The proposed Home Star "Cash for Caulkers" program is making its way through the Senate. It's recently gained support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and has up to 20 co-sponsors (Jim Webb jumped on board last week), with enthusiastic supporters on both sides of the aisle and champions both on Wall Street and Main Street.
We're thrilled to see this sort of enthusiasm. The program promises to be an enormous boon for the construction and manufacturing industries, for homeowners on tight budgets, and for the cause of energy efficiency - Home Star may be just what EE needs to break its way into the mainstream.
With that in mind, it's important for home performance contractors and energy efficiency professionals to start wrapping their heads around the complexities of the program NOW, in order to be well prepared for a potential boom in business when the program becomes law.
Two sources recently became available to help you do so, now. First of all, Houston Neal's Definitive Guide to the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010 is a plain language, easily comprehensible guide complete with all the information you'll need to know. Eye-friendly tables break down the rebate amounts available for each eligible home upgrade and the specific requirements for each upgrade, additional financing resources are listed as well, and additional questions have been answered by Houston in a comment stream about a mile long. Check it out.
Furthermore, Efficiency First has a webinar called "Financing Resources for Home Performance Contractors: Getting Ready for the HOME STAR Gold Rush" that will take place on Wednesday, June 30 (that's tomorrow) at 2pm Eastern time, that will undoubtedly be worth your time. Unfortunately, the webinar does require that you become a member of Efficiency First; but for an energy efficiency business getting off the ground, that may not be a terrible idea: the Efficiency First team is informed, helpful, dedicated to the cause, and they spend a good amount of time in D.C., so they're always up to speed on the latest legislative gossip.
We highly recommend both resources. Remember, the best way to give your business a leg up when Home Star becomes law is to start studying up now.
Comments
While things are looking promising, Home Star isn't over the goal line yet. If you want the legislation to pass, call your Senators to say so! Today is the day, as they're trying to get it passed before the holiday.
At first I was a little intimidated, but it's a snap. Here's all you need to do:
There are also usually web forms to fill out. These are good, too. Doing both is fine.
Posted by Tom Harrison on Jun 29, 2010 12:05pmWill,
Thanks for the first link. That was a good, easy to follow summary, as promised.
As for the webinar, you neglected to mentioned that it requires a minimum $250 membership in an industry PAC to be able to register.
Posted by Andy Ault, CLC on Jun 29, 2010 1:23pmYou should have mentioned that the Efficiency First webinars require you to be a member of Efficiency First and that will set you back $250 minimum.
David
Posted by David Fay on Jun 29, 2010 1:25pmDavid and Andy,
Indeed, a mildly gargantuan oversight on my part; I've amended the post to reflect the requirement. Thanks to both of you for reading the post and for pointing out my slip.
- Will
Posted by Will on Jun 29, 2010 2:25pm