A boost for affordable housing in Essex, and across southwestern Ontario.
Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczyk, on behalf of the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, and Scott Pearce, President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, announced an investment of $1,034,216 for five projects across southwestern Ontario.
Essex Non-Profit Homes Inc. received $499,990 to deep retrofit four homes of different styles by upgrading the insulation, replacing the HVAC systems, installing new heat recovery systems, replacing the windows and installing LED lighting.
Across Canada, officials say innovative affordable housing solutions are creating good jobs and building climate resilience, while helping Canadians reduce costs and drive down emissions in the building sector.
The project in Essex which was completed in January expects in to achieve a 54 per cent reduction in energy usage, 76 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 14 per cent reduction in tenant utility bills.
Hans Kogel, President of Haerko Inc., says his company offers consulting and project management services to the affordable housing sector in Ontario.
He says these are deep energy retrofits and the work they've undertaken is foundation restoration.
"In addition to the foundation restoration we've insulated the foundations below grade, we have put on exterior cladding on the home that's insulated to reduce the energy consumption," he says. "We have changed the forced air gas furnaces to heat pumps, introduced heat recovery ventilation, and also introduced heat recovery in the drain tubes for the waste water."
Kogel says they've also replaced all windows and doors, along with some interior work with respect to sealing of the home to reduce infiltration.
He says the homes are occupied.
"One of the unique things of what we undertook was they were occupied for the entire duration of this work," he says. "So that's another thing that we've validated, we don't need to displace tenants from the homes while this work is being undertaken, it can actually be done with the tenants in place."
Kogel says the total cost for the four homes was $625,000, where Essex Non-Profit Homes contributed $125,000 on top of the federal funds.
He says if you look at the average life they're going to extend for these homes, it's over 50 years.
"These homes won't survive without that kind of investment so in addition to the energy savings, which is substantially beneficial to the tenants but in addition to that you're also saving the cost of building new because these homes are not going to survive that length of time," he says.
Officials say successful deep retrofitting of these homes could provide a model for Essex Non-Profit Homes Inc. to expand the initiative to all its properties, and increase the efficiency of the about 120 homes the corporation owns and operates in the Essex area.
The federal government also announced funding for projects in London and Hamilton as well.
— with files from AM800's Rob Hindi