FortisBC

        Managing a condominium building usually involves trying to reach agreements – whether you’re updating bylaws, managing concerns from owners or conducting building retrofits.

        And if there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s the value of saving money.

        A great way to do that is by upgrading your building’s standard-efficiency boilers or hot water heaters to higher efficiency models. As a bonus, when you replace outdated heaters with the best of today’s more efficient high-tech units, you’ll not only use less fuel, you can take advantage of FortisBC’s Energy Efficiency Rebates for residential condominium and apartment buildings.

        Consider that standard-efficiency boilers typically convert a mere 80 percent of natural gas into usable heat. The remaining 20 percent is vented to the atmosphere – paid for but wasted. In contrast, high-efficiency or condensing boilers extract the majority of the otherwise wasted heat and reuse it inside the boiler.

        As a result, properly installed high-efficiency boilers achieve efficiencies of 93 to 96 percent, meaning your gas consumption is less.

        At FortisBC, our customers have found that switching to high-efficiency mechanical equipment can yield average annual reductions of 16-22 percent in annual gas consumption1.

        And along with lowering your gas bill and shrinking your environmental footprint, switching to a high-efficiency boiler could qualify you for as much as $45,000 in FortisBC Energy Efficiency Rebates, while converting to a high-efficiency water heater could qualify you for a rebate of up to $15,000.

        Having new equipment invariably means greater reliability with fewer breakdowns – which saves the strata money, creates fewer headaches and better satisfies the owners’ and residents’ expectations.

        Think of how your building could reinvest the funds saved to improve your owners’ quality of life – maybe by building your Contingency Fund, updating amenities or beautifying exterior spaces to boost curb appeal.

        Younger demographics in particular will appreciate the environmental value of condominiums with heaters that sip fuel rather than guzzle it. For a generation raised in a pro-green world, purchasing in a building with a smaller environmental footprint can be a much more important consideration than in the past.

        And along with reducing environmental impact, improving condominium energy use helps FortisBC to sustain and grow its distribution network and serve even more customers affordably, safely and reliably.

 
1 Based on estimated 2013 results where FortisBC participants implemented two or more energy conservation measures, where one of the measures was an upgrade to condensing high-efficiency boilers.

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Wednesday October 19, 2016