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business elite canada
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AUGUST 2014
ranges from $200,000-$400,000. A large ren-
ovation would be approximately $700,000-
$800,000, and a small home would approxi-
mately cost half a million dollars. Habitat
Studio has recently signed a couple contracts
in excess of $3.0M but in most cases custom
homes average around the $1-million mark in
cost, not including property purchase. Hoover
recalls Habitat Studio’s first ‘Net-zero’ home
and we had the first net zero home under the
CMHC brand and program. It was the com-
pany’s first milestone project among an im-
pressive and extensive portfolio of numerous
award-winning exceptionally beautiful custom
homes of high quality and sustainability. Net-
zero building is what’s known in the industry
as building with zero net energy consumption.
It is a sustainability practice meaning that the
total amount of energy used by the building on
an annual basis is roughly equal to the amount
of renewable energy created on the site. A call
was put out to designers and builders across
Canada approximately 8 years ago to complete
Canada’s first net zero home, and Habitat Stu-
dio was the first to do it of 10 companies cho-
sen.
“We learned a lot from that: Is it perfect? No,
