Ben: joining me today for this wonderful conversation are Lynne Strickland and Andy Oding. We're gonna have a great conversation today about some work that the Canadian Home Builders' Association and Building Knowledge Canada and many others have been working on over the past four years around accelerating net-zero renovations across Canada. But before we really dive into the conversation, Lynne and Andy, I just want to give you a couple minutes to introduce yourselves.

Lynne: Sure. My name is Lynne Strickland. I'm a director with the Canadian Home Builders Association's national office, and I'm the project lead for a number of Natural Resource Canada research and development and demonstration projects, some new construction, and for the past four years the project lead for the Towards Cost Effective, Net-Zero Energy Ready Residential Renovations. So my background is has Pretty much always been in the built environment, but from different lenses. So I started off as an environmental scientist, as an indoor air and environmental quality investigator, and then moved into the occupant impact and became a registered interior designer, but for the past couple of decades working as construction project management. And what I found with working on this NRCan project is that that That could explain why I will always be a vocal proponent for the integrated design because I see where that lens helps. Having that multiple disciplinary lens, but I've also been grounded in where it all goes wrong. In the sick building investigations, in housing, in institutions. so yeah, so it was very interesting to run this this project over the past four years. And Building Knowledge Canada, working with them as our lead consultants. So Andy.

Andrew Oding: Yeah, thanks, Lynne and Ben. Well, it's good to be here today. I'm Andy Oding, President and CEO of Building Knowledge Canada. We are a firm that's been around for 20 plus years. We primarily do building science, building science engineering. we principally work with home builders and renovators in the Part 9 space. So right across Canada, we work with several hundred builders, everybody from some of the large production scale to Customs. So we do energy modeling, we do mechanical design, we do building science forensics, mechanical forensics. We work with a lot of the warranty programs across Canada and a lot of carbon modeling, sustainability type work. And

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: then we do some work in the large building sector, ICI sector of water and wind testing. Yeah, we had the privilege of being brought on by Lynne and team, like she said, as sort of the lead consultants to sort of support the energy advisors and the respective teams that were involved in municipalities. So the approach was let's try to help scale up the retrofits, affordable retrofits of existing homes and projects to this near net-zero level, but let's also do it in such a way that we bring to bear the building. Science that Canadians have known for years. Because if we don't use the science, we make a really big mess of things. And we have a tendency of doing that when we get laser focused on carbon only or on energy only. And we forget about that we actually have to build homes and retrofit projects that actually make them healthier and last longer. So that's where we came in. And it's actually been really cool to see these projects.

Ben: Yeah. And and actually as you as you mentioned that, Andy, I think that's that's one of my big soap boxes as well when we talk about efficiency renovations or or retrofits is like the importance of building science. I think we plan to dive into it a bit later in the conversation, but maybe let's let's lead with that. Cause I think that's one of the most important things.

Lynne: Hmm.

Ben: one of the overarching themes of of this initiative, like the importance of getting the building science right. Like like you mentioned, like We don't want to get things wrong because bad things can happen. We can look over into the the UK and see all the failures related to improperly installed spray foam in roof assemblies and and such. And and I think the building science is is so important. Can you maybe spend just a couple minutes talking a bit more about like what the concerns are on the building science end of things? and then and then let's dive into the the program because I I d I don't wanna I wanna just let's just dive into it now rather than come back to it later

Andrew Oding: So I had the I'll give you a sense of why this is such a big deal. The recent national code committees that developed the National Building Code of Canada, the NBC and the NECB, the recent updates in twenty twenty and 2025 There's actually a joint task group that I was part of as a sub chair. That was called the Joint Task Group for High Performance Buildings. And the reason it existed is that as Canadians and North Americans, we realized that as we start to change the dynamics of the enclosure and of the home or the building, The science changes. And what you know, we have one of the one of the, I think, the key to me, glaring points that we have sort of lost our way, and that this is more important than ever, is we often talk about blower door testing, right? Airtightness, and we get all warm and cozy about how wonderfully energy efficient it makes homes and it's draft free and it reduces carbon, and that's all wonderful. But those things in actuality are only spin-off effects from the principles. Reason we do this. And it was Canadians specifically in the early 1960s internationally that identified first that air leakage was the second primary leading cause of rot. In enclosures, air leakage, so that was volumetric airflow into the enclosures caused condensation, and that is the principal reason we needed air barriers, not vapor barriers, but air barriers, and we have forgotten that. Very little people remember or understand that the blower door test, the reason we do things to ACH 50, isn't because we really care what ACH 50 is, it's because we wanted to get a linear line that showed us what the house actually was at ACH six or Five, then we could actually calculate the amount of moisture that was going into the enclosure if we knew the surface area, right? So this is the important thing to understand, is we have forgotten that. And we're in a day where, I'll be really blunt, the National Building Code of Canada still struggles with this. We are allowing this tiered energy code to be set up for the province and territories in the absence of a minimum requirement of a blower-door test. So we're gonna let people arguably add insulation to assemblies, change the Dynamics and yet not require any sort of airtightness, prioritization, or testing to ensure that we don't increase condensation issues. And it's things like when we do insulate and then we make it airtight, we now have to get into ventilating appropriately. And it isn't just for fresh air, it's for combustion air purposes and also for makeup air purposes. So it's this continual dynamic of yes, that's cool, let's change this for sustainability and energy, but let's understand the impact of house or building.

Ben: Yeah. I think house as a system is is important. And and that that's interesting on the the air tightness side too of like the the biggest thing, it's not it's not the air leaking itself, it's the moisture that that air carries and when it's passing

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: True.

