In case you missed it, last week VP Biden announced the new Recovery through Retrofit program. In it there was four main items that were all wrapped together. A new Home Energy Scoring Tool, Financing, DOE’s Retrofit guidelines, and an often-overlooked one: The EPA’s “Healthy Indoor Environment Protocols for Home Energy upgrades” Seeing that the […]
USGBC, the EPA, DOE & VP Biden – what a week:
If you have been following the news, the blogs & the tweets this week, I am sure you have seen all the announcements coming out, talking about this Energy Efficiency nirvana. Unfortunately, for the nirvana crowd, it seems almost everyone pulled a copy & paste & did not really dig into it these programs. Before […]
Are you ready for this… National Residential Retrofit Guideline?
On Monday, I received an invitation to attend a webinar put on by DOE / NREL to attend a webinar entitled “National Residential Retrofit Guidelines: Update & Opportunities to Engage.” Hmmm, I had never heard of that and it sounded somewhat interesting. It also appeared at first glance to run after another webinar I was […]
RRP Updates: Home Insurance, LSHR, HR 5177, & the Brochures
Well this has been a busy week on many fronts. For most of this week, I have been attending RESNET Training here in Atlanta. Needless to say, the EPA and the fallout from the RRP has not started to dissipate yet. In this article, I have three quick updates, followed by a guest post today from Dean Lovvorn of the Certified Renovator Council of North America’s explaining why many legal “EPA certified” contractors may be working illegally.
Home Star Update & what is up with these National Organizations?
In our prior articles on HomeStar, we did an overview of the bill introduced in the Senate, followed up by a list of major issues and our suggestions. Well, it appears that the bill in the House of Representatives (HR 5019) is actually set to be voted on May 6th, while the Senate bill is […]
HomeStar Primer: The Issues & a Fix?
In our previous article on the HomeStar program, we provided a brief primer on the program, included a copy of the actual bill, and pointed out some of the good aspects of it. In that article we also pointed out some major issues with the program that we feel should be addressed. In this article I would […]
HomeStar Primer – Good for the economy, good for homeowners?
HomeStar (aka Cash for Caulkers) is a proposed measure introduced in the Senate to “create good living-wage jobs in construction and related industries by providing strong short-term incentives for home energy efficiency improvements.” It was also designed to “reward homeowners for investing in insulation and weatherization, high-efficiency heating and air conditioning equipment, replacement windows and […]
ENERGY STAR: Can it and should it be saved?
As many of our regular readers know, we have long supported and still recommend purchasing ENERGY STAR® rated products. Unfortunately, though there have been some issues that have popped up lately that have caused many groups and individuals to question if the program is more fiction than fact. On the flip side, we have some people […]
In case you missed it; October is National Energy Awareness Month & a quick primer on the Energy Tax Credit
Ok, I admit it, I had no clue and this is its 22nd year of it being observed. Obviously though I am not the only one, as one site that lists all the different “National Fill in the Blank Month’s” has over 30 listings just for October and not one of them is about energy. […]
About Time: Truth about endorsements required for bloggers
Well ok, its effective December 1st – but the FTC has now come out with guidelines governing paid endorsements made by bloggers and others (FTC article & link below). Personally, I think this is a good idea and in some ways, I am glad to see it arrive. The other part of me worries about […]