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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Home builders threatened to back out of the Yellowknife market when city council announced plans to raise energy efficiency standards two years ago. But now that the standard is in place, they are almost racing each other to meet it.

After a recent article in Yellowknifer on Wade Friesen's new trailer in Northland Trailer Park, which was built by SRI Homes to meet the new EGH-80 standards, the newspaper received a call from Klassen Homes in Enterprise saying they, too, are building their Yellowknife-bound homes to the standard.

Laurie Moroz points to the energy meter on her new, efficient home. - Tim Edwards/NNSL photo

"This is our first year using this model (a board of six mediators), so we have $60,000 in the budget but we will be looking at the resource requirements as we go throughout the year. It's not really a hard-and-fast number," said Megan Holsapple, spokesperson for the Department of Justice.

"You have to consider that people don't like change. Especially I've found in my experience that contractors don't like change," said Bill Fandrick, the city's building inspection manager. "They're leery of the unknown because they like to know how their costs are fixed. Now that the initiative is in place, maybe they're just accepting the inevitable, I guess, and moving forward."

Mayor Gordon Van Tighem said the process of bringing in new legislation is almost formulaic.

"With this, like with anything that is legislative, initially you have resistance, then you have people actually research it to see what it is, then you have adaptation as they start to implement it," said Tighem, adding with a laugh, "And then you move on and set the bar higher."

Effective this year, the legislation says developers must build houses to the EGH-80 standard – using all the components and construction elements that would make it theoretically meet the standard. If a new home falls short in physical ratings, it is still acceptable.

Fandrick described it as sort of a "phasing in" process, so developers can get used to building to the new standard. Buildings will have to meet the standard in the physical test as of January 2011.

One home manufacturer who was opposed to the raise in standards two years ago was Blair Turner, sales manager of Regent Homes Canada in Lethbridge, Alta.

Turner said not only was there little financial incentive to upgrade their equipment to meet the standards, but the new houses would be so much bigger than the ones they were making, they wouldn't even be able to ship it here, as the height, length, and width would go above restrictions in place for highway transportation.

Since the new standard came into effect, Regent has already shipped one house here that was built to the standard, but still awaits the physical test to see if it passes the EGH-80 rating.

Blair Turner said the situation is different now than it was two years ago.

"Some of the initial criteria that was provided in the early stages of this has changed so that we don't have to make as many changes in the structure as we were initially led to believe," said Turner.

"We've been able to provide other components into the system to reduce the energy requirements of the home without having to go through the onerous height changes that we were going to have to do incorporate the insulation -- higher-efficiency water heaters and furnaces and windows."

Turner said they haven't had to change any of their equipment, as they had originally thought would be necessary. As well, demand may be growing for energy-efficient houses.

Van Tighem said with the rise of fuel costs and electrical costs, it's a smart economic move to live in a more energy-efficient house.

"We live in a pretty harsh environment, compared to a lot of other areas, so it only makes sense to build to a higher standard," said Van Tighem.

Turner said the substantial extra cost of these houses – he estimated about $20,000 extra in building costs for the one Regent has already brought up – may pay off in lower utilities costs.

"We don't do the calculations here to determine the payback and the cost savings of that, but we're presuming that especially in your area (Yellowknife), with high energy costs and high energy needs – that the payback period must be a reasonable amount of time," he said.

The standard itself is gaining popularity around Canada. Van Tighem said he's been contacted by communities across Canada asking about the standard and how it works.

David Foster, director of environmental affairs at the Canadian Home Builders Association, said several provinces have been trying to implement the standard, including Ontario, Nova Scotia and British Columbia. Foster said the extent of implementation has reached the point where the standards can be changed nationwide.

"We're actually trying to deal with it on a national basis because a number of provinces have been wanting to do this or in the process of doing it," said Foster. "Generally the feeling is that if we can accommodate this within the national code system, it's probably a better way to do it."