Ottawa and area’s green residential building industry shone at the provincial EnerQuality Awards in Toronto Thursday night, taking home six of 16 prizes.
The annual awards are presented to Ontario builders and others for achievements across a range of green categories. This year, members of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association fielded 18 of the total 65 finalists.
For the fourth time in five years, Ottawa-based Minto Group was named Ontario Green Builder of the Year for leading the homebuilding industry in energy efficiency and green building. Its nomination submission pointed to such achievements as building net zero energy ready homes in its west-end Arcadia community.
“This award really recognizes the breadth of our green building initiatives, that we’re building green, comfortable homes across all our product lines,” said Alison Minato, Minto Group’s vice-president of sustainability.
Minto has been a frequent winner at the EnerQuality Awards, which began in 1998.
Also in the Ottawa winner’s circle: RND Construction, which was named R-2000 Builder of the Year.
RND Construction was named R-2000 Builder of the Year. One example of the green builder’s work was this Wellington West custom home, which won a 2015 green housing award along with Christopher Simmonds Architect Inc.
“I was ecstatic,” said company president and CEO Roy Nandram. “This is strictly a builder’s award, there’s no design considerations involved, so it’s important that our peers recognize what we’re doing.”
He added that RND is actually exceeding R-2000 standards. An R-2000 home is considered to be 50 per cent more energy efficient than one built to code, but Nandram said the last few homes he’s built are even more efficient than that.
Nandram and RND were also shortlisted in three other categories including Energy Star for New Homes Champion of the Year. The other contenders for that award were Bruce Nicol of Tartan Homes and John Corvinelli of Corvinelli Homes.
Corvinelli, a previous EnerQuality winner, took the prize.
Repeat winner Corvinelli Homes was named Energy Star for New Homes Champion of the Year. Part of the builder’s work includes the 2015 green tract home winner at the local Housing Design Awards.
“It recognizes our positive contribution to Energy Star,” he said. “Parents are now bringing their kids to buy our homes because of energy efficiency. I’ve left a lot of money on the table (building this way), but it’s starting to come back now.”
Noting that he sat with several other Ottawa winners during the awards ceremony, Corvinelli added, “We’ll be bringing a little hardware back east.”
Other Ottawa-area winners on Thursday included Mattamy Homes. A finalist in four categories, it won Energy Star for New Homes Builder of the Year (Large Volume).
4syte Design Build of McDonald’s Corners, which is about 95 kilometres southwest of downtown Ottawa, won Best Green Renovation Project of the Year, and Stephen Magneron of Homesol Building Solutions in Perth was honoured as Evaluator of the Year for assessing energy efficiency.
The other Ottawa finalists were Urbandale Construction and Richcraft Homes.
Cambridge, Ont.-based Reid’s Heritage Homes was the evening’s big winner, taking home three trophies, including Net Zero Builder of the Year.
Founded in 1998, EnerQuality is a partnership between the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance and the Ontario Home Builders’ Association. It designs and manages high-performance building programs, including Energy Star for New Homes.
The winners
Ontario Green Builder of the Year
The Minto Group
Building Innovation (Mid and High Rise)
Tridel
Building Innovation (Low Rise)
Reid’s Heritage Homes
Energy Star for New Homes Builder of the Year (Large Volume)
Mattamy Homes
Energy Star for New Homes Builder of the Year (Mid Volume)
Midhaven Homes
Energy Star for New Homes Builder of the Year (Small/Custom)
Jeffery Homes
Net Zero Builder of the Year
Reid’s Heritage Homes
Best Green Marketing Campaign of the Year
Reid’s Heritage Homes
Best Green Renovation Project of the Year
4syte Design Build
Energy Star for New Homes Champion of the Year
John Corvinelli
Evaluator of the Year
Stephen Magneron
R-2000 Builder of the Year
RND Construction
Hall of Fame
Andy Goyda
EQ Leader of the Year
Sonja Winkelmann
EQ Industry Partners of the Year
Union Gas, Owens Corning Canada, Enbridge Gas Distribution
Enbridge Savings by Design Award
Fernbrook Homes
