Eyedro Monitors Calgary’s First Net-Zero Energy Home
Home will be first in Calgary to receive government recognition of Net-Zero Energy home performance
Yesterday, Mattamy Homes, North America’s largest privately owned homebuilder, officially celebrated the completion of its first Net-Zero Energy Home (NZE) today in Calgary as part of a national project that will almost double the number of NZE homes in Canada. The home is one of five that Mattamy will be constructing in the NE community of Cityscape by Spring 2016.
Net Zero Energy homes are energy efficient residences that generate as much energy as they consume on an annual basis. Mattamy’s 1658 square foot home features advanced insulation (the Owens Corning™ CodeBord® Air Barrier System); Plygem triple-pane windows; Mitsubishi Cold Climate Air Source Heat Pump; Rheem High Efficiency Domestic Hot Water Heater, Eyedro real-time energy monitoring system; and 40 SolarMax photovoltaic panels.
“This flagship project will help pave the way for Mattamy, as well as other production homebuilders, to make Net Zero homes available in more communities,” said Brad Carr, President, Mattamy Homes Canada. “It is thanks to the contributions of our dedicated staff and project partners that we are able to achieve this milestone of completion and continue to demonstrate leadership in building energy-efficient and sustainable homes. Mattamy is proud to be one of five builders, and the only builder in Western Canada, selected to participate in this initiative, leading the way towards a more eco-friendly and sustainable future.”
Mattamy Net-Zero Energy Home
Ribbon cutting VIPs from left to right: Andy Goyda, Owens Corning Canada Don Barrineau, Mattamy Homes Brad Carr, Mattamy Homes Warren Saunders, Mattamy Homes Donna Moore, Canadian Home Builders’ Association, Calgary Salvatore Ciarlo, Owens Corning Canada More than $4 million in funding and in-kind contributions from Natural Resources Canada’s ecoENERGY Innovation Initiative (ecoEII), Owens Corning Canada and the building industry will allow for the construction of at least 25 Net Zero Energy homes in four provinces — Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Québec.
The Net Zero Energy Homes Project will take what were once one-off, high performance custom homes and make them accessible to the everyday consumer. Mattamy Homes’ participation in the project will also allow it to secure a new Government of Canada certified level of recognition from Natural Resources Canada as it contributes to the improved energy performance and commoditization of net zero energy homes.
“The net zero project aims to prove that existing technologies can be utilized to make these ultra-efficient homes available at a community-scale,” said Andy Goyda, Canadian Builder Lead and Marketing Development Manager for Owens Corning Canada. “As Canada’s largest homebuilder, Mattamy is well-positioned to demonstrate that these homes can be available to the average homebuyer.”
Mattamy will also be enrolling all five homes in the Canadian Home Builders Association’s Pilot Net Zero Energy Home Labelling Program. “Innovative builders like Mattamy are key to continuing to move our industry forward, inspiring us with the possibilities, and showing just how great Canadian housing is and can be,” said Bard Golightly, past President of the CHBA. “We all love our homes. A Net-Zero Energy home loves you back — it shelters you from rising utility costs, it delivers exceptional comfort, it works better, and it lasts.”
Eyedro Monitors Calgary’s First Net-Zero Energy Home
If you’re like everyone else who owns a mobile device, you’re probably using it a whole lot more than you used to. And why not? Smartphones can do nearly as much as your favorite PC, but without the tether that usually goes along-side a traditional desktop. Maybe you’re responding to work emails, reading today’s news, texting friends and family about dinner plans, or (more often than not) fulfilling that insatiable Netflix addiction.
But did you know that you can also catch up on your home’s electricity use from your smartphone? Lots of our customers enjoy checking MyEyedro from their mobile browsers, but there’s an even easier way to keep an eye on your electricity use while you’re on the go.
Here are a few simple instructions on how to add MyEyedro to your smartphone’s Home Screen.
Step 1: Open Safari and visit http://myeyedro.com. If the mobile version doesn’t automatically display, click “Try our mobile friendly version.” When you get to the mobile friendly version, click the symbol that looks like a square with an arrow coming out of it (let’s just call it: “doodad”).
Step 2: Tap “Add to Home Screen”. Feel free to rename your link as you see fit, and then tap “Add”.
Step 3: That was easy wasn’t it? You should now see the MyEyedro “app” located on your Home Screen. Tap the icon to enter MyEyedro and proceed to login. Remember to tap the green arrow if you would like the app to remember your login information for next time.
Step 4: Go somewhere, anywhere. Have a cocktail. You’re free to check your electricity from anywhere. Now you just have to remember your phone.
If you’re like us, winter caught you a bit off guard. With an unseasonably warm Fall, winterizing the house was the last item on the list of things to do.
