We've been audited!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Josh and I are considering getting new windows in the house. The Ontario government has implemented a program, that if you do repairs to your house (to make it more efficient) they will kick in some money. Pretty nice, huh?

Granted, it's not a lot. To re-do the windows, the provincial government will kick in $30 and the federal government will kick in another $30. So yeah, that's $60 per window. Not great, but it's better than nothing. In order to qualify for the rebate, you have to have an energy audit done. We had this done this morning.

The guy arrived at 9:30 and, in order to run all his tests he had to leave our front door open and blow air in. Not exactly fun when it's cold outside and Josh and I both have the plague...but I digress.

The auditor told us that we have several leaks in the house and the hot air is just going *whoosh* through them. He told us that all but four of our windows are really good but they need caulking done. No big deal. We're going to have to get a new sliding door, two kitchen windows and the window done in "Little Maple's" room. At least that's better than we thought...we were originally looking at re-doing all the windows. Umm, I'll let you all know when I start pooping money. ;)

He also told us that we need little foam insert thingamabobs for all our light switches and electrical outlets...apparently they're very leaky. Who knew?

There are also a bunch of other things we *could* do, but I think we're going to work on the things we *need* to do first.

So, the audit cost $350+GST (Goods and Services Tax) and we'll get back $150 of that through the Province. We have 18 months to do the repairs, if we want...and then we have to pay this guy another $150 to make sure we qualify for the $60/window rebate.

It's neat that we found out all about this stuff, but realistically I'm not sure if it's really worth all the paperwork. In my opinion the rebates should be a bit more...

Oh, and by the way, we still haven't heard back from him.