Are you a 10 ... or a 1?

You might have heard that Vice President Biden announced the new Home Energy Scoring Program. This new voluntary initiative offers homeowners a great way to check their homes energy efficiency, comparing their home's score to others in their region.

According to the press release:

“Under this voluntary program, trained and certified contractors will use a standardized assessment tool developed by DOE and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to quickly evaluate a home and generate useful, actionable information for homeowners or prospective homebuyers. With only about 40 inputs required, the Home Energy Scoring Tool lets a contractor evaluate a home's energy assets, like its heating and cooling systems, insulation levels and more, in generally less than an hour. That means a homeowner can see how their home's systems score, regardless of whether a particular homeowner takes long or short showers or keeps their thermostat set high or low.”

The scoring system provides homeowners a 1-10 score, where a "10" is a home with excellent energy performance, and a "1" is a home that would benefit from energy upgrades. In addition to the score, the homeowner will receive a list of recommended energy efficient upgrades, and their estimated energy savings, payback periods and greenhouse gas emission reductions.

In cooperation with the Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP), one of the pilot program testing locations is the Greater Charlottesville area. LEAP will conduct 400 home energy assessments for Charlottesville area residents as part of the pilot program. If you're local and interested in getting your Home Energy Score, contact LEAP for details.