all of your actions in response to it as well as actions and communications on your employer’s part.

⦁ Gather as much information about your employer's vaccination mandate as you can - ask for formally approved policies and procedures, ask about how the employer will maintain their privacy duties in regards to your personal health information, ask for the medical rationale for how the mandate makes your workplace safer.

⦁ Communicate your concerns about the mandate with you manager, both in person and via email

⦁ Communicate your concerns with your human resources representative, both in person and via email

⦁ If your concerns aren't meaningfully addressed to your satisfaction, ask to be directed to your internal grievance, formal complaint or formal escalation procedure

⦁ Craft an email for your formal complaint using legal language (more on this below). If possible get an employment lawyer to review it before you send it in. The key points to state are that you don't accept the revised terms of employment and that you are working under protest until the complaint is resolved.

⦁ Follow the internal complaint procedure and document every step in that process. An employer not having a meaningful grievance process could alone be grounds for a claim of constructive dismissal.

⦁ If the formal complaint procedure does not complete to your satisfaction you then have a difficult choice - acquiesce to the mandate and keep your job or quit and file a claim with an employment tribunal or sue the employer directly. It's highly advisable to talk to an employment lawyer before this step!

Crafting a Formal Complaint

Here is some potential language that you can use in your formal complaint:

The vaccine mandate is a substantial and unilateral change to my employment contract which I do not accept. ** I suggest you start with this line, it will really get their attention**

Workplace access has become contingent on invasive medical procedures which were not an express or implied condition of employment.

The vaccine mandate infringes on my legally protected rights to privacy, bodily autonomy and health freedoms.

I want to retain the right to choose whether to participate in any vaccine that is offered in the coming years based on my own risk assessment and making the right health choice for myself, rather than have that decision encumbered with potential loss of livelihood.

The rationale for this change of employment terms has not been established. <Your employer> has not provided meaningful information or a scientific basis on how this vaccine mandate reduces the risk of transmission of Covid-19 in the workplace. **May not apply in your case - also consider whether you want to argue medical facts in front of a judge or tribunal at a later point, especially given the current climate of censorship of dissenting physicians**

Vaccination status is a legally protected characteristic and as such it contravenes human rights laws and our internal Code of Conduct to use that protected characteristic for discrimination purposes **Make sure the Code of Conduct piece applies to your workplace**

As of <DATE> I will be working under protest until this matter is resolved. ** For this I chose the date where the vaccine mandate comes into force**Definitely end your complaint with this. **

Working Under Protest

The passage of time is your enemy in building a case for Constructive Dismissal - the longer time elapses before you formally fight back the less firm your ground is for a legal remedy. When you are into a formal dispute with your employer over a change in employment terms, announcing you are working under protest gives you some legal cover and buys you some valuable time. It means you can still keep your job (unless your employer is firing you for not being vaxxed), but shows that you are clearly not accepting the change. It would be wise to re-affirm you are working under protest by emailing your manager each time you get paid while you are in that state.

Conclusion

I hope this brief guide is useful for you and provides you with more options than you had previously. I stand in solidarity with all people across the world who are pushing back on the bio-medical surveillance state that we see being formed all around us. We are many, they are few. The reckoning is coming. #StandUpCanada #NoVaccinePassports #StrongerTogether

References:

https://www.stewartmckelvey.com/thought-leadership/mandatory-vaccines-in-the-workplace/

https://employmentlaw101.ca/constructive-dismissal/

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-can-your-workplace-mandate-covid-19-vaccinations/

https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/laws-regulations/labour/interpretations-policies/constructive-dismissal.html

https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/elements-intrusion-claim

https://www.lawwithin.com/post/tort-of-trespass

https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/privacy-laws-in-canada/the-personal-information-protection-and-electronic-documents-act-pipeda

Bill 75 Damages Nova Scotia's Social Contract

I am writing in opposition to Bill 75 as a parent, taxpayer and concerned citizen of Nova Scotia.  This Bill represents a gross erosion of the social contract of this province.  The social contract is the story we tell ourselves and our children that keeps us getting up every morning and putting the best of ourselves into our work or our studies for the betterment of this Province.  The story goes something like this:  If I work, pay my taxes and obey the law, the government will educate my children, I will be able to earn a fair wage and receive good healthcare if I become ill. 

