It would cost about $8,000 more to buy a home built to the new standards proposed for the city's building and plumbing bylaw over a new home with standard construction.

The figures, provided by the Yukon Housing Corp., were handed out at a public meeting on the bylaw held in council chambers at noon Monday.

Since it was last brought forward to the building community, city officials have made changes to the proposal that would now see builders required to construct to insulation and ventilation standards of Yukon Housing's GreenHome standard of energy efficiency to a rating of 80 under the EnerGuide standard.

"We're not being tied directly to that (GreenHome) program, it' s independent processes, but for those builders who are building a GreenHome, you will achieve what the city is requesting here," city planning manager Mike Gau told the approximately 10 people at the session.

The figures compiled show the same 144-square-metre (1,600-square-foot), three-bedroom bungalow costing $240,000 to build to standard construction would be $248,000 if it were built under the GreenHome standard.

The savings, it's pointed out, would be felt in home heating bills and realized in five years.

Estimates show a standard house using an annual heating load of 26,706 kilowatt hours, costing about $3,142 at $1 per litre of oil.

The same house built to the new standards would likely use 12,736 kilowatt hours in a year at a cost of $1,499 at the same oil price.

Under the new standard proposed by the city, minimums would be set for walls, including foundations to R28, attics at R50, floors above unheated spaces at R28, slabs on the ground at R20, concealed floor space or crawl spaces at R10, doors at R12, windows at R3.6 and freeze protection for footings at R10.

"We're achieving that GreenHome standard," Gau said.

The city would also allow an alternative for builders who can show they've achieved the same in energy consumption values or build to the EnerGuide rating of 80.

"It seems to be oriented towards the stick-built buildings. Some of these things you can't, for instance, achieve in a log home, but actually there's a provision that we're adding that through other ways of construction, if you can meet the EnerGuide rating value of 80 then you can do that too," Gau said. There will be case-by-case scenarios for buildings, he added later.

"You can use other methods to achieve that rating."

Heat Recovery Ventilators that meet at least a 64-per-cent efficiency would be also be required. Builders would be have to show the HRV in their plans for a building permit.

While the city had originally considered requiring HRVs with at least a 70 per cent recovery rate, that was lowered after officials learned there are only a couple of units readily available that provide for 70 per cent or better.

"What we're after here is to achieve better indoor air quality," said Doug Thorseth, the city's building inspection supervisor.

It's expected that after bringing forward the bylaw for council initially in April, it would take effect July 1, with the exception of manufactured structures like mobile and modular homes, that would get a one-year extension.

As Gau said, that proposal comes out of a request of several trailer park officials around town who cited orders that have already gone in and the time needed to accommodate the changes.

In an interview Monday afternoon, Gau said most builders for the 2009 building season will have their permits before July 1 so it likely won't have a significant impact on this building season.

It will also mean homes developed in the new area of Takhini North and Ingram (next to Arkell) will end up falling under the changes.

It will then be up to buyers to purchase the new homes built to the new standard.

Al Lyon, Yukon Housing's director of community and industry partnering, argued the new standards will actually work in the favour of buyers of all income levels.

"We deal with a lot of people that are modest-income clients or people who are building their own homes and they've owned homes before," he said.

"Those that are home owners, that have owned homes before, they want to build SuperGreen - this (proposed new standards) are below what they want to build."

SuperGreen is another Yukon Housing program with higher energy efficiency construction than the GreenHome program.

Part of Yukon Housing's work when they deal with new homeowners is factoring in the cost of energy to the purchase and informing the prospective buyers of what's involved with home ownership - everything from purchasing the basics like window coverings, shovels and rakes, to energy efficiency.

While Yukon Housing factors in the cost of energy to determining what a client can afford, price increases in the years following the purchases have seen clients come back to refinance their mortgages

"The average middle-income earner is the least able to manage the high fuel costs that are there right now and higher fuel costs that are coming because they don't have a lot of other disposable income," Lyon said.

Along with the big hit of mortgage payments, he added, many have children to support and vehicles to maintain.

"When fuel goes up $2,000 or $3,000 in a year or over the course of a couple of years, they're hard-pressed to have a budget that can be balanced," Lyon said.

The best thing Yukon Housing can do is to make sure clients don't get into poor housing to start with, which ends up costing more in maintenance or heat, he said.