I live in a +100 year old brick and plaster house, in the exact geographical centre of Toronto. I bought it 4 years ago with a +25 year old oil furnace. This year, when the furnace was being serviced they said that I needed a new chimney liner that it would cost +$1200 and that they wouldn’t deliver anymore oil until this was done.

Well, that started a whole ball rolling. I never like the oil, ever. A truck needs to deliver it and sometime you can actually smell the oil, especially if it every runs out and needs to get started up again, and of course at the beginning of the Fall season when you do start it up. I have been wanting to replace the furnace to a gas high-efficiency but always put it off as a ‘too large’ expense for the time being. Well this tipped the bucket. Why would I spend $1200 on a system to support an old furnace when I needed a new one very soon anyways and with the energy crises here now, it seemed the ‘smart’ thing to do, do convert it now.

The Federal and Provincial governments have a program called the ecoENERGY Retrofit for Homes which provides home and property owners with grants of up to $10,000 to offset the cost of making energy efficient improvements - if you decide to get all of them done. The only catch is this:

• You have to get an energy audit done FIRST before you go ahead and order or install anything.
• You have to get all of the items on this list done within a 1 ½ year period of when your initial energy audit was done.
• AND – you have to claim ALL of them at the same time, only once to get your rebate back.
• Then you have the energy auditors come back to verify the changes, you fill out the application form (don’t forget to save all your receipts!)
• And then you wait about 8 – 10 weeks for it to arrive.

The items identified for rebate are;

· Heating, Ventilation & Cooling Systems (Furnace, A/C’s)

· Domestic Water systems (Hot water heating)

· Insulation – Attic, Walls, Basement, Exposed floors, Crawl spaces

· Air sealing - caulking cracks

· Doors/Windows/Skylights

· Water saving – low flush toilets

The furnace is usually the major, big ticket item on this list and most people only do that much to get the max. $1000 back on your furnace purchase. For my small 900 SF house (plus a 450 SF basement on top of that), the furnace cost about $4000. But you have to make sure that the furnace you choose is on their list and gives you this max. rebate. Some furnaces are only mid-efficiency so pay attention to exactly what you are getting if you want to qualify for this rebate. Enbridge gas, also gives you an additional $100 off.

I signed up through Enwise for a number of reasons. One was that they had an unusual option for a long term monthly payment plan. Another reason was that they were a small company whose main focus was green, energy saving. You can get payment plans with the larger companies, but the prices for the actual products are always higher. And many of the smaller, independent companies don’t have monthly financing options. Enwise is unusual to be able to offer you both possibilities, kind of straddling between both types of companies. A third reason was the actual price. I got quotes from 5 different companies. Prices offered where from $4000 to $7000. There was a remarkable range. Enwise won out as their quote was at the low end, but their product offered was with the $1000 rebate whereas the competitor option did not qualify for the full rebate possible and was only able to qualify for a $600 rebate, which they did not inform me of. I found this out in my discussions with Enwise. The fourth reason I chose Enwise was because their salesman was somebody that I simply felt good with. Rob Douglas [RDouglas@enwisepower.com] was absolutely great. He was extremely responsive and attentive to all the detailed questions I had and he has a manner that convey honesty and sincerity. Rare to find in a salesman. He also offers $50 giftcards to Starbucks, the Keg or Swiss Chalet if you sign with him. A sweet bonus!

Now, the lowest competitor also included removal of the old oil tank – a $200 – $400 cost estimate. I decided that I would try to sell the oil tank on craigslist or at least see if I could get rid of it for free if somebody else would pay for the removal. And, I also found out rather late in the process was that the oil tank had been on a lease-to-own system. I had forgotten about that when I had bought the house as it was such a flurry of multiple details to pay attention to. The new house insurance had insisted that I buy a new oil tank at the time as I could not verify the age and date of the existing one and they needed this fact to qualify. So Petrocan, arranged for a new one and simply added it as a monthly cost of $15/mo. For 10 years. Well, it appears that after 4 years, I still owed $500 on an original $1100 oil tank and had to pay that out completely before they would close my bill with them. Arggghhhhh! So now, I really want to sell it for at least $300! (contact me if you want it!) It is a perfectly good tank, looks almost new and most farms or cottages often use oil to heat their homes as gas (the preferred choice in my opinion if you live in the city) is much more complicated to hook up to in the country.

So despite this being an overall slightly lower cost, I went with Enwise due to the many other reasons. I was also looking for a company that was small enough and assertive enough in the market to have good service. For me, half of buying any kind of product that needs servicing is how good their service is and what is their reputation. I like to google this and see what happens. Nothing bad came up when I googled them. And when it was installed, there was a slight glitch in some part, so that the motor did not turn on the next morning. Within 3 hours a service man was at my house and it was fixed in 5 min. That felt great!

Additionally, Enwise offers services to assist with many of the other energy rebate possibilities. One of them that I was also interested in was a high efficiency water heater – either solar or a tankless kind. As I don’t know how long I wanted to stay in this house – could be less than 2 or 5 years, I needed to make a choice that reflected that kind of flexible commitment. It also is a decision that includes re-sale value. In my opinion, anything that makes a home more green, or energy efficient makes it much more marketable and definitely adds value to the home.