Fast forward to January 2015 and winter looks like this:
Someone flipped the Snowmaggedon switch and it looks like winter is back with a vengeance. So if you’re looking for some low cost ways to winterize your home in a flash, look no further.
We’ve curated 5 easy ways to winterize your home on the fly.
1. Destroy The Drafts
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, drafts can waste 5% to 30% of your energy use. Test your windows for leaks and drafts by holding a lit candle in front of them. If the smoke from the candle swirls, here’s what you can do:
Put Up Some Plastic: Remember when people used to shrink-wrap their windows? Turns out it wasn’t as ridiculous as it looks. This stuff can help a room to retain as much as 55% of its heat.
Bust Out the Caulking: Seal everything with this energy-saving goop.
2. Take Control of the Thermostat
Let’s be honest with ourselves here, we love tinkering with the thermostat, but if we are truly looking to be efficient with how we heat our home this winter, here are a few things to consider:
Lower the Temperature: You can shave 1% off your heating bill for every degree you turn your thermostat down during the winter. Boom, instant savings.
Get a Programmable Thermostat: Turning your thermostat back 10 to 15 degrees for 8 hours a night can save you 5% to 15% on heating costs. You can automate this process with smart thermostats like Nest and Ecobee.
Bundle Up: Winter sucks, and running around the house in shorts and a t-shirt can help us feel a little closer to summer. Unfortunately, it also causes us to crank up the thermostat. So seriously, put on a sweater and some slippers.
3. Master Home Maintenance
Just like a car, a house has a sophisticated system of parts that require some occasional upkeep to maintain optimal performance. While there are many costly ways that you can maintain your home’s efficiency (like a new furnace) there are also wallet-friendly ways to keep your home purring like a well-oiled kitten.
Complete a Checklist: Who can remember every little thing that needs to be checked? For sanity’s sake, here’s a pretty thorough home maintenance checklist that you and your family can divvy up, yay for kids!
4. Work Smarter, Not Harder
Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest.
Reverse the Fan: Since heat rises, a ceiling fan in reverse is a terrific way to push all that warm air back down to where you need it most, around you.
Turn Down the Water Heater: It takes a lot of juice to keep your water hot and ready, but you could be spending way more money than you have to. If you don’t need skin-scalding water on demand, you can save by lowering the temperature.
5. Measure What You’d Like to Manage
Imagine you’re trying to save money on gas, but your car doesn’t have a gas gauge. How successful do you think you’d be? There’s an old adage that says, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” In the case of saving on your home’s electricity, this couldn’t be more accurate.
Monitor Electricity in Real-Time: Back in the day, the only way to see how much electricity you consumed was to wait until your electricity bill arrived. This makes it pretty hard to make changes in the moment. With real time information, you are able to change your energy habits, turn off unused appliances and forecast what your bill will be based on your usage. Eyedro is an all in one, hardware/software solution that allows you to do just that.
If you’re like us, you know how important electricity monitoring can be when trying to meet energy cost and consumption goals. Traditionally, homes aren’t equipped with a way for you to see how much electricity is being used. But with the increasing popularity of connected home devices, it’s never been easier to feel at home while away from the house.
With learning thermostats, like Nest, you know that your living room is a cozy 73°F (23°C). And with video monitoring, like DropCam, you know your Golden Retriever is asleep on the couch, instead of munching on it. Now, with electricity monitors like Eyedro, you know your home consumed 20.14-kilowatt hours of electricity today.
Making Electricity Usage Easy to Understand
But unlike temperature, the kilowatt hour isn’t a measurement we use every day. Unless you work closely with electricity or have a knack for the subject, the average homeowner might only consider wattage when picking out light bulbs. Since we are less familiar with using kilowatt hours, electricity consumption can be more difficult to understand than things like fuel economy. (Stay tuned for a brief tutorial on kilowatt hours, coming up in January ;))
Introducing the MyEyedro Insights Plugin
While Eyedro always provides your electricity consumption in terms of cost, we wanted to give you a way to put energy into terms we all use every day. This is exactly why we created the MyEyedro Insights plugin.
MyEyedro Insights Plugin
This handy tool helps you put your electricity use into terms you already know and love. The values are based on the amount of energy produced (or required) for the given unit. So if you’re interested in how much gasoline you would have needed to power your home yesterday, we have that.
Or maybe you want to measure your environmental footprint. With the Insights plugin you can see how many kilograms of coal you would have used. Maybe you’d like to see how many slices of bread you could have toasted. We have that too.
9 Different MyEyedro Insights Views to Choose From
The MyEyedro Insights plugin helps put energy into context, giving you the power to make more informed energy management decisions in the home.
Interested in keeping an eye on your home’s electricity?
Get Started with the New Insights Plugin
At Eyedro, our top priority is making sure that your experience is legendary, so we wanted to take a moment to let you know about some exciting changes.
2. Take Control of the Thermostat