Ben: through assemblies that you can't decide where it's going to happen unless you're taking the steps to do that blow door test and and chase the leaks and seal them up where you where you can, but it can create a lot of issues. And I think one of the biggest things and you see this This is in a lot more historical homes, but but all homes. Like when you had an assembly before that was designed to breathe. And in the industry we use the term like a house needs to breathe and and quite often it it's not the air tightness. We're talking about the the the vapor movement. Yeah.

Andrew Oding: It needs to it needs to dry. Elements elements need to dry. Yeah.

Ben: Yeah. We have an assembly that has been able to dry. we we want to design these things to keep all the moisture out, but provide a way for it to get out if it gets in.

Andrew Oding: That's right.

Ben: And so airtightness is key too. But one of the other key things we look at with with retrofits is is making sure we're still allowing an assembly to dry. I had a former colleague of mine when when I was doing the building envelope consulting several years ago, we joked that it's like the cobbler's children have the the worst shoes.

Lynne: Mm.

Ben: Like we're a consultants on all these homes solving moisture issues, but we knew our homes who like my home is in 1981. I haven't Done much to improve it. He was in like a mid seventies home. Like we knew we had window leaks. We knew we had this and that and the other, but we had wall assemblies that were very poorly sealed. There wasn't much to stop the flow of heat and air, which allowed those things to dry when go ahead.

Andrew Oding: I I'll I'll add one important point though. And you know, Dr. Straub and Eric Burnett, which has written probably the most preeminent high-level learning textbooks, building science for a cold climate, advanced enclosures, you taught at the university level. That's what I learned from at the University of Toronto. Is that we do tend to automatically go to drying, but the reality is the building science tells us we don't talk about drying until we talk about reducing wetting. And that's the problem. We spend a lot of time talking about About drying potential, but the reality is the physics involved in wetting the building are much more strong and potent than anything

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: we will ever dry. And this is something John's been trying to help us understand is we we cannot dry our way out of not having overhangs and liquid water control and poorly flashed windows. We cannot dry our way out of that. We cannot dry our way out of houses that are not airtight, that have moisture in the walls. And that's that's

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: that bit of a misnomer. There's a poor understanding, I'll be quite blunt, there's a poor understanding in the so-called online building science field where they talk about drainage and drying. Drainage and drying is good, but it's actually at the bottom of the spectrum. The first thing historically that we learned is we need to reduce the rate of wetting first. And then we'll have a conversation about the draining. Sometimes we get those things mixed up. So that was our job working with Lynne and team is when we're retrofitting these homes and we're adding insulation to the attic or the wall or changing the windows, let's make sure that we're managing the liquid water, the wetting first, and then let's

Ben: Mm.

Andrew Oding: talk about that dying potential. So

Ben: A hundred percent. Yeah, that and that that is so important. And that kind of ties into that the whole house as a system. It's more than just if you're making the house more airtight that you need to ventilate. but it's it's looking at all those different components where you have an older home that maybe there were leaks before you make it more airtight, it's gonna amplify those leaks, but you need to catch those leaks itself. It's like that the order of priorities in the control layers of water control first, then air control, then vapor control than than thermal control. Some people might put vapor at the end 'cause solely vapor related failures are very few and far between compared to everything else. And I think

Andrew Oding: Yeah, they are less less than two percent I think, is what

Lynne: Mm.

Andrew Oding: they see. So

Ben: Yeah.

Andrew Oding: d dew point control, cheer point that thermal is important. So so yeah, that's yeah.

Ben: Yep. Yeah. And so that's been one overarching aspect of this overall initiative was making sure the building science is right and that leads to having teams and everything. But Lynne, before we go much further, can you just talk a bit more? And in your introduction, you you said It it's quite the title for this project that you guys have

Lynne: It is, yes.

Ben: have wrapped up. So so what was what was the main goal or objective of this initiative and why did the Canadian Home Builders Association seek to undertake it?

Lynne: So in the simplest of forms, and we we shortened it down to Towards Net-Zero Renos, you know, to to bring that to a a simpler statement. But the original kind of target lead mark was we want to facilitate 150 deep energy retrofits. And NRCan's definition of that is a fifty percent energy reduction. But if we go back to what Andy just spoke about, we Are well versed in the unintended consequences, in the need for planning. So what we did is we took that mandate from NRCan. We said, okay, how are we going to do this in a de-risked, you know, highest potential of scalability method? So we leveraged our net-zero home labeling program. So Andy's well-versed in this, he's been there from the beginning of that development. But what that did was it put structure and and rigor to these retrofit plans. And it also put the occupant up on an equal basis to the house. So one of the things that I just having been around deep energy retrofits for for quite a number of years is one of the delineations of this why we leveraged, and obviously we're CHBA, but why we leveraged that program to do this work is because it looks at energy conservation measures and it looks at the impact to the building and to the occupant. And so you know with this whole premise of okay, 150 deep energy retrofits, how do we start? And the first starting point was training the teams. So when when you're on a construction site and you have that lens of integrity and avoiding these unintended consequences. You recognize that every player on the team can either contribute or be a detriment to that. And whether that's you know the the misalignment of communication where you've got holes being drilled through your your air barrier and all that. So what we needed, we needed the entire team to be on the same page. And we were we were working with thirteen municipalities who had programs to incentivize this and to to give rebates. And naturally they were just as risk averse as we were, where we wanted to protect the investment of the homeowner, but also protect you know the the credibility of of the municipalities going, yes, this is a good way to go to go through a a a retrofit. So we had You know, Andy is one of our our top net-zero trainers. We had Andy and his team and other of our our net-zero trainers across Canada provide the advanced building science to understand those hierarchies of approaches, right? What are what are we looking to so that we remind people of those, you know, get the water away first. Then you start working at what has managed to get past all the other interventions. Then we did training on what does a net-zero home, what what comprises a net-zero home? What are the components? What are the requirements? What are we looking at? And then the third day of training was okay now how do you do that on an existing building? And all the variations that come with that, all the add-ons, all the the homeowner needs. And so that was the first the first kind of effort was getting the training. And then once the training was was you know in hand Then we started taking enrollments of these projects. And as everybody knows, with renovation plans, you kind of have to over-reach to get, you know, the ones that are also going to be completed through a very short window. When you're looking at two to three years for construction, when this is a a relatively new concept for quite a number of homeowners, that is a short period of time just with all the the implications there. So It was it was a challenge. We ended up with a hundred and fifty-three projects enrolling, so a hundred and fifty-three separate main addresses, but they represented three hundred and eighty-five residential units because we had multifamilies, we had housing co-ops, as well as single family dwellings and attached units. So out of those, we there were sixty-eight deep energy retrofits. So we were able to capture a lot of data of what moved forward. but we were also able to capture a lot of data of why certain projects did not move forward. So that was the overarching goal was to accomplish those deep energy retrofits, but more than that, to take away what is it that Canada needs to do to scale.

