Rural home owners aren’t getting their fair share of the energy audits and grants offered by the federal Energuide for Houses program, says a review done by the federal natural resources department.
According to the review, that’s because few companies were offering energy assessment services in rural areas in the early years of the program.
While 20 percent of Canadians live in areas defined as rural, their homes represent 12 percent of evaluations and 11 percent of the follow-up audits from 1997 to February 2005.
The program helps Canadians save energy, an issue that has become doubly important with rising fuel costs and the start of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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Under the program, an evaluator visits a house and determines its energy rating and where improvements could be made. The evaluator then returns to see if upgrades were carried out and sets a new rating for the house. There is a charge for both evaluations.
The home owner is eligible for non-taxable federal grants up to $1,000 to cover some of the cost of improvements such as new windows, insulation and furnaces. Of the 1,617 rural residents who have received grants, the average cheque was $688, which is $58 higher than the Canadian average.
To date, 18,084 rural home owners have had first evaluations. For the Prairies the numbers are 2,502 in Alberta, 2,938 in Saskatchewan and 1,496 in Manitoba.
The average pre-retrofit rating of a house in rural Canada is 58 compared to the national average of 59. After improvements, the average energy savings is about 27 percent for both.
The department noted that rural houses built since 2000 tend to be more energy efficient than those in urban areas, rating 75 compared to a national average of 73.
Rental property or corporate farms are not eligible for the program.
For more information, contact the natural resources department toll free at 800-387-2000 or go to www.producer.com and type “energy efficiency” in the go box.