Bill 75 erodes the social contract on two fronts – denying students access to a quality education system and removing the collective bargaining rights for teachers so that they will no longer be able to negotiate a fair wage or improvements to their working conditions. 

Teachers have been raising their concerns about the classroom for years and these are adequately covered in the other submissions to the Law Amendments Committee.  From my own perspective I find it shocking that adults can exit the Nova Scotian school system and still not be able to read and write; this is a shameful state of affairs and it is an indication of government neglect.  I know a number of NS teachers and I have the utmost respect for their capabilities and professionalism; the failure is of the school system itself, which does not adequately support the range of abilities in its over-crowded classrooms, does not provide for a textbook for every child and does not fail children and hold them back a year if they do not meet the learning outcomes.

The economic success of our Province depends on how well our children are educated;  children are best educated when we let teachers teach.  Surely this is a concept that this pro-business government can understand and get behind; it seems so short-sighted to under-fund education at the expense of future prosperity and tax revenue.  Honestly it’s this kind of attitude that holds Nova Scotia back from its full potential.  

Teachers deserve to be well paid and well supported for educating the next generation. Teachers have done the hard work to educate themselves, many of them hold multiple degrees; they have ‘paid their dues’ by working as subs, TA’s and hustling to find permanent positions, many of them for years without giving up hope that one day they will find a school where they can make a difference.  The government has treated the teachers terribly, strong arming them into wage structures that don’t keep pace with inflation.  The removal of the service award is nothing less than theft – deferred wages that many will now have to kiss goodbye if Bill 75 is passed.

It is transparent now that the Province’s intent was never to negotiate in good faith as the Sword of Damacles – this egregious Bill – has always been lurking in the background as the government’s trump card.  This union-busting Bill is part of a broader attack on Provincial public sector workers and it falls in line with a global effort to weaken workers rights in the service of a capitalist system whose utter failure and moral bankruptcy has been laid bare several times in recent decades, not least with the 2008 Financial Crash.  Bill 75 is on the wrong side of history in this great struggle between humanity and a rapacious, parasitic corporate elite.

Nova Scotia is better than this; we should be able to find a balance so that the social contract works for its citizens again. 

 

Confessions of a Cannabis Addict

"Where's your joy?" was a question a co-worker used to ask me regularly when we'd connect at the water cooler at the office.  It was always a good opener, better than "How are you?" or "What's up?" since it focused our conversation on the better things in life and it was a useful check in to see whether either of  us was struggling or conversely if we'd be able to inspire each other a little with some cheerful news.  Truth is, at the moment, I'm having a tough time finding my joy,  I'm in the throes of cannabis withdrawal and the waves of confusing despair are washing over me as a dark void opens up in my heart.  I feel like an open wound, an un-solvable puzzle, like I'm carrying the pain of the earth in my soul and there's no escape.

I've been trying to change my relationship with cannabis for years; I want to keep the good parts but leave behind the bad. Cannabis gives me relief from depression, but can sometimes entrench it; Cannabis helps me sleep but it prevents me from remembering my dreams; Cannabis deepens my appreciation of music but makes me a less productive and less confident musician; Cannabis can help me to be in right relationship with myself but can damage my relationships with others, particularly since I'm not a very good listener when I'm high; Cannabis enhances my sexual pleasure but can also make me a more self-centered lover.  I wish I could be Cannabis' friend, but I fear she just wants me to be her bitch.  When we are apart she's always in the back of my mind, nagging away that this problem or that problem would be better if I'd just come back to her.

