There are a lot of great benefits to living in the city of Toronto. There’s great food, great culture, great people, and great sports teams. Well, there are great sports teams some of the time. One of the benefits you may not know about are the programs and incentives the city offers for making improvements to your home. Those programs can be a big help in getting your home upgraded and saving you money and worry over the long haul.
Get Some HELP
The biggest program offered is the Home Energy Loan Program or HELP. It’s a program that offers low interest loans to help fund improvements related to energy efficiency. Improvements that are eligible include: high efficiency furnace/boiler/central air conditioner, window and door replacement, high efficiency water heater, wall insulation for attics, basements, and exterior walls, along with many others. As you can imagine these improvements would cost a great deal of money and the city can offer tens of thousands of dollars with payback terms of 5, 10, or 15 years.
In order to qualify for HELP you need to own a detached, semi-detached, or row house and your property tax and utility payments need to be in good standing. Additionally all owners will need to consent as will your mortgage lender should you have one. Once you’ve been approved the loan will be repaid over time through your property tax bill and eleven monthly installments per year. You can also make a one-time payment to fully clear the outstanding balance without penalty. All in all, HELP is pretty good deal.
Other Programs
The city offers two other programs that may be of interest to you. The first is the Eco-Roof Incentive program which rewards you for adding a rood that can either support vegetation or reflect sunlight. The other is the Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy Program which grants a subsidy of up to $3400 per property to install flood protection devices.
It’s good to know the city is looking out for homeowners seeking to make high-efficiency and other improvements to their home. If you want more information on these programs, click here, and if you’re looking for an experience contractor to help you make some of those great improvements happen, contact us at George Kent today.
