HawthorneVillager.com

There is a cost to the homeowner for the service. The exact price for your area will be confirmed with you before you book. In general, our price for the initial visit is in the range of $150 to $175. The price for the follow-up visit is up to $50. As an environmental charity we are not required to charge GST to our clients. In addition, we do not make you pay to cover the travel costs to come to your home. Our prices are all-inclusive and there are no surprises. The value of the EnerGuide for Houses evaluation is $350. However, the cost to the homeowner is less because Natural Resources Canada provides a subsidy. Partnerships with local municipalities and utilities reduces the price further in many areas.

For a limited number of Town of Halton Hills residents and Halton Hills Hydro customers there is a $50 subsidy that will reduce the listed price below. Inquire at time of booking.

Tories pull plug on popular EnerGuide
Announce phase out of home reno grants

Funding for plan axed in May 2 budget
May 16, 2006. 01:00 AM
LES WHITTINGTON
STAFF REPORTERS

OTTAWA—Thousands of Canadians hoping for federal grants to help cover the cost of making their homes more energy efficient are in limbo after the Harper government quietly cancelled a popular program.


Funding for the $44-million EnerGuide for Homes was axed in the Conservatives' May 2 budget but official notice that it is being phased out only emerged on a federal government website on the weekend.


Homeowners who took steps before midnight Friday to begin energy-saving renovations under the EnerGuide program will still be in line for grants averaging $737 per household if the retrofit work is completed by next March 31, a federal spokesperson explained yesterday. But getting the money may depend on how many people complete the process by next March and how much money Ottawa sets aside to pay for the grants to homeowners, said Emma Welford, an aide to Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.


The intention is to deliver grants to every household that qualifies, Welford said. But "of course, all of that is subject to the availability of funding."


Last year, with interest in the program booming along with energy prices, the Liberal government spent $44.3 million on EnerGuide and had planned to increase funding by $200 million this year. But that money was cut in the Conservative budget.


Lunn has asked the Harper government for additional cash to cover homeowner grants during the phase-out period but Welford declined to say how much was requested.


Cancellation of the program, which paid grants to 30,429 homeowners last year, spread shock through the network of hundreds of conservation organizations and companies that has grown up to publicize EnerGuide and provide energy audits and renovations.


"The government's cancellation of these popular, effective programs is very bad news for residential energy efficiency in this country," said Clifford Maynes, executive director of Green Communities Canada, a Peterborough-based group of environmental service organizations.


There are also concerns about the federal Conservatives' decision to scrap a new five-year, $500 million program introduced by the Liberals called EnerGuide for Low Income Households, which would have paid the full cost of renovations to improve energy use for low-income earners.


"Low-income households already live close to the edge, and steep increases in energy prices will push many of them over," said Maynes. He called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reconsider eliminating these initiatives.


Critics of the Conservatives' approach point out that Harper's party voted in support of funding for EnerGuide for Housing in the Commons in November.


As they field questions from upset homeowners and service providers, organizations involved in upgrading homes are wondering why the current federal government, which favours a "Made-in-Canada" approach to tackling global warming, didn't see the appeal of EnerGuide.


"I am baffled by the decision because it seems to be exactly what they say they want," said Mary Jane Patterson, manager of the Residential Energy Efficiency Program in Waterloo. "It's a Canadian program through and through. It's very accountable because of the (energy) evaluations. The grants are based on results" and the project is effective in reducing pollution, she said.


"People are stunned, they're asking, `Who can I write to in the government right now?'" she recounted.


The Conservatives say EnerGuide is being dropped because the cost of the audits was too high. Last year, audits in support of homeowners' energy renovation grants totalled $15.1 million out of the total $44.3 million cost of the program, Natural Resources officials said.


"We are going to ensure that every single Canadian taxpayer gets value for their money," Lunn said yesterday when asked in the Commons to justify the decision.


Contractors who performed the evaluations — which made homeowners eligible for grants covering part of the cost of recommended energy efficiency measures — received a terse email from Ottawa late Thursday announcing the impending end of EnerGuide.


Ottawa's decision may put pressure on the Liberal government in Ontario to step in and fund the EnerGuide project instead of the federal government. Quebec and New Brunswick have agreed to do so, according to federal officials.