I've never had the same issues with other drugs - I can take or leave alcohol,  I have a few drinks a week to relax - a glass of wine with food, a single beer after a hard day at work.  I was never attracted to heavy drinking - the dangers and downsides were always too obvious to me.  I smoked cigarettes from the age of 14 to 23, but then dropped it overnight, developing a daily pot smoking habit instead. I still have the odd cigarette, enjoying the grounding effect and the delicious if short lived euphoria it can bring. Tobacco is a powerful plant for ceremony and healing work, one of the master healing herbs in the indigenous traditions of the Americas. But if I smoke too much tobacco for recreation I get a sore throat and warning signals from my lungs - I back away and put it on the shelf for a while and never give it a second thought.  But I will pull it off the shelf again more often if I can't have weed because I love smoking, the act of pulling smoke deep into the lungs and the satisfying puffs on the exhale - there's something very primal, elemental and soothing about it.  I've tried vaping and eating pot, but always come back to joints, since nothing else really seems to hit the spot.

Recently I've been trying to switch from being a daily cannabis user to just on the weekends.  I'm not sure this is going to work.  My tendency to binge smoke on the weekends is higher and during the week days I have to suffer withdrawal each time - taking each day a day at a time and working with the forces compelling me to just have a little puff to take the edge off.  I've run out of weed, but I'm sure I could cobble up a toke from something, the residue in the bong, the scrapings from my stash box.  That's when you know you're an addict when you get into those desperate measures.

I've read a lot recently about addiction stemming from a lack of connection - that's it's really intimate contact with our lovers, friends and family that we're missing.  But I really don't think that's the case with me, I have a lovely partner and my relationship with my family is better than ever.  My friends are wonderful people and it's not hard to get into deeper chats with them and either set the world to rights or help each other talk about our challenges.  When I socialize I get a lot of hugs and it’s not weird for me to be physically affectionate with my pals.  So I don’t think it’s a lack of connection for me, instead it feels more like a deep pain that I’ve always carried that gets revealed when the cannabis smoke clears – something locked deep inside that gnaws away at me.

I had a well adjusted childhood and a loving home, so it’s a struggle to try and dig up any trauma that has made me the way I am.  I’ve done a lot of healing work over the years – psychotherapy, herbal, psychedelic, past life regression, Reiki, chiropractic, massage and conventional medicine.  Some of it helped a lot and I feel like I’ve released a great deal, but here in mid-life, I still feel there’s so much to do and I’m having trouble getting back to joy and lightheartedness.  I’d welcome comments of anyone that has had a similar journey and what has helped them through difficult times such as these.

In deepest gratitude to all the healers.  Blessings and Light, Elf

Building a Biodome Part 4: Dome Frame and Straw Bale Wall

Building the frame for the dome was one of the more technical parts of the construction process and as I mentioned in the Introduction, I followed the instructions in the Eden Biodome Revolution book.  I'm not going to go into too much detail, because I respect the intellectual property in the book, but if you're interested there is a series of Youtube videos starting with the one below which gives you some insight.

There were 65 struts to cut for a 2V geodome, 35 'A' pieces and 30 'B' pieces - the B struts are longer than the A's.  Given my 16 foot diameter (8 foot height), the A pieces were just over 4 foot long and the B pieces just under 5 foot.  This worked out well for using 10 foot long 2x4's without much wasted wood.  I bought 35 of these, allowing a little bit extra for mistakes. As a novice carpenter I'm proud to say I only screwed one strut up, so anyone can do this with a bit of patience.  Once the pieces were cut to length, the tricky part is cutting the arrowed angle cuts at each end.  For this I borrowed a friend's Bosch dual angle miter saw.  You need a saw that will do a 60 degree cut, preferably on both sides of the saw, but you can make it work if just one side will do this cut.  Cutting the struts took me about 10 hours in total, I took my time over it because it's worth getting the cuts accurate.  It worked for me doing it in two sessions, one for the A's another for the B's.

