Our partners at ENERGY STAR® have long been the leader in energy efficiency, helping consumers, homeowners, and businesses make informed decisions that reduce costs and protect our environment. This October 9, on ENERGY STAR Day, we're working together to help make homeowners aware of the benefits of the ENERGY STAR Home Upgrade (ESHU) program.
The ESHU program is designed to promote clean energy transformation among U.S. homeowners and to provide hands-on guidance to help those homeowners invest in these measures. While there are a number of ways to reduce a home’s energy usage — from lighting to appliances to behavior — the program prioritizes six concrete, actionable areas that have the most significant “whole-home” impact on energy usage:
Air sealing and insulation
Clean heating and cooling
Electrical readiness
High-performing water heating
Smart thermostats
Windows
When certified by Pearl, improvements made in each of these six areas can have measurable impacts on your home’s value — but how, exactly, can they help increase the comfort and overall value of your home? And where should you start?
Let’s look at each area in detail, along with why they matter and how ENERGY STAR can help.
What do you stand to gain by prioritizing air sealing and insulation for your home? Looking at the data, the upside is undeniable:
Lowering your heating and cooling expenses by as much as 15%
Cutting your home’s overall energy costs by 11% or more
As with many energy efficiency measures, there are also non-energy benefits with air sealing and insulation:
Thermal comfort.
Indoor air quality
Sound
So that’s the scale of the opportunity for homeowners. But what about the costs?
The reality is that a few things still need to happen before you’re ready to get an estimate. The first is for you to arrange for a home energy audit with a licensed, qualified, sustainability-minded local contractor who can conduct a blower-door test, which helps determine the overall "air tightness" of your home and pinpoint sources of leakage.
Whatever you decide, the final piece of good news is that there are multiple provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 that could potentially lower the price of insulation and sealing upgrades for your home. This blog provides a detailed summary of how those provisions can be applied to insulation and sealing projects, and this one covers everything you need to know about the relevant tax credits.
“Clean heating and cooling” means essentially one thing for U.S. homeowners today: making the switch to a high-efficiency heat pump that comes with ENERGY STAR certification.
To understand why that’s the case, let’s start with the fact that air-source heat pumps are as much as 50% more efficient than electric-resistance furnaces, which translates to major bottom-line savings in the form of reduced energy bills.
By making the switch, what’s more, you stand to directly increase the value of your home on the resale market by anywhere from 4.1% to 7.3%, according to one study. At the same time, you’ll no longer have to worry about the greenhouse gasses produced by your previous combustion-based alternative — after all, these gasses not only negatively impact our shared environment, but can lead to toxic byproducts circulating in your home’s indoor air.
Finally, many heat pumps boast life expectancies in the range of 10-15 years, which is longer than furnaces or boilers. Contrary to what some people might tell you, too, these energy efficient appliances operate highly effectively in pretty much any climate, no matter how cold, remote, or forbidding. So switching to a heat pump is probably a smart and cost-reducing move, regardless of where your particular home may be located.
What about costs? That’s a slightly tricky question to answer, unfortunately, because a lot of different variables can come into play: the size of your home, for example, the quality of its insulation (see “Air Sealing and Insulation,” above), and other factors. But thanks to the IRA, cost-saving opportunities abound, too. Specifically, you should look to take advantage of the $8.8 billion in rebates set aside for energy efficiency and home electrification projects, which can help offset the price of purchase and installation.
From comfort to energy efficiency, indoor air quality (IAQ) to home equity and health, the benefits of home electrification projects, some of which we’ve touched on already, are difficult to overstate. However, they come with a caveat attached — not all homes are equipped to fully take advantage of them at the moment. This is what ESHU’s focus on electrical readiness aims to correct.
What kinds of concerns or considerations should guide your decision-making process?
A few things stand out, perhaps the biggest of which is that no action may be required on your part — if you own a newer home, for example, then you’re probably already equipped with a 200A breaker box, and therefore all set. But if you aren’t 100% sure, here’s how to find out in two easy steps:
First, go to your main electric panel (it might be in the basement) and locate the switch on the main breaker (it’s usually either at the top or the bottom of the panel). Can you see what it says? If so, the number will tell you how many amps your panel receives, with higher numbers corresponding to greater capacity.
Second, look to see if there’s any available room in the panel, which will be indicated by empty slots that can accommodate new electric loads. The more slots available, the more electric appliances you can probably implement going forward.
Of course, hiring a local electrician to investigate all of this is also an option, and may be the most prudent move for some. Either way, think of electrical readiness as a vital and necessary first step, since it’s the only way to set the stage for future cost-saving, efficiency-enhancing upgrades — say, a high-performing washer of dryer, for example, which might lower your home’s energy usage by 28% or more, or an energy efficient dishwasher, which can reduce it by 10%.
But it also might do more than that — from the perspective of home equity in particular. For example, if you follow recent trends in municipal development policies, then you’re aware that EV charging infrastructure is now a requirement for all new single-family homes built in major cities like Atlanta and Denver. It’s likely others will enact similar changes in future, in which case homes that aren’t so equipped will almost certainly get penalized by the forces of the resale market.
Many older water heaters, however essential their function, amount to massive drains on your household energy, accounting for around 20% of it on average — which makes it likely the second-largest energy expense in your home.
By contrast, a heat pump water heater bearing the ENERGY STAR label can operate up to 4 times more efficiently, while consuming an astounding 70 percent less energy, to boot, and the potential cost savings resulting from all those gains for homeowners are no less remarkable in turn. For example, a household of four stands to save $4,500 on electric bills during the lifetime of the appliance. So if you aren’t among the homeowners who have made this energy efficiency upgrade already, now might be the time to — and you’ll find in the IRA substantial opportunities to help defray the costs.
Finally, and also in connection with financial outlays, keep in mind that there are a lot of factors that go into a successful installation of heat pump water heaters, from relative condensation levels to tank size to proximity to power sources and more.
Nearly half of your annual home energy expenditures go toward heating and cooling, totaling a not-so-cool $900 year in and year out. Simply given the size of that expenditure, why not make a comparatively small home improvement that could have you immediately shelling out less — approximately 8% less on average — on energy bills in the future?
Smart thermostats allow you to do exactly that, and they’re included in ESHU’s six focus areas for this very reason. Specifically, these thermostats are able to automate and optimize your home’s energy settings, ultimately achieving a happy medium between sustainability and energy costs, on the one hand, and personal comfort, on the other.
So adding a smart thermostat to your home will be a smart move for most homeowners, not to mention a comparatively easy one, at least as far as home improvements go. It’s also a good example of how smart home tech generally can generate surprising near-term benefits — if these devices were adopted by homeowners at scale, for example, they just might curb U.S. carbon emissions by 18 billion pounds annually.
From a cost standpoint, better yet, you’re unlikely to break the bank by splurging for this one. In fact, your upfront expenditure might even be as low as $100. But note that smart thermostats aren’t covered under the terms of the IRA, and beyond that you may need to factor some modest installation costs into the equation — that is, depending on how your home’s existing heating and cooling systems are wired (see “Electrical Readiness” above for insights), having a qualified professional on hand could be a required. In evaluating contractors, again, be sure to look for someone who’s not only appropriately qualified but has demonstrated experience and expertise handling this type of home performance upgrade.
From a cost standpoint, better yet, you’re unlikely to break the bank by splurging for this one. In fact, your upfront expenditure might even be as low as $100. But note that smart thermostats aren’t covered under the terms of the IRA, and beyond that you may need to factor some modest installation costs into the equation — that is, depending on how your home’s existing heating and cooling systems are wired (see “Electrical Readiness” above for insights), having a qualified professional on hand could be a required. In evaluating contractors, again, be sure to look for someone who’s not only appropriately qualified but has demonstrated experience and expertise handling this type of home performance upgrade.
Did you know your windows account for something in the ballpark of 30% of home heating and cooling energy usage? It’s true — as well as the reason why simple window replacements can increase home energy efficiency far more than most homeowners realize, lowering household energy bills by an 12% on average. Doing so should make your home more comfortable, with more stable and regulatable indoor air temperatures as a year-round benefit, too.
Where to get started? Per the ESHU recommendations, here are a number of factors that might come to bear on your decision-making process, particularly as they impact costs:
Home age: Homes constructed prior to 1978 may require additional safety precautions due to possible presence of lead paint, which will likely elevate costs — but don’t let that stop you. Getting this cleaned up ASAP should be your priority, given that lead paint has been linked to damage to the brain and nervous system, growth and development issues, and worse.
Type of windows: Single-pane windows, comprising only one layer of glass, are generally poor performers, not only struggling to guard against cold weather but doing little to interfere with solar heat during the summer, which can add to home air conditioning costs. If your home is outfitted with single-pane windows, consider a wholesale upgrade.
Number of windows: Buying at least 10 windows is a good rule of thumb, since it’s oftentimes the minimum for realizing reductions in your purchase or installation costs. So if you can, in other words, don’t treat this as a one-window-at-a-time project.
In light of the above, it’s no surprise that costs vary. A lot. But that’s probably to be expected when so much depends on your home’s unique needs. However, there are such compelling financial incentives to keep in mind in this department, so don’t let that dissuade you — even a relatively quick fix like installing storm windows may deliver ROI by reducing heating and cooling costs in as little as two or three years (depending on the number of windows that need to be replaced), for example. In the meantime, check out our deep dive into high-performing windows to learn more about the expected timeline to breakeven as well as the measurements you should look for when making this upgrade.
No matter where you are in your home improvement journey on this year’s ENERGY STAR Day — or any day — ESHU includes valuable insights, lessons, and takeaways that can enhance it in some of the ways that we’ve discussed. In fact, U.S. homeowners should recognize ENERGY STAR as the north star when it comes to home energy efficiency ratings and more. It can be your go-to resource for trustworth, unbiased, evidence-based information, and help you make more informed decisions about virtually anything having to do with home performance upgrades, remodeling, or renovation.
Visit the ESHU webpage today for more info on rebates and discounts and to get additional insights on navigating the home upgrade process.
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