Energy-Efficient Renovation

Energy Assessment

Before planning your energy-efficient renovation in Victoria, you need to conduct a comprehensive energy assessment to determine where energy – typically heat – is being lost in your home in Victoria.

Live Comfortably with a Home Energy Assessment

While winter in Victoria is the envy of the rest of the country, that jealousy won’t keep you warm during our cold, wet months. If you’re spending your free time at home looking for drafts, sealing up cracks, or policing the thermostat, maybe it’s time to look at where your energy is going.

Reach out to MAC for a home energy assessment to see where your heat is going in the winter, and your cool is going in the summer. We can help you decrease your energy usage while increasing your comfort at home.

An added bonus: the same things that keep the heat in help keep the noise out, so you can enjoy your space in comfort and peace.

Save Energy, Save Money

Better construction techniques help us create energy-efficient homes in Victoria. We’ll design your renovation to improve your building envelope, creating a barrier between the warm air inside your home and the cold air outside. With advanced technologies, such as Heat Recovery Ventilators (HRV) and hot water recirculation systems, we can ensure your heating setup is working as efficiently as possible.

A Heat Recovery Ventilator prevents the outdoor air from mixing with the indoor air – making your heating system more efficient while ensuring you have fresh air in your home.
A Hot Water Recirculation System helps save water by ensuring you always have hot water at your tap – no more waiting for the water to get hot while the cool water goes down the drain.

Measurable Results

Before beginning a project designed to improve your energy efficiency, we recommend you complete a home energy assessment audit from a certified professional.

A home energy evaluation starts with a measurement of how much air is escaping from your home, giving us a starting point to build a plan to minimize your energy use. It’s a great way to get the best results in your renovation, and it’s usually a requirement in order to qualify for some of the rebates available through BC Hydro and FortisBC. Once we’ve completed the renovations and made the necessary improvements, you can do a follow-up audit to see exactly how much tighter your home is.

Net Zero and Step Code Construction

“The City of Saanich honoured MAC Renovations with an environmental award for the Step 4 building approach we used to create the Ranch, our home office at 5285 West Saanich Road.”

You may have heard about Net Zero construction and the BC Energy Step Code, and while these generally apply to new home construction, the approach we take on all projects looks at your home as a whole system, where changes to one component potentially impact others. We leverage many of the best practices of Net Zero and Step Code construction to minimize energy loss and maximize your comfort.

If your home isn’t comfortable, contact us to feel the difference.

Energy Efficient Renovations

You’ve likely noticed big increases in B.C. Hydro rates recently. Natural gas and fuel oil costs aren’t much better, and each comes with its own drawbacks.

It’s not surprising that Victoria homeowners have made home energy efficiency a priority. Tackling an energy-efficient renovation project doesn’t need to be complicated — you can do upgrades in stages, build them into another project (like a basement reno), or do them all at once. Whichever route you choose, the benefits you’ll reap go far beyond utility savings.

Investing in Our Future

You may think the initial cost of an energy-efficient renovation is expensive, but energy efficiency isn’t just about covering your roof with solar panels.

It’s about looking at your house as a complete system, taking care of the big energy users as well as the little things that influence your home’s efficiency. Some of the biggest bang for your buck comes from doing the simplest and most affordable things: draft proofing and air sealing, for example. Replacing windows and doors, choosing Energy Star appliances, improving attic insulation, upgrading the furnace, or adding a heat pump are all relatively unobtrusive things that deliver big utility savings over the long term. Balancing the upfront cost with the long-term value is the key. As a professional energy-efficient renovation team with over 40 years of experience here in Victoria, we know which upgrades are worth it – and more importantly – which aren’t.