Details of Cash for Caulkers

details-of-cash-for-caulkers Cash for Caulkers! “Cash for Caulkers” for potential government legislation to make homes more energy efficient. John Doerr, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and former President Bill Clinton have separately suggested versions of the idea to the White House. Mr. Doerr calls his proposal, which would give households money to pay for weatherization projects, “cash for caulkers.” Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, told me, “It’s one of the top things he’s looking at,” according to nytimes.

David Leonhardt explains:

This year, my wife and I had an energy audit done on our home. We were interested in finding out if we could save money and, given the attention that weatherizing was starting to get, I figured it could also make for good column fodder. For $400, an auditor spent hours scouring our house, with the help of a big fan he set up in our front door and an infrared camera. He produced a full-color, 13-page detailed report, informing us of the leaks in our house, and he was also willing to tell us which changes were usually a waste of money (new windows).

Even so, we are still trying to figure out which weatherization projects we should do. The whole package would probably cost $4,500 and save us something like $400 a year. We may not stay in the house nearly long enough to justify the investment.

According to Matt Yglesias, the rationale of a “cash for caulkers” idea is that a short-term government subsidy to have this kind of work done would work as stimulus, and also solve some other problems, while getting around this issue. But the problem of people under-insulating their homes is really something that deserves a long-term solution. After all, the weird thing about Leonhardt’s explanation is that while he may not stay in his house the 15-20 years or so it would take to really make the full weatherization package worthwhile, the house will almost certainly still be there. In principle, having money-saving improvements to the house made ought to increase its resale value and be worth doing no matter how long Leonhardt stays in the house. In reality, when people are shopping for houses the question of how energy efficient it is tends to be an extremely low-salience issue and exactly the sort of thing someone is likely to overlook.

Cash for Caulkers

Even so, we are still trying to save the energy but our appliances is to much cost in our electricity bill. Barack Obama said cash for caulker is the key to save our energy efficiency. How it will do?

Details of Cash for Caulkers

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