SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - When Dwayne Wohlegemuth and Mary Kelly started looking for a home in Yellowknife, they wanted to find a space built to keep the heat in, in environmentally-friendly ways.

Dwayne Wohlegemuth and Mary Kelly built their new home in Yellowknife with energy in mind – choosing to build more airtight walls, picking energy-efficient appliances and opting for windows with fiberglass frames. - Elizabeth McMillan/NNSL photo

"The type of house we wanted wasn't out there," said Kelly.

They decided to do it themselves. Wohlegemuth designed the house and the couple has been doing all the work – from installations to flooring. At every step of the way, they've looked for ways to choose energy-efficient options.

The home is heated with a wood pellet stove, a condensed water heater ensures water is only heated when it's needed and an extra layer of two-by-fours in the walls keeps the building more airtight.

It's paying off. In six months, they've only spent $600 on electricity.

The house is also in the process of being accredited for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, the first home in the territory to meet the internationally-recognized criteria.

Wohlegemuth said the two energy-saving features that have made the most difference aren't related to technology. They placed windows on the south side of the building and kept the house small.

But Kelly said their choices aren't as much about money as they are about values.

"We're committed to living simply at a low cost, being efficient with what we're working with, committed to using a smaller space instead of living big and wasting half of it," she said.

The couple's passion for respecting the environment and gearing their lifestyles to reflect this started early. Kelly remembers a science project that espoused the connection between a person's environment and their well-being. Wohlegemuth recalls watching a creek dry up on the farm he grew up on in Grand Prairie, Alta, and wondering what other impacts human interference has.

Kelly admits it isn't always easy, but she hopes other people realize that living more sustainable isn't as hard as they might think.

"One of the reasons people just don't jump to do something is because they don't see examples around them. People aren't convinced it's worth it, or it'll make a difference. In many ways what we did with our house is an educational component to show people that it is possible and it can make a huge difference for costs."

The visitors – friends and strangers – who have dropped by since they broke ground last July are a testament that people are paying attention.

The Arctic Energy Alliance recognized Wohlegemuth and Kelly's efforts at their annual awards ceremony, held last Thursday at the Explorer Hotel. They won in the individual category.

Judges considered creativity, innovation, community involvement and cost effectiveness, among other factors.

Award winners included the Northern Store in Fort Simpson, as it spent $650,000 on energy upgrades, from removing half the light bulbs to buying more efficient refrigerators.

In Tuktoyaktuk, a group of youth at the Jason Jacobson Youth Centre were recognized for helping to winterize more than a dozen homes.

Dettah won the community category. The community complex doesn't run on fuel, instead it's powered by wood pellets and three larges boilers that offsets 85 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

Guest speaker Daniel T'seleie, who was a youth delegate at the United Nation's Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark last December, said the large-scale conference might not have resulted in an international standard for climate change, but that didn't mean change wasn't happening.

"We don't need to wait for a global deal. It's something we can do in our communities, in our own houses," he said.