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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A trailer that arrived in Yellowknife's Northland trailer park April 7 is the first to meet the city's new standards for energy efficiency, according to one of its owners.

Wade Friesen stands by as a new, energy-efficient trailer he co-owns is backed into its lot in Northland trailer park on Tuesday afternoon. - Tim Edwards/NNSL photo

Wade Friesen, who co-owns it with an investor, brought the trailer up from Red Deer, Alta., where it was manufactured.

"SRI, the people I had make this for me, by their own admission they've never made (a single-wide trailer) this efficient before," said Friesen.

The city put in place new regulations last year that require new homes to meet the Energy Guide for New Homes 80 standard (EGH-80). This means new homes must have more tightly-sealed doors and windows, efficient heating systems and better insulation than EGH-70, the previous Yk standard.

"I'm pretty excited about it," said Friesen, although he said the new standards added $25,000 to the price tag, and since this was the first one SRI had built, it took a long time for the project to pull together.

The house was initially bought for Friesen's investment partner to live in, but now they are unsure about what they are going to do with it.

"She wanted to move into another place, but we also realized there might be investment potential with the house," he said, adding they are considering the option of selling it, but all plans are up in the air right now.

Dwayne Lemke, sales manager for United Homes Canada, an SRI retailer in Airdrie, Alta., is the man Friesen contacted to start the project.

"Wade called me about a year ago and this is how long it took us to get to this spot," said Lemke.

"The process of building it didn't take that long, but we had to find different suppliers who could supply us with the new materials we needed."

Also, Lemke said he and Friesen went back to city hall with the plans numerous times in order to make sure it met the standards.

Lemke said now, after making this home and figuring out how to do it, any orders for EGH-80 trailers would only take about two months to be constructed and delivered.

When the motion was passed to raise the standards in 2007, the sales manager for Regent Home Systems (another SRI retailer) in Lethbridge, Alta., said he considered meeting the new standards not worth the company's while financially. He said SRI would have to recalibrate their equipment and ship larger, heavier homes. Apparently, they have since changed their stance.

"I think as much as anything, as the economy and things have slowed down, now they can actually take the time to do these sorts of things - rather than when it was busy and lots of homes were being manufactured," said Lemke.

Sandra McDaniel, manager of Homes North - the SRI retailer in Yellowknife - said any homes they bring in from now on will meet the EGH-80 standard as well.