Vancouver Open House Sees Great Turn Out

Homeowners show up to learn more about the City's Solar Strategy

People from Vanouver and as far away as Smithers, BC were in attendance at Saturday's busy event.

The Solar Open House in Vancouver last Saturday was a blazing success, with over 250 people passing through to view booths at the VanDusen Gardens Floral Hall. The colourful displays ranged from SolarBC Registered installers, to Light House Sustainable Building Centre, CMHC, City of Vancouver Permit and Technical Requirements as well as information about the available rebates.

The event was also an opportunity to promote Vancouver as the newest Solar Community and to raise awareness of their Solar Homes Strategy, which is currently financing up to 50 per cent (about $3500) of the cost of installing a solar hot water system. This will be available for 15 months to 50 new houses on a first-come, first-served basis. (For more information on this and other components of the Solar Homes Strategy, click here.) This program is in partnership with SolarBC, Terasen and Offsetters.

There was a good mix of homeowners who stopped by throughout the day, according to Sustainable Development Planner Rachel Moscovich, and surprisingly it wasn’t just locals. "Many were from outside of Vancouver," she said, having talked to people from Richmond, West Van and as far away as the Okanagan and Smithers. "It was a great opportunity for people to learn more and for all of us to promote the technology."

"The event was very successful from our perspective," said David Mayes, of Complete Home Energy, based out of Kelowna. "We were busy almost non-stop for the full four hours." He added that there was fair mix of both those building new homes and those with existing homes in Vancouver.

While the city is now fully focused on the upcoming Olympics they plan to participate in the 2010 Solar Days in BC, on May 28-29, with tours of the False Creek net zero building in the Olympic Village.