KA'A'GEE TU/KAKISA
Twelve homes in Kakisa have been audited for energy-efficiency by the Arctic Energy Alliance.

Tom Gross, a regional energy project co-ordinator for the alliance, spent a week in the community with fellow alliance members for the audits.

Gross said the team depressurized the houses in question in order to look for leaks - that is, spots in the house where cold air can come in or warm air can escape.

"We find out how good the insulation is, we go around with an infrared camera and look for leaks around the doors and windows," Gross explained, adding it's easiest to do that in winter because the camera picks up the cold air blowing around doors or windows.

"We can actually see places in the ceiling where maybe the insulation doesn't fit properly," he said.

The size of the house is measured, along with wall thickness and amount of insulation in the roof and floor. The information is then put into a program, which develops a report on the home's energy efficiency.

Gross said the project goes into a second stage at that point, where the auditors look at what can be done to improve the home.

"We said, let's look at some more details - does (the home) have low-flush toilets, has the furnace been serviced recently? How big is the water tank and how good is the weatherstripping on the doors?"

Small things like the age of appliances and whether the home uses LED lights all contribute to the home's energy efficiency - or lack thereof.

Gross said the 12 units audited in Kakisa gave the alliance a "good snapshot" of the community's homes. Most are older structures which were hand-built over a period of time by community members and have varying levels of efficiency.

The team was able to identify potential hazards as well, such as a woodstove in poor condition that should not be used.

Gross said the project got underway after the Ka'a'gee Tu band decided to pay for the audits, which cost $150 plus GST per house. The true cost of the audits themselves is about $750, but much of that is subsidized.

"They said, 'We'd like to have these houses tested to see where we're at.' It was really nice," Gross said.

"It was well worth it."

The audit will also give homeowners an idea of what they might want to replace and how much that might cost them. Gross said moving forward, his team has a list of who needs what in each of the units they visited. That includes a list of smoke detectors and C02 detectors, which the team could decide to replace in a certain amount of units.

He also hopes to get every house in Kakisa wood-certified, meaning he wants to bring in someone to look at the woodstoves in the community, many of which may not be properly installed.

"A lot of people have woodstoves . If they're not certifiable, maybe we'll share that information with the Housing Corporation," he said.

"We're about energy and saving energy and the Housing Corporation is more about health and safety. So working together, we can actually make a big difference for a lot of people."