WATSON LAKE - Boasting a garage, a spacious living room and kitchen, family photos on the wall and a yard that could use some landscaping work, by all appearances, 918 Ravenhill Rd. is like any other family home you could find almost anywhere.

The difference lies in the insulation behind the walls, the ventilation and heat recovery systems and in how the heat is distributed around the home.

It is one of the two first homes in the territory to be built to SuperGreen standards by the Yukon Housing Corp. Both homes have been built in the southeast Yukon community to house the community's two doctors.

"That's where the need was," Yukon Housing's Juergen Korn told delegates at the Association of Yukon Communities' annual conference and general meeting during a tour of the home.

With the community requiring two new housing units for their doctors, Yukon Housing opted to build to the new standards.

With the houses costing between $300,000 and $350,000 to construct, it's believed the money saved on energy will reduce costs over the long run. While it costs more to construct to energy efficiency standards, Korn noted the energy savings eventually end up outweighing the additional capital costs.

"There's a huge payback," he said.

As he pointed out in a presentation prior to the home tour, sustainable housing has to be built to last with low energy use required that makes it affordable over the long term.

While it's also important they meet residents' needs, are comfortable to live in and pleasing, he also suggested there has tended to be too much focus on making the home "pleasing".

Sustainable, energy-efficient housing is becoming more and more important as well, as home owners get to a breaking point of paying their mortgage and heating bills.

"People are really at the brink of losing their houses," he said.

Inside the home, he pointed out a ventilation system is in place. A thermostat in each room means heat can be better controlled throughout the house.

While construction materials cost about $20,000 extra, the major cost comes in labour for a month-long job that previously took about a week, builder Odin Hougen told municipal officials from throughout the territory.

"It was more overwhelming," Hougen said.

Hougen's previous work building to R2000 and GreenHome standards gave him some preparation to lead the SuperGreen projects and construct the home, including, among other features, new ways of framing the two houses.

"We kind of learned as we went," he said.

Next time around, he said, there would be likely be some tweaks they would make to the process after building the first two homes.

For now though, there's still a little bit of decorative work to be done in the homes such as base boards.

Hougen has yet to hear interest in the private sector in the community to build to the new standard, but as he pointed out, the current economy has meant there's little interest in building new homes at all right now.

Whitehorse is expected to be the next site of a SuperGreen home with Habitat for Humanity, Yukon Housing and Yukon College partnering to build a townhouse to SuperGreen standards at 810 Wheeler St., Whitehorse, the former site of a notorious drug house.