Ben: Mm-hmm. And I was involved myself with the advisory group we connected roughly

Lynne: Mm.

Ben: quarterly throughout the project and and touch base and how things were proceeding. And I think it was interesting as the project went along. It's kind of the realization of the barriers. to actually completing the the retrofit. and and I and I appreciate the pivot that you made through the course of the project. It wasn't okay, let's just focus on getting all these homes that can complete, but you recognize, as you just mentioned, the value in let's get a plan for these retrofits, give these homeowners

Lynne: Yes.

Ben: or building owners direction into what they can do. And then identify what are the barriers that stop them from proceeding. Cause I think that's one of the one of the key things to to to look into with these retrofits is what's stopping them from proceeding. So so before we get into, and maybe we can touch on the overarching numbers, but before that, what what were the key barriers that were stopping people from moving forward with their retrofits?

Lynne: I think for it there's different genres of of archetypes and owners and so I think on the single family side one of them was it was often it was the wrong timing. So there were people who were very interested in the idea of a low carbon, low energy, low load home, high performing home that gave them great indoor air quality. But the best way to do that retrofit was an exterior. you know, retrofit approach and their siding was five years old. It didn't

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: make sense. It it that Venn diagram of readiness, of the homeowner readiness, the the industry readiness, the financial support readiness, all of that needed to come together in order to make it the right time to do that. The other barrier I think like on single family is missed opportunities. So CHBA often pulls a lot of statistics and over the past three years, Canadians have spent anywhere between a hundred and five to a hundred and twenty billion on retrofitting

Ben: With a B.

Lynne: on on renovating, repair, and maintenance of homes. So when I talk about missed opportunities, it's that a lot of Canadians are looking at their asset looking at either some form of renewal where it whether it's a renovation and more aesthetic, some of them don't aren't aware that some of their pain points can actually be addressed through energy conservation measures. Cold rooms, hot rooms, poor air quality, you know, areas they can't fully use their existing space. But there's missed opportunities in that we really need the industry To be trained to offer this and have these conversations with homeowners so that then it becomes it just gets on the table. It gets on the table. It's like, okay, you are doing eight components out of the 12 that lead you towards a deep energy retrofit. Let's see what we can do with this. Once homeowners, when we when we had the right timing for single-family homes and that education was brought in early, and that conversation happened early. Homeowners were thrilled, absolutely thrilled, because they were making this investment anyway. And what they learned was that they could get so much more out of that investment. And it gave them a home that was more comfortable, you know, more energy efficient, future kind of ready, had some resiliency built in just by virtue of having that future lens. When we look at the larger projects, the housing co-ops and and those kind of aggregated housing. A big part of what we found was the barrier was impact on utility or grid and costs associated with that and just straight up financing. So many of our housing co-op projects met requirements for funding, but then the funding was oversubscribed and sunsetted before they could take advantage of it. So we have housing stock, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of residential units that have building condition assessments that make them prime candidates, going, okay, you're going to need to do a significant investment. How do we do that right? And how do we facilitate that? And that's where we'll talk more about the the towards net-zero roadmap and and how you know

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: that that planning. But I think the biggest barrier for single family is not having steady state financing that allows them to do long term asset management for their home.

Ben: Yeah. And I think it's interesting with those larger funding programs too that are addressing more of these co-op or affordable housing complexes. The the funding programs are complex and it takes time to get things. It's not only yeah,

Lynne: Two years or more.

Ben: it's not only jumping through the hoops of whatever program, but it's getting buy-in of the the membership or the management over the complexes. Like there's so many different things. You're you're doubling the the upfront timeline compared to a single family build, let alone the the

Lynne: Absolutely.

Ben: the funding aspects of of things. So yeah, and I think the the missed opportunities that that you mentioned, I came to a realization a few years ago that any any new construction or renovation that we're doing to a to a a building envelope, we're basically locking in that efficiency and the related durability and comfort for 40 to 50 years largely. So when we're talking about missed opportunities I didn't replace five years ago. I live in northeast Calgary. We've been pummeled by hail like three times in the past 10 years or 11 years. And there's a whole lot of new cladding up here and very little insulation did I see installed with that that cladding. And also

Lynne: Right. Yeah.

