INUVIK - If it works in Inuvik, it will work anywhere.

That's the idea behind a new plan to build an energy-efficient, sustainable home in the town as a possible model for future homes in communities across the territory.

Bill Semple, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation senior researcher, and Loretta Hopkins, district director of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Beaufort Delta District, discuss a design panel of the Northern Sustainable Housing Duplex planned for Inuvik at a presentation on June 11 at the Mackenzie Hotel. - Andrew Rankin/NNSL photo

As a pilot project between the NWT Housing Corporation and the Ottawa-based Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the house will be a duplex model outfitted with thickly insulated walls, a solar-panelled roof and quadruple pane windows.

Neither the designs nor the costs for the project had been finalized as of last week, but project organizers hope construction will be complete by next March.

Houses similar to the initially proposed design have been built in Yellowknife, but none exist this far north. The new house will have a double wall system, which involves extra insulation being stuffed between two separate walls. The solar panel on the roof, though inactive during 24-hour darkness in winter, is expected to save money, or at least balance out high winter heating costs, during 24-hour daylight in summer.

Randy Jacobs, a construction manager with NWT Housing Corp., said the project is feasible.

"This type of construction technique I've done myself, and I know if done properly, it really shouldn't cost that much more than what people are doing now. So I definitely think it's very feasible, the plan that we have," Jacobs said. "This is a simple technique - it's nothing really out there as far as building construction techniques go, and I'm hoping the contractors are on board."

Housing Corp. design manager John Robson said if the pilot project is successful, NWT residents could see more energy-efficient homes in their neighbourhoods.

"We're trying to really design for, let's say, the coldest situation or the worst-case situation and then see if we can apply that everywhere," he said.

Bill Semple, a senior researcher with CMHC, said the team chose to build the house in Inuvik because of the town's location north of the Arctic Circle - "a significant challenge climatically" - as well as because of a cultural mix in the population and the availability of local builders.

Semple said this project is an opportunity for the NWT to follow the Yukon's lead. A similar project in that territory produced the "Yukon Super Green Home," which is now the standard building model for the Yukon's housing corporation.

"They're starting to see a very, very dramatic change happening in the housing that's going on there," Semple said. "It's going to completely change how housing is being built in the Yukon."