Most farms come with lovely old homes, which have their own host of challenges…
Just thought I’d share what I’ve learnt about the Hydro One Home Assistance Program…
http://www.hydroone.com/MyHome/SaveEnergy/HAP/Pages/Default.aspx
They are offering up free appliance upgrades, light bulbs, insulation, etc. to help make your home more efficient. The criteria that I’ve found are:
Household income below a certain threshold (depends on number of people living there) - I think many farmers fall within that bracket. They use your notice of assessment, for all permanent residents (summer staff/rentals not included).
Residential meter. This is complicated, but as a farm we have a “commercial” account with HydroOne (it’s under the farm name). That means we get access to upgrades for our commercial (farm) buildings, but that doesn’t apply to your residence! They are now all agreeing for me that despite having a commercial account, my residential meter means that I’m eligible for their residential programs, hurray!
We’ll see where this takes us, but free replacements of ancient appliances sounds great to me, and I’m really hoping for some help insulating this beast of a place (1845 8 bedroom farmhouse)… the only reason we have it is because of the gorgeous soils. You’d understand that 