Ben: from building science standpoint when things are done quickly emergency replacements. So on energy efficiency and the things of mechanicals, we talk about emergency furnace replacements. But when there's a natural disaster event where you have to replace cladding or windows, that's also done very quickly.

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Lynne: Yeah.

Ben: And often you have the the local industry scales up very quickly. And we can anticipate the amount of training of those workers and how well they're executing the building science of the work that they're doing, let alone efficiency measures. I think another thing too, really quickly, you mentioned like the the conversations with the missed opportunities, the homeowners just don't know. I'm reminded

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ben: of several years ago, Tyler Hermanson made a comment that the the retrofit or efficiency renovation conversation that needs to be part of every renovation conversation, not I happen to know about it, so I'm gonna ask. But how do we get

Lynne: Right.

Ben: all the contractors that are being consulted for renovations to say, hey. Did you know? Here's some opportunities.

Andrew Oding: There's there's one other key thing I'll just add in there that we very much found was one of the critical things that we need in this side of things is a roadmap.

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: Because we know that because in renovations the project management is very disparate. Could be the mechanical contractor, could be the owner, could be the building owner, could be the utility person, could be the husband or the wife or the principal occupant, could be the energy advisor, right? The

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: reality is that home or that those units of buildings need a roadmap that says, here's where you are today, here's what the ultimate goal of net-zero already looks like. Like that end goal where everything possibly is done and it's a perfect picture. And here are the steps you can take to get there. Because we know that nobody's going to do everything at once. They're going to do bits and pieces. But at least it shines a clear light on when you make little changes, when you do the kitchen, or you do the basement, or you do a mechanical.

Ben: Yeah.

Andrew Oding: At least you understand where on the roadmap you are and it gives you a sense of maybe where things should be done and in what order. So the roadmap really to me was just something that came in to be sort of a critical cornerstone for any project, any home that

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: is looking to target an end goal of near zero, whatever it is, energy, carbon, could be anything.

Ben: Yeah, and I think that as I as I watched this project progress, that roadmap was like probably the one key item that moved things forward more than anything else. So Lynne, can you dive in a little bit more into what that roadmap consists of? Because we need we need a lot more than just, here's this efficiency program. I can get five thousand dollars off a heat pump or I can get my windows subsidized.

Lynne: Yeah.

Ben: We need a plan so things line up and we don't have missed opportunities. the roadmap? rodmap as Peter Amrongan likes saying, we don't lock in inefficiencies. So what did that roadmap consist of? And and also what what did the team look like that was working on developing the roadmap?

Lynne: So for you know what the roadmap essentially is is a plan. It's a long term plan. But what it we worked with Volta Research, so they're a not-for-profit that was doing work in this space and they've been we managed to leverage their Snap tool to bring everything in and help us create this roadmap. And Building Knowledge Canada had had also worked on this very in-depth in terms of already having that good, better, best. But we redefined it In this towards net-zero roadmap, in that, you know, you have this is your house now with your ERS, this is this is where you're at. And then we mapped out what would it take to get that house to net-zero, all the way to net-zero. And what that did is that it gave a lead mark to all the decisions that happened before. So that little bit of pull planning as well, where you know your end goal, now you pull back and you see what does it take to get there. And what that does is that it would change the lens on any point that you landed in between here and our 2050 national goals of net-zero, and what that would look like. And how that affected decisions was things like evaluating the end of life of your mechanicals. What is your time frame? There's you know, there is a a temporal aspect. To each of the components of a house. Some are 50 to 100 years, some are 10 to 15, some are 20. So you start to look at that alignment and you're going, okay. and and just and so it was to move away by renovating or retrofitting by rebate. It's like, there's a rebate for windows, I guess I'm doing windows. there's a rebate for heat pumps, I guess I'm doing my heat pump. Meanwhile, your house is leaking like a sieve. You finally do the exterior work and now your mechanicals don't work. So it was to de-risk the the implementation, but future proof it. So you can make decisions where, and that's why I loved that it was towards net-zero, because to Andy's point, there were some homeowners who wanted let's go all the way to net-zero or their renovation was ninety-nine percent there because they were touching everything and they just needed somebody who understood how to get there. But most of us are in the scenario where we are going to move incrementally. So how does that building science get injected into that planning? Where we've had homeowners say, My friend just got all the rebates for insulation and did and you're telling me now that there should be mechanical ventilation now that she's sealed up her house into basically a bag. And I'm like, Yes, there has to be mechanical ventilation. So we can do A lot of harm by doing right things in the wrong sequence, right? so to that end, this roadmap was a asset management plan that takes it to net-zero, de-risks it, but it also, and this is what BKC worked at with us so closely on, it also recognized that most of these interventions into into our housing, they're driven by the occupants.

Andrew Oding: Yeah, that's right.

Lynne: They are looking to solve pain points. They're like, I'm cold, or this, I've been in this house for 10 to 15 years. I love it here. I love most of my house, but there's certain things that I'm really not happy with and I don't want to live with for the next 20, 30 years. And how to address those pain points in that and give those occupant benefits immediately. Immediately

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: when somebody is Like for example, we had one home that I think reached net-zero already. The move from double to triple windows was evaluated by the energy advisor for its energy impact. And it was fairly negligible. This was a Toronto home, there was there was it was fairly negligible. But they lived over a subway. And every

Ben: Yeah.

Lynne: 15 minutes they knew that a subway so they went to triple. And and this is where BKC has helped us bring in those non-energy drivers into that roadmap. It is a process, it's an integrated design process that brings in all the components, and so many of them can be solved by what we consider energy conservation measures, like triple windows, triple pane windows.

