20% Better homes
Welcome to my first blog and yes this is done by me personally and not chat GPT, you can tell by the frequent grammar mistakes and occasional run-on sentences. The reason I’ve written this is in anticipation of the new building code changes and requirements for new homes that must be built to 20% better efficiency or better.
These are my personal opinions on why developers and builders alike have continued to build homes to the bare minimum with regard to efficiency. Consumers don’t have the same levels of transparency as they do in other industries like the automotive industry, for example, Anyone can make a good-looking car with a nice interior and lots of options like a sunroof but it is a requirement to display efficiency of the vehicle on the window next to the price, which gives the buyer the opportunity that these two visually striking attractive cars are not built equally.
The question is why don’t we do this on actual houses? Considering how buying a home is the average person’s biggest investment in their life, shouldn’t they be informed on the efficiency and how airtight their home is? With a simple, plainly written sticker displaying why this house is better or worse than the minimum standards. I understand that there is the R2000 program (I haven’t seen any homes that have met these standards personally) See the green building advisors blog here ——>https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/question/how-good-is-canadas-r2000-standard the contrary isn’t shown which is when a home is built to the absolute bare minimum, no air tightness testing performed, which is where a certified energy advisor conducts a test that makes sure that there isn’t any air leakage and insulated with the bare minimum of the BCBC which in my view isn’t that good but it should matter to you, I hear it time and time again, homeowners deeply unhappy with how hot their home is in the summer, how the air conditioning isn’t enough, or how drafty it is in their home.
I very rarely get homeowners requesting more efficient homes but I wish that they would.
See this link for the latest BCBC step code requirements