Once I had them cut I laid out the struts and stained them with a couple of coats of a good quality wood stain.  This will protect the wood from the humidity and UV in the growing space and will ensure maximum longevity for the structure.

The straw bales I sourced from a local feed supply co-operative.  At $5 per bale I ended up paying more than I would have buying direct from a farmer (typically 3-4 bucks per bale), but it was a convenient source not too far out from the city, which when transporting them yourself makes a difference.  It took two trips in a rented pickup truck to transport the 30 bales that I bought.  The second trip I appreciated having a friend along who had grown up on a farm and knew how to stack bales properly - the first trip was a bit fraught, with the tarp and load threatening to fall off at any point.  With the materials assembled it was time to build!

 

We laid the first layer of bales, then checked them in relation to the base of the dome frame to make sure they were positioned correctly.  I wanted the base of the frame to fit around the edge of the bales, but still be well supported by the wall.  We realized that this was easiest to achieve by actually screwing the base octagon together -playing with it with the pieces separate just made us confused!

Another point of confusion came from measuring across the structure and it not being 16 feet, but just over 15. It was only later that day that I realized this was because we were measuring from the center of the struts, rather than from the corners. Doh!

Once the bale wall was positioned to our satisfaction, we started to stuff all the cracks between the bales.  Aside from aesthetic concerns with holes and cracks, stuffing is important to make sure there are no air pockets in the wall, since these can become points where humidity builds up, can meet with cold air and condense, causing moisture problems.  With stuffing complete, we hammered bamboo stakes through the bales to secure them together to provide a bit of structural integrity.  Then it was time to build the dome frame - this part seemed to be easier to do with just a couple of us doing it, there wasn't a lot of space inside the dome frame and more people would have made it trickier.

The way to construct the frame is to build the triangles of each layer first, then connect them along the top with the cross struts.

As long as you keep track of whether you need an A or a B piece, the frame construction is fairly straightforward and quite satisfying - you get to see the results of your work quickly.  We used 1 3/4 inch screws to secure the struts to each other.

When we started to do the second layer, it was apparent we needed some support for the triangles before they were fully connected together, so we used a couple of the spare 10x2x4's to do that.

After you get a few of these supports on the go, space to work becomes a bit limited, but it did make sense to keep the structural integrity before the dome could hold itself together.

When we started to work on pieces that were immediately above our heads we felt that hard hats were in order.  A couple of pieces of wood or accidentally falling on our hats thereafter confirmed this was a good idea.

We were amazed when the dome finally came together at the apex.  Not every hub had neatly aligned on the way up, so we were joking about how far off we would be.

We reasoned that getting the base and first row of triangles as close to perfect as possible really effects how things go together further up

Here's the completed frame.  When it was all secured together, it's awesome how strong the structure is.  I hung from one of the struts and felt completely secure.

.

Cost and Effort:

The bale walls and dome frame can easily be built by two people in a day.

Bales: $150
Wood: $150
Stain: $30
Screws: $20
Total: $350

Lessons learned:

Having all the bales and wood struts and a lot of people around in a small yard was pretty chaotic.  This was one case where having less people around to complete the basic structure made it easier.  I wouldn't want to try to do the frame on my own though as I have seen some people do it, two pairs of hands made sense for this part of the job.

Transporting a lot of bales using a pickup is pretty hairy if you don't know what you're doing.  Having a friend that knows how to stack them really helped.

I would take more time selecting the bales myself next time.  I didn't have a choice at the vendor I went to, they just threw down bales to us from the barn.  Good square bales with tightly packed straw and well cut sides make a huge difference to the plastering process, we had too many loose, unruly bales in our collection and some of them were moldy inside which can make the wall unhealthy and structurally weak.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Darren, Malte, Julie, Randi, John, Sunni and Avalon for your help with this part of the construction.

