EnerGuide for New Houses

Moving into your new home should be the experience of a lifetime. You want that experience to be the best it can be.

That's why the Office of Energy Efficiency of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has extended EnerGuide for Houses, a service that provides independent expert advise on energy-efficient home renovations, to give builders and new home buyers the same kind of advise about new home building.

How does EnerGuide for New Houses help me get a more efficient house?
The EnerGuide evaluation begins before your first visit to your builder's model home. Builders working with EnerGuide for New Houses have their house plans evaluated by an EnerGuide for New Houses advisor. They then work with the advisor to develop energy upgrade packages that have money-saving features you will want to include in your new home.

Together, they use NRCan's computer software to model different options, looking for cost-effective measures that will improve your comfort and lower your energy bills. They focus on ways to improve the energy efficiency of

• heating and ventilation equipment, such as the furnace,
• the building envelope, such as windows and doors,
• insulation levels, such as in the attic.

Builders will offer you options, but you make the final choice about what you would like to include in your home.

Many of the most valuable energy improvements are easier and cheaper to install while the home is being built. Any investment in energy efficiency improvements you make at the building stage will pay you back faster and, of course, will start to pay you back the day you move in.