Posted on 01/13/2014 8:14:17 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
(CNSNews.com) - The Energy Department on Tuesday is rolling out new, improved software to help Americans measure the energy efficiency of their homes.
DOE says its energy-scoring software -- called the Home Energy Scoring Tool -- is like a vehicle's mile-per-gallon rating because it allows homeowners to compare the energy performance of their homes to other homes nationwide. It also provides homeowners with suggestions for improving their homes' efficiency.
The software is part of the government's effort to reduce the nation's energy consumption; but it's also billed as a way to keep home-retrofitting going, at a time when stimulus funds for weather-proofing have run out.
The Home Energy Scoring Tool "can be a powerful motivator in getting homeowners to make energy efficiency improvements," DOE says. "It's also a great way to help trained workers enter the private sector energy improvement market as funding for weatherization efforts decline."
DOE says its Home Energy Score is useful if you are a homeowner looking to renovate or remodel your home, lower your utility bills, improve the comfort of your home, or reduce your energy usage. Moreover, "the score serves as an official way to document these improvements and thereby enhance your home's appeal when you're ready to sell."
Right now, getting your home scored is voluntary.
To produce a Home Energy Score, a trained, "qualified assessor" comes to your home -- for a fee -- and collects approximately 40 pieces of data about the home's "envelope" (e.g., walls, windows, heating and cooling systems) during an hour-long walk-through.
Based on the home's characteristics, the DOE software estimates the home's annual energy use, assuming "typical homeowner behavior." The software then converts the estimated energy use into a score, based on a 10-point scale (10 being the most energy-efficient). The 1-10 scale accounts for differences in weather conditions by using the zip code to assign the house to one of more than 1,000 weather stations.
In addition to showing the home's current energy efficiency -- or inefficiency -- the score also shows where a home would rank if all of the energy-saving improvements identified during the home walk-through were made. That may prompt some homeowners to buy new windows or doors, for example, boosting the market for home retro-fitters.
DOE recommends getting a Home Energy Score "as soon as the program becomes available in your area." The program launched in 2012, and at this time, only single-family homes and townhouses can be scored.
The scoring is available only through DOE's participating partners, which include state and local governments, utilities, and non-profits. DOE does not determine how much an assessor charges to score a house. "It will depend on what the local market supports." But DOE says its partners "have indicated plans to charge between $25 and $125 for the Home Energy Score."
And yes, the size of the home matters because larger homes use more energy.
The Home Energy Score and the associated report is generated through DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory software. The 2014 version of DOE's Home Energy Scoring Tool will be introduced at a webinar on Tuesday.
So far, DOE says more than 8,500 homes have been scored by the Energy Department's growing network of more than 25 partners and 175 qualified assessors.
I’ll tell you EXACTLY where this is going.
The “poor” will be able to get a “free energy audit”, and anywhere their house doesn’t meet the standard,
you and I will have to pay to upgrade it.
They must lie awake at night thinking up ways to waste our time and money.
The working people, we will be forced to pay for our own audit, our own upgrades to meet the new government standards. If we don’t comply, there will be a “tax”, for which some new mandatory withholding will come into play, just so they are sure to collect the “tax”, once they see that 0bamacare fines cannot be collected from refunds alone.
The Gov will determine if your house is up to their specifications before you can sell. Just another sure fire way to destroy wealth........take the equity to fix up and then sell for the price before the Gov was involved.
Considering the current rate of American decline its probably appropriate since we’ll all be living in our cars before long.
Then they will mandate those “smart” thermostats like they do down in Austin. I have several coworkers whose a/c, heater get “governed” at different times. One gal said her thermostat was set at 85 from 8am to 8pm for a week once.
Soon it will be MANDATORY...................
Gell-Mann's Totalitarian Principle states: "Everything not forbidden is compulsory."
A chasm divides the ability to score an automobile and a dwelling.
With a car, there typically isn’t any ‘guaranteed’ record of the fuel use, thus a person need to take the guys word as to the mileage the car gets.
With a house, records are typically available from the utility company going back years and years, so a buyer can see what the actual costs to warm and cool the house are.
First they measure, then they regulate.
Hello, I’m from the Department of Energy and I’m here to help you.
create a fake crisis:global warming
then grow government , control us more, take away our money and freedom. in one word:socialism
government already banned lightbulbs to save us from global warming that doesn't exist
government is the problem and the enemy .so is the news media
Interesting. Where I live, you don’t need a building permit to build a house. It’s one of the reasons I moved here. I wonder how they would enforce such a thing without coming up with a federal building permit. Talk about sleazy. The FedGov is a problem. This problem needs to be solved. I guess the TEA party is all we have.
Excess energy usage tax coming. They will use all the same lines, just change ‘fat cat’ to ‘energy hog’ because the energy is unevenly distributed.
Our states need to regrow their testicles as well.
I confess that the only reason I don’t worry about this stuff is it is a bit like being in Germany in 1944 and sweating over the stuff the Nazi regime has announced it is going to implement in 1946.
If you get my drift...
What If you have solar power on your property?
Put an incandescent bulb under the thermostat... :)
Yeah... I’m just taking care of the fam, not worrying too much about what the left/world has planned for everyone else.
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