My 4 year old home is very underventilated. Lots of eaves vent intake but only three small mushroom type roof vents over 2500 sqft of attic floor. I'm considering ridge vents.
I was told that if the design of my homes ventalition is below some "standard" and bringing it up to standard meets some energy efficiency metric, either the government or my insurance company would cover part or all of the upgrade.
This is in Houston Texas.
Anyone else heard of this or is it complete BS?
Only thing I know of is the tax credits for certain high-efficiency HVAC systems or on-demand hot water, etc. I believe some cases doors/ windows/etc. might also qualify. I'm unaware of anything that simply changing some ventilation would qualify for. There are some local utilities that have incentive programs as well. You should call your utility supplier(s) for whatever form(s) you use to check on them. You can look at the US "Energy Star" and/or IRS web sites for details of the tax rebate programs. In what looking I've done, the rebates were hardly enough to even make the extra efficiency an additional consideration ($300 max typical for 14+ SEER A/C kinda' thing is what I'm recalling. Not that $300 is to be tossed aside, but it isn't big enough to be a real motivator on its own, methinks). Some of the local programs in the past, however, have been pretty good deals w/ low/no cost loans over fairly long periods simply a few extra bucks a month on the utility bill (which may well be less anyway if the need was great enough).
OBTW, if you're thinking of the Federal tax credits, it expires this year unless Congress sees fit to extend it which is, so far, anybody's guess...
There are assorted government programs in increase energy efficiency, but I've never heard of any to correct poor design by the builder or architect. Ridge vents are a good idea though.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.