The people from the Great Refrigerator Roundup where here today to take away our old chest freezer – living in our backyard for a few months now, removed from its home in our laundry room when we did the insulation there (see right, prior to insulation).

It took about a month to book it but today two guys showed up, and just took the old beast away.

Not only is there no cost and no fuss for us but they even left us a couple of free compact flourescent light bulbs and a night light!

Fridges have to be between 10-27 cubic feet, in working order and and 15 years or older to qualify. Appliances like this can waste between $120 and $150 per year!

I have to admit that we hadn’t ever plugged in that chest freezer, so it wasn’t wasting any electricity, just taking up space.

However, it’s good to know that it is being disposed of properly. As they say on the Great Refrigerator Roundup site, “When we are finished recycling and reclaiming material, very little will be sent to the landfill.”

Honeywell UtilityPRO Touchscreen Programmable Demand Control Thermostat

We recently signed up for a great program that our power company (Horizon Utilities) offers called PeakSaver. The program is a win-win-win.

WE WIN because Horizon installs a brand-new, high-end thermostat (see right) in our home for free (yes we own it – I checked) with zero installation costs! In fact, for participating in the program, we even get a $25 credit on our bill, so they actually pay us!

THEY WIN (the utility company) because the new thermostat allows them to remotely control our heating/cooling system so that – during the warmest summer days when the power grid is overloaded – they can cycle our air conditioner off for short periods. We were told that we’ll hardly notice any change, and the power grid will be more stable as a result.

THE ENVIRONMENT WINS because by putting less strain on the power grid, the utility company can use less “dirty” power sources (such as coal) – which means a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and a positive effect on climate change issues.

Step 1: Removing the old thermostat

We booked an appointment with our utility company and just by accident, it turned out our install was scheduled for Earth Day, April 22, 2010! Matt showed up at the scheduled time to install our new thermostat. He works for Honeywell (the manufacturer of the thermostat) so we know it was correctly installed.

The Whole Thing Done in 40 Minutes

Step 1: Matt removed our old thermostat, which he recommended we keep close to the furnace just in case we ever need an emergency backup. The new thermostat needs power that he learned our existing wiring doesn’t have (only 4 wires, not 5). So…

Step 2: Matt had to install a small device in the furnace to use one of our four wires for power.

Step 2: Installing thermostat module in our furnace

Step 3: Applying Insulation Tape

Step 3: Matt pointed out that it is good to apply a piece of insulation tape over the hole the wires go into. Cold air can circulate in the walls, and if that cold air is coming out through the hole in the wall, your thermostat will think it is cooler than it really is and the furnace will be running when it doesn’t need to.

Step 4: Then he hooked up the wiring to the new thermostat, and attached it to the wall in our main floor hallway.

Matt then gave a quick tour of the features and functions of the thermostat and showed me how to program it. He left me with a Honeywell operating manual for our model – the Honeywell UtilityPRO Series touchscreen programmable demand control thermostat.

Step 4: Rewiring for the New Thermostat

Remote Access

Matt of Honeywell next to our new Peaksaver thermostat

And how 21st Century is this!!… Now that we have the Peaksaver thermostat set up in our home, we can turn our house thermostat on/off from anywhere via our computers, Blackberries, any computer (or we can phone our utility company to ask them to switch heat or cooling up/down, on/off for us when we are away from home.)

We now have a brand-new, high-end thermostat that didn’t cost us anything… how sweet is that!  Thanks to Matt (right) and his employer, Honeywell, and to our local power company, Horizon Utilities, for making this possible!

Have you signed up for the Peaksaver program yet? If so, what do you think of it? If not, what is holding you up?

Canadian TV reno guru Mike Holmes writes about the importance of waiting for the right one – in The National Post. He expects to see a drop in the “grey market” (i.e. paying someone under the table for contracting work) because now folks like us can get the HRTC money back, so there is savings to be had there. He notes, I think wisely, that it was never a good idea to pay cash, but to use a “legitimate” contractor or else…

“That leaves you with the other guy: the guy who works for cash and who’s willing to cut his rate and cut a deal. But don’t kid yourself: Things cost what they cost – and don’t think for a minute any contractor is taking those cash discounts and deals out of his bottom line… That discount is coming out of your job, somewhere.”

