Canada Green Homes Grant: Fit More into Your Home Improvement Budget

  Every year, there always seems to be more than one repair or improvement you have to do on your home, either to boost curb appeal, improve comfort, or lower your energy bills. The trouble is there is never enough money to fit it all in your budget.    If you have been stuck between building a new deck or installing a new privacy fence and investing in a more energy-efficient heating system for your primary residence, you may now be able to fit both in your budget.    The recently announced Canada Greener Homes Grant will award up to $5,000 in grant money for energy-saving upgrades on primary residences. The money will be reimbursed for qualifying energy-saving home retrofits.   What Is The Canada Green Homes Grant?   The Canada Green Homes Grant is an initiative of the federal government that aims to help Canadians make their homes more energy-efficient. By helping people retrofit their homes in ways that minimize heating, ventilation, and other energy costs, as well as switch to greener energy sources, the government hopes to make life more affordable and comfortable for up to 700,000 Canadians.   Through the Canada Green Homes Grant, the federal government is also looking to create new jobs, fight climate change, and grow domestic green supply chains.    The Prime Minister’s Office announced that the federal government will recruit and train 2,000 new energy advisors as part of the Canada Green Homes Grant. These advisors will guide, advise, and offer timely evaluations to homeowners who apply for the grant.    The new hires are expected to reflect the government’s noted commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in the job market. Canadians who want to train as energy advisors can apply here.   Cheaper and Sustainable Energy for Canadian Homes   Launching the program, Prime Minister Trudeau noted that the energy-saving home upgrades the Canada Green Homes Grant is promoting are sometimes out of reach for ordinary Canadians. As a result, homeowners end up spending more money than they have to on energy bills.    Many people are also forced to rely on unsustainable sources of energy to power their homes. For example, during power outages, many homeowners have no option but to use gasoline generators that are expensive to run and release toxic gases that pollute the air we breathe. A sustainable solution that is cheaper in the long term will be to install photovoltaic solar panels.   It is estimated that Canadian homes and other buildings constitute 18 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. So this new initiative has the potential to drastically improve air quality and help the country meet its climate change goals. It should help drive the adoption of solar energy, which is an area Canada stills lags behind other developed countries.   How Does The Canada Green Homes Grant Work? There are two ways Canadians can get reimbursed for energy-saving retrofits they make on the primary residences. First, to begin the process, you have to engage a certified energy advisor who will come in and evaluate your home’s current energy efficiency and advise on retrofits that may help you save energy or upgrade to a more sustainable source. To help you with that, you will receive up to $600 in reimbursements.   Besides the reimbursement for the expert evaluation, you can claim up to $5,000 for the actual retrofit. Note that you will only be eligible for the reimbursement after a post-retrofit evaluation by an energy advisor is completed. So in total, you can receive up to $5,600 in grant money.   To receive the grant money, you have to complete at least one of the retrofits recommended by the energy advisor. The retrofitting work will also have to be done by a licensed contractor. And unless you follow through and implement the upgrades recommended by the energy advisor, you will not be eligible for the pre-retrofit evaluation.   To access the Canada Greener Homes Grant, you have to register through this online form. Interest in the program is so high that the online form crashed the first day it was opened to the public.    What residences qualify for the Canada Greener Homes Grant?   To be eligible for the grant, the property must be your primary residence and be more than six months old from the date it was first occupied. It must also meet the EnerGuide evaluation conditions. You, of course, have to provide the documents that show that you own the home. The residences could be any of the following:   Single or semi-detached houses. Townhouses Mobile homes on permanent foundations, Permanently moored floating homes, Mixed-use buildings small, multi-use residential buildings What Retrofits Are Eligible Under the Canada Greener Homes Grant?   To qualify for reimbursement under the green homes initiative, a retrofit must have been recommended by a certified energy advisor. Home improvements that boost climate resiliency, like those that protect against floods, wind, blizzards, and power outages will be considered for reimbursement if combined with an energy-efficient retrofit.    The following are the retrofits that qualify for Canada Greener Homes Grant:   Home Insulation Home retrofits that slow the rate of heat loss have the effect of optimizing energy use, which lowers overall household costs. These retrofits can earn you reimbursements up to $5,000.   Air Sealing Home improvements that reduce the amount of air that escapes from the house are considered the most effective retrofits for improving energy efficiency. Reduced air loss also mean improved heat retention, which lowers overall heating costs. Retrofits that improve your house’s capacity to prevent air loss can earn you up to $1,000 in Canada Greener Homes Grant money.   Windows and Doors Installing doors and windows that improve a home’s insulation capabilities will lower heating, cooling, and lighting costs, ensuring greater energy efficiency. Expect up to $5,000 in reimbursements.   Thermostats Installing modern thermostats will ensure your appliances don’t run longer than they have to. That means lower energy costs for

