Better Homes Ottawa Portal

The City of Ottawa's Climate Change and Resiliency team is currently developing the Better Homes Ottawa Portal. This free, online tool will allow Ottawa residents to learn about their home’s estimated energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and steps they can take to reduce their utility bills and environmental impact.

The launch of the Better Homes Ottawa Portal is scheduled for Q2 2024. The City of Ottawa is welcoming feedback on this tool. Please complete this short survey to provide your thoughts.

What is the Better Homes Ottawa Portal?

The Better Homes Ottawa Portal is a free online platform that will provide owners of residential properties with options to renovate and improve their homes with the goals of:

• reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
• reducing energy costs;
• improving indoor comfort and air quality;
• improving their property’s resilience to extreme weather events.

These options will also include cost-benefit analyses to help homeowners decide what they can afford to do next. This platform will include all residential properties that are three stories or less.

The Better Homes Ottawa Portal will also outline various incentive programs and qualified contractors available to Ottawa residents. For residents considering adding a rental unit to their home, the Portal will include a decision-making support tool to think through the costs, benefits and legalities.

What information will residents have access to through the Portal?

The main purpose of the Better Homes Ottawa Portal is to provide Ottawa residents with more information about how they can reduce energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions from their home and/or rental property.

Residents will be able to look up their homes and compare them to others in their neighbourhood. Residents will have access to information such as:

• An emissions and energy rating for residential properties in the City of Ottawa.

After verifying ownership through MyService Ottawa, property owners will also see:

• Tailored information about home retrofit measures that a property can take on to reduce energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions;
• Cost benefit analysis of various property upgrades specific to your property;
• The co-benefits of energy-focused renovations and upgrades, such as increased comfort, better indoor air quality, etc.;
• The optimal timing and order in which various retrofits and upgrades should be undertaken;
• What opportunities a home has to add a secondary/rental suite (i.e., cost-benefit calculator);
• Qualified contractors who can help implement energy/emissions reduction upgrades.

What information will be visible to the public?

A home’s estimated emissions and energy labels are all that will be visible to the public. For homes being listed for sale, the City of Ottawa is discussing the opportunity for sellers to have the option to add their home’s label to online real estate platforms like Realtor.ca.

How will the City come up with the home emissions and energy labels?

The home emissions and energy labels will be developed using a combination of existing data sets available to the City (for example, building size, year of construction, primary heating type and weather data) as well as external building science data. A large dataset of NRCan EnerGuide audits was used to calibrate the models. For example, the amount of energy a typical 1960s detached home consumes compared to a typical 2005 townhome is different and varies per climate zone.

How are the home emissions and energy labels updated?

Homeowners are encouraged to increase the accuracy of their homes’ labels by answering a survey, uploading a previous EnerGuide Home Energy Assessment, or linking their existing utility bills. Homeowners will first authenticate their ownership through the MyService Ottawa platform. They will then be able to input additional information to increase the accuracy of the label and subsequent energy focused home upgrade recommendations.

Why are a property’s emissions and energy performance important?

Emissions and energy performance relates directly to the costs that homeowners face, both in terms of carbon pricing and utility costs. Additionally, these metrics can serve as helpful indicators of other important home features, such as indoor comfort, indoor air quality, and resiliency.

The launch of the Better Homes Ottawa Portal is scheduled for Q2 2024. The City of Ottawa is welcoming feedback on this tool. Please complete this short survey to provide your thoughts.