Get grants for energy-saving upgrades

Federal and provincial governments have all sorts of incentives to get people to make their homes, their vehicles and their businesses more energy efficient. Start your search at the website for National Office for Energy Efficiency. The federal government's ecoEnergy Retrofit Program has up to $5,000 to offset costs of improving the energy efficiency of your home. Anyone installing a geothermal (or water-source) heating system, for example, can qualify for grants up to $4,375.

At the OEE site, you can also find links to provincial grants. That includes Saskatchewan's EnerGuide for Houses. Click here for its list of eligible improvements. And in Manitoba, a home insulation program says it will pay up to 100 per cent of the insulation costs to re-insulate your home. 

Have you applied for these or any other efficiency upgrade grants? I'd like to know whether it was worth the investment in time and money to make these upgrades — with or without the grants. Email me or post a comment on this blog.