Can home insulation become a celebrity like Lady Gaga?

Lady Gaga and home insulation - one's a celebrity and the other deserves to be, a home renovator says.

(Page 2 of 2)

“The construction industry has a 24.7 percent unemployment, it’s been demolished, it’s in a depression, and we use materials that are 90 percent domestically produced,” says Matt Golden, a member of the Home Star Coalition, which represents industries involved in home renovation and pushing “Cash for Caulkers.” “This will save people money and create jobs locally – it’s a win-win.”

Alexandra Marks

Blogger

Alexandra writes about the "green" and budget-friendly renovation of a 100-year-old farmhouse in south-central Connecticut.

Enlarge

Recent posts

04.27.10
Green renovation: Lessons learned
04.23.10
Sheep Dog Hollow's green renovation is almost finished
04.21.10
How to determine if wind power is for you
04.15.10
Wind power in New England: Is it a good renovation option?
04.09.10
The spacemen cometh: How spray-in insulation creates a leak-free building

Related stories

Cash for Caulkers could do this, according to the coalition’s website, by establishing “a $6 billion rebate program to encourage immediate investment in energy-efficient appliances, building mechanical systems and insulation, and whole-home energy efficiency retrofits. HOME STAR will rapidly create jobs in both construction and manufacturing, while saving families money on their energy bills. It will build on current state programs and existing industry capacity for performing both retrofits and quality assurance, using federal standards and incentives as a common platform to lower program costs and increase consumer awareness.”

The details are still being worked out in Congress, but Mr. Golden says a bill could be “dropped” by the end of this week and incorporated into one of the various jobs bills making its way around Capitol Hill. It’s got support of labor unions and Fortune 500 companies alike, in part, because it’s designed to be short-term and market-based.

“Its goal is to do more than just help people go out and buy a bunch of stuff. This is about fundamentally transforming the market,” says Golden. “We have an industry that was focused on new construction for years and now is really beat up – with one in four workers unemployed – and this program gives businesses the confidence to shift their focus to retrofitting homes and reinvest and start hiring people. It’s putting in place a foundation for a type of industry that can continue to grow in the future without the need for subsidies.”

But there is skepticism about the program. The Business Pundit is worried about adding to the deficit, among other things:
1. When the government drives consumer purchasing incentives, they don’t always work.
2. If loans aren’t being offered, how will consumers come up with thousands of dollars in cash to pay their half?
3. It’s easy to commit fraud under the catch-all phrase “weatherization.”
4. It would be more effective to weatherize commercial and government buildings, too.

The HomeStar program is being designed to address at least the top three concerns, according to Golden. And even the Business Pundit says he “hopes it works.”

From a rather pedestrian green perspective, wouldn’t it be wonderful if insulation and weatherization could attain Lady Gaga-like status? More Americans could save 20 to 30 percent on their heating bills and live in much more cozy homes. That’s worth a paparazzi snapshot in my opinion.

-----

Alexandra Marks blogs twice a week about her green and budget-friendly restoration of a 1902 farmhouse in Connecticut. Click here to find all her blog posts and articles.