The National Housing Strategy (NHS) was enacted in 2017, and its implementation is overseen by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The NHS includes several funding programs for constructing new housing supply, funding for repairing and renewing existing affordable housing, resources for community housing providers, and funding for research and innovation. The NHS is the Government of Canada’s solution to their commitment to reduce the housing needs of 530,000 households across the country by 2028.

As part of the NHS research initiatives, CMHC has published a series of short-term findings in the early years of the Strategy’s implementation. In January of 2020, CMHC published a report on building retrofits, specifically looking at pathways to faster, cheaper, and more cost-effective building retrofits, and how builders can most efficiently retrofit buildings while being as respectful as possible for tenants. There is a very broad spectrum of retrofits that may be needed in a building, from upgrades to meet updated health or building code standards, to general building repairs, to energy retrofits ranging from modest impacts to near-net zero. Given the current housing crisis across the country, it is incredibly important for retrofits to be completed. This will ensure the housing stock we currently have will be maintained while additional buildings are constructed to cover the gap in housing.

3 factors were identified as having the largest catalysing impact on the pace of retrofits in Canada, and optimizing approaches to these factors can accelerate the industry’s advancement. These factors are public interest and programming, inducing demand through effective business cases, and streamlining delivery of retrofit projects. The report focuses primarily on the latter factor (streamlining the delivery of retrofits). In analysing the current state of the retrofit industry in Canada, four prevalent technical challenges were observed and addressed:

• Building Envelope
• Challenges exist in fire safety, lifecycle, and durability, largely due to the nature of the materials commonly relied upon. Alternative materials are assessed in the report, specifically seeking more cost-effective and non-combustible options.
• Thermal Bridging
• Thermal bridging largely occurs where building envelope renewals do not incorporate balconies and other building projections. These cause heat transfers and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) savings and cause condensation and mould build up within units. International best practices for addressing this issue are examined in the report.
• Ventilation
• Older buildings, particularly high-rises, have very inefficient ventilation systems, and often cannot provide temperature consistency across seasons. These systems are also embedded throughout a building’s structure, making upgrading them particularly costly and disruptive to tenants. The report outlines multiple cost-effective approaches to streamline these upgrades.
• Lack of Trained Tradespeople
• Skilled tradespeople are sorely needed for delivering high performance airtight construction techniques. With the current labour shortage, quality will lower, construction costs will rise, and it will be more difficult to attract bidders to projects.
• Some potential solutions include additional training opportunities and resources, developing academic building labs to provide training to tradespeople, architects, and engineers, and a publicly sponsored design and building assistance and review service.

There are significant barriers currently limiting the implementation of deep energy retrofits. Those voluntarily undertaking large scale energy retrofits seem to mainly be driven by ideology, such as either personal beliefs in sustainability or organizational mandates requiring a certain level of sustainable measures. The primary obstacles to a wider market uptake of retrofits include:

• Building owners tend to be risk avoidant
• As a relatively new industry, there is not much long-term evidence available for the impacts of undertaking extensive retrofits. This can make building owners wary of committing to retrofits, as there is no solid guarantee they will achieve their desired outcomes.
• Lack of regulatory requirements
• Currently, there are no regulations mandating retrofits, though some regular compliance measures have been made more flexible to allow for the different experiences of retrofit early adopters (i.e., code requirements for windows may have been updated to include fiberglass upgrades). Proposals for retrofit regulations generally include incentives and penalties to encourage earlier adoption.
• Low return on investment for many deep energy retrofit measures
• There is little incentive at present for most building owners to invest in deep energy retrofits, as the financial benefit is typically relatively small, and not considered worth the disruption or investment. However, there will likely be regulatory changes made in the coming years, which will force building owner compliance. These timelines and the associated objectives have not been released, but will likely be introduced through government programs in the coming years.
• Retrofit design solutions tend to be expensive due to lack of availability and training
• Currently, many products used in typical retrofits are not produced locally, and there is not enough experienced vendors capable of working with these products. This delays retrofit projects, and drives the associated costs up. By expanding the offering of Canadian retrofit solutions, and focusing on training builders with the necessary skills to install and equip these retrofit options, products will be more readily available, less expensive, and will be able to be installed relatively easily and quickly.

Resources:

• CMHC Research Insight
  Advancing Building Retrofits – Energy Efficient Tower Renewal Implementation Program


• Advancing Building Retrofits – Final Report