President Obama: Insulation Is Sexy

New Incentives For Rendering Homes and Commercial Buildings More Energy Efficient.

Ever since my husband and I have been married (25 years) we have bought, retrofitted, improved and sold homes. It was instinctive to improve our first home when I felt the cold air transfer at my icy window in the first house we bought in Summit County, Colorado .

We replaced the doors and windows…

and instantly enjoyed a much warmer house. After then adding insulation in the floors, walls, basement, and attic, our heating costs lowered by 72%! (There turned out to be NO insulation in the sub-floor in a home in Colorado high country. WHAT?!?!?) We have been buying, retrofitting and selling homes in this way ever since.

Yesterday, President Obama turned his attention to this topic in his talk at Home Depot. Click play beneath the video at the top of the article to watch what President Obama said (12/15/09) about the Recovery Act Funding and retrofitting houses.

Here is a table of what’s been allocated and what’s been spent to date in Government Grants for Energy Efficiency (click here) listed state by state.

Quick Facts:

* $5 Billion for low income home weatherizing in the US: insulation and replacing old heating/air with energy star heat pumps, replacing and sealing doors, windows and insulating walls, floors and roofs.

* Homes built prior to 1950 use 50% more energy than homes built today to achieve the same (heating/cooling) results.

* American homes and offices consume 40% of energy we use and contribute 40% of our carbon pollution.

Now: quick notes for help on retrofitting your homes.

1) There are funds for some Americans right now to weatherize your home. WHICH Americans? The Recovery Act funds each state for this. Each state then decides how to disburse these low income home weatherizing government grants. Click on your state to find contact info on Weatherization Programs in your state. .

Also you can look for government grants through your state in the Girlgrants’ article “Links to TANF in your state” ( go to TANF article). I clicked on Maine in the TANF article, and found out who is eligible.

“Am I Eligible?
You may be eligible to receive Weatherization or CHIP assistance if your total household income falls within 230% of the federal poverty guidelines or 75% of the state area median income, whichever is less. Eligibility for …” (for more go here).

2) There are jobs in this field and the field is quickly expanding. You can become a Certified Weatherization Technician, certified by the US government.. who then feed you customers through their programs that they fund. The people interviewed inthis video tell that they are ambushed with work and have people needing their labor on waiting lists! Imagine having a waiting list of clients in this economy.

Watch video of people who have been trained and are now working as Certified Weatherization Technicians (click here). It’s actually really exciting. Check it out.

To find out more about Government Programs For National Weatherization Training and Technical Assistance Plan, click here. .

3) President Obama is seeking to stimulate consumer spending and create jobs in an effort to increase home / commercial/ industrial property energy efficiency by going to Congress requesting specific incentive programs to be initiated. What this means is there is more help coming and to keep your eye out for more funds and work coming in this arena.

He states that government grants for energy efficiency are going to be responsible for upgrading 1/2 million buildings this year. He sees this number increasing in years to come. He is trying to demonstrate to the consumer that by installing these upgrades voluntarily, it will pay for itself in the coming years’ savings and employ construction workers in the hard-hit building sector. When we installed our solar panel for water heating , we got government money to offset the cost. Our power use decreased as well.

4) Our Canadians Neighbors enjoy much broader and sweeping support to retrofit their houses and commercial buildings. There are government grant funds for retrofitting Canadian homes. It very easily found and clearly spelled out. Over $1,000 in grant money to replace a heat pump; over $4,000 to install an earth energy system; $500 for installing an energy star heat pump; $350 to replace a wood burning stove with a more efficient one…

Here is the list of Canadian Government Grants for weatherization and specific dollar amounts available. I suggest Americans go as well to look at what their government is spending on retrofitting houses.

Here is the link for the Canadian application information.

President Obama’s Speech is Related to Copenhagen Summit. He knows that global warming is directly related to what the Big 10 countries consume in energy and that if we agree to decrease consumption by 40% (just the top 10 global energy consuming countries!), the global warming will slow to a grinding halt. So says the scientific evaluation of global consumption of power and resources.

In the US, we can expect and increase in government grants for as well as incentive for energy efficiency and reduction of resource consumption. My guess is it will be solely in the form of tax incentives – but I may be wrong – to retrofit our homes. What this means is not so much cash in the pocket for Americans who retrofit (unlike our lucky Canadian neighbors) but that your investment in your home in this way will , as President Obama says, “pay for itself”. Come on America, let’s do it. For our pocket books adn to stop all the waste.

President Obama in his speech forecasts half a million homes in the United States upgraded in the coming year, and hopes to inspire an entirely new broad job base by encouraging consumer spending to retrofit and weatherize the home.

Read on for more Facts about Government Funds in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy:

* $11 billion for a bigger, better, and smarter grid that will move renewable energy from the rural places it is produced to the cities where it is mostly used, as well as for 40 million smart meters to be deployed in American homes.

* $4.5 billion to green federal buildings and cut our energy bill, saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

* $6.3 billion for state and local renewable energy and energy efficiency efforts.

* $600 million in green job training programs – $100 million to expand line worker training programs and $500 million for green workforce training.

* $2 billion in competitive grants to develop the next generation of batteries to store energy.
(from White House press release.)