It will soon be two years since I began the process of accessing the government grant to replace our oil furnace with an air source heat pump. The early pandemic was not the time to fill the house with a contracted workforce. It is small here, no one could possibly have kept their social distance, and I felt overwhelmed by the thought of having to enforce the wearing of masks. Seniors were dying at that point, the vaccines had yet to be developed, so the process slowed.
After the vaccines appeared the pace picked up again. But then we discovered that our electrical service would not handle the job, it had to be updated. Again the process slowed, and even though the heat pump was installed, it could not heat the house in extreme cold. The hydro upgrade took months and months, as there were several layers of bureaucracy to navigate to get the job done. Once the hydro service was available the electrician was quick to finish the upgrade.
Because all this had taken so long, another road block appeared. The company that had done the original home assessment went bankrupt as we waited for Hydro One to do their part of the job. This entailed a great deal of trouble accessing records, and switching assessment companies.
And another road block appeared since the federal government decided to partner with a natural gas company, and people like us who had dealt with the government ministry could not have their claims processed by the new setup. So our application went somewhere to be handled manually, as the new system could not handle our paperwork.
That process was going to take until May 7, 2023, before we could be approved.
NOW federal employees are on strike, and government services are slowing down. I expect that our approval won’t come through by May 7, 2023. Heaven only knows if and when we will see the grant money.
I’ve found it difficult to believe that so many parts of this process could go awry, as we have moved slowly through it. I know others have not had this degree of difficulty. It is our very own Federal Furnace Fiasco.
Worldly
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Updated on Thu, Apr 20, 2:45 PM
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A few clouds
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Sunrise 6:16 AM
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Pressure 102.2 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m
Sunset 7:57 PM
Quote
“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
Agatha Christie
1890 – 1976
Maggie, you’ll receive a list-unsubscribe from me because I have your site in my directory already (at goldengrainfarm.blogspot.com) and will see there when you update.
Sorry to hear about your grant woes. You handle all those details with such efficiency though! I take pointers from you — like the one some time ago when you said you keep notes of phone calls, dates, conversations, etc. with companies you deal with.
-Kate
I’m sorry you’re having such trouble with that process!
Thanks for the heads up Kate, sounds good.
LOL, I have a whole file folder, names, dates and times, what they said, what happened about what they said and what did not happen about what they said. I keep adding page after page of information, I wonder if it will be a mountain when it is all done and dusted. This is one set of documents I will eventually enjoy burning!!
Joan, thank you! It is a lot less stressful now that the furnace install is completed, even though the grant issue is not. We like our new heating system. I reckon by the time the grant arrives I will have earned it the rate of about $2 per hour, for all the time and effort I’ve had to put into the process. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound they say. 🙂
Maggie, I’m so sorry this mess is dragging on.
You said this was Federal but I see that the Province is partnering with a gas company, so that makes me wonder. Can you do the Provincial upgrade with your assessment? From what I see on google, the provincial upgrade is up to $10,600 while the Fed upgrade is only $1,000.
I hope the silly strike ends soon and you can get everything finalized.
Teri, the Greener Homes Program we originally signed up for was federal, it has changed over and over again. It is a program administrated by the federal Ministry of Natural Resources, who eventually teamed with Enbridge Gas – but our application is not handled by Enbridge, new ones are, but not ours, so we are lost in a beurocratic time warp. I will keep at it, usually the federal government eventually gets around to honouring their committments, I hope this is one of those times.