Green building retrofits in Ontario
For homeowners, there has never been a better time to save money while fighting climate change. States, provinces and municipalities all around he world, including all over North America have been doing a fairly good job of setting targets for net-zero or energy positive buildings. They have been introducing regulations and moving green building code measures along (a slow process with a 4-5 year cycle). In most places within a decade or a little more, it will not be permissible to construct new buildings that waste energy or use dirty energy systems. That’s great for new construction, but we typically replace just 3% of our building stock annually, meaning governments need to introduce strong energy retrofit programs for existing buildings.
Many are doing this, including the Province of Ontario, which has revamped its retrofit grants. They support homeowners, small businesses and larger organizations for new windows, insulation and modern clean energy heating, cooling and plumbing. If your government or utility has not tackled this area, it should!