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The Ontario Cap and Trade Carbon program is up and running and almost $500-million is being invested in rebates for energy efficiency upgrades for Ontario homeowners. In this blog post we will give a quick overview to people in Ontario looking to perform Energy Retro-fits and improve energy efficiency and comfort.  With rising electricity costs making your home energy efficiency via retrofits is one way of reducing long-term costs, while also fighting climate change.
 

“Save Money, Fight Climate Change”

 
The GreenON program is based around rebates for adding insulation, high-performance windows, geothermal systems, and air-source heat pumps.

There are rebates of up to $7,200 for insulation.  Insulation is a great investment because it is a part of the building envelope and will provide continuous passive energy performance for it’s lifetime. Upgrading insulation can reduce the energy usage by anywhere from 15-50% of your home.  It can be a big upfront cost so the rebate will make this added insulation more feasible for more projects.  A bit more details about the rebate program:

1. Receive $1/ft2 up to $1,500 for upgrading your attic insulation.
2. Receive $2/ft2 up to $1,900 when you update your basement insulation.
3. Receive $2/ft2 up to $3,800 when you upgrade your home’s exterior wall insulation.

There are also rebate up to $5,000 for select high-performance windows.  This includes $500 per window up to 10 windows, or $5,000 when you upgrade to select high-performance windows. As windows needed to be replaced on average every 20 years, investing in high-performance, triple-pane, argon filled windows now is a great idea because this rebate program will more then cover the premium for triple vs. double pane windows.  One aspect of triple-pane windows which is often overlooked is how much comfortable a room is when it is very cold outside — it means you can sit beside the window without getting a chill! Another factor is how they can reduce the sound from outside — a few things to consider!

Geothermal is one of the most expensive elements of an energy efficiency upgrade, and the GreenON program has up to $20,000 in Geothermal Rebates.  However our position on this is that there is no point in doing this unless you first deal with the windows and envelope of the house.  This is because electricity is used to run the geothermal system and if your house has poor energy efficiency then you will not end up saving money.

A little understood heating device in Ontario (so far) is the Air-source Heat Pump. Air-source Heat Pumps use the difference between  outdoor air temperatures and indoor air temperatures to cool or heat your home. They are an efficient and simple way to meet the heating/cooling demands of the house, and the rebate program makes  Get up to $5,8 to Install Air-Source Heat Pumps.