Calling it an incredible accomplishment, a ceremony was held last Thursday to celebrate Doug Tarry Homes’ 20th anniversary of building ENERGY STAR® homes in the communities they serve.
As Tarry explained, an ENERGY STAR home is a high-performance building standard that is better than the building code.
Tarry noted, “So you are actually going to have a home that is designed to be at least 20 per cent than the building code as far as energy performance goes.”
Over the past 20 years, Doug Tarry Homes has attained the Energy Star Builder of the Year from EnerQuality Corporation on nine different occasions.
In addition, the company has been recognized by NRCan as Energy Star Builder of the Year for Canada five times
Tarry recalled their first-ever ENERGY STAR build in 2005, a model known as the Waterford Cottage.
Tarry continued, “Energy Star for us is a baseline, it’s one of our building standards that we have. And from there we have expanded and we are the second largest Net Zero builder in Canada.”
The ceremony was held in a home that Tarry stresses is the next generation.
“The continuation in our journey because this is what we call a LifeArk home.”
A LifeArk is a house or building capable of providing life support systems for the occupants in the event of an extended power outage.
It’s not the same as being off-grid.
Instead, a LifeArk building has access to either a battery backup or a low-carbon backup source of energy that can be engaged if the grid goes down.
Representatives from all three levels of government were on hand for the event in the model home on Snowy Owl Trail in St. Thomas.
“This has been a journey of many, many people. Mayor Joe Preston and city council have been so supportive of what we have been trying to do.”
Tarry continued, “Minister Flack (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rob Flack) has been such a good person to lean on as far as getting things done to help our housing industry, and help to advance the needs.
“It’s been an overall team effort, and we are very fortunate we have people, not just within our company, but overall who are really dedicated to help advance better buildings.”
In conclusion, Tarry stressed, “When we look at housing in general, I believe housing is a basic human right, and high-performance houses such as this should not just be for the elite, we have to be able to do it for everybody, and that’s our goal.”
Written by Ian McCallum