Well, considering that Doug and I want a good job to be done on our renos, we are going to opt for the squeaky-clean ‘white’ market and pay by cheque, including the GST (and soon to be Harmonized Sales Tax - but we are going to beat that rap!!)

We want to find the RIGHT man for our eco-reno jobs, and you know what they [women)] say… It’s hard to find a good man!

In the meantime, Doug is taking it upon himself to do reno work:

• It took him 2.5 months (just ended last week) to drywall the newly insulated basement bedroom of his teen son – as well as install the laminate floor, build a large closet and install mirror doors, etc.

• He spent today installing a low-flush ecoEnergy-rebate-worthy toilet in the basement bathroom, which – as the tiles flew up from the floor – will no doubt now lead to the full-on gutting and rebuilt of that room. (We do have the new vanity cupboard/sink, shower stall etc. sitting in the garage the last six weeks!)

Making our home eco-responsible involves more than just maximizing our government rebates.  We are also making some upgrades that we won’t get any money back for.

Our natural gas company, Union Gas, had a display at one of our local malls recently where they demonstrated some tips for making your home more eco efficient. They gave out free “Energy Savings Kits” – which included a low-flow showerhead.

We decided to replace our old worn out and barely functioning shower head in our main floor bathroom. We had given up having showers upstairs, so hopefully the new shower head will make this bathroom more useable and save some water, too.

Step 1: Make sure the water is turned off and use the vice grips to unscrew the old shower head from the neck.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 3: Now screw on the shower head over the pipe tape.  You can start this by hand until snug.

Step 4

Step 5: Turn on the water to make sure that you have a good seal.  If water comes out from around the screws, turn off the water and tighten it a little more using the kitchen towel to again so you don’t scratch the fixtures.  Once you have a good seal you are done.

Step 5

Of course, per usual, we weren’t about to grab just any toilets: we needed to get ones that the government helps pay for!

One of the many pieces of paperwork that came with our Home Energy Audit was a bright-yellow sheet titled “Required Documentation for Grant Eligibility.” We almost forgot about it, but at the last minute, came across it and saw written there:

“TOILETS must appear on the list of ecoENERGY-eligible toilets available at www.veritec.ca. You must show the advisor:

• a receipt that lists the model numbers for both the tank and the bowl; OR
• cut the model numbers from the toilet boxes and give those to your Advisor

Many low-flush toilets do not meet the flush performance requirements. We are required to verify that new toilets are on the list of eligible toilets. If the model numbers are not made available to the advisor, there can be no grant.“

So, we surfed to veritec.ca – the website recommended in the Home Audit Report, to see which brands qualify for ecoEnergy-eligible toilets.

Government-Approved List in our Cellphone

This website is a really bad user experience. Save yourself the headache; just click on the link we provide in paragraph above – it will take you to the right web page to download the report.

My husband Doug downloaded the large spreadsheet (about 15 pages long) from this website. The list breaks down the toilets by Retail Store name.

He highlighted the toilets listed under “Home Depot” and emailed those to his cellphone. Then we took his phone to Home Depot and showed the toilet model names to the customer service dude in the orange apron, who helped us locate them. (We got the brand, Pegasus, dual-flush, shown in the photo above.)

Oh, and as a sidenote: I heard a hilarious conversation between my husband and another male toilet shopper discussing the merits of longer toilet seats; apparently, standard size isn’t quite sufficient for their umm, manliness!! Who knew!?

Here is what our garage looks like now – stacked with renovation products; we shall see how many months they stay in the garage! A single hour in the store yielded:

• About 200 square feet of laminate flooring
• Two low-flush, ecoEnergy-authorized toilets
• Glass sliding doors for a new closet
• Steel door for cold cellar in newly insulated laundry room
• Neo-angle shower stall
• Vanity and sink for bathroom

As you can imagine, Home Depot on a Saturday was a zoo. Couples picking through messy aisles of product, occasionally sharing tips with other frantic buyers. I saw no reason not to tell that friendly pair that the toilets they are eyeing qualify for the ecoEnergy retrofit grant money – in case they didn’t know. (They didn’t.) Of course, that kind of helpful sharing stopped when there was only 1 item left that we wanted!

