Canada’s First’Green Home’Evaluation

Canada’s first home to be evaluated for energy and water conservation is getting the full assessment on its effectiveness in promoting sustainable living.Heathwood Homes revealed the home in The Reserve, a luxury home development in Richmond Hill, Ontario and features a long list of ‘green’ additions. Construction Canada cites the main ecological features of the house:• a greywater system (reuses cleansed bath and shower water for flushing toilets which saves approximately one-third of total water use)• roof-mounted glycol solar panels (uses the sun's energy to help warm the home's tankless hot water system that heats only the water being used at any given time, saving up to 40 per cent over tank-style heaters)• roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) solar panels (generates electricity that is put back into the grid to lessen the overall demand for fossil-based power generation)• an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) system• energy-efficient lighting• zero-volatile organic compound (VOC) paints.The evaluation is to be conducted by a team of graduate students from Ryerson’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering through its Centre for Sustainable Energy. The team will assess a host of elements, including electricity, natural gas and water in the demonstration home for at least the next two years.

In order to get a more in depth report, the team will also assess another sustainable home built by Heathwood in the neighbouring Forestbrook community and use it as a point of comparison.The intended result of this project is a fully quantifiable energy savings report. So in other words, homebuyers will be able to get a rundown of how much money they will save in utility bills by investing in a ‘green home.’ This will be a useful deliverable for agents and brokerages that will represent these kinds of houses in the future, as they will be able to produce a report on real monetary savings.