The Home Audit Report Arrives
The Big Day arrives: I open our mailbox to the usual flurry of pizza coupons and other dead-tree flyers to find amongst them… Our official Home Audit Report!
I sit down with a big cup of joe to open it, feeling disconcertedly like a kid on Report Card day. And there it is… our grade. It’s not a fail, whew; it’s a…. 61.
Our home received a C- as our Energuide rating, or, as they like to call it: in the range of “upgraded old house.”
The desired rating – what the government will need to see in order for us to get our ecoENERGY rebates?
We need to reach 81.
OK, so we have a ways to go… how hard can it be to move up 20 points in energy-efficiency?
The 17-page home audit report from GreenTech Services told me just how hard it’s going to be!! Over the next few blog posts, I will spell out the findings and recommendations of this tome of information.
For now, let me share my favourite bit of the Energy Efficiency Evaluation Report – which I see has been officially filed with the Ontario Government; our humble abode is now a 10-digit file number.
The last paragraph of the report reads, in part:
“You have up to 18 months from the date of this report [Aug 18th] or until March 31, 2011, whichever comes first, to complete your renovations and qualify for an ecoENERGY Retrofit Homes grant. The sooner you start your renovations, the sooner you will benefit from the energy savings. And let’s not forget how reduced energy consumption helps protect the environment.“
Hahaha, I just love the condescending schoolteacher tone of that last sentence! I feel like my knuckles have been rapped for my lazy attitude about the planet to date!
Next up: Wading our way through 17 pages of single-spaced “Home Energy Action Checklist” and related reading materials which reads like a textbook. Don’t worry we’ll summarize just the highlights, the “sexy bits”!
Susan
11 Oct, 2009
Hi Heather and Doug
After seeing your website, and talking to friends, I am ready to take the plunge and book a home energy audit. Do you have to pay the $350 at the start and at the end. Do you only get a rebate of $150?
We’ll be a bit behind you in our renovations, but I challenge you to a race to get these reno’s done!
Heather
13 Oct, 2009
Hi, Susan
We have to pay $350 each time the auditor comes (or whatever the auditor you choose charges) – both at start and end of the energy retrofits.
And the government will pay up to $150 at least for the first audit. I cannot seem to find info online as to whether or not the government will chip in for the second, post-retrofit audit that we need in order to get a new EnerGuide rating and be able to sell our home as max energy-efficient. Here’s a government site link that has FAQs.