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: So it's giving that value proposition. You're investing so much money, let's do it right, and give you all of these other benefits that immediately impact the homeowner and happens to be a low load, low energy, low carbon, you know, and financially resilient, energy resilient, financially resilient proposition. So that's what I know that's a a big expansion on

Ben: No, no.

Lynne: what is that roadmap, but that's why both Andy and I light up when we talk about the Towards Net Zero Road.

Andrew Oding: Yeah. So I'll just one thing I think

Ben: Yeah. Andy.

Andrew Oding: is just was very clear again, and we've seen this time and time again. I've been a builder most of my life, so just to be clear, I was a framer and home builder, worked for home builders for years, large and small and custom. And this old adage from renovator and builders or contractors that the homeowners don't care about anything when it comes to efficiency except what says saves them. Is probably one of the, I'll be blunt, one of the most unknowledgeable, most misconstrued statements we will ever hear as a society. The reasons the homeowners we feel as contractors, and this has been proven in blind studies by real estate people and by contractors and builders that have made a good amount of cash and profit selling comfortable high-performance homes, the reason we think. The only thing that homeowners care about is return on investment for efficiency is because that's the only thing they know that it's capable of. They have no clue

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: that these things solve health issues, comfort issues, durability issues, increased resale value. And what what we find is we are seeing contractors all across Canada and the US, builders and contractors alike, becoming large, profitable firms in selling high performance homes because they're changing the conversation.

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: Otherwise, that comment about all the client cares about is just the efficiency, you're caught in a vicious feedback loop of your own thinking.

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ben: Yeah. So how do we from w what you've learned from from this initiative and and other work you've done, how do we change that conversation? So that's one thing I believe as well. Like energy efficiency is like this small thing. And the utility cost savings, like in Alberta where I'm at, the utility structure, like you're you're never

Lynne: Mm.

Ben: doing a retrofit or a net-zero renovation for your utility cost savings. It's not financially driven, but how do we change that prevalent conversation away from efficiency and cost savings? How do we move it more towards the the health and durability and comfort?

Lynne: And Andy, I think you remember with a lot of the training boot camps that we did where, you know, you get that hand up, it's like, well, what's the payback? And and you're like, okay, well, that is one line item out of about fifty that the homeowner actually values.

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Lynne: And

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: what we've learned is that when we talk about the value and the benefits to the occupant and to the homeowner. That and and a lot of our renovators, our net-zero, our qualified net-zero renovators have delivered this. And same with our qualified net-zero builders. They go, the net-zero aspect comes, yeah, that's how we get there. That's a mechanism of how we achieve the benefits that you want. So I think a lot of it is educating about how there is that correlation to these other measures that give your client your homeowner, your owner, what they value and what they want. Because with a hundred billion being spent a year,

Andrew Oding: Right. Yeah.

Lynne: we know homeowners are there is money flowing to what they want and need. And and so how do we connect that? So I think a lot of it is to do with education, but a lot of our work and and Ben, you were helping us work with this and Andy, but a lot of it comes down to the communication.

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Lynne: How do we talk about this?

Andrew Oding: I'll give you a prime example of this. There is a very, very large production builder in Canada. They have in the US, and I won't name their name. But they have dived into high-performance homes. Now, this is on the new build site, not the existing, but the lesson is the same. They have specifically said publicly in marketing reports that they've done with their sales team is that high performance or energy efficiency, things like this, it may not necessarily drive people into a sales office, but one thing that they know for sure is that it highly increases what's called the conversion ratio. And what that is is when the client does come, when you do talk to the client, when you have the opportunity to actually help your client understand how your product compares to the competitors, they're having better o opportunities converting those clients and they're not the cheapest they're not the cheapest product. And that's that's the thing is there's a there's a bit of immaturity, I'm going to say, if I can be blunt, in the renovation and the construction of the new homing industry, not understanding that if you choose just to sell the value of what you do just by cost savings and first price, then you're competing in what's called the red ocean. Everybody else is doing the same thing. Everybody else has the perfect contractor, everybody else has the best quality, everybody else has the best sight, everybody else has the best trades, everybody else has the best. Cabinets. That's fine. But not everybody understands how to build homes that are warm, comfortable, and that benefits the clients needs. And little by little, we are seeing major, major companies see profit increase, conversion ratios change both on the renovator and the new build side as they learn that hey, I actually now have something of true value that I can talk about aside from all the other things.

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: And I think when we talk about changing the the conversation and the communication, it also goes to, you know, the government entities and those that, you know, we we've been so long putting a focus on an energy metric, 50% energy reduction, without the protection of what that means to the occupant. You can have 50%, you can have 80% energy reduction and have the Really unpleasant indoor environment. You know, and I think decades ago when people thought, you know, if you go green, you're gonna be sitting there with a toque and and fingerless gloves because you're supposed to save energy. We're like, no, this is this is about providing indoor

Andrew Oding: Okay.

Lynne: environments that allow occupants to thrive, right? So

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: it's it's yeah, I think we have to encourage rebate programs to educate as they deliver.

Andrew Oding: Yeah. You know it's interesting, you

Ben: Yeah.

