Christine Paquette said she didn’t need to think too long on where to go for her new mortgage. That’s because her employer – the Manitoba Chapter of the Canada Green Building Council (Manitoba Chapter, CaGBC) – uses ACU for all its financial needs and she has been impressed with her business dealings with Assiniboine.

In fact, on behalf of the Manitoba Chapter, CaGBC, Christine worked with ACU to develop the Your Greener Home resource materials which are great for people who are inspired to buy, build or renovate green.

Not surprisingly she’ll put some of those tips to use in her new 104-year-old home in south Winnipeg. Her immediate goal is to take out an old furnace and replace it with an energy-efficient furnace.

She has more plans for the first year. A few days after she moved in she invited Manitoba Hydro to conduct an energy efficiency test and because of that she’s also decided to replace the roof, take out the chimney, replace the toilets and add water-efficient fixtures.

Christine says she appreciated how easy ACU made it for her to get her first mortgage in 15 years – after living in apartments all that time – with the whole financing application and approval taking only three hours. “For me all the stars were lined up - from finding the right house to dealing with the right financial people. I knew if I found the right house then it would be time to put down roots.”

She knew she had found the home of her childhood dreams when the house she was touring had an angel ornament dangling from the ceiling in the sunroom. “The owner said the angel was there when he bought it and it was staying with the house,” says Paquette, who had been searching for her perfect home. The angel may have clinched the deal, but it was the veranda, the window seats, the claw foot soaker tub, and the wood basement floor in the one-and-a-half storey house that first spoke to her heart.

“It was just like my grandmother’s home where I spent a lot of time as a child in northern Ontario. I think I had been dreaming all this time about a house that would let me re-experience that real homey feeling of my grandmother’s home. My new home is filled with so many unique features that you just don’t find in homes anymore.”