Buying a new home or remodeling?

You have a right to an energy efficient home. Energy codes are minimum requirements for the design and construction of new and renovated residential and commercial buildings. They ensure your home meets minimum energy efficiency standards. Energy codes reduce energy demand, save consumers money, improve comfort, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Most states update energy codes every three years in order to keep pace with advancements in technology and construction methods, but some states do not. In those states, building to outdated standards causes home and business owners to pay unnecessarily high energy bill every month for the lifetime of the building.

Why are energy codes important?

Residential and commercial buildings consume over 40% of energy used in the United States. Modern energy codes protect citizens and our economy from increasingly high energy bills. As a nation, our growing demand for energy impacts:

• A family’s standard of living: Money spent on monthly energy bill could be spent elsewhere.
• Our economy: Every dollar not spent on imported energy is a dollar that remains in our economy. The more energy we import, the more money we export.
• The environment: Energy efficiency reduces air, water, and soil pollution because fewer fossil fuels are burned to meet demand.
• U.S. competitiveness: Lower energy bills make it easier for American businesses to thrive inside its border, and not move overseas.
• Jobs: Increased demand for energy efficient goods and services provides jobs for contractors, insulators, mechanical systems companies, window manufacturers, and more.
• Energy rates: Energy codes help keep rates lower by delaying the need to build costly new power plants, and ease the strain on our nation’s aging utility grid that delivers energy from power plants to our homes and businesses.
• National security: Energy efficiency reduces the amount of energy we need to import from outside the U.S.