Friday, September 12, 2008

New Home Retrofit Program Proposal

I'd like to applaud the announcement today of a home retrofit and green mortgages program by Stephane Dion.

As the director of a sustainable energy association, I hear over and over again that a major hurdle to doing home energy retrofits is paying an upfront cost and waiting for the payback in the future, even if the net cost of the retrofit is expected to be negative. Now this is not necessarily irrational because any construction project has risks associated with it. The risk-adjusted cost of a retrofit project may not be negative.

Grants and green mortgages will help very much in making projects move forward, unlocking value in our economy (that's what I mean by costs of certain building energy retrofit projects being negative), helping to develop businesses, and creating jobs.

One thing I would caution about this proposal is that I think we also need to have more trained and experienced tradespeople to do these energy retrofits and installations. Anecdotally, (and people who know the labour markets will be able to make this statement more solid), there is a serious shortage out there of good tradespeople, and it might not be a bad idea to put some resources into nurturing more of them.

3 comments:

Sean Cummings said...

There's a huge shortage of skilled trades people across Canada and the average wait time for home renovations where I live is between 6-12 months. Who will be retrofitting the homes?

Frankly Canadian said...

These policies of the Stephane Dion's Liberals translates to job security for me and thousands and thousands of people here in Kelowna who rely on a strong housing market. I for one will definitely take advantage of the incentives to enhance my house with new technological advancements. I also think the fact they have a plan to help all Canadians with the burden of high energy cost, so that no Canadian gets left behind (a REAL Canadian value). Kudos to you Stephane Dion, today's announcements have solidified my vote and will help me convince everyone else I talk to, to give their vote some real thought.

Frankly Canadian said...

Hey grumpy voter, if you weren't so grumpy maybe me and the other few hundred people that work with me could help ya out with your reno's. Voting Liberal would be a good start.