Building a Biodome Part 3: Foundation

The first thing I did was mark the central point for the dome structure, which is roughly in the middle of my backyard, which I had observed as being the sunniest spot in the garden.  Once I'd decided on the center of the circle, I pounded in a metal peg and using an 8 ft string marked out the edges of where the foundation trench was going to go with rocks.  I removed all the turf within this circle.

Then I started the laborious job of digging a 2 foot deep ditch that would be slightly wider than my bales all the way around.  I had some help with this from a couple of friends, thankfully.  One of them remarked that digging ditches had to be "the second oldest profession in the world" and it had a ring of truth to it.  No way around it, but this is slow, backbreaking work.  It made me think of my grandfather in the first world war and how hard it was to dig 6-10 foot trenches while battle was raging all around, must have been hellish.

Once the trench was dug I placed 9 concrete blocks at equal distances around the trench.  My 'B' struts that are all along the base of the dome are just shy of 5 ft long, so I made sure the blocks were spaced at that distance.   The base of the dome has ten sides, I didn't place a block where the door was going to be, since I planned to cut that strut out of the structure to make the entrance.  I attached around 6 feet of galvanized wire to each block - the idea being I would use this to tie the wooden dome frame into the foundation and prevent it from blowing off the top of the straw bale walls. Once the concrete blocks and wire were in place we started to move 6 tons of 3/4 inch crushed gravel into the trench.

 This was another laborious job and I was grateful for the help of several friends before it was completed.  The foundation needed this much gravel because the land sloped and the foundation had to be around a foot or so above ground level on one side.  I wanted to get the bales well above ground level to prevent moisture coming in from the sides. We leveled the gravel with two 2x4x10 planks screwed together and a level on top.

Work Effort and Cost

Digging the trench took approximately 2 person days.  Moving the gravel into the trench, around another 3 person days, so 5 person days in all.

6 tons of 3/4 crushed gravel cost $130 delivered.  The galvanized wire cost $20.  I had the concrete blocks lying around my yard, not sure what these would set you back, probably $5 apiece.  I spent a total of $155 on the foundation.

Lessons Learned

While my foundation was cheaper than pouring concrete, I paid for it in work effort.  I planned a biodome construction one day workshop and had intended to get the bale walls and the wooden dome built that day, but we spent the whole day moving gravel after realizing that the foundation as built wasn't high enough.  So I felt bad having friends hauling and leveling gravel that day, which didn't seem very inspiring or interesting.  Construction is kind of humbling that way and will tend to take at least twice to three times as long as an inexperienced person is expecting.  Having said that, spending effort or money on the foundation is never a waste, because the rest of your structure will be more 'true' if it is deep and level.

Talking to straw bale construction experts later in the build, they were very concerned about placing bales directly on the gravel foundation.  They thought that the bale walls would wick water up from the dew point and eventually rot as a result.  Their recommendation would be to put a layer of flat rocks, then a layer of earth bags all around to raise the bale wall higher off the ground and create a moisture barrier.  I would go with this recommendation if I were doing this again.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to James, Malte, Julie, Sunni, Jim, Randi and John for your help with the foundation!

Building a Biodome Part 2: Design

In part one I went over some of the goals and ideas that informed my biodome design, namely:

• Maximizing passive solar gain and insulation to lengthen the growing season;
• Creation of a 'living' structure that adapts with the climatic conditions;
• Maximization of the amount of plant growing space;
• Ensuring the end result is aesthetically pleasing; and
• Using sustainable, environmentally friendly materials where feasible.

With these design goals in mind, I will go over the architecture I came up with and explain the choice of materials and construction approach.  At this point I will not be providing an opinion on whether the design choices were good ideas or not; in later posts I will go over each part of the structure in the order in which I built it and explain any challenges I faced when theory hit reality.

