The stimulus package alone will cost our grandchildren without them ever receiving any advantageous results. To enhance the economy should be looked at from the perspective that everyone else would do, cut costs and to use your resources to the fullest extent. This does not include going out and spending more money that you do not have. Bigger government is not the answer. Bailing out corrupt corporations and banks are also not the answer. Allowing them to fail and the market to correct itself is the best possible alternative.

I agree that Kimberly and Johnsie are providing extreme examples of weatherizing a home. Energy auditors can do much less work and still achieve up to 20% efficiencies. A blower door test to find leaks, some mastic on the HVAC system – the home will become a lot tighter and the heating system more efficient all for less than $1,000. And in many cases an energy auditor will do the same work. A good story on NPR yesterday – http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101059253
The only problem with making the home tighter is now there could be an indoor air quality issue and possible health issues.

This energy auditor/ weatherization assistant, whatever you call them, are a trade that is here to stay. They can fix cooling issues in the summer as well and in the future it is all about infill development, rehabing old homes to provide housing for our growing population. With all the recent changes in building science and the legacy methods of home buildings still in use today, these skills are desperately needed even as consultants to many legacy home builders. The next step should be an energy rating (HERS) at the time of new ‘building plan submittal’ to local building officials so anything being built new is somewhat energy efficient. Just conforming to code is not doing much.

Yes you can replace windows, doors, add alternative energy and as correctly stated, the payback is much longer. These types of improvements are better suited for homeowners with the access to capital for the investment, usually not your lower income demographic. For these type of improvements there is the Energy Efficient Mortgage but as stated in an earlier FAS paper “Rebuilding Mortgages for Energy Efficiency” this program needs to be improved. Its unfortunate the new stimulus didn’t address EEMs, a huge miss.

LEED does have a residential program, LEED for Homes, but realistically it is for new construction but I do beleive they also have retrofit guidelines.

All in all, I think the focus on weatherization in the stimulus package is a smart move. If 1,000,000 homes can improve efficiency by 20%, you win with more jobs, energy savings, utility payment savings, and a reduced carbon footprint. Its better than giving money to Walls St.

Now if you assume the average house hold is 4.2 people and at the current population of 305 million it would work out to 71 million single family homes in the US. So when you divide $6.2 billion dollars per single family home it works out to $87 per home that would benefit from this “Weatherazation” program.

Now please explain to me how that is helpful to our nation and helpful to the average household that is struggling to buy the daily necessities.

This is $6.2 billion wasted on another Liberal pipe dream. The best way to have handled this is to have the states legislate a tougher building standard that would meet LEED Silver or higher certification.

I guess you all have no earthly idea what weatherization Assistance Program even is. When you are weatherize a home, you are equipping a house with everything it needs to be more energy efficient. Or do you even know what that means?? They send an energy auditor into homes, that most city governments have to call in someone trained because most city officials aren’t. Energy auditors don’t get paid minimum wage. To weatherize a home, they will remove windows and replace them with ones more energy efficient. And, again the city has to hire trained individuals to install the windows. Next, they will often have to reinsulated a house, which again takes a different trained individual. Finally, they will call plumbers in, to replace leaky pipes, and put in the new tankless water heaters, the new energy efficient toilets, and even tubs. Imagine that…evidently some have no idea what that is. Lastly, they’ll call in HVAC people to install more efficient heating/air source. And, depending on how much the weatherization is expanded, they may try to set them up with solar panels or other such things that would make people less dependent on electricity for their heating or air source, and they won’t have to continue paying $300+ on their electric bill. The people trained to do these jobs aren’t ‘weather assisters’ they are blue collar workers; they work in 100 degree weather and in 30 below weather. They don’t get paid minimum wage, or even $10 an a hour.

I find it fascinating that people think that anyone that earns less than $24 an hour isn’t worth giving a job. Yes, this may not put factory workers back to work, but come on people it’s going to take time. Most of what would be produced in these factories, people can’t afford to buy it. Give me a break, it just seems like you all want everything to go back to normal overnight but President Obama has told us repeatedly that it’s not going to happen overnight and it’s going to take patience.

The $358 could very well add up to the $6,200,000,000 when you consider the millions of people that are low income or senior citizen in need of that weatherization.

$358?

Is that worth $6,200,000,000?

And is realistic to think that we will now have 300,000 new jobs, 300,000 new “weatherization assisters” running around the country? How long will that last?