New federal grant and loan to improve home energy performance By: greening homes

July 27, 2021
Announcements, Planning a Renovation, Resource Efficiency, Water Protection

By Christopher Phillips, Founder and President of Greening Homes Ltd. In March, I wrote about federal support to help homeowners offset the costs of home energy retrofits that improve energy efficiency and comfort, while reducing energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions. In June the federal government announced an update. Its new Canada Greener Homes Grant […]

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The feds invest in greening your home By: greening homes

March 2, 2021
Green Materials, Resource Efficiency

The Prime Minister made a big announcement in December that will have far reaching impacts on home renovations. Buildings account for 17 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions – 22 percent in Ontario and a whopping 55 percent in Toronto.  This sector also generates a lot of jobs, which are urgently needed to help […]

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The making of a high performance, semi-detached century-old home By: greening homes

October 13, 2017
Green Materials, Indoor Health, Resource Efficiency, Site Stories

In September we opened to the public a renovation in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood during Green Energy Doors Open (GEDO). This annual event by the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association offers a fantastic opportunity for builders to showcase emerging best-practice energy-efficient design and construction details. The homeowners for this project approached Greening Homes in February with a […]

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Two great events to help your home reno plans By: greening homes

September 5, 2017
Announcements, Green Materials, Indoor Health, Project Update, Resource Efficiency

Receive free home renovation advice from us, or visit one of our projects that’s applying the latest high efficiency practices when you visit the Toronto Fall Home Show and/or our Green Energy Doors Open (GEDO) event, respectively, this month. We’ll be at booth 647 at the Fall Home Show, September 15-17, located at the Enercare […]

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Passive House Retrofit: Five Years After By: greening homes

August 31, 2016
Community, Passive House

The Oakville Passive House Retrofit is participating in Green Energy Doors Open. For more, visit greenenergydoorsopen.ca/events/oakville-passive-house-retrofit More than five years have passed since my wife, daughter and I moved back into our newly reconstructed home, a home designed following PassivHaus principles. We witnessed and participated in the effort that went into turning a 50s bungalow […]

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Chicago’s First Certified Passive House By: greening homes

February 2, 2016
Indoor Health, LEED for Homes, Passive House

A tour of four different Passive (and near Passive) Houses in the Chicago area was conducted on the last day of the 2015 North American Passive House Conference.  The sites varied from Chicago’s very first Certified Passive House to a couple that were under construction.  The homes toured were collaborations between builder Brandon Weiss of […]

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Introducing the PHIUS+ 2015 Rating System, by Steven Gray By: greening homes

October 5, 2015
Community, Passive House, Resource Efficiency

I had the good fortune of attending an all-day pre-conference workshop on WUFI Passive; for which I am grateful to Greening Homes for its dedication and commitment to the ideals of Passive House (and my own continuing professional development)! The Passive House standard originated in Germany and has been enthusiastically adopted by high-performance builders and […]

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Building on success, by Christopher Phillips By: greening homes

August 12, 2015
Community, Green Materials, Indoor Health, LEED for Homes, Transportation

Celebrating success is – well it’s awesome. Advancing our understanding to improve our practice, particularly when it comes to healthy buildings, is priceless. It’s why we went to Vancouver in June. We were there for the National Conference of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC). CaGBC, along with SAB Magazine, presented us with the Canadian […]

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