House Calls

Had there not been an economic meltdown of the present order of magnitude, it can be safely assumed that Congress would not be rushing to put the finishing touches on a stimulus package for the new president to sign post haste. Healthcare, income taxes and foreign policy issues would have all have taken precedence over domestic government spending plans.

But the economy is suffering a setback — a major banking and credit crisis — and, these days, spending $800 billion of taxpayer money in order to jump-start the economy and to hopefully create thousands of jobs is not only acceptable but is now fully expected to be enacted into law by the middle of next month.

In additions to billions in spending on transportation and other public infrastructure projects that are “shovel ready,” the package is also likely to include spending on housing and renovation.

All manner of tax credits and lending programs on purchases of new and existing homes are being drawn up to help eliminate the growing backlog of unsold homes. (And because remodeling activity is triggered in part by the sale of existing homes, this, in and of itself, would be welcome news to remodelers.) In addition, there is now a growing chorus among housing, energy and environmental officials, as well as among conservation groups, namely the 31-year-old Alliance to Save Energy, that significant funds for home weatherization and home energy retrofits will also be included in the final stimulus plan.

“Hopefully the government will use this unique opportunity to make it a cleaner, greener world,” said the Alliance to Save Energy’s Brian Castelli, an executive vice president with the organization. “Congress should fund home energy retrofits. It is a real opportunity.”

Like the overall stimulus package the dollars being considered for home improvement are large.

According to Castelli, current drafts of the stimulus package include $2.8 billion to be administered jointly by home-efficiency experts within the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy — namely the Home Performance with Energy Star program. That program currently supports 27 state and local programs to perform energy retrofits on homes. Remodelers may also benefit through direct funding of energy retrofits of state and local government buildings. Approximately $4 billion has been earmarked for energy-efficiency retrofits of those types of facilities, says Castelli. An additional $3 billion will likely be set aside for school energy retrofits.

Lastly, a long-standing Department of Energy program to provide weatherization funds for low-income households is expected to be vastly expanded under current drafts of the plan. This past fall, Congress added $250 million to augment the current budget of this program. They expect it would create 8,000 private sectors jobs. Under the stimulus package, an additional $2 billion is being considered, with a goal of weatherizing 1 million U.S. homes annually, up from the current rate of 140,000. If sustained, it is estimated that the additional weatherization funding would create an 78,000 new home improvement related “green collar” jobs across the U.S.

All told, stimulus package funding for energy retrofits of homes, schools and government buildings could be as much as $11.7 billion — a huge figure that some argue would transform the small but growing universe of building science and building envelope specialists.

Among those who see the potential for the equivalent of a “moon launch” for home energy retrofits is David Lee, a branch chief for the Environmental Protection Agency, who runs the Energy Star residential branch of the department, which runs a program called Home Performance with Energy Star.

“It is ambitious to envision a time when perhaps as many as 10 million homes annually will receive energy retrofits,” says Lee, “but the growth rate that we’ve seen in building envelope certifications [through the Building Performance Institute] indicates there is a lot of interest among contractors. Also, given the amount of money being discussed for the stimulus package, the financial incentive would certainly give it a boost.”