Daily Home Renovation Tips

According to the ecoENERGY Retrofit web site, March 30, 2009 sees a 25% increase in the amount of individual retrofit grants for a limited time.

This is the long awaited details of the $300 million increase to the program announced on January 27, 2009 Federal budget for which no details were provided at the time.

Now, what does this mean to the average Canadian home owner?

Is the Federal grant amount all of the individual retrofits under the program boosted by 25%? According to the ecoENERGY announcement, yes.

Is this a ‘limited time offer’? Again, yes; from the announcement it appears that the 25% increase in the individual ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit grants is a limited time increase - for 2 years only.

When does the additional 25% increase in individual program grants end? Does the 2 year time period started 27-JAN-09, the date of the Federal Budget, or 30-MAR-09, the date of this announcement, or some other date? According to the web site “Funds are available for a limited time (to March 31, 2011) and are subject to availability”.

However, the devil is in the details. Does the 31-MAR-11 end date relate to the date (A) of the second or E energy audit or (B) the date that the report is completed by the assessor after the second or E energy audit is filed with ecoENERGY administrators? This is unclear. We had our second / E energy audit in late january 2009 yet it took almost 6 weeks before we received the official report form the assessor.

Is the maximum amount of total ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit grants an individual can receive under the program also increased by 25%? No. The announcement on the web site still maintains that the maximum grant an individual can receive remains fixed at $5,000.

Are Provincial Governments providing matching ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit grants also increasing their amounts by 25%? Unclear. Quickly checking some of the related Provincial ecoENERGY web sites indicated no mention of this increase on their part. And, there is no mention on the Federal site confirming whether some / each Provincial matching program is or is not also increasing their grant amount. Likely this is due to time needed to contact each Province, with each Province needing to see if there is room in their Provincial budget for the increase, etc. Stay tuned on this one.

Is this increase in lieu of the Federal Government’s Home Renovation Tax Credit? No. A home owner can participate in both programs, i.e. receive both the ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit grant as well as the Home Renovation Tax Credit for the same applicable energy conservation renovation.

Before starting any home renovation, energy conservation related or otherwise, readers are strongly encouraged to review the details of both programs and any matching Provincial program to ensure they know if the particular home renovation expenditure falls within the guidelines for eligible home renovations in either program. And, remember, you must have the first, or ‘D’ energy efficiency assessment (i.e. energy audit) performed on your home by an ecoENERGY accredited assessor before you start any eligible ecoENERGY renovation in order to become eligible for the program’s grant. No credit will be given at all for any such renovation undertaken prior to this first energy audit.

Does this 25% increase in the individual Federal ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit grants apply to new households participating in the program who have yet to have their first, or ‘D’ energy audits? What about those who have already had their first energy audits but not the second or ‘E’ energy audits? What about those who have had both the first and second energy efficiency assessments (i.e. energy audits)  under the program but who have not yet received their grant checks?

Again, unclear. We will know first hand if this increase applies to a household who had the second / E energy audit performed but who had not yet received it’s ecoENERGY grant cheque as we are in this category ourselves. We will let you know the amount of the grant we actually receive from both the Federal program (which should be in another 2 months) and the Provincial program (which should take we are told a further 2 months or so).

So, bottom line. More money is more money. Will it be sufficient to encourage more Canadian homeowners to participate who had not yet had started their participation in the program? Time will tell.