A guide for homeowners
A cold bedroom you've stopped using. A heating bill that keeps climbing. Three quotes that don't agree, and no way to tell which one is right. This book helps you work out what your home actually needs — before you write the next big cheque.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Most people start by shopping for a product — a heat pump, a new furnace, solar panels. But the thing that's actually wrong with the house is often something else entirely, and a new appliance won't touch it.
You've added a space heater and closed the door. A new furnace downstairs probably won't fix the bedroom upstairs — and nobody has told you why.
One is $14,000, one is $23,000, and they appear to be for different things. You can't tell what's missing from the cheaper one until the work has started.
A programme closed. Another needs an inspection first. A contractor says he'll "take care of it." You're not sure anyone is actually checking.
What this book does
Start wherever you are. Each one ends with a short list of things to do and the exact questions to put to a contractor — the kind a utility would ask, written so you don't need an engineering degree to use them.
Before you look at a single product. What's cold, what's loud, who's home during the day, and what you can afford to spend.
How to read your own bills properly, and which assessment is worth paying for.
Heating and hot water together. The car and its charger together. What solar and a battery are actually for.
Comfort you'd pay for even if it saved nothing, and savings that are real. Kept separate, on purpose.
Why solar before a new roof is a costly mistake, and what you can safely leave until next year.
What has to be in writing, and the questions that reveal a thin proposal before you sign it.
A project can be worth doing and still be unaffordable this year. How to tell which you're looking at.
Is the bedroom warm now? Did the bills actually fall? What to do if the answer is no.
Two real worked examples
Most guides only show you the version where everything pays off. This one runs the same method over two whole-home retrofits and publishes both answers — including the one that loses money. Every number is laid out so you can change an assumption and see what happens.
New Brunswick · oil heat
Air sealing, a cold-climate heat pump, a heat-pump water heater and an electric car. The electricity bill goes up. The household's total spending goes down by about $5,300 a year.
Massachusetts · gas heat
The same approach, but against cheap natural gas and with the US federal credits now expired. It never catches up — and the book says so rather than hiding it behind a payback figure.
Money in your pocket over twenty years, in today's dollars. Two constructed examples using stated assumptions — not measured results from completed projects, and not a promise about your own house.
What else you get
Get the book
Both are a one-time payment with an instant download. The bundle adds the working spreadsheet, so you're not rebuilding the arithmetic by hand.
The book
plus HST where it applies
The book and the workbookBest value
plus HST where it applies
Before you buy
No. There are no installation instructions and nothing you need to calculate yourself. It's written to help you ask better questions and understand the answers — the actual work still belongs to qualified trades.
A 78-page PDF, straight after payment. It reads well on a phone or tablet, and the worksheet pages are laid out to print. The bundle adds an Excel workbook.
It does the sums the book teaches, so you don't have to. You type in a year of bills and a quote; it works out what you'd actually save, what the monthly loan payment would be against that saving, and whether the project still makes sense over twenty years once future replacements are counted. It opens pre-filled with the book's New Brunswick example so you can see it working before you type over it. You need Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets or LibreOffice to open it.
The eight decisions apply anywhere. The rebate guide covers all 50 US states and Washington DC as well as every Canadian province and territory, and the second worked example is a Massachusetts home in US dollars.
It will tell you how to find out for your house. That's deliberate — one of the two worked examples concludes the full package isn't worth it. Anyone promising you a universal answer hasn't seen your home.
Technical sources were reviewed on 1 November 2026 and programmes were checked on 2 November 2026, with each entry dated. Rules change, so the book also teaches you how to verify an offer yourself rather than trusting a list.
Yes, HST where it applies, calculated at checkout based on where you live. The registration number is in the footer and on your receipt.