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The MyHEAT team has developed an easy-to-use and innovative online platform that offers detailed information on the energy and heat loss in their home. The MyHEAT platform also provides a wealth of knowledge to help homeowners understand their energy loss, increase the overall energy efficiency of their homes, and thus reduce energy consumption while saving money. Their mission is to empower a worldwide reduction in urban greenhouse gas emissions, one building at a time.
MyHEAT helps individual homeowners determine the amount of heat lost by their home, but this same tool can also be used on a larger level. MyHEAT works with several local government agencies to help them achieve their stated energy efficiency objectives. They do this by sharing with utility companies and government agencies the heat loss data that they recollect. This information then could allow political leaders to better inform their program design, target incentives to homeowners who live in regions characterized by high energy inefficiency and enhance customer engagement. Because the technology used by MyHEAT can compare heat loss results across cities and over time, it is also a great tool to compare the best energy-efficient incentives and practices implemented by local governments and track the success of specific programs.
Benefits of the MyHEAT Tool
The MyHEAT tool essentially gives homeowners in the areas where they operate a free aerial map of their home that shows precisely how much heat their house is losing. Instead of paying for an expensive energy audit that includes infrared thermal imaging to determine areas of heat loss through your home, this tool gives you a free look at the thermal performance of your home.
The heat loss rating that is assigned to individual homes and buildings is accurate to 0.05°C. While this rating is not necessarily an energy efficiency rating, homes with high amounts of heat loss are generally those that consume large amounts of energy to keep their home warm during the winter.
If you live in an area where MyHEAT has collected data, the heat loss rating assigned to your home is a handy tool that gives you an idea of the potential energy savings your home could benefit from through certain upgrades and renovations. The MyHEAT team has determined that one unit of improvement in the HEAT Rating corresponds to a 3-5% reduction in natural gas consumption and a 1-1.5% reduction in electricity consumption.
An Innovative Tool for Homeowners
One of the biggest challenges with heat loss in homes is that it is difficult to address a problem that you cannot see. However, the free thermal maps provided by MyHEAT allow homeowners in select Canadian cities to visualize the thermal performance of their homes and then make informed decisions on how to improve the overall energy efficiency of their houses.
MyHEAT currently offers aerial thermal maps of Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and eight other mid-sized cities across Canada. If your city currently doesn’t benefit from the MyHEAT mapping tool, you can vote for your city to be included and will receive notification if it is chosen.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.