Company History

By Ross Elliott

Homesol Building Solutions has been around a long time in one form or another, but our goal of healthy, comfortable and sustainable buildings has always remained at the forefront of our business. Today, Homesol is one of Ontario’s leading providers of environmental and energy efficient building consulting services for residential new construction and renovation.

I founded my first company — Constructive Solutions — soon after my arrival in Perth, Ontario in the early '80s. As a young Licensed Energy Auditor looking to make a living, it soon became apparent that the market for energy efficiency consulting services was virtually non-existent at that time in Canada’s era of cheap, abundant, seemingly pollution-free energy (although south of the border, saving energy was their new patriotic duty in the face of the Arab oil embargo). So I packed up my blower door and picked up a hammer instead, becoming a Licensed Carpenter in 1983.

For almost 20 years, I continued to specialize in creating “Earth Friendly Homes”, building and renovating virtually every type of residential structure as a master craftsman, complete from footings to finishing and all points in between, as well as five years in the late 80s in heavy commercial construction. By the end of the 90s, Constructive Solutions managed a team of a half dozen skilled carpenters with over $1/2 million in annual sales, mainly in custom homebuilding and heritage renovations, with energy consulting services as a part-time sideline.

With the advent of the federal EnerGuide for Houses program in 1999, I began applying my energy auditor training, extensive building and renovation experience and building science technical background to the increasing demand for energy efficiency evaluations, and discovered that a lot had changed. “Green” was now “in”, global climate change was becoming an established fact, resource wars and peak oil were in the headlines, and clients were hungry for reliable, unbiased, professional advice to help them reduce energy costs without compromising their family’s health and their building’s durability.

Building and renovating to save money and the planet while ensuring healthy indoor air quality and comfortable living spaces was a challenge that many were concerned about, but few seemed to fully understand. It was time to put down the hammer and return full-time to my original roots, encouraging the building and renovating of healthy, comfortable and sustainable structures. The “earth friendly” construction company Constructive Solutions wrapped up operations at the end of 2000, and the building consulting and design company Homestead Building Solutions was born.

Between 1999 and 2006, Homestead provided thousands of energy evaluations throughout Eastern Ontario and even a few in Iqaluit, Nunavut, then extended beyond the residential EnerGuide for Houses retrofit program and into ENERGY STAR, EnerGuide Rating Systemand R-2000 evaluations for new homes. We became qualified Designers under the Ontario Building Code, and hold both HRAI and BCIN certification for HVAC systems design (RASDT). The Homestead team was named EnerQuality Energy Evaluator of the Year in 2006 for work in promoting energy efficiency in new construction.

In 2007, Homestead was renamed Homesol Building Solutions, charting an expanding new course with a fresh vision and logo (in fact it was the newgraphics that led to the name change, but that's a story for another time). In addition to our established lines of work in the new homes market, we now have our own Service Organization license from NRCan for the delivery of the ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit Program, and are qualified to perform the larger Multi Unit Residential Building energy evaluations for retrofit grants under this program. We are also qualified to perform energy audits on small commercial buildings, and consult with design teams on larger LEED-NC construction projects. Together with our partner Arborus Consulting, we are a licensed Provider for the Canada Green Building Council's LEED Canada for Homes program, and have several qualified LEED Green Raters on staff.

Today, we employ a growing network of highly trained Certified Energy Evaluators throughout Eastern Ontario, working with over 30 large developers and new builders, and hundreds of existing building owners each year, ensuring that the challenge of health, comfort and sustainability continues to be part of the building solution, now and for future generations.

(Ross Elliott, CPHP, LEED-AP, RASDT, RHSD, is CEO and President of Homesol Building Solutions Inc., located in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.)