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Save money, save the environment and boost the value of your home.
That's what you can achieve by making your home more energy efficient, possibly even the coveted 'net zero' or 'next generation.'
"The future is demanding net zero, so now is the time for homeowners to invest in energy efficiency," said Karin Eger-Blenk, CEO of Wilden, the innovative master-planned community in Kelowna.
Home builders and renovators and the public can attend the 'Net Zero Now' seminar on Jan. 18 at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel to find out more.
Registration for the full-day session is $125 for the general public, $150 for Canadian Home Builders' Association members, $200 for non-members and $40 for students at https://
The day is presented by the Green Construction Research and Training Centre in partnership with the Wilden Living Lab and the Central Okanagan branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association.
"For anyone interested in the future of sustainable construction, whether you're a builder or an aspiring new homeowner, this is a course you absolutely will not want to miss," said Central Okanagan branch executive officer Dan Winer.
The workshop will cover lessons learned from the Wilden Living Lab, innovations in sustainable building, integrated design process and clean technologies and energy.
The Wilden Living Lab is involved because it's an actual home in the Wilden neighbourhood built by AuthenTech Homes that is net zero.
Net Zero means the home is highly energy efficient and produces as much energy as it consumes.
In fact, the Wilden Living Lab is 'next generation' because it goes one step further to produce more energy than it uses.
To get to net zero, the Wilden Living Lab and AuthenTech worked with UBCO researchers and Okanagan College students and natural gas and electricity utility FortisBC to create an ultra energy efficient home featuring an air-tight building envelope that keeps heat in the winter and keeps cool in the summer, warm windows that use sunlight to help heat the home in winter, better insulated walls and roof, and heat recovery and management that uses the heat from wastewater to also heat the home.
These innovations mean the home is extremely energy efficient already.
Add to that the solar panels the Wilden Living Lab home has on the roof to harness energy to use and the home achieves not only the coveted 'net zero,' but 'next generation' status of producing more energy than it uses.
That excess energy can be stored in an on-site battery to be used when needed or sold back into the FortisBC grid.
All the energy efficiency upgrades to make the Wilden Living Lab exceed the Step 3 BC Building Code requirements and achieve Step 5+ designation cost $73,000 extra or 8% of the cost of the home.
Wilden Living Lab is still doing research and monitoring to see how long it is before at extra cost is recovered in energy savings.
It's expected it will take six to nine years.
"We realize some people may be on a limited budget, so having an airtight building envelope and better insulation is a great place to start for better energy efficiency," said Eger-Blenk.
"By 2032 all new homes in BC will have to be built to net zero specifications.'
Wilden encourages all people having a home built for them at Wilden to incorporate as much energy efficiency as possible.
Currently, about 10% of homes being built at Wilden will be net zero.
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