Sample building, not a client's
A worked example on a fictional building, to show what a Readiness Review gives an owner. The rebate and credit rules are current program rules. The building, its costs and its savings are illustrative, set for this sample. Every figure is marked Sample and none of it is a quote.
Starting on your own building costs nothing. Start here
Pick a path to see what changes, where the work happens, what the engineer has to confirm and what it costs you. Tap or click a system on the building for a short note.
The three paths keep the building's system, the rooftop units and the baseboard loop, and change how much of the heating comes off gas. Left out on purpose: VRF or fan coils with a dedicated outdoor air unit, which change every floor and usually wait for a major renovation; ground-source heat pumps; the hot water tank, which is replaced like for like on gas in every path, so the all-electric path still uses about 5% of today's gas; and solar or battery storage, which work on the electrical side and can be added to any path.
Sample building
An eight-storey office from the 1980s. Three gas rooftop units heat, cool and ventilate the floors and carry most of the heating. Two gas boilers heat water for baseboard heaters along the outside walls. One electrical service feeds a panel on each floor. The boilers are due next year and the rooftop units the year after.
The electrical service runs at about 55% of its capacity at peak today (Sample).
New gas boilers in the same basement room and new rooftop units in the same places. The simplest project, and the building stays on gas for the life of the new equipment.
An air-to-water heat pump on the roof carries most of the baseboard loop, and one new condensing gas boiler stays for the coldest days. The three rooftop units are replaced with dual-fuel heat pump units that switch to gas only in cold weather. The old boilers come out. The electrical service has room for it, at about 76% of capacity at peak, close enough that an engineer checks it first (Sample).
Air-to-water heat pumps on the roof carry the whole baseboard loop at a lower water temperature, and an electric boiler tops it up on the coldest days. The three rooftop units are replaced with all-electric heat pump units. The gas boilers come out, and the building needs a larger electrical service: about 118% of today's capacity at peak (Sample).
Sample
Project cost, less the utility rebate, less the federal credit, equals the net to you.
Sample
Sample
Sample
In this sample, the hybrid path costs about 5% more than like for like after the rebate and the federal credit ($0.93M against $0.89M) and cuts gas use by about 60%. Over 20 years at today's prices it stays about 5% more ($2.14M against $2.05M), because the power for the heat pump costs a little more than the gas it replaces.
Sample. A fictional building, not a quote. Planning-grade costs, good for choosing a direction, not for tender. All three charts are drawn to one scale. The rooftop unit rebate counts because the existing gas rooftop units are the building's main heat, which the utility requires. The 20-year cost is the net capital plus 20 years of heating energy and maintenance at today's prices, with no escalation and no discounting: gas at $9.31 a GJ (FortisBC's large commercial rate on the Mainland, October 2026, with no carbon tax since April 2025), electricity at about 12 cents a kWh with demand charges, and the same maintenance in every path. Local carbon limits are not counted. The City of Vancouver's by-law, for example, sets a limit for offices this size that reaches zero in 2040, inside this 20-year window; Council paused its enforcement in May 2026 while staff review it. Vandecarb tracks limits like that for a real building. The federal credit applies to eligible heat pump equipment, less any rebate on it; your accountant confirms the claim. The year-one tax saving is capital cost allowance (CCA) on that heat pump equipment: a 100% write-off in the first year if it is in use before 2030, on the cost left after the rebate and the credit, valued at an assumed 27% corporate tax rate. Every path also gets ordinary CCA over many years. The saving sits beside the waterfall and is never netted into it. Positions on the building are schematic.
The documents the owner already had, and the building seen from above. No site visit for this first pass.
That is Stage 2, OwnerSide Stewardship. Vandecarb sets up each incentive so it can be claimed, prepares the file the accountant needs for the federal credit, and stays on the owner's side through the tender, the pricing review, installation oversight and final review. The owner hires the engineer directly.
