Trinity United in Ottawa shut down its gas-fired boilers and turned on its final two heat pumps in March 2024.

The congregation had achieved its goal of heating and cooling the building with zero emissions, exceeding The United Church of Canada’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2030.

Hoping to encourage others, Trinity United hosted an expert panel and public tours to showcase what’s possible.

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DON’T RUSH The physical work of installing five heat pumps took place over 11 months. But Virginia MacLatchy, chair of the Trinity Green Team, says the project unfolded over many years. “People have to be ready,” she says. “The cost can be daunting, so it’s easy to say, ‘Forget it.’ Preparing, researching, getting people involved takes time.”

Trinity United began with an energy audit in 2003. With problem areas in the building identified, members could decide how to tackle them. The church formed a Green Team, and congregants began to work through the Greening Sacred Spaces program, a resource of Faith and the Common Good, a national interfaith network founded in 2000 on the belief that congregations and spiritual communities can be powerful role models for the common good.

“The more we did and the more we saw positive results, the more motivated people got,” says Chris Humphrey, a member of the Green Team and the property committee.

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SHOP AROUND The church started gathering quotes and working through design and equipment possibilities. Member Mike Velichka, from the property committee, assisted with evaluating the quotes. Like most of us, he wasn’t well versed in heat pump technology, so he had to learn.

“Our old system needed ongoing repairs, so we considered all options,” he says. “For many people, costs can weigh heavier than the benefits. And, for me, the dollars and cents have to make sense. The more research I did, the more I knew that, taking into account the cost of repairs to our old system, we could see financial savings with a heat pump system.”

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WORK IN PHASES In 2023, Trinity used funds from a Faithful Footprints grant, the property budget and a donation from an outside source to install the first three heat pumps. People were impressed with the results, with the new system allowing them to feel cooler or warmer as needed.

That success led to a fundraising campaign and a grant from the Eastern Ontario Outaouais Regional Council’s church extension committee, which enabled the church to install the final two heat pumps.

HAVE FAITH “One step at a time, with action and a lot of faith, we did it because it’s the right thing to do,” Mac­Latchy says. Ottawa can be cold, so the church will continue to pay for a gas connection this winter to see if the system rated to -30 degrees Celsius is sufficient. But the real hope is to disconnect from gas entirely to gain even more savings.

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Arlene Smith is a writer and editor in Ottawa and a member of Trinity United.

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