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)

Eco renovation expert Gail Lawlor shows me how to caulk properly

Betcha read this post title and thought, why can’t I find something that fun to do on a sunny, unseasonably warm weekend?

Well, maybe you’re just not reading the flyers that come with your bills. I didn’t used to, but this month I actually ripped open a Union Gas bill and found a booklet announcing this demo event.

So yesterday Doug and I were off to an energy savings demo hosted by Union Gas and Sears in nearby Mapleview Mall.

The photo shows me getting a caulking lesson from independent consultant, Gail Lawlor, of Energy Matters, at the demo. She is contracted by Union Gas to instruct the  public on the fundamentals of home energy conservation.

Gail also trains contractors (for more than 20 years now) on green practices, including for RONA – with a current focus getting them to appreciate the largely untapped market around ecoENERGY retrofits, and of course, the Home Renovation Tax Credit (which most of them know about, she says.) Gail told me:

“In a room of 50 renovators, I ask ‘who knows about the ecoENERGY retrofit grants from the government, and about 3 people put their hands up. Then I ask, who is talking to their clients and prospects about these huge opportunities, and maybe 1 person puts their hand up!”

Free Stuff – Who Doesn’t Want That?

Union Gas was giving away FREE Energy Saving Kits ($35 in product) that contain the items shown below.

We haven’t unpacked our free kit yet – hey, it’s only been a day – but we’ll be using all these parts… or handing them off to contractors who comes tomorrow to give us a quote on some energy retrofits (including an insulator).

This Energy Savings Kit is free only to folks who are Union Gas customers.

If you’re a Union Gas customer, have you picked one up? Have you done anything with it yet?