U of C RESEARCHERS FIND LOST HEAT COSTS IN CALGARY

Calgarians may have barely stirred in their sleep one spring night in 2012 as a small-engine plane flew back and forth over the city’s neighbourhoods at low altitude.

But the images collected by a sophisticated, thermal imaging camera on board the aircraft are now waking residents to the financial and environmental cost of the heat that’s silently seeping from their homes.

A team of researchers at the University of Calgary used the images and city data to create a web-based map that shows potential greenhouse gas emissions for entire suburbs and pinpoints hot spots in each individual home where waste energy is escaping.

The project is the brainchild of geography professor Geoffrey Hay who began wondering four years ago why his recently constructed two-storey home in the Cougar Ridge subdivision was always cold.

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