When considering dome construction, you can get as large or as complex as you want, with many options of geometric shapes.  Dome families include icosahedrons, cubes, octahedrons or the wonderfully named rhombicuboctahedrons.  Looking around at these, I realized that I recognized the shape of the icosohedrons best and it seems that there is more practical construction information available about them online than any of the other polyhedrons.  Beyond their geometric family, geodesic domes are defined by the different lengths of the struts that form the structure.  If all the struts are the same length, that is known as a 1V dome, two different lengths of struts form the 2V dome and so on.  You can get an idea of what each icosahedron dome looks like on the Desert Domes site by mousing over the 1V-5V links here.  The more different strut lengths you have, the harder your design is going to be to build, also the 3V-5V shapes are more suited to larger structures and the 1V-2V more practical for a smaller building.  I opted for a 2V dome, since these are recommended for up to 15 foot diameter and the space I had in my garden was around that size. 

The simpler geodesic domes by themselves aren't the greatest for usable space, as the sides of them slant in a fair bit making that side area harder to use.  Consider this 5 meter (16 foot) diameter 2V dome, with an averaged sized human standing in it:

As you can see while the person can walk around the center of the space it would be harder to work around the sides, with the need to bend over causing the space to be less functional.  So I figured the design should include a wall that acts as a base, raising the dome to around hip height and increasing the amount of usable space and  headroom. 

My choice for the base wall was informed by a passion for straw bale building that I've had for many years. Straw bale construction has very high insulating properties, having an R value of between 30 and 45.

When you apply a natural hydraulic lime plaster finish the wall has the capability to allow air and water vapor to pass through it, ensuring air exchange for the growing environment even when the windows are closed in winter.  The lime plaster also adds  thermal mass to the construction which will help to keep the structure warm at night.

Straw bale structures have very rustic, earthy aesthetics and the idea of the straight lines of a geometric dome contrasting with a very organically shaped circular wall was appealing.

Straw bale buildings come in two main building styles, load bearing and non-load bearing.  In load bearing, the straw bales are what holds up the roof.

In non-load bearing, a post and beam structure is used to hold up the roof, with the bales filling in the walls:

I opted to go with the load bearing approach, since it would use less material (no need for wooden posts and beams) and should also be quicker to construct.

For the foundation of the bale wall I considered pouring a concrete slab, but thought that would add expense that I would rather spend elsewhere in the structure, also I wanted to avoid concrete because its production is very energy intensive and environmentally unfriendly.  So I considered the simplest foundation I could and figured that a trench that was slightly wider than my straw bales filled with 3/4 inch gravel would work OK.  The idea being that any water would drain downwards into the gravel.  I also devised a way to anchor the dome structure to the bale wall, by placing cement blocks in the gravel trench and attaching the base of the dome to the blocks in the foundation with galvanized wire.

When I was first considering the material for the dome struts, I was finding a lot of how-to's by Burning Man festival regulars who were using electrical conduit (metal tubing).  Geo-domes are everywhere on the Playa acting as temporary shelters and hangout spaces for attendees.

I liked the possibility of using metal tubing since it seemed straightforward enough.  Cut your strut lengths to the correct sizes, then flatten, drill through and bend the ends of the struts so that you can bolt them together like so:

The more I thought about this though, this wasn't as easy as it seemed.  You need quite a strong press to crimp and bend the ends of the conduit and I read stories of people busting their tools as they produced the 65 struts needed to make a 2V dome.  Also it wasn't clear in my mind how I would attach a clear membrane to this structure or easily add insulation to the north side of the space.  Metal conduit works fine for a temporary shelter you can erect at a festival and cover with tarps, but I needed something more permanent and practical for making a greenhouse.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I came to the conclusion that wooden struts was the way to go.

When using wooden struts to build a dome you can either go with connectors at the junctions of the struts, or you can cut the wood with a slanted arrow shape at each end and screw it together.  

