Tests, trials, and inspections

Even though we had moved into our (tiny, perfect) home at the beginning of the month, the house having passed its Safety Inspection, we actually hadn’t had our FINAL final inspection.  The inspector arrived a couple of weeks ago, and (spoiler alert) we passed!  So now we are very happy and secure that our house is all legal and everything.  **whew**

But that wasn’t the only test we had to pass.  To be deemed energy efficient, we had to have an Energy Efficiency Evaluation.  A qualified energy advisor has assessed the energy efficiency of our house by using Natural Resources Canada’s EnerGuide Rating System procedures. That involves some test, including a Blower Door Test.

The rating goes like this:

Our house got an Energy Efficiency Evaluation of 83!

The evaluation also included a report on how much we can expect to pay to heat the house — combined electrical and natural gas costs of $942.19 — a year!  Along with telling us how much we can expect to pay each month that also gives us a base amount of what we should be spending, so we can see how much our electrical devises/gas stove and barbecue/do-dads and gee-gaws are costing us to run.

And that great score means we can apply for some PowerSmart Rebates.  DD is working on that.  She and DSIL have to apply, as the home owners.

To help us keep track of power usage we might get a Neurio device next year.  A local invention,

Neurio is a home intelligence™ technology that makes your ordinary appliances smart and your home more efficient. Using a WiFi power sensor and a cloud service with some smart pattern detection algorithms, Neurio monitors your home’s electricity to figure out what your appliances are up to – without the need to install sensors on every device.

It’s pretty space age-y, and a great idea to help conserve. If everyone cuts back on the power they use we can all save in the long run.  Here in BC we expect cheap electricity, just like we expect cheap, clean water.  But with more homes being built, more people moving here, we will need more power.  And that means more dams because we just haven’t caught on to the idea of wind farms (even though there’s a big honking windmill visible from Downtown Vancouver).

Dams are way out in the mountains, far, far away.  But they are super expensive to build.  And the people who own the land way out in the mountains may not be crazy about the idea of, you know, flooding it.  And they were here first.