Soaring Lumber Prices In Canada: Causes, Effects, And The Outlook

  Lumber prices in Canada have risen more than 170 percent in the last six months. With the soaring demand for new houses and the growing numbers of homeowners planning remodels, fencing, and other home improvement projects, prices are not expected to settle back to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.   It’s not just the price of lumber that can’t stop rising. Other wood products are getting more expensive with every passing week. What’s also remarkable is that buyers don’t seem too concerned with the record-breaking price hikes because mills are struggling to fill orders.   Rising Lumber Prices Driving Building and Renovation Costs Up     All the price hikes have made it more expensive to build and renovate houses. The runaway prices may also be indirectly spurring demand for new housing units in a market where demand was already outstripping supply.    Because the ever-rising prices are making it difficult to cost projects and price new housing units, many developers have chosen to develop and sell in blocks. That means even fewer units are making it to market, which pushes demand even more.   At some point, builders will have to pass on the cost of all these price hikes to the consumers. That will mean higher home prices. In fact, that’s already happened. Builders say the high lumber prices have added between $8,000 and $10,000 to the cost of building a single-family home in Canada.   About that board-on-board wooden fence, deck, or pergola you had planned for this year’s building season, the sky-rocketing prices mean you have to revise your budget upwards. Hopefully, that won’t kill the project. But what has caused the crazy price situation in the building materials market? What Is Causing Lumber Prices to Soar?   The simpler explanation for the stunning rise in lumber prices is that supply can’t keep up with demand. But with prices as wild as they are, the question demands further investigation. Let’s consider some possible causes: Low-interest Rates   In its efforts to help the economy recover from the ravaging effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bank of Canada has maintained a low 0.25% benchmark interest rate. As the red hot housing market has shown, that wasn’t the right bet.   The pandemic did not discourage people from investing in new homes nor from improving their existing ones. Many were more than prepared to dip into their savings in spite of the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.   In the housing market, the low-interest regime has, in fact, worked too well. So well that the bank has now flagged the urban markets of Toronto, Hamilton, and Montreal for what it has called ‘exuberance’ in their housing markets.   The low-interest rates have spurred unprecedented borrowing in the housing market, which has seen house prices rising sharply. Still, demand for new homes has not slowed.    People are, in fact, taking on more debt to buy the ever more expensive houses. According to the Bank of Canada, this is debt that most of the borrowers can’t afford. The central bank is so concerned that it has warned that interest rates will not stay low forever. For now, though, interest rates and borrowing costs will remain low and the demand for lumber and its prices will stay high.   We have blamed so much on Covid-19 that it’s become a reflex action. So why not shift blame for the rising prices of lumber onto the pandemic? Unfortunately the pandemic has to take the rap again, in more ways than one:   The Work From Home Craze Has Spurred Demand For More Spacious Homes       The stay-at-home orders the government resorted to as a way of containing spiraling Covid-19 virus infections in the first quarter of 2020 forced many people to work from home.    Suddenly homes that had been adequate as living quarters no longer cut it as places of work. Many either had to renovate and make their homes more work-friendly or upgrade to newer, more spacious homes.   Working from home proved so successful that many people made up their minds to not go back to working from the corporate office again. Many of the big tech companies have since announced they will allow some of their staff to continue working from home post-pandemic. All the more reason to make the home more comfortable, which means more home renovations and greater demand for lumber and other building materials. Covid-enforced Mill Closures       The surge in demand for lumber would not have led to such a steep rise in prices if the supply side hadn’t run into challenges. At the beginning of the Covid lockdowns, lumber mills effectively shut down. The construction industry as a whole ground to a halt because of that and other Covid-related reasons.   When the economy opened again, many mills didn’t immediately ramp up production, worried that rising unemployment would sap demand. It didn’t and from then on the industry has been playing catch-up.   Demand for construction materials and lumber, in particular, didn’t suffer as feared. Soon it was outstripping supply. With not enough product to meet demand, prices were always going to rise. While most mills are now operating at full capacity, demand is still outpacing supply.    It is not like mills can cut more trees to feed the excess demand. Annual allowable cut rules mean there is only so much wood mills can process and bring to market in a given year. So there is not going to be a major improvement in supply this year, even as lumber mills and dealers are eager to make the most of the prevailing high prices.    Will Lumber Prices Come Down In 2021?   The current outlook is that the only way lumber prices will be going this year is up. The current warmer weather means there will be more lumber making its way to dealers. That will help contain demand. But in all likelihood, it