We bought a lot of stuff – more than $2,000 in fact, which is what we needed to spend to reach the maximum amount of HRTC tax credit when we file for 2009.

That maximum is $10,000 and it yields 13.5% tax credit, so we’ll get $1,350 back from the government, thank you very much!

Coming Up…

In the next blog post, I’ll focus on the items we bought that will get us the good ole “Double Dip” (actually triple if you think about it)

1. HRTC tax credit
2. Rebate from the federal government (ecoEnergy retrofit grants)
3. Matching amount from Ontario government (ditto)

While we would like to replace them -  the ecoENERGY retrofitting rebate from the government is not very much ($80 per rough opening). And our home auditor told us that new windows don’t really bring much energy savings in terms of lower heating bills.

Since this winter is so ridiculously mild (NO SNOW and it’s almost February!) we just went around and sealed the old windows on the main floor and basement, like we have other winters. (Shown here is one of our basement windows with its 50-year-old single-pane glass.)

We bought a window-sealer kit at our local hardware store: plastic wrap (thin, like Saran-Wrap) and double-sided tape. You put tape on the window frame, attach plastic to the tape, and then use your hair dryer to shrink the plastic so there aren’t ripples in it.

All the main floor windows aren’t done yet (only the huge front bay window in the livingr00m) but we don’t have the same sense of urgency we have in past winters… Because our newly insulated main floor walls are making the rooms toastier. No more wind whistling through the plaster to make our guests shiver, with us running to jack up the thermostat! And our new EnergyStar steel front door had made the front hall warmer, too!

Maybe next year – but in time to meet our specific deadline of Feb. 2011 – we will purchase new EnergyStar qualified windows and have them installed on the main floor. But as mentioned, at only $80 each in combined fed and provincial rebates, that grand total of $640 won’t make much of a dent in the thousands they will cost.

The dude is spraying polyurethane spray foam in between the 2 x 6 wood framing we had built over the exterior walls of half our basement. (The other half was insulated by the previous owners of our home.)

This room – where our eldest son sleeps, or will once we finish drywalling and painting and putting in new carpet – is soooo much warmer now, it is quite something!

“I’ve never seen anything like this”, says Jay Sigurdson, above, one of the The “A” Team – aka the Spray Team – who is squatting in my living room with his insulation spray gun. (Oh, I’ve heard that before about this drafty old house built like Frankenstein from spare parts over the decades.)

The worker from Jerry’s Insulating is referring to the space under our front bay window (shown above) – about 10 feet long and a couple of feet deep – that he’s discovered is completely empty and is taking in tons of the “pour foam. “Just wait until you feel how much warmer you’ll be in here,” he adds. (Music to my ears.)

I hear the hiss of their spray guns as they pour the Icynene foam (only used for plaster walls) into the toonie-sized holes they drilled in the exterior walls of he living room (2 walls); kitchen (1 wall, including drilling through back of cabinets); bathroom (1 wall); kids’ bedrooms (2 walls each).

Speedy Gonzalas with Guns

“This job would have taken us at least a couple of days when the company started” almost a decade ago, says John Allan, the second insulator. Instead, today it’s taken only 3 hours total – and that’s for the main floor AND basement insulation work!

Some more photos here:

The truck that took up our whole driveway…

… And inside the truck – a nest of hoses and pumps and more insulation wizardy:

Next blog post: What Went Down… Downstairs. Insulating another level of our home, using different insulation material and a different method.

BEFORE: Our old front door, right

AFTER: Our new EnergyStar front door, far right

About a week ago we had our old, drafty wooden front door replaced with a new EnergyStar-certified (to climate zone B) steel and lead-glass front door.

Here’s what the new door actually cost us:

Door (prehung): $480
Cost of contractor to hang door: $500
Handle & lock set: $120
Total costs: $1,100

Minus:
HRTC credit (13%): $143
ecoEnergy rebates:
provincial: $40
federal: $40
Total deductions: $223

What our new door – all in – actually cost us: $877

According to our home energy audit report, we are supposed to keep the door sticker to show the auditor at the end of all eco renovations in order to claim it for the rebate money. We tried to follow that advice, but the only way to get the damn sticker off the glass of the new door was to scrub it thoroughly with warm water, which naturally dissolved it to illegible shreds.