St. Albert homeowners can check out 31 of Alberta’s greenest homes without a lick of driving this month as the annual Eco-Solar Tour goes virtual.
The 2021 Eco-Solar Home Tour starts this weekend online at a computer near you. The free annual event serves as a showcase of Alberta’s most energy efficient homes.
Last year’s tour was cancelled due to the pandemic, and this year’s has moved online for the same reason, said Andrew Mills of the Eco-Solar Home Tour Society of Alberta. Instead of visiting homes in person, guests this year will take Zoom walkthroughs of homes in Edmonton, Calgary, and, for the first time ever, Lethbridge, followed by a question-and-answer period with the owners.
“It’s a really big event this year,” Mills said, with 31 homes spread out over five days of presentations.
Mills said the tour was meant to show people the latest trends in energy efficiency to encourage them to make money-saving upgrades to their own properties — upgrades they could help fund using the just-launched $5,000 Canada Greener Homes Grants program.
“This isn’t about the future. This is about what can be done now.”
Guests might notice a distinct flavour to the homes on the tour in each city, Mills noted. The Edmonton homes favour air-source heat pumps, for example, while the Calgary and Lethbridge ones prefer solar thermal or geothermal — technologies Edmonton builders have all-but abandoned due to their high costs.
“It comes down to talented individuals that came up with ways to do it that overcame the drawbacks,” Mills said — Tom Jackman of Calgary and Rudy Reger of Lethbridge discovered ways to make solar hot water and geothermal cost-effective, so those technologies took off in their communities.
Mills said this year’s tour also had a number of old homes retrofitted to net-zero standards, such as Shelly Robichaud’s 1936 home in Edmonton.
Robichaud said she and partner Warren Sarauer bought this home in 1996 and renovated it to net-zero standards over the last 25 years.
“It had wood shavings for insulation,” she said, and no insulation at all in the roof and basement.
Robichaud said she and Sarauer started by redoing the insulation and more recently followed up with solar panels and an air-source heat pump. They now use zero natural gas and less electricity than they produce.
“Last year, it cost us minus $330 to heat and use electricity in our house,” she said.
Robichaud advised homeowners to start with low-cost measures such as insulation before splurging on solar and heat pumps, and to consider cost-saving lifestyle measures such as clothesline use.
“In the end, it saves you money.”
Tour sessions run from noon to 3:40 or 5:40 on June 5-6 (Edmonton homes), 12-13 (Calgary), and 19 (Lethbridge). Up to 1,000 guests can join the Zoom sessions, which will be livestreamed on YouTube. Visit www.ecosolar.ca for details.
