We just have our ecoEnergy inspection for our new place over the weekend.  The Canadian government is giving out ecoEnergy Retrofit Home Grants to encourage home owners making their home more energy efficient.  Before your renovation, you can get an eco-inspector to measure the green rating of your home.  Then eco-inspector come again after the inspection is done.  The government will reimburse part of the renovation cost base on green rating improvement.

The most interesting part of the inspection is testing the air leakage of the house.  First the inspect closed all windows and doors, then he install a big fan in the front door and sucking air out from the house.  The fan create a pressure difference between the house and outside.  Depending on the sucking power of the fan and the pressure difference, he can calculate the air leakage of the house.  When there is a large difference in air pressure, I can put my hand in front of wall sockets or door gaps and feel wind coming through the gaps.  The optimal air leakage is 30% of the air in the house is circulated every hour.  If too much leakage, the house is losing too much heat.  If too light leakage, the air will becomes stall in the house.

Since  I am not a environmental friendly person, so I don’t really care about the green rating.  It will take many years to recoup the renovation cost on electricity and gas bills anyways.  Pat is more evnironmental friendly and she insists on the eco-inspection.  It turns out our house is already very energy efficient because it is quite new.  We are already using double layer windows, water saving toilet and Energy Stars appliances.  Basically we don’t have to do anything.