As I was looking into this, I came across Kacper Postawski's book "The Eden Biodome Revolution".  The book lays out how to cut the angles of the wood for the arrowed struts in a level of detail that I couldn't find anywhere else.  While I thought the book was overpriced at $50, I don't think that I would have been able to figure out how to cut the wood without it.  The book also sang the praises of a material called Polykeder, which I incorporated into my design as the transparent covering for the dome.  Here's some information from Polykeder.com:

"PolyKeder is the name of an air bubble greenhouse film designed for long term, outdoor exposure to the elements and designed specifically for plant production.  PolyKeder is waterproof, airtight, strong, lightweight and flexible enough to be cut with scissors, can be recycled or safely incinerated, can hold the weight of three men, and can be adjusted to virtually any structure.  With careful installation, one layer of PolyKeder can last over 25 years!  PolyKeder guarantees an even light diffusion over the entirety of the structure."

"PolyKeder uniquely allows a substantial amount of sunlight, approximately 83%, 30% of which is healthy infrared light, diffusing through more than 100 air burls per square foot.  The diffused light scatters evenly so as to avoid and eliminate the common difficulties of both shading and burning areas within the structure. Another important point about diffusion is that in the winter months the sun is low in the sky and plants don't respond well to that.  Diffusion tricks the plant because light hits it at all angles, not just from the side. PolyKeder provides an insulating effect that retains up to 95% of heat radiation while providing its users with impressive R and U Values and unprecedented thermal resistivity and conductivity creating the most energy efficient product available in a single layer film without any further enhancements. The R value of Polykeder is 1.7"

I was happy to find this material and it seemed perfectly suited to the job at hand, appearing flexible and straightforward to cut into the triangles to cover the dome.  I figured it was far simpler than trying to fashion custom polycarbonate triangles, which would be the only other way to get the diffusion and insulation properties that are required to meet the design goals.  

By covering the majority of the dome in this watertight plastic material and considering the amount of heat that will build up inside the dome in the sun, it was clear that ventilation was going to be important .  For that I figured windows in the upper part of the structure where it's warmest would be good. Kacper's book turned me on to the idea of self-opening windows that activate with heat and I found these beauties at my local Lee Valley Store:

I was excited about these too, because they are another way in which the biodome acts like an organic system and adapts automatically to its climate.  They are a great example of bio-mimicry,  making me think of flowers and plants that open up during the day and close at night. 

The final piece of my design was to figure out how I was to insulate and cover the north side of the dome, the part that doesn't receive direct sunlight.  I decided to go relatively conventional with this side of the dome with 3/4 inch plywood on the outside, rigid pink foam insulation in the cavity and Reflectix on the inside, creating a kind of reflective mirror to focus the sun's rays into the water tank's thermal mass.

With all these decisions made I was ready to get out of planning mode and into building this thing.  I started sourcing and ordering materials and began preparing the foundation, which I will talk about in Part 3.

Building a Biodome Part 1: Introduction

I've been a gardener for around 6 years and while I get great satisfaction out of it as a therapeutic activity that connects me with nature, I've been progressively disappointed with the yields my garden has been producing.  Even with raised beds, good soil and care and attention it always seems like I've put more energy in than I have got back.  Living in a northern climate in Nova Scotia, Canada we don't have the longest growing season with frosts possible well into June and starting again around mid-October.  We can have weeks on end of rain, high winds, droughts and unpredictable cold snaps, all of which stunt the growth of plants and diminish the harvest.  After a few years of this I became convinced that I needed a greenhouse so that I could address some of these problems. 

I looked around at greenhouse kits online and most of the conventional ones didn't appeal.  I was surprised to find that even a  very basic 6'x8' aluminum framed conventional greenhouse kit will set you back around $3000, such as the one pictured below from Backyard Greenhouses.

On looking a bit deeper at this model, I figured that to extend the growing season where I live beyond a couple of weeks one of these probably wouldn't cut it.  For one thing, the insulating effect of the 6mm double-pane polycarbonate covering has an R value of 1.54,  which while not bad, is still at the lower end of the possible options. Selecting a good cover is one the most important considerations when buying or designing a greenhouse as articulated very effectively in this article in GreenhouseCatalog. In a colder climate every bit of insulation counts as protection for your plants. Here's a table from that page, which is a handy reference.