As they offered the lease-to-own option, I started to consider this. Now, not really enjoying this kind of experience with Petrocan, I was somewhat hesitant. But when I found out that I would receive a $700 rebate, the extra $20/mo for 10 years (on top of the $20 I was paying already for rental = $40/mo) for something that was going to reduce my heat consumption bills immediately and the actual cost of the unit itself would essentially be ‘free’ for at least the first 1 1/2 years. At which point if I do decide to sell the house then, it’s a minor amount on top of the entire house for either me to pay out fully (which is always an option) or to be added into the price of the house as a monthly payment. Either way the value of the house is greatly enhanced with this kind of green, energy efficient, marketing feature. This seemed like something that was too-good-too-be-true! I had been renting a water heater from Enbridge for $20 a month. Not owning it meant that any servicing was free – but recently I had a major leak and a lot of my personal items, cardboard boxes on the floor of the basement was seriously damaged and I didn’t like the idea of needed to continuously keep a huge tank (that can leak) heated all the time (= wasting energy) if you could get a small box mounted to your wall that only heats the water on demand. Enbridge took 2 service men to repair that leak (the first one didn’t get it right) and then suggested that I’ll need to replace it soon as it was almost 10 years old and then I’d have to get the new code-required plastic piping to vent the gas outside for an extra $200 which is not included in their service plan (that’s 10 months of monthly rental payments!).

And on top of that, with Enwise, if you get another product installed at the same time, such as a tankless water heater, as I did, you also get another $200 off since the service men only need to come once.

Then during the installation of the water heater, I needed to get the main water valve of my house shut off. I discovered that the valve was defective (after the City of Toronto buy came in to install the new remote calculating water meter to my copper pipe – they said that any problems are mine as it’s essentially my property and the age or problems are my responsibility) – so I needed an emergency plumber to install a new water shut-off valve to the house. Rob referred somebody to me immediately and within 5 hours somebody was at my house at a rate cheaper than 2 other plumbers that I had called for quotes. Sean did a great job, and on Rob’s suggestion, I got a couple of other things done at the same time.

I had a leaking faucet in my WC, so he was able to install that for me. And, I decided that I might as well get a low flush toilet to qualify for that rebate as well. So I rushed to Home Depot to choose a new toilet, without really looking to thoroughly in advance as to the pro’s and con’s of what I’m buying. I didn’t really want to spend a lot of time on it, just get something that would do the job efficiently. I found something and when it was install, I looked at it and realized it wasn’t the toilet that I had thought that I bought. Somehow, somebody returned a toilet to Home Depot and but something else in the box! It was bizarre! I had to go back to Home Depot, buy another toilet that same day (I went to a different location, just in case) and get the plumber to come back to un-install and then re-install. I complained to Home Depot and they gave me an extra $75 credit for the huge inconvenience and extra plumbing bill that I had to pay to do this, which was great.

I bought a VITRA 4.5L low-flush toilet with ‘comfort height’ (this means you sit higher up at 16” – a few inches higher than normal toilets for older folks to not have to go down so low – and a little strange to get use to). Most ‘regular’ toilets flush around 12L, and many low-flush toilets flush around 6 L. It’s hard to find the 4.5L ones, some have a dual flush of both 4.5L & 6L , or 3L & 6L so that you only use the lower flush for a liquid-only ‘delivery’. But I have now fully tested mine for both ‘activities’, and it works just fine with 4.5L only.

The City of Toronto gives you a $75 rebate (max. allowable, some toilets are only $60 rebate). Rob suggested to not get the cheapest kind, that the next level up, are really much better in quality. Then the Federal/Provincial rebate is an additional $50. So, for the $180 toilet I get more than half of it back. But, I spent about $75 for a plumber, as well as $15 for a new wax sealing ring. The plumbing was overall a bit cheaper as he also did 2 other things in the house.

I asked Enwise to also give me a sense of quoting for adding insulation to the walls and the roof of the house and I’m still considering this. Their energy audit showed me with a lazer thermometer that my new, double-glazed windows had actually a higher R value than the exterior walls of my house. The walls had an R value of about 4.5 and the windows 5.0! The Ontario Building codes requires new buildings to have an R value of at least 20 and I strongly advocate and design strawbale buildings with an R value of up to 40! I am going to have to do something to change this soon! Blown wood cellulose is usually the best option, the only thing is that my ceiling has no attic access, so they have to cut and create a new opening and since they couldn’t ‘assess’ this during the initial energy audit I’m not sure how it would qualify for a rebate. And then all the walls would have to have a small hole drilled into it near the top between studs every 16 – 24” all along the length of the wall which would require major plaster repair and painting on all exterior walls (which I could do myself afterwards). Bummer!!! I’d rather wait for the spring or summer to do this.

Upgrading a home to become more energy efficient is simply being smart with today’s current climate and economic conditions. Oil prices are fluctuating wildly and will only increase in cost. Retrofitting your home to increase its insulation and energy and water efficiency will not only add value to the re-sale value of your home, it will also reduce your long term operating costs. I’ll keep you posted as to the difference of what those costs will become for me.