OK, maybe your specific house doesn’t suck energy, but statistically speaking, the odds are depressingly high that in terms of energy consumption your current abode is replete with sucktitude.
Why do I say this? Well…
US loses opportunity with home energy efficiency:
About 17 percent of new homes built in 2008 earned the Energy Star label. The proportion – which is expected to reach 20 percent when 2009′s figures are tallied – marks a five-point increase from 2007 and “indicates such incredible success,” said Sam Rashkin, national director of the program’s section for homes.
Home energy use accounts for 16 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite the EPA’s gains, some 99 percent of American houses are “sick” – damp, drafty, dusty, noisy and expensive to heat and cool – and “could be made at least 30 percent more energy-efficient with highly cost-effective, tried-and-true energy-efficiency improvements,” according to Rashkin.
The Energy Star program won’t solve this. Energy Star is meant to reflect the cream of the housing stock, and thus, program officers say, will always represent a minority of American homes.
Experts say economics and regulations are the root of the problem: Mortgages are structured in ways that fail to recognize efficiency’s benefits, while a patchwork of inconsistent and ill-enforced energy codes provides conflicting signals to industry.
Meanwhile consumers remain largely unaware of efficiency’s advantages, advocates say, thereby bypassing an easy target for considerable cuts in national carbon emissions.
As I’ve said numerous times online, talk to a home builder about your options for a new house, and you’re likely to hear about add-ons like a deck or patio, a multi-media room, a finished basement, a really fancy master bath, etc. But ask about what it would cost to do something very simple, like adding an extra layer of fiberglass insulation in the attic, and the chances are pretty good you’ll be told that’s not offered as an option. One exception is upgrading the windows to much more efficient models. I guess the home builders make enough money on those that they’re happy to do them.
I would love to see the building industry and/or government provide buyers–both residential and commercial–with economic incentives to go green(er). While we certainly need to improve the energy efficiency of the existing stock of buildings in the US, it’s insane to continue building new structures that are significantly less energy efficient than they could be with current technology.
