Energy Probe

Toronto's plan to mandate green roofs on new buildings could seriously threaten the city's building stock.

Radcliffe Robinson isn't looking forward to heating his home this winter.

Robinson, 38, and his wife Patricia, moved into a three-bedroom house in Whitby in January, just in time for one of the more dramatic oil-price upswings in recent history. When the Robinsons purchased their home, the price of light crude was around $33 (U.S.) a barrel; it closed yesterday at $53.31. That increase has paced a jump in heating oil from about 52 cents a litre at the end of last year to 64 cents today.