Hello fellow village dwellers!
I know that I am not the only one in town and surrounding area who is pondering renewable heating and cooling of my place. When you dig into the information about ex. getting a heat pump and/ or solar panels installed, increasing the insulation of your house, you know how expensive it can get very quickly.
The incentives from the governments, provincial and federal, and BC Hydro combined look like a great deal, until you look more closely.
All these years when the government set up programs with monetary incentives and I wanted to apply for one or the other of them I found out very quickly that the hoops I had to jump through to qualify for the grant were not hoops made for rural areas.
Same again, it seems, this time around. First we need an assessment done, which, so far seems impossible in our area.
So, over the years I have put up my own money, without getting any of the grants. When I did renovations I added more insulation when it worked or I exchanged a window or two with one which had a better R-value, meaning better insulation value.
With a heat pump, it seems that we need to get someone who does an assessment before we can apply for the grant from the federal government.
Like all these years before we here in rural Canada won’t find anyone who does that (at least I haven’t). Too bad! Maybe I should move to a city?
Or, how about we get together as the village and regional district and decide that we want to go green together?
Instead of each individual wasting a lot of time and energy figuring these things out we decide to have a windmill installed that powers the village and a solar farm built and maybe geothermal, all that to produce our own electricity and/or heat. It will power our houses and businesses and on top of that we will be part of the climate solution and feel great about it!
Don’t you think we would attract people to come here when we do this, not only tourists but also young people who want a good and sustainable future for themselves and their kids?
I think so.
Instead of paying for my individual heat pump and solar on the roof of my house I would gladly contribute some money to finance this project.
Oh, and by the way, we have the perfect spot for that right here: the old mill site. It is totally exposed to wind and sun.
One village at a time!
Jeannette Lorenz
Valemount, BC
