Measured.
Modelled.
Verified.
ASHRAE Level I–III energy audits and calibrated whole-building energy modelling, delivered as one service rather than two. In practice they are a single continuous process: you cannot trust a model that has not been reconciled against a bill, and you cannot price a measure from an audit that never modelled the alternative.
Two halves of
one process.
Energy Modeling was a separate service line here until September 2026. It was folded into this page because audits and modelling are one continuous process in practice, and splitting them made a reader choose between two entries describing the same engagement.
ASHRAE Level I–III energy audits
From a walk-through survey to investment-grade analysis, with depth matched to the size of the decision. A benchmarking exercise does not need the rigour a capital commitment does, and paying for the deeper one first is how audit budgets get spent without producing a decision.
Calibrated whole-building modelling
Modelling serves two jobs: verifying audit findings by reconciling a RETScreen model against actual utility bills, and — where a project needs performance-pathway code compliance or CMHC MLI Select qualification — full whole-building simulation in eQUEST.
Two tools,
two distinct
jobs.
RETScreen establishes what the building actually does. eQUEST answers a harder and different question — what a proposed design would do against a code or programme baseline. Using one where the other belongs is the most common way a modelling exercise produces a number nobody can defend.
RETScreen Expert
Our primary tool for audit-model calibration and financial sensitivity analysis. A model is not accepted until its predicted consumption reconciles against the building's own metered gas and electricity billing.
A real result, not an accuracy target: on a completed audit engagement the base-case model reconciled to within these margins of actual billed consumption. Inputs are adjusted until a model lands inside that band. Until it does, it is not used for anything.
eQUEST
Whole-building hourly simulation — 8,760 hours a year on the DOE-2.2 engine — used when a project has to demonstrate performance-pathway code compliance or qualify for a financing programme such as CMHC MLI Select.
A baseline building is modelled first, representing either the existing building or minimum code compliance. The proposed design is then modelled against it, and the difference in annual energy and GHG emissions is what the qualification score is calculated from.
On modelling-scope projects the eQUEST result is cross-checked against RETScreen for resource and financial sensitivity. Two engines disagreeing is information; one engine agreeing with itself is not.
Six steps, every
audit.
The same underlying process runs across our engineering work — site and data gathering, baseline calibration, scenario modelling, comparison, financial synthesis, verified recommendation. Only the tools change with the application: here that means RETScreen and eQUEST where a solar study would use SAM and PVsyst.
What the process
delivers.
Two modelled buildings, scoped in opposite orders. The first is a CMHC MLI Select Level 2 qualification study — a fabric-first retrofit where the envelope was sealed and insulated before any equipment was touched. The second, further down, is the mechanical-led case.
426 Queenston Street, St. Catharines, Ontario
Existing 1970s-era three-storey masonry building · 20 residential units
The retrofit was designed around a documented chronic heat-loss problem on the building's third floor, and addressed it envelope-first: R-60 roof insulation, window and door perimeter sealing, and interior low-E thermal film. Equipment was left alone. Sizing a mechanical upgrade before the envelope is fixed means sizing it against a load that is about to disappear.
Modelled results from an eQUEST 3.65 study against NECB 2017 and ASHRAE 90.1. These are design-stage projections used for programme qualification, not post-occupancy measured savings. Where we report measured savings, they are verified under IPMVP with the confidence interval stated — see why we adjust the baseline, not the results.
134 Bagot Street,
Guelph.
Where Queenston was fabric-first, this one is the other shape of the same problem: an eight-unit multi-residential building where the mechanical plant was the constraint, and the envelope work came alongside it rather than instead of it.
Constant-volume and 75% boilers, replaced
The proposed design replaced constant-volume HVAC and standard-efficiency natural gas boilers with variable-volume air-source heat pumps and high-efficiency condensing boilers. The envelope measures were scoped around that, not ahead of it — the reverse of the order used at Queenston, because here the plant was what was actually limiting the building.
Modelled projections from an eQUEST 3.65 study against NECB 2017, not post-occupancy measured savings. The electricity and gas figures are stated as floors: they hold under every reading of the source report's own tables. Baseline and proposed consumption are client data and are not published. A greenhouse gas reduction figure is deliberately omitted pending reconciliation of the source report — its headline and its own per-fuel rows disagree, and we would rather publish nothing than the wrong one.
What you
receive.
Including the model files. A model you cannot open is a number you have to take on trust, and the next engineer who touches the building has to build it again.
- A structured audit report — Level I, II or III, according to scope
- The calibrated RETScreen model file, reconciled against actual utility billing
- A whole-building eQUEST model, where the project requires code compliance or programme qualification
- An itemised ECM package, with savings shown individually and in combination
- Programme-qualification documentation — an MLI Select scoring summary, for instance — where the engagement calls for it
Common questions.
Depth, matched to the size of the decision. Level I is a walk-through survey — enough to benchmark performance and identify the obvious. Level II breaks energy use down by system, with preliminary savings and cost estimates against specific measures. Level III is investment-grade: the engineering detail needed to commit capital with confidence, and it normally includes calibrated modelling.
Not always. Full whole-building simulation is required specifically when a project has to demonstrate code compliance or qualify for a financing programme such as CMHC MLI Select. Plenty of audits never need one; a calibrated RETScreen model is often enough to verify the findings and rank the measures.
Because it is reconciled against real bills before it is trusted for anything. A baseline model is built, its predicted consumption is checked against the building's actual metered gas and electricity, and inputs are adjusted until the two agree inside a tight tolerance. On the engagement quoted above that was +1.5% on gas and −10.6% on electricity. Until a model lands there, it is not used to justify a measure.
MLI Select generally applies to multi-family residential properties able to demonstrate a meaningful reduction in energy consumption and GHG emissions against a baseline — commonly cited from around 20% to begin qualifying, scaling through higher tiers. Eligibility and programme detail have to be confirmed with CMHC and your lender. Modelling establishes whether the reduction is achievable; it does not guarantee qualification.
The same process,
applied elsewhere.
Maurice Coulter Co-operative
An ASHRAE Level 3 audit that became the technical case for a $2.0M CMHC grant, then a ten-measure retrofit across a 92-unit tower and eighteen townhomes.
PROMPT solar study
611 kW of rooftop solar across a three-building industrial portfolio — the same process with SAM and PVsyst in place of RETScreen and eQUEST.
444 5th Avenue SW, Calgary
An ASHRAE Level III audit of a 23-storey tower: 22,102 GJ baseline, eight measures, 5,522 GJ of projected annual savings.
Thirty minutes, with the engineer who would run the work.
No cost and no obligation. Bring twelve months of utility bills if you have them — that alone is usually enough to say whether a building has a capital problem or a controls problem.