Saving Money Through Energy Efficiency - Article by G & A Klosler

Many of you that live in a home that is not of newer construction have likely thought of doing things to make your home more energy efficient, especially if you live in an area that is not serviced by natural gas and rely on more expensive heating alternatives like propane or furnace oil (which is our case). There are lot opinions and information out there on what to do which may in fact cause you to be indecisive on what to actually do. What follows here is some steps that we took which have clearly made a difference on the amount of energy we use to heat our home.

The first thing we did was visit “Canada Greener Homes Grant” webpage (googled it). This is a federal program where you can obtain up to $5000 dollars in rebates when you make eligible improvement to your home. You can also apply for an interest free loan for up to $40,000 dollars, depending on the level of change you will do to. The website has all the information you need including how to assess your eligibility (most homeowners are) and once you have done that, you can register as an applicant and don’t worry there is no time limit on accessing the grant funds once you have registered your application.

The next step in the process is to have an energy evaluation done on your home by a qualified company and the website has a list of eligible ones. We used Energy Werx out of Tillsonburg, they came promptly and provided a detailed report which included the suggestion for improving our home. The cost of this analysis was $500 and is money you can get back once you finalize your grant request. This same company is required to come back once you have completed your upgrades to certify that the things , you have done meet the standards for the grant (and the loan if applying for that too). Please know that you only submit your final grant request once, so you must finish everything you plan to do to your home before you have the company back to certify the work done. You do not make interim requests for part of the grant proceeds.

We are now in process of completing the recommended actions listed out in the evaluation report. In our case the first priorities were to replace some windows and doors and improve the insulation in our attic. This has been done and the results have been impressive, the savings in heating cost so far allow us to estimate that we can recoup the cost of the upgrades in about 6 years. This does not include any of the grant proceeds, which if included would improve our payback period even further. It goes without much saying that value of the energy evaluation and its recommendations have so far been well worth it.

So, what’s next? At this point we continue with following the recommendations in the Evaluation report by having our home assessed (by a qualified heating contractor). In summary, it is likely a worthwhile initiative to have your home assessed. You should find that you can save yourself some hard-earned dollars and reduce your environmental footprint at the same time.

~Article prepared by George and Annette Klosler - RR2 Mt Elgin, ON