Andrew Oding: look at the automobile industry, you know, one other big ticket item that we consider. People purchase automobiles because there's a need, and then they often want to look at efficiency, but efficiency isn't really the thing that makes most of their choices. It's gonna be, okay, is it quiet in the car? How's the comfort gonna be? What's the road noise gonna be like? How are the shocks? What's the ride? Am I gonna be cool? Like as in hip? And we're finding that with high performance. It is a high performance home. It has better windows, it's got stuff your neighbors don't have, it's got features in your house that your aunt and uncle know nothing about, and it's really cool to have this house. and by the way, when the grid goes down in some cases, my house just stays nice and warm or nice and cool. It's I again, it's the maturity of our understanding as an industry of what high performance is and how to talk about it in a way that doesn't just sit on this cost of return because folks, if that's all we're willing to convey to a client and we think that's all they need,

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: then we're in our own closed, vicious sort of cycle loop, right? It's a we're in an echo chamber.

Ben: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We gotta we gotta move move beyond that. Cause the other thing too it is how do we motivate people to understand all the benefits? Because if we're focused on cost, then we're we're competing with the granite countertop granite countertops there. Which nobody talks about the ROI. And sorry, that's a bit of a a trope or whatever when we talk about efficiency and and payback.

Lynne: But it it is there in terms of and and I totally

Ben: Yeah, okay.

Lynne: understand it because if if there isn't the confidence of I didn't know for a homeowner, I didn't know I could ask for a better indoor environment. And if my renovator or my contractor doesn't feel confident or is unaware to deliver it, then that conversation never happens. So when you think of the amount of marketing And exposure that every homeowner gets to these tangible physical items of cabinetry and they can touch it, they can hold it okay. This is mine. When we're talking about, you know, indoor environmental quality, it is an intangible but affects you every day. So it it really is that education and communication and and and bringing our industry up, you know, to have those conversations and upskilling and and educating and and I found that one of the the one of the joys of of working with project teams is to see a renovator going, I'm doing most of this stuff. I just need to pull it together and have these integrated design conversations and and they're like I can deliver this for my clients. This is amazing.

Ben: Mm-hmm. And and going beyond like these other benefits, one of the other things you've referenced in the past is like how can we use a renovation to manage that that home asset? So so what what's really meant by kind of asset management when we're talking about renovations and and efficiency improvements?

Lynne: So a lot of a lot of the reasons why homes degrade are because of the building science issues that that Andy spoke about. And for some odd reason, we will maintain our cars, we will take them in for their their service, we will look at that flashing lights, but for some reason we've missed an a crux of education and we think that our houses are static. That they are built and that they are just but they are not. There is all of these, and and as an Indoor air quality investigator, it was it was such a common thing that and to this day I still get it going, My house is leaky, so I'm getting fresh air. It's like, you're getting air. If you look inside your walls, please do not count that as fresh. You would not, you know, y that is n that is such a misconception. And and Andy, I know you and Gord have done you know, a lot of work on on the stats of how unhealthy leaky homes are for that.

Andrew Oding: Mm, mm.

Lynne: But when we talk about asset management, it's it's take it's like that roadmap. Let's look that 50, 100 years out, and then come back and look at what needs to be done in order to protect that asset into the future in a

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: way that still is supportive of the occupant. Because we can patch houses up like crazy. Are they great environments for the occupant? No guarantee, right? If it's not intentional. So, how do we intentionally provide a really good thriving environment for the occupant well into the future? And from a carbon perspective, from a sustainability perspective, you know. it it's the best thing is to keep that house in a good condition and have it last, right? And the the relatively nominal you know investments in carbon and in cost to keep that going, you know, are are just minimal compared to a tear down, a new build, and all that sort of thing. So we've got We've got this investment already there, so how do we maintain it? So that asset management strategy is done on so many other buildings. And that's where I I I like bringing, you know, whether it's been working on on institutional construction projects or or other projects and bringing that thinking into part nine, into residential, and biggest realization is that we're not empowered in part nine to do asset management. There was some stat and and it would need to be verified, but you know, that that homeowners may move five every five to seven years on average, right? Which means they're making two to three year decisions, maybe five year decisions. And a house that only has five year decisions, owner after owner,

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: is not going to last into the future well, because nobody's looking at that future plan. But We have to empower that and support the homeowners who are going to take it into the future and not just go, hey, if you want to take it, you know, make this house last 50 years, it's on your own dime and we're not going to support you. So we do need that that ecosystem to support that.

Andrew Oding: More and more

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: I think there's Two things that are changing in the low rise part nine space on that. One is the the investor. So I'm not talking about, you know, a couple or a person that will have three or four condos that they own. I'm talking about investing real estate investment trust. More and more of the housing we have in Canada and North America are real estate investment trusts, which to Lynn's point look at what they own as an asset. And is that asset durable? Does it hold its value over time so that I can change it? And is there things that I can do in holding those assets that decrease one of my biggest costs, which is ongoing maintenance maintenance and issues with the occupants? So that's a that's a to me a big deal. The second thing that is changing a lot of this conversation is the insurance. So it's the resilience aspect.

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: And there's a lot of high performance elements in net-zero that we're finding as we work with the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction and with the insurance companies, there's a lot of things about the These net-zero ready prior priorities that really nicely match up with some of the durability concerns on resilience that the insurance companies have. And ultimately, they are the ones that are left holding the bag when a poor building or poor unit is developed. And so they have a very keen interest in making sure that these homes are going to work and that they're going to last. So we've got some new things that are coming to play in the marketplace. I think if we look at other countries that have been through, you Know, you know, hundreds to thousands more years of experience than what we have here in Canada or the US. We learn that over time we start to properly value our housing, we start to properly value our assets, and in those other countries, there is a lot more importance put on things like high performance buildings and things like insulation and efficiency because you're not just flipping assets every one to five years. It's now if you're gonna build, you're building for the long term, and guess who's gonna live in it? Maybe your kid. So

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ben: Yeah, I've I've reflected too, probably for over a decade. I was involved a while ago in in doing reserve fund studies for for condominiums

Andrew Oding: Mm.

