Insurance or Government assistance for energy efficiency upgrades
 

My 4 year old home is very underventilated. Lots of eaves vent intake but
only three small mushroom type roof vents over 2500 sqft of attic floor.
I'm considering ridge vents.

I was told that if the design of my homes ventalition is below some
"standard" and bringing it up to standard meets some energy efficiency
metric, either the government or my insurance company would cover part or
all of the upgrade.

This is in Houston Texas.

Anyone else heard of this or is it complete BS?

Insurance or Government assistance for energy efficiency upgrades
 

On Apr 30, 8:57 pm, "Mook Johnson" wrote:
My 4 year old home is very underventilated. Lots of eaves vent intake but
only three small mushroom type roof vents over 2500 sqft of attic floor.
I'm considering ridge vents.

I was told that if the design of my homes ventalition is below some
"standard" and bringing it up to standard meets some energy efficiency
metric, either the government or my insurance company would cover part or
all of the upgrade.

This is in Houston Texas.

Anyone else heard of this or is it complete BS?

Only thing I know of is the tax credits for certain high-efficiency
HVAC systems or on-demand hot water, etc. I believe some cases doors/
windows/etc. might also qualify. I'm unaware of anything that simply
changing some ventilation would qualify for. There are some local
utilities that have incentive programs as well. You should call your
utility supplier(s) for whatever form(s) you use to check on them.
You can look at the US "Energy Star" and/or IRS web sites for details
of the tax rebate programs. In what looking I've done, the rebates
were hardly enough to even make the extra efficiency an additional
consideration ($300 max typical for 14+ SEER A/C kinda' thing is what
I'm recalling. Not that $300 is to be tossed aside, but it isn't big
enough to be a real motivator on its own, methinks). Some of the
local programs in the past, however, have been pretty good deals w/
low/no cost loans over fairly long periods simply a few extra bucks a
month on the utility bill (which may well be less anyway if the need
was great enough).

OBTW, if you're thinking of the Federal tax credits, it expires this
year unless Congress sees fit to extend it which is, so far, anybody's
guess...

Insurance or Government assistance for energy efficiency upgrades
 

"Mook Johnson" wrote in message
...
My 4 year old home is very underventilated. Lots of eaves vent intake but
only three small mushroom type roof vents over 2500 sqft of attic floor.
I'm considering ridge vents.

I was told that if the design of my homes ventalition is below some
"standard" and bringing it up to standard meets some energy efficiency
metric, either the government or my insurance company would cover part or
all of the upgrade.

This is in Houston Texas.

Anyone else heard of this or is it complete BS?

There are assorted government programs in increase energy efficiency, but
I've never heard of any to correct poor design by the builder or architect.
Ridge vents are a good idea though.