Daily Home Renovation Tips

Long title for an article, I know.

October 1, 2008 marked the 18 month anniversary of the ecoENERGY Retrofit program which provides Canadian home and property owners with up to $5,000 in Federal grants to offset the cost of specific energy conservation related renovations as identified in an Energy Efficiency Assessment (i.e. energy audit) by an accredited independent professional.

We have written previously about the program, focusing on the Residential Retrofit portion. As stated in our article Earth Day, ecoENERGY Retrofit, and the Minister of Natural Resources Canada back on April 22, 2008, key metrics of the Residential Retrofit portion include:

• Available Funding - $160 million (over the program duration)
• Program Duration - 4 years ending March 31, 20011
• Eligible Canadian Residences - 9,991,450

After 18 months, here are some of the high level results to date (April 1, 2007 to October 1, 2008). We would like to thank Media Relations at Natural Resources Canada for compiling the statistics so quickly and providing them to us as they have in the past.

• Fully Participating Canadian Residences (both ‘D’ & ‘E’ energy audits)
  • Number:
    • 12 Months Ending 01-APR-08 -   17,653
    • 18 Months Ending 01-OCT-08 -  42,000
    • 48 Months Target 01-APR-11 - 140,000
  • Percentage:
    • 12 Months Ending 01-APR-08 - 0.17%
    • 18 Months Ending 01-OCT-08 - 0.42%
    • 48 Months Target 01-APR-11 -  1.40%
      • (140,000 / 9,991,450)
• Partially Participating Canadian Residences (’D’ energy audit only)
  • Number:
    • 12 Months Ending 01-APR-08 - 102,845
    • 18 Months Ending 01-OCT-08 - 229,000

[NOTE: All data above provided by Natural Resources Canada with our thanks. More details from the 12 month period can be reviewed by accessing  our prior article ecoENERGY Retrofit Program - 1st Anniversary Progress ]

Now, it should be remembered that applicants (i.e. home owners) have up to 18 months to have the second, or ‘E’, energy efficiency assessment (i.e. energy audit) performed to become eligible to receive not only the Federal grants under the program but also matching Provincial grants (in participating provinces). This 18 month time limit is starting to be reached by the earliest participants, likely causing some the acceleration  in fully participating residences per the above from 17,653 after 12 months to more than double in the next 6 month period, or 42,000 after 18 months.

Now, I remain surprised (and somewhat disappointed and chagrined) that there as been no public debate, discussion or analysis which has come to our attention regarding some of the 48 month targets.

Is it reasonable for Canadian home owners to expect their Federal Government to directly help them financially to make their homes more energy efficient and thereby consume less non-renewable resources while simultaneously reduce polluting emissions at all?

Is it sufficient for the Federal Government have the target of directly helping only 1.40 per cent of Canadian households to become more energy efficient?

One point four percent; not 14.0 per cent, 1.40 per cent.

Or, to put it another way, is it acceptable that the Federal Government is planning to not directly assist 98.60% of Canadian households become more energy efficient?

Based on $160 million in funding over the 4 year period and a target of 140,000 fully participating applicants, the program will provide on average approximately $1,142 to each fully participating applicant. Is this number sufficient?

We wrote previously about the two quotes we received for a natural gas tankless water heater. After both the Federal and the matching Provincial government ecoENERGY grants, we would still have to pay out of our pocket $2,600+ and would be looking at an 8 year+ financial payback.

Would you be motivated, as a home owner with a mortgage, food, clothing, RRSP contributions, RESP contributions to spend $2,600 with an 8 year financial payback?

And, natural gas, while much cleaner than oil, remains a non-renewable resource whose consumption produces polluting emissions into the air.

We have written about the recent pilot initiative of the program to encourage the mass deployment of solar water heaters whose goal is to determine the optimal marketing of solar water heaters to the Canadian residential market. Our high level estimates (to be confirmed by a firm quote from a participating firm) is that the additional program funding may make the investment for the installation of a solar water heater similar to that of tankless water heaters.

So, where are we after 18 months? I’ll leave to the politicians (gee, I think there is an election on right now ) and the media pundants the opinions to the above noted questions which we have asked. Tomorrow, we are to receive more detailed information from Natural Resources Canada on the first 18 months of the ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit program which we will use to analyse in more depth the results to date.