Save Energy, and Money
June 28th, 2008 | by Editor |A good Certified Financial Planner will be ready to talk with you about more than mutual funds and life insurance. Here’s a helpful energy efficiency program one Canadian financial advisor recommends to all her clients.
We’re all looking for ways to help the environment, but how about one that lowers your heating bills and puts money in your pocket? The ecoENERGY Retrofit program launched last April offers incentives for energy efficiency improvements in homes as well as in small and medium-sized organizations in the institutional, commercial and industrial sectors.
Here’s how it works: first you obtain an inspection from a licensed inspector, then upgrade your home to improve energy efficiency. You call the inspector back for another test, and are awarded a government rebate based on the improvements you have made. According to Natural Resources Canada, the average grant for a single property is expected to be over $1,000. The maximum grant available for one home or multi-unit residential building is $5,000.
To enroll you must first obtain a professional energy assessment provided by an energy advisor licensed by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). A list of local inspectors is available at www.thereep.ca/contact.htm. The advisor will perform a pre-retrofit assessment of the home and provide you with a checklist of upgrades that will reduce your energy consumption. From this time, you have 18 months to complete the upgrades.
The average grant is expected to yield reductions in energy use of approximately 30% and greenhouse gas emission reductions of approximately 4 tonnes per house. By implementing the energy retrofit recommendations, a typical homeowner could save $700 a year on a $2,000 annual heating bill.
There is no restriction as to the age of an existing house or building but those built before 1985 will benefit the most as they have the potential for more significant energy improvements.
If this sounds familiar to the old Energuide plan, it is, but some newly eligible retrofits apply. New upgrades include the replacement of your cooling equipment with Energy Star qualified models, the installation of solar hot water heaters, water-saving toilets and grey water heat-recovery systems.
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