Construction activity holds steady through pandemic
Poll
Will you visit a business if they open in spite of health restrictions that say they can’t?
Yes
Construction activity could have sunk in 2020 but instead wound up treading water, and observers are expecting better flow in the year ahead.
New figures for building and development in Medicine Hat during the pandemic year show that while no new major projects were approved, several were completed, and residential activity shifted from new home building to an “astronomical” increase in renovation projects.
“It’s something we tracked early on,” said Kent Snyder, the city’s manager of building and planning services.
Officials intend stepped codes for energy efficiency to drive market innovation January 19, 2021
Glass and fenestration are being asked to do more to increase energy efficiency. In “What’s Going on with Fenestration in Canada?” presented at GlassBuild Connect, Al Jaugelis, technical director of Fenestration Canada, outlined the major and ongoing code changes spurring a transformation of products and building practices in Canada, all toward a Net-Zero Ready goal.
Incremental Steps to Energy Efficiency
One of the initiatives driving changes to thermal performance in fenestration products in Canada is National Resources Canada’s market transformation program. In August 2017, NRCan announced a market transformation program for residential windows, and space and water heating, designed to support a nationally instituted plan of energy step codes. It also announced aspirational goals for residential window energy performance: