There is a movement to provide home energy index scores for home that are going up for sale. It would accompany the homeowners’ disclosure. The Department of Energy provides this explanation in a lengthy document from 2017.
Like a miles-per-gallon rating for a car, the Home Energy Score is an easy-to-produce rating designed to help homeowners and homebuyers gain useful information about a home’s energy performance. Based on an in-home assessment that can be completed in less than an hour, the Home Energy Score not only lets a homeowner understand how efficient the home is and how it compares to others, but also provides recommendations on how to cost-effectively improve the home’s energy efficiency.
Like the stickers in the car windows which provide information on gas consumption, or the label on food products itemizing their contents, a house will be given a score between 1-10. The State of Oregon’s website has a nice, concise, easy-to-read page about the process. Here’s the first part about the score:
I’m just not convinced it’s that simple. When goods are new, whether a car, or a furnace or even a whole house, I think a scoring system could have some value. A home that has had a variety of owners, over six, seven, ten decades, some keeping them squeaky clean, some letting slide a whole host of maintenance and repairs issues, would prove to have a difficult history to rank from 1-10. The full report from the Department of Energy is long and strenuous to follow, and probably a better reflection of the complexity of scoring an entire structure.
The mandate for standardized nutritional facts labeling on food has been in place since 1990. The obesity rates, however, in the US continue to rise from 12% in 1990 to 23% by 2005 to upwards of 35% in some states in 2019. Despite being notified of what they are buying (which to be perfectly clear I am in favor of) consumer’s eating habits are becoming worse not better. Forcing businesses to label is something the government has the power to do, but it doesn’t mean it will be effective in accomplishing the goal.
If the goal is to persuade homeowners to spend extra money on home energy improvements, the tactic I would pursue is to search out the most likely group that has shown interest in this purchase. Retirees on a fixed income are good examples. The combination of desiring a low monthly obligation and of being at a point in life when there is extra money for this versus other activities, leads their homes to often having superior mechanicals (which undoubtedly offsets the dated décor). Or if you really want people to seal up the cracks in their homes so all the a/c doesn’t leak out in the summer nor heat in the winter, team up with the pest control people. I promiss that moms will pay a lot to plug up all the holes and keep the mice out.
Home Economics 