(Nan’s Note: I found the title of this article a little misleading. Not so much misleading, but it doesn’t convey the wonderful information in it about green building and energy efficient mortgages. There is an idea here I have not heard before. Instead of an energy efficient mortgage (EEM), all mortgages should be required to take energy efficiency into consideration. There should be no specialization. Wow. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this!
There is a great photo in here of a blower door test in an energy audit, and there’s a chart explaining a HERS rating. There’s not so much info about Energy Star or sick homes, but it’s worth reading to understand how we can get more efficient homes built, sold and lived in.
By the by, when I remodeled my home a couple years ago, I did an energy audit and got a HERS score of 88. Check that out when you look at the chart, and read about my solar retrofit.)
By Andrew McGlashen
… the US housing stock remains woefully ’sick.’
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.
Read this informative article at The Daily Climate.
