Homes going green.

"Go green. Reduce waste. Be environmentally friendly."

Such are the bywords of our society these days. Everywhere, there is evidence of a growing desire to be more environmentally sensitive. In February, Statistics Canada reported that 30 per cent of Canadians are regularly bringing their own reusable bags to the grocery store to reduce waste, 57 per cent of us are lowering our power bills by turning down the heat at night and 62 per cent of households in Canada have installed low-flow showerheads to conserve water. And increasingly, we're trying to build our houses more efficiently to reduce energy consumption and provide for a cleaner environment. But is the "green movement" really a new development for the housing sector?

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"Actually, it's been slow to catch on," says Keith Hanson, president and CEO of Sun Ridge Group in Saskatoon. Sun Ridge provides support and expertise to the residential construction industry in the areas of training, affordable housing and resource efficiency. "Thirty years ago, Victory Homes [as a subsidiary of Sun Ridge] built some the first 'energy efficient' houses in Saskatoon. These were built with much the same guidelines for efficiency that are used in building houses today."

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Why has it taken decades for home energy efficiency to reach the mainstream? For one thing, it has taken some time for changes in building materials and practises to prove their effectiveness in the marketplace. "Builders did not initially embrace these changes because there's a natural reticence to using uncertain technologies," Hanson says. "When a builder puts his name on a house, it's something that's going to last a long time. Builders don't want to put in systems that they are not sure of."

Sun Ridge (Victory Homes) was one of the initial participants in a research project in the 1970s that looked at ways to build homes that could be comfortable during the frigid winters of the Canadian Prairies, but that used much less energy than conventional homes. The result was the concept of a house as a system--recognition that the flow of air, heat and moisture all affect each other: essentially, it you make changes in one area, it will affect other areas. This later evolved into the R-2000 standard, a voluntary national set of criteria for high energy performance, indoor air quality and environmental responsibility. Thousands of builders have now attended R-2000 courses to learn about energy-efficient building techniques.

Training and education have gone a long way to instil confidence in energy efficiency measures, says Hanson, not just with builders, but for homeowners as well. "Demonstrations are part of what we do," he says. "A lot of education is needed before people are willing to make changes."

RELATIVE COSTS

The main reason homeowners have not invested in higher efficiencies is because energy costs have been relatively cheap in the past several years. This outlook is beginning to change as many Canadians in tighter economic times look for ways to cut costs. In the housing market frenzy of the mid-2000s, real estate prices soared, new housing developments could not keep up with demand and scores of people moved into newer and bigger homes. The housing sector in Saskatchewan has remained steady, even in the face of a housing market meltdown that plunged the United States into a recession. While Saskatchewan's economy is still going strong, recessionary times elsewhere have slowed down growth in new housing here and have made people think harder about investing more into their current home.

These factors, together with the push toward all things green have meant the time is right for homeowners to look at new ways of doing things. Improvements in windows, doors, heating appliances, insulation and water conservation products are all making today's homes more efficient than ever before.

GRANT PROGRAMS

Governments are getting on the green bandwagon as well. The federal government's "ecoENERGY Retrofit" program offers up to $5,000 in cash incentives to Canadians who upgrade their homes. The government of Saskatchewan has matched the federal grant with another $5,000 available through the Saskatchewan "EnerGuide for Houses" program.

These grant programs have galvanized Saskatchewan homeowners to take action, says Hanson. "The increase in interest has been absolutely amazing," he says. "Before the grants, a lot of people just didn't see the value. [These programs] have provided a catalyst for people to go ahead and make Improvements they were already thinking about. They think, 'I need to replace my furnace anyway--why not do it now?' "

To be eligible for a grant, a home must first go through an energy assessment by an independent government-certified energy advisor. Sun Ridge Group is one of three certified organizations that conduct the evaluations in Saskatchewan.

Hanson explains that analysts will inspect the home and gather the data that is entered into simulation software that estimates the amount of energy an efficient house should use. The software is used to rate the house on a scale of 1 to 100. "Most of the existing houses we see range from 50 to 70," he says. "Using the rating and the information collected during the evaluation, we can recommend what needs to be upgraded and run the numbers again so that people have a sense of what the differences will be if they go ahead."

Homeowners are going for it. The federal government reported that since the beginning of April 2009, an average of more than 21,000 homeowners every month have had pre-retrofit evaluations completed, an increase of more than 75 per cent compared to last year.

"Saskatchewan, on a per-capita basis, is ahead of most of the country," Hanson says, referring to the upgrades already underway in our province. He credits Saskatchewan's matching grant system because it is less complex than some of the programs in other provinces. In addition, "there are so many homeowners getting involved in this area here," he says. "Clearly, we continue to be efficiency leaders in Canada." Good, old-fashioned prairie ingenuity seems to be at work here--learning to manage through long, bitter winters and short, sweltering summers may finally be starting to payoff.

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THE NEXT WAVE

While there is still a long way to go in how widespread they are implemented, building products and techniques have constantly improved, to the extent that today's Energy Star and R-2000 energy efficient houses are "generally very efficient," says Hanson, "and products such as gas furnaces are now approaching 98 per cent efficiency."

With this in mind, what's next for the housing industry? "The next wave is renewable energy," Hanson explains. These are the technologies that promise long-term energy savings. Things that once seemed state-of-the-art or out of reach to the average homeowner are now getting closer to the mainstream. These include photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity, solar water heaters that collect solar energy for heating household water and heat pumps that can use underground heat sources for home heating and cooling.

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation is leading a project to build 15 demonstration houses across the country that combine resource-efficient technologies with renewable energy in order to reduce their environmental impact. Known as "EQuilibrium Sustainable Housing" or "net zero" housing, these houses are intended to produce-as much energy as they consume. Five of these homes have already been completed and are open for public tours: three in Alberta, one in Quebec and one in Ontario. The program's co-ordinators are hoping to educate consumers, increase market acceptance of new technologies and enhance opportunities for Canadian sustainable housing design and construction.

In Saskatchewan, Nexus Solar and Battlefords Tribal Council are working on one of these demonstration homes. It is called the Yellowhead Innovation Park Inc. (YIPI) which will feature the use of solar power, low-toxicity construction materials and innovative refrigeration and clothes drying technologies.

Homes are definitely going green here on the prairies. Some exciting developments are underway here. New homes that meet the Energy Star standard are among the most efficient in Canada. Still, we have a long way to go in upgrading the existing housing stock to be more efficient in its use of electricity, natural gas, and water.

"We are proud of our heritage leading the nation in building of energy and resource efficient new homes," Hanson says. "We are also proud of how Saskatchewan homeowners are stepping up and using the incentives to help them make major energy upgrades to their existing homes."

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