A homeowner in Toronto has found a way to cut way down on his energy bills during worrying economic times.

In fact, John Van Dusen is doing so well that sometimes he's even getting money back from his electricity supplier.

Van Dusen was approached about a year ago by a company called Now House. It wanted to retrofit his house to make it energy efficient, as part of a contest the company was running.

But Van Dusen never thought he'd ever see bills like the one he received recently.

"I just looked a couple days ago at … the Enbridge bill, and I had a credit for $240," he said.

The $85,000 project involved installing new insulation in the 60-year-old home. The more expensive components included solar panels and geothermal heating.

In his home in the former East York, Van Dusen now produces electricity from those solar panels and sells the excess back to his supplier, instead of just consuming it.

Lorraine Gauthier, president of Now House, said retrofits don't need to be costly to have an impact.

"Take some basic things like insulate your basement, insulate your attic. You don't need to do it all at once," she said. "And just doing those things will make a big difference on your energy bill."

Gauthier held an open house for the project recently, and she said a lot of the traffic through the Van Dusen home was from contractors, many of whom have a lot to learn when it comes to green building.

"Consumers are saying 'I'm now interested in this,' and the builder is going, 'I better pay attention and I better learn how,' so they showed up today and they were very curious."