With a little help from the Ontario Power Authority, Hydro Ottawa and Whirlpool Canada, an Overbrook-area home has undergone an extreme energy home makeover.
After spending more than a month upgrading a 60-year-old wartime-style house at 954 Beaudry Ave., Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) unveiled the city’s first near-zero-energy-cost house.
Prior to the $90,000 renovation, the 1.5-storey house had an energy efficiency rating of 55 out of 100 and produced over 12 tonnes of green house gas emissions, said Lorraine Gauthier with the Now House Project.
Today, with all the leaks in the walls and windows sealed off, high efficiency appliances, heating and ventilation and solar thermal and photovoltaic panel, the home cut its energy requirement by 87 per cent and cut green house gas emissions to less than two tonnes per year.
“When you do something like this for a house, you’ve just increased its lifespan by maybe 100 years,” she said.
With $350 million needed just for deferred maintenance over the next five years, OCH CEO Jo-Anne Poirier said they would continue seeking funding opportunities to become more energy efficient.
