If these low-energy homes can offer comfort in Canada, with its climate of extremes, just imagine what they can do here, writes Frank McDonald

WE THINK of houses as homes and also as vehicles for investment. Canadians think of them as homes too, and they're just as anxious as we are to protect the value of their nests. But the big difference is that they see the house as a system that keeps them warm in winter and cool in summer.

The Canadian approach to housing is extremely sophisticated. In their climate, where temperatures can vary from minus 35 to plus 35 degrees throughout the year, they must pay attention to insulation and energy efficiency. But the Canadians go much further than merely setting basic standards, like we do.

A group of Irish builders and journalists, touring Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto last week at the invitation of the Canadian Trade Commission, were amazed and impressed by what we saw. The newly built houses we were shown may have been very traditional in style; what sets them apart is how they function.

Air-tightness - keeping out draughts - is the biggest consideration, almost to the point of obsession. So new homes have their internal environment kept comfortable all year round by mechanical ventilation, incorporating heat recovery systems. And because they are so well insulated, energy loss is minimal.

"For us, an air-tight home is a very, very big thing," says Sylvain Quilliam, of the Canadian Office of Energy Efficiency, which is analogous to Sustainable Energy Ireland.

Nobody wants to freeze to death in winter or be parboiled in summer; when Canadians come home and shut their doors, they expect to be in a comfort zone.

In the new homes market, Canada's super-efficient "Energystar" standard has been growing exponentially - driven by rising fuel prices as much as more environmental awareness. It aims to achieve a rating of 80 on a scale of 100 - where 100 would be a house that consumes no energy and produces zero emissions.

Ontario suffered a blackout in summer 2006 because there wasn't enough electricity to meet peak demand, particularly for air-conditioning, so there is a widespread understanding of the need to minimise consumption - as well as to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to climate change.

Within just three years, Energystar has been embraced by Canada's home-builders, accounting for at least one third of the output of new homes. And the export version, called "Super E", has spread overseas to the US, Britain and Japan, where very Canadian-looking timber- framed houses caught on in the early 1990s.

Off Derry Road, in Milton, Ontario, Mattamy Homes has already built 7,500 new homes, with another 7,500 under construction or being planned - all to the Energystar standard.

Detached houses are even being built as shells in a hangar-like factory on the site and then moved into position by a low-loader on tracks.

Milton is part of Toronto's commuter belt, so this is sprawl housing. But unlike houses in Dublin's far-flung dormitories, what purchasers get for much smaller outlays is very superior; starter homes of 65sq m (700sq ft) were selling for the equivalent of €140,000 while 325sq m ( 3,500 sq ft) mansions cost €561,000.

The Wellington, one of these top-of-the-range homes, looks quite conventional, but it comes with such energy-saving devices as a geothermal heat pump, heat recovery ventilator, styrofoam wall insulation, photovoltaic panels, double-glazed windows and a range of Energystar-rated kitchen appliances.

Ceilings on both the ground and first floors are 2.7m (9ft) high, adding to the already spacious feel of the house. And the huge basement, which is where its energy management system is located, isn't even counted in the floor area. Neither is the generous (but north-facing) verandah on the front.

We were told that all purchasers in Hawthorne Village, as the scheme is known, get to choose from a number of elevations - all of which are traditional in style. Apparently, there is no demand in Canada's mass housing market for more daring contemporary designs, so the builders just give people what they want.

A number of neighbourhood centres are springing up to serve the new community in Milton, including such facilities as the Tiny Tim Developmental School Inc and an Irish pub promising "ceol, caint and craic". There's also a commuter rail station, with Go trains to Toronto, even though many probably still drive.

A semi-state agency, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, carries out an immense amount of research and publishes numerous manuals on housing construction and innovation, as well as providing mortgage default insurance for 650,000 households with a total value of $300 billion (€210 billion). The CMHC is also keen to promote leading-edge Canadian technology and products worldwide, working with some 150 companies involved in the construction industry.

TERRY Robinson, one of its directors, identified Ireland and Britain as "high priority" countries, especially because of the growth of interest in timber-framed houses.

There's also a retrofit programme for existing houses, which can qualify for up to $15,000 (€10,500) in grants to make them more energy efficient. Over the past five years, 300,000 such homes have been evaluated by qualified assessors - much in the same way as the new energy rating standards are being applied here.

Robin Sinha, of Natural Resources Canada - another semi-state agency with an interest in this area - explained that the "house as a system" approach focuses on the whole building envelope, rather than on individual elements of it, such as windows or doors. The overall aim is to give people a "healthy housing package".

Jeff Armstrong, who runs home-builders DAC International, told us that this "deeply philosophical approach" extends to controlling dust mites, bacteria, mould and even viruses.

"If you have an air-tight building, with heat recovery ventilation to control humidity, you've got a fighting chance of beating these bugs".

His timber-frame housing company was the first foreign firm to get National Standards Authority of Ireland certification.

"We have done some work over there and had a lot of fun, but it didn't turn into very much because we had a lot of trouble convincing our Irish partner of the vital importance of air-tightness."

CMHC's Oliver Derrup, who describes himself as a "reformed builder", puts this down to "a technological suspicion, a lack of willingness to believe".

But he insists that, whatever about the huge differences in climates, it should be possible for us to adopt best practice from Canada and apply it to housing in Ireland.

One important asset for Canadians is the Ottawa-based Institute for Construction Research, where new ideas are tried and tested on guinea- pig houses.

We used to have an equivalent, called An Foras Forbartha, but it was abolished 20 years ago in a fit of fiscal madness, before the onset of our biggest building boom.