Creating a Path for Deep Energy Retrofits of MURBs

Creating a Path for Deep Energy Retrofits of Multi-Unit Residential Buildings will lay the foundation for a retrofit of a low-income multi-unit residential property. The program design study will further refine the cost, timeline and partnerships required for a panelized deep energy retrofit and increase capacity for retrofits in HRM, Nova Scotia, and beyond.

Grant award: $50,000

The Ecology Action Centre (EAC)’s Energy Team is exploring ways to retrofit our existing building stock to net-zero using panelized retrofits combined with other mechanical building upgrades.

Panelized retrofits are a non-intrusive, pre-fabricated new building exterior that can be added to the outside of a building with relative ease. With help from HCi3’s Accelerating to Zero grant program, the EAC conducted a study on the efficacy of this technology in collaboration with an affordable housing property owner, VIDA Living, an architecture and planning firm, ZZAP, and a building science group, RDH. This study acted as a real-world pilot of the concept, and resulted in a toolkit that is publicly available.

This study was inspired by other projects happening nationally and locally that successfully reduced greenhouse gases across other jurisdictions. From here, the EAC’s energy team was able to determine what the barriers were in the Nova Scotian context. They then refined the cost, determined the timeline, and established the partnerships required to embark on the pilot and create the toolkit, with the hopes of contributing to increasing capacity for panelized deep energy retrofits across the country.

A large draw of this kind of retrofit is the minimal disturbance caused to the tenants of these buildings. Chris Benjamin, Senior Energy Coordinator at the EAC, explained: “it takes a day or two, [which is] a much less intrusive way to retrofit a building, and you can do it while [the tenants] are out for the day, or even while they’re there.” Other retrofits are much more intrusive, requiring tenants to temporarily relocate and generally be inconvenienced.

However, these retrofits don’t work for every building; they rely on building uniformity. Luckily, there are many residential buildings across Nova Scotia that fit this description. “There are about 40,000 units of similar housing in Nova Scotia, and they’re consistently shaped. They’re just rectangular, simple buildings. The consistent shape is really the key thing that makes it efficient,” said Benjamin.

 This study also looked into how panelized retrofits fit in with other mechanical upgrades, such as heat pumps, which improve both home energy efficiency and tenant quality of life. The tenant’s well-being was central to this study; the EAC wanted to investigate how people living in lower-income buildings could participate in energy efficiency projects. This was part of the reason they chose to partner with VIDA Living, who prioritize the well-being of their tenants. “Low-income residents should not be left out of the green transition that’s happening. Heat pumps are not only a way to save energy; they provide greater comfort,” said Benjamin.

The goal of the toolkit, and the push towards these panelized retrofits, is to have a fulsome picture of what these projects can look like. This project and the toolkit will hopefully inspire similar work to be conducted across the country to establish a baseline understanding at a national level of what it takes to do panelized retrofits; with this information, the Nova Scotian context will become even clearer.

As part of this project, the EAC has identified multiple barriers and areas for further investigation. One barrier to the uptake of these retrofits is motivating property owners who can afford to retrofit, but don’t see the financial benefits of this work, to make the necessary investments. Meanwhile, property owners like VIDA, who are interested in pursuing this area of work, aren’t sure how to finance the work. In the toolkit, they indicate that more government support for small, medium, and large-sized projects is required to combat the large upfront costs, and that more successful projects must be completed in order to validate the viability of projects of this nature.

With the work from the EAC now complete, and other projects underway from organizations including Retrofit Canada, CanmetENERGY research centres, the ReCover Initiative, and Sustainable Buildings Canada, we will hopefully continue to move toward deep energy retrofits that are more affordable, less time intensive, and improve residents’ quality of life.

If you’re interested in learning more about panelized retrofits, and the work that the EAC completed, make sure to check out their toolkit!

Grant Highlights