This Sudbury, Ont., homeowner is sharing how he saved money on his green renos

Ryan Mariotti estimates solar panels he installed on the roof of his Sudbury, Ont., home could produce up to 95 per cent of his annual energy consumption.

On Wednesday, Mariotti shared his "retrofit journey" through a presentation at Laurentian University's Vale Living with Lakes Centre. The event will also be broadcast on Facebook Live.

"We started our retrofit journey back in 2021, the summer of 2021," he said.

"We had a daughter on the way, and we didn't have any air conditioning in our house, and we knew that we wanted to make it a little more acclimatized indoors."

The first thing he did was to have a heat pump installed to supplement his heating and provide air conditioning in the summer.

Heat pumps transfer heat from a cool space to a warm space, which means they can be used for heating during the winter and cooling during the summer.

"The big bonus of heat pumps is that they can have a return of energy, typically three to one, even four to one, and sometimes even five to one if it's working as AC in the summer," Mariotti said.

"So what that means is for every kilowatt-hour of electricity you put in, you get out about three to four, sometimes even five kilowatt hours back."

He said the heat pump, combined with some more efficient spray foam insulation he installed on some of his walls, reduced his energy consumption by half during the winter.

On very cold days, below –25 C, Mariotti said he still needs to use his gas boiler to supplement the heat pump.

"If the heat loss rate of your house is high enough, like our house is fairly old, it cannot keep up with that heat loss," he said.

"So as it gets colder you want to make sure you still have a backup supplement heating system, whether it be your old furnace, your old boiler, or a wood stove."

But he hopes that with better insulation throughout his house, he can further reduce any dependence on his gas boiler.

Mariotti said it cost him $10,000 to install the heat pump in 2021.

Homeowners can apply to the federal government's Canada Greener Homes Grant cover up to $5,000 on a heat pump.

His next big project was to install 16 solar panels on his roof, which can produce up to 7.6 kilowatts of power on a sunny day.

Homeowners can also receive a grant up to $5,000 for solar panel installations through the Canada Greener Homes Grant.

At current hydro rates, Mariotti said, it could take up to 20 years for him to make his money back on the solar panel installation. But he expects those rates to increase in the coming years, which would speed up his return on investment.

Energy audits 

For his presentation, Mariotti has teamed up with reThink Green, a Sudbury-based organization focused on sustainability and climate action.

David St. Georges, reThink Green's manager of communications and sponsorship, said the group is helping Mariotti share his retrofit story because a lot of people might not know where to start to access energy-efficiency-boosting grants for their homes.

"By bringing someone to tell their story, we wanted to sort of remove those barriers," he said.

"Maybe anxiety, maybe misinformation, so people can see that these retrofits are possible and this funding is as good as the advertisements say it is."

St. Georges said that for people to qualify for grants under the Canada Greener Homes program, they need to have a qualified auditor visit their home and do an energy audit.

"It's a test that [measures] exactly how much heat energy your house is using," he said.

After the audit, homeowners can work with a qualified contractor to do the work, whether it's installing better insulation and windows, or adding solar panels to the roof.

In addition to available grants, homeowners can also apply for a Canada Green Homes interest-free loan up to $40,000 for certain green renovations approved by an energy advisor.