Earth Day seems like the perfect day to share some good news on the ecoEnergy front. On March 31st of this year, the Federal government abruptly announced an immediate end to their very popular ecoEnergy Retrofit Homes Program. Under that initiative, homeowners were able to access grants of up to $10,000 of combined Federal and Provincial contributions [...]
After allocating an extra $80 million to this popular, energy efficiency retrofit program in the budget on March 4th, the Tory government has suddenly announced yesterday that it has been cancelled without warning. In a media release this morning, Kerri MacDonald from the local Environment Network said, “With over 85,000 home retrofits conducted since 2007, [...]
The features that home buyers look for reflect the changing realities of the world we live in. As the average age of the population rises, so does the demand for one storey homes. With environmental issues reaching our collective consciousness, so does the demand for “green” features increase. I spent some time this morning reading [...]
Well, maybe that is a big first step. But it is true indeed that one persons junk is another persons’ treasure. A few years ago, we had a yard sale and among other things, there was an old iron bed headboard. The lady who bought it told me she was going to give it a [...]
With the current Home Renovation Tax Credit (HRTC) and the ecoEnergy grants available, home renovation appears to be alive and well. It certainly is in our house. Have you ever wondered what the pay back might be for the money you invest in those renovations? The Appraisal Institute of Canada has a handy calculator on their website to [...]
Do you ever wonder how your own behaviours and expenditures as a home owner stack up to the norm? According to a report released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), approximately 1.7 million households across 10 major city centres spent almost $21.3 billion on renovations to their primary residence in 2008. About 35 [...]
We often talk about our desire to “go green” but outside of replacing fluorescent light bulbs and using organic garbage bins, I’m not sure some people really have been able to translate their desires into concrete action. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately as we try to develop our own green plan [...]
A few weeks ago, I read a blog post written by one of my favourite home inspectors about radon gas. For years we’ve heard rumours that this may become the “next big thing” and suddenly, it seems to be here. Radon gas is an invisible and radioactive gas that may be present in cellars, basements [...]
As reported in the last post, we recently had a Home Energy Audit performed on our own 22 year old, brick bungalow. Although it ranked very well with respect to our over-all energy efficiency, there are still things we can do to make it better and in this post, I’d like to review some of [...]
The house that my hubby and I live in is just over 20 years old. It was well built and you wouldn’t think there would be much value to having an energy audit done. Think again. Since talking to people a lot about things like ecoEnergy rebates, the pending Home Energy Rating Act and about [...]
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