In an effort to combat climate change, building codes in BC will be changing. The BC government will gradually increase building requirements and provide more incentives for builders to build more energy efficient homes and buildings that produce less emissions.

The more energy efficient buildings will have thicker walls and require more building materials. This means they will be more expensive.

BC carpenter Ryan Easthom shares his thoughts on some of the challenges:

“The first challenge is going to be the extra building costs upfront, with all the builders getting used to all the changes and codes with all the extra wood you’ll have to put in the house, it’ll really drive the price of the house upfront. The walls are going to be thicker so there is more insolation. People are going to be having to learn it pretty quickly, when you can’t do it the old way anymore and you’ve done it your whole life that way. The main challenges are going to be passing the air tightness tests, so if you do all this work and you don’t pass you don’t get the certificate which would really suck, because you put all this money in to make it a passive home. Say if somebody messes up along the way you’ve got to pinpoint that thing.”

It is not all bad news. The new buildings will be significantly cheaper to heat, making them more cost effective in the long run and of course they will be better for the environment.

Ryan Easthom continues:

“There’s definitely some pros to it. The main one being less energy being used in the house and lower bills. You use a lot of healthier products with less chemicals and everything, that’s part of it and then you’re not using as much fossil fuels. We will be fazing out natural gas for just solar panels and everything.”

These changes to building codes have the goal that all new buildings will have net zero emissions by 2032.