Left to right: Kott Group CEO Bernie Ashe; Nunavut Housing Minister Hunter Tootoo; MP Guy Lauzon; Peter Scott, president of the Nunavut Housing Corp.; and Brian Cox, whose company, Illamar Marshalling, Inc., packages the homes, stands in front of a partially built house designed by Kott Group. (Rebecca Zandbergen/CBC)Nunavut officials learned from an Ottawa company this week how to put together an energy-efficient house in just five days.

The federal government bought 140 of the modular homes produced by Ottawa-based Kott Group to serve as social housing after they are assembled up north next summer. Currently, more than 1,400 families are on the waiting list for public housing in the territory.

On Thursday, about 40 people from Nunavut Housing Corporation learned how to build the new homes during a visit to Morrisburg, Ont., about 60 kilometres southeast of Ottawa.

'I can see a candle light heating up that whole building there.'— Mike Illnik

They watched as a forklift hoisted up a panel stuffed with insulation. Two or three men guided the piece into place as part of the new building's roof. A seven-man construction crew had started work on the three-bedroom house just three days earlier.

After five days — versus four to six weeks for the homes normally built in Nunavut — the envelope is complete and work can start indoors, said Kott Group CEO Bernie Ashe.

He said that's important because of the short building season in Nunavut.

Mike Illnik, left, of the Nunavut Housing Corp., pays attention during a tour by Kott Group's Jeff Armstrong. (Rebecca Zandbergen/CBC)Jeff Armstrong, a building designer at Kott, said there also tends to be a shortage of skilled labour across the territory.

"So we wanted to make a system that was simple to put up very quickly," he said, "and yet at the end of the day, resulted in a very high-performance building."

Each panel provides structure, insulation, vapour control and air leakage control, combining several separate steps in conventional construction, Armstrong said.

Mike Illnik, who is from Arviat in western Nunavut, said he was very impressed.

"It just blew me away," he said. "This is what we've been looking for a lot of years and it should meet our needs there."

Hope to slash heating costs

Hunter Tootoo, minister of Nunavut Housing, said he expects the homes to be a good long-term investment, slashing heating costs, which are now over $20,000 a year per social housing unit.

Illnik said the worst problem in the North is the harsh winds.

A roof panel is lifted up during the construction of a home designed by Kott Group. More than a hundred such homes will be built in Nunavut next year. (Steve Fischer/CBC)"They don't go around you ... they go right through ya," he said, but added that he can't see any winds making it through the panels of these homes.

"It will keep you very comfortable. I can see a candle light heating up that whole building there."

Armstrong admitted that building conditions in Morrisburg are easier than on permafrost and rocky tundra, where it's often impossible to bring a forklift all the way around a building. He said based on feedback from the visitors from Nunavut, the company is making some minor modifications to the building design and will change the forklift model sent up to Nunavut communities.

Manufacturing will take place at the company's Moodie Drive factory in Ottawa starting this October. The panels and instructions will be packaged in Morrisburg and sent up to Nunavut on the first sea lift next spring.

In this years budget, the federal government earmarked $100 million to address Nunavut's housing shortage, and has committed to paying for 285 housing units across the territory.