artvandelay
Active Member
Here in Alberta, we’ve adopted NECB 2017 without modification which is fairly onerous, especially for budget-conscious multi-residential construction such as this. For window wall envelope systems the new energy code and our harsh climate means lower glazing percentages than what you will see in other Canadian cities. Curtain wall systems can achieve higher glazing ratios but these are more expensive.Are the energy codes applied nationally? I am sure they may be partially to blame, but the source might be something else as many Canadian cities seem to manage to have better materials and window placement, even in affordable housing.
In BC they actually have a more developer friendly policy in place that allows for a choice in compliance to either ASHRAE or NECB 2015 I believe. I don’t think Ontario has adopted NECB 2017 either but Toronto has a municipal standard. So yes, there is a patchwork of regulations across the country. The next round of energy code updates is supposed to standardize regulations across the country with an incremental code, but we will see if that actually happens.