Ben: or or stratas. And I think it's interesting, like this is a legislated requirement, that there is a plan for how that asset of all the common property, so not owned by by the individual unit owners, but by the collective condominium or strata, like How are those assets going to be managed? And a lot of that is envelope. and and there's mechanicals as well, but there has to be this plan and this budget with monthly money going

Andrew Oding: Mm.

Ben: in to maintain the budget that's needed for these improvements

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Ben: to to to keep things rolling. I often thought about as like no homeowner is doing their own reserve fund study and

Andrew Oding: Yeah, that's right.

Ben: and planning.

Lynne: And yet there's fifteen million existing homes, if not more, right?

Ben: Yeah.

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Ben: Yeah. It's it's something that needs to be done. So there's the plan, the roadmap I think is a a great way to to get there. And then and I think one aspect of that roadmap is having the the team which includes the homeowner in those conversations. Lynne, you mentioned integrated design process. That was the first episode of this podcast with Cindy Gareau

Lynne: Yeah.

Ben: and Meredith Hamstead, like diving into what does proper planning for for a efficiency renovation or retrofit, what what does it need to look like? But I think the team for the planning and execution of these projects is is so important. So I guess one aspect of the like who takes who takes the lead in in in these teams?

Lynne: So on the our program, what we we knew that we had to start with an energy audit. And we knew we wanted to bring that education to the table. So we mandated that every project had to have a qualified CHBA net-zero energy advisor. And because of the rebate incentives, a lot of times the energy advisor is the first contact that a homeowner makes when they're they're diving into these energy kind of rebates and conversations, it's with the energy auditor. But for us, the you know, and Andy worked with us on on even working through how many hours of investment of each of these different members of the team. But the core team is the homeowner, the renovator, and the energy advisor. And there will

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: be other members from, you know, on the growth, but that really is, or the prime contractor or the the general contractor, but it's who's going to who has the needs, who has the plan for the energy lens and the building science lens, and who's going to implement. Right? And then you augment as as needed, right?

Andrew Oding: And that was really important, Ben, that that was established clearly, that it was that there were professionals involved, like qualified net-zero energy advisors, not just typical NRCan energy advisors, but individuals that understood the depth of building science that's required to take

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: these homes all the way, houses a system. because the primary participants in this project were 13 major municipalities and a variety of other municipalities, and they love that because when they put money and time into encouraging retrofitting their local, you know, homestock, they the last thing they want is to do something that's gonna make things worse. So when they heard

Lynne: Mm.

Andrew Oding: that building science was gonna underpin this and these were the individuals to be involved, that was like it was almost a no brainer for them.

Ben: Yeah. And I think that's a a key aspect too to have that expertise in the project on the energy advisor side and on the renovator side. Like these are trained.

Andrew Oding: Right.

Ben: They have that, like we've we mentioned early on the advanced building science course. I I went through it myself and it's it's it's sometimes a fire hose of of information, but it it's amazing. Like our opening conversation is just like a little tidbit of what you get going through that eight-hour course. And CHB has just made a kind of work at your own pace online version in the in the past year or so as well.

Lynne: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ben: So I'd recommend that that course to anybody looking to to get into things. But that expertise is so important. And on the municipality side, like they have valid concerns. we've mentioned earlier, we don't want these projects to become discouraging news headlines 'cause

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Ben: of things done wrong.

Lynne: Yeah. Yeah, and bringing that building science and and everybody on the same page of what are the fundamentals? It it's It just opens up the communication and a lot for a lot of our trades as well, they've never been brought into that early conversation. So, you know, we went to actually it was Meredith's project and we were able to sit in on one of their integrated design charrettes and and the HVAC team sitting across and the solar fellow online and they're like, we don't have to just deal with what we're given at the wrong time, you know. When we get access to the house, and it's like, I really wish we were here earlier. And I've stood there as the project manager on the team

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Lynne: watching the different people going, okay, now that's there. I was gonna use that, now this, and and you just make do, right? And and you make do and and you do the best you can, but you bring them into design and and you you give them that voice and that that peer-to-peer banter back and forth, going. Well if I do this, well how does that impact you? Okay, if you do that, how does that impact me? All right, let's put building science, you know, let's let's scrub this down with building science. Okay, this is the path forward. The reassurance that that gives the homeowner, like even for myself, I would go to that contractor who is like, hey, I'm trying to protect you and your asset. Let me just work this through. And I've done that as a project manager in terms of also opportunities, right? From a simple kitchen reno to this is the time you take the drywall off and you inspect the

Andrew Oding: Interesting.

Lynne: wall. And that's when you find out, your house was built with no sheathing. Or they cut through the jack stud to put in the new window and that's why you can't open the window. You know.

Andrew Oding: Right.

Lynne: All of these things, and it's a matter of 30 bucks of lumber, and and then that's fixed. And you know, so it there's the cost-effective, the original premise of cost-effectiveness was we're gonna scale and we're gonna get bulk buy. We're not there yet. Maybe when we get more on the housing co-ops, there will be that. What we found was the cost-effective approach was when the work was going to happen anyway. and what can you do and always bring the building science to the table on that.

Ben: Yeah. And I think a a key aspect of that too, we talk a lot about the like the 50% energy savings. I think it's really is as we've referenced, like it's a plan for 50% or more energy savings, but it's doing the work as it needs to be done in alignment with the plan. When does the cladding need to be replaced? When do the windows need to be done? If they're not being done at the same time, how do we address

Lynne: How do you set it up?