Greenhouse Covering	R-Value	U-Value
5mm Solexx Panels	2.30	0.43
3.5mm Solexx Panels	2.10	0.48
8mm Triple Wall Polycarbonate	2.00	0.50
Double Pane Storm Windows	2.00	0.50
10mm Double Wall Polycarbonate	1.89	0.53
8mm Double Wall Polycarbonate	1.60	0.63
6mm Double Wall Polycarbonate	1.54	0.65
4mm Double Wall Polycarbonate	1.43	0.70
Single Pane Glass, 3mm	0.95	1.05
Poly Film	0.83	1.20

The second problem with the conventional kit was that it was too small.  I'd need a good amount of space inside, since I'd have to sacrifice some of the growing space to thermal mass.  If you want to keep the plants warm at night, it's not enough just to have warm air in the space, since that will cool as soon as the sun goes down. Thermal mass is a repository for the sun's energy that is an important element of passive solar heating.  Typically in houses it is a mass of stone or brick, but water is also a very effective medium to collect heat during the day and slowly give off that warmth at night and that is normally the choice for greenhouses. There's a great article about building a solar greenhouse here that gets into some of the facts and figures such as how much water you need versus the dimensions of the space.

Another thing about the rectanglar design of the conventional greenhouse is that it may not be the best shape to withstand the high winds I get in my region.  I've seen the straight lines of my backyard fence heave in heavy storms and I had to replace it entirely when Hurrican Juan whipped through our area.  You can get rectangular greenhouses with curved roofs which seems better, but still I'm not convinced it is the best shape for aerodynamics and longevity in an area that gets regularly whipped with Nor'Easter's.

Finally I don't find conventional boxy architecture aesthetically pleasing or mentally, emotionally or spiritually satisfying to be in.  I'm a great believer in the idea that architecture shapes our consciousness and that the built environment can restrict or liberate our lived experience.  Many traditional dwellings are circular, from the tipis of the Native Americans to the yurts of Mongolian herders to the thatched mud huts of the Masai in Kenya.  I think there is a good reason for this. Circles are everywhere in nature, from water droplets to stems and branches, the shape of the Earth and even in our very cells; try finding a rectangle anywhere in the natural world!  In the words of Oglala Sioux medicine man Black Elk "There is no power in a square house".

After going off the concept of a conventional greenhouse, I recalled the concept of the biodome. I had seen them used before at the excellent Eden Project in southwestern England.  Based on the classic Buckminster-Fuller dome geometry, these unique spaces take greenhouses to the next level, becoming more like mini-climates, where every element of the structural design is a conscious part of a living system.

What I didn't realize is there is recent movement of people making them for their own gardens, which I started to uncover in my travels around the internet.  Following dome links I found the excellent designs produced by Growing Spaces and it all seemed to fall into place - yes, this is what I was looking for. 



The shear and deflection inherent in a dome fares better than a square shape does in high winds, pushing the structure down, rather than over.  The dome shape is an approximation of a more natural spherical form, providing an element of bio-mimicry and a more natural shape to capture the sun's rays as it travels across the sky.  The north interior side of the Growing Spaces domes are insulated and a reflective material added to focus the sun's rays onto a large water tank at the back of the dome.



The thermal mass of the water retains heat and solves the problem of cold nights, allowing for the possibility of radically extending the growing season, not just for a few weeks but for months.  Stories of people harvesting lettuce in cold climates in March warmed my heart, as did those of dome owners being able to keep tropical plants alive through the winter.  Then I looked at the prices of the kits and even for the smallest 15' dome it was in the region of $7,000 just for kit and additional materials would still be required.  Being someone that likes a challenge I thought I could do just as well, if not better with my own design, admittedly borrowing most of the ideas from the Growing Spaces concept.  I set my budget to half of buying a kit, thinking that $3500 would be more than generous for what I had in mind, then I set to work on my own design, which I will detail in part 2 of this series.