Growing a Winner
Geranium Homes Leverages Savings by Design for Its Award-winning Pickering Project
Adesign workshop. A passion for building well. And some stakeholder incentives. That’s the equation that netted Geranium its recent win at the RESNET Cross Border Builder Challenge.
Getting the Most Out of the Savings by Design Program Long before the challenge, and even before building permits were applied for, Geranium principal Boaz Feiner and senior project manager Diana Sousa were involved in a workshop from the Enbridge Gas Savings by Design program. The workshop included City of Pickering planning and sustainability officials; Michelle Vestergaard, senior advisor with Enbridge Gas’ Savings by Design Program; and John Bell from Clearsphere. Manufacturers’ reps and designers, as well as the builders’ site staff, also attended the seminar.
The aim of the Savings by Design program is to help builders improve the energy and environmental performance of new construction projects. Participating builders must construct homes to achieve an energy reduction target of at least 15% better than code, and in return, financial incentives are available to help them implement energy-saving goals.
During the workshop, various construction components are considered – mechanicals, insulation values and air tightness, to name a few – in order to create an energy-efficient housing product.
“It’s setting the bar high,” admits Sousa. “The incentive is nice, though it doesn’t cover the costs to do all the upgrades. We’ve always done more than minimum, always gone above the minimum code, because we believe the end-product is important – comfort in a home is ultimately what people want.”
Free and available to Ontario builders in areas served by the former Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc., the program sometimes sees builders having to redesign parts of the homes. As Vestergaard explains, “maybe the insulation needs to be increased, or better technologies need to be adopted and incorporated to run the home. Blower door tests are standard once homes are built because the 15% improvement has to be verified.”
Enbridge Gas offers incentives. There’s the monetary reward of $2,000 per home with a cap of $100,000, but more important are “the experts we bring to the table free of charge,” Vestergaard says. “These experts sit with the builder and have really valuable conversations about design improvement. You can’t really put a price on that, to get all those people in one room talking it out.”
According to previous participants, the program saves money in the long run, Vestergaard says. “When you have experts involved earlier in the process, builders avoid costly changes later; that’s a value-add to them. If we can talk solutions before homes are built, they’re way ahead of the process. For example, if the builder preplans using an integrated design process, determines exactly how much material the house will use, there will be a cost savings.”
Currently, the Pickering site is under construction. Everyone – including seven sets of home owners who have moved in – is pleased with how their home has performed. In addition to this, Geranium won the coveted Enbridge Gas Innovation Award at RESNET’s Cross Border Builder Challenge, held this past February in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Alex Newman is a writer, editor and researcher at alexnewmanwriter.com.