Ben: durability and and the phasing of that appropriately so don't have any building science issues in the interim between them both being done and and just having that planning. You just check it off. That proper asset management, just doing getting the most value out of every component of the home as you as you go. So you know

Lynne: And that house has a system in the roadmap. Things like, you know, I we're you know, we're looking at changing our mechanical system. That's when you go, okay, have you any plans for your siding or your exterior? Because it may be it's like, well, yes, but I wasn't planning to do that for five years. So maybe we get the mechanical to last two more years, we bring the envelope up, you know, a little

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: bit ahead, you do them together so that everything is right sized and you maximize the benefits. So those sort of opportunities happen in the roadmap as well.

Ben: Yeah. So there's been a lot of great work that's been accomplished in the in the program. It formally wrapped up at the end of March. You finished your

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ben: reporting. What what's next?

Lynne: What's next is hopefully

Ben: What's not too?

Lynne: we get to continue this work and and really look at those barriers on those scaled projects. We had twenty

Ben: Mm-hmm.

Lynne: million dollars worth of retrofits complete. during our project timeline, but we had thirty-two million dollars worth of costed planned out design projects that didn't move forward. And their primary barriers was that steady state financing or access to financing, grid impact. grid aware, grid friendly type of of you know solutions needed there. And then overarching all of them is also the value proposition. So working with the appraisal institute of Canada in terms of bringing that recognition of the value proposition that we know it brings, but it needs to be monetized in order to help the lenders, in order to help the homeowners, and in order to help scale. So that's what we're going to be focusing on next. But the other part is also Andy alluded to the Resilient Home Task Force and we're looking at affordability. This roadmap is a vehicle. It is that venturi effect of bringing everything that needs to be brought in in. And so it's not just there to get to net-zero, it's to get to our future. And we know net-zero

Ben: mm hmm

Lynne: is part of our future, but there's going to be a lot of other considerations on energy resiliency, durability resiliency, climate mitigation, climate adaptation, all of these things. and even adaptive home implementation of concepts. So that's it's we've gotta meet the future and we've gotta really dig in. We're falling short of our targets and so we've gotta we've gotta ramp up.

Ben: So And Andy, I I want to give you a minute as we're as we're wrapping up, what what's your biggest takeaway from being involved in the in this net-zero rentals initiative?

Andrew Oding: I get

Ben: I couldn't.

Andrew Oding: I one of my biggest takeaways is when the project started, you know, the the targets, 150 deep energy retrofits seems really aggressive. And I'm like, Lynne, really? Like, wow. But because of Lynn's goal of involving at scale municipalities, involving partners and stakeholders that are impacted by these large volumes of residences. It was it was not as hard. In fact, I think what we saw was that there are bigger opportunities than we thought out there. And it's not the process, which is seems discombobulated, and you know, general renovations and retrofits are sort of messy. At the end of the day, I think we got 85% of the way there to say there is actually a map. There is a way to do

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Oding: this. It's gonna take the messy out a bit, but with some help from certain individuals this can be done on virtually any Canadian home at any scale. Multifamily, you know, co-op housing, real estate investment trust housing, single detached multis, it can be done at scale. What makes me excited about that is I think what you're gonna see now where you're gonna see future phases of that really scaling up because the word is out, they see that it can happen, and now there's this growing interest from let's say the lending space. this in the last two weeks, I happen to be part of a conversation with one of Canada's big three banks. And they are actually changing some of their mortgage financing goals and terms to try to take advantage of work like this. And that is incredibly exciting because they're seeing the industry's ready. It's mature. It's there. There are mechanisms in place to make sure it's gonna be safely and it can be done at scale. So that's really cool.

Ben: Yeah. And so they can add those requirements to their

Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ben: their financing terms. as we talked about earlier, the financing piece is one of the biggest barriers to having retrofits move forward and having the skilled individuals to to do it. And and how do we like I think I think this project has has really kind of brought down a lot of those barriers a lot lower. to to have it be. So we we have this roadmap which has a plan, which which you can align with financing that or subsidy retrofit programs that might come and go a as it lines up. So you're not just doing this work all on its own, doing piecemeal work, but you have this roadmap. You're you're following it along. I think one of the greatest things that's happened, not just have you done retrofits across the country under this initiative or or had the plans for the for the for this net-zero work for other homes and and complexes but another key thing that's come out of it in in my eyes is is connecting the industry across across the country there were I just want to reference really quickly as we're kind of wrapping up here but there were two boot camps that were held in Ottawa bringing all of the project participants

Andrew Oding: Yeah.

Ben: together And those connections and conversations were were invaluable. And the type of exercises and workshopping that we did there was was great. So I think I think this initiative has really started a really strong ball rolling in the industry and and future work's gonna move it forward. Lynne, I wanna leave the final thought with you as as we as we close out the episode. What what's what's the biggest thing on your mind moving forward?

Lynne: I guess the innovation that's needed

Ben: I guess the innovation that's

Lynne: is less about the technology and more about that connection. Bringing the teams together, bringing that and empowering that work. It can't be just bringing the teams together and and still going, okay, you're still on your own. Collectively, if we brought all of our efforts to the same lead mark, we will scale and we will get there. Right now we're kind of going off in different directions a little bit, kind of loosely, but we if we can funnel the funding, the efforts, the energy, the team, the knowledge, then that is the ticket to scaling.

Ben: Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you both Lynne and Andy for for joining me today for this conversation. It's been great. Appreciate your time.

Andrew Oding: Thanks, Ben. Thank

Lynne: Well, thanks

Andrew Oding: thank you for yeah.

Lynne: so much for having us.