By: Andy Cockburn, NAIMA Canada
Millions of existing homes across North America need help improving their performance. Enhancing comfort, reducing energy costs, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions are all key priorities. One of the most effective ways to achieve these goals is through a deep energy retrofit (DER).
Insulation Institute focuses this week on five housing-related stories that are also, in part, affordability and energy efficiency stories. You may have missed a few of these, so we hope this quick recap will be informative and timely.
Harvard’s 2025 State of the Nation’s Housing Released
Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) released the 2025 State of the Nation’s Housing Report on Tuesday. The report highlights a litany of concerns for the U.S. housing market and home buyers, including skyrocketing insurance premiums and property taxes, a sharp rise in homelessness, and growing dangers of climate disasters. Despite these challenges and in the face of diminished federal support, state and local governments are ramping up efforts to tackle affordable housing (which is also challenged by increasing homeowner costs, like utilities). For example, Minnesota has approved a bill allocating $242M to housing finance and another $100M in infrastructure bonds to support affordable housing development.
Details »A recent National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) survey revealed that a majority of prospective homebuyers rate energy-efficient features, such as above-code insulation and ENERGY STAR-compliant appliances and building products (including windows, doors, and HVAC systems), as essential or desirable. While the consumer desire for energy-efficient features isn’t new, it has only grown in importance in recent years.
A decade ago, the average U.S. home size was 2,657 square feet, and the average household size was 2.58 persons. Today, the square footage and household size have decreased in America for one simple reason: cost. However, it is not just the cost to build but also the cost to operate a home, which can be a buyer’s second-largest expense after the mortgage.
The Trump Administration’s announcement that it plans to shutter the EPA ENERGY STAR program reverberated across the industry this week. While much of the attention is focused on the impacts on appliances, the housing and building performance industry would be heavily impacted by the end of the ENERGY STAR for residential and commercial buildings. After all, ENERGY STAR is foundational to many high-performance building programs.
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Earth Day has been celebrated in America since 1970 and serves as an opportunity to support environmental protection nationwide. There could be no better time than this 45th Annual Earth Day celebration to highlight how fiberglass and mineral wool insulations protect the American environment. Here are 10 reasons that fiberglass and mineral wool insulations matter as we celebrate Earth Day:
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According to research from the Sierra Club, roughly 50 percent of tenants in the U.S. are cost-burdened by utility payments. As building owners nationwide address much-needed energy efficiency improvements in aging rental housing stock, there’s a growing emphasis on mitigating steep rent increases for renters.
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New research released this week from Data for Progress reveals that a bipartisan majority of American voters know about energy efficiency (68 percent) and that it can reduce energy consumption at home and lower household costs. Additionally, U.S. Energy Information Administration data shows that U.S. energy consumption per household declined by 32 percent between 1980 and 2015 even with rising electrification and appliance use. Yet, despite the broad awareness of and appreciation for energy efficiency, most voters are unaware of top actions and incentives for efficiency improvements.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficiency Economy (ACEEE) recently released a new fact sheet on the use of the 45L Builder New Home Tax Credit. The credit aided home builders nationwide last year – spurring the construction of 350,000 new energy-efficient homes, which resulted in significant cost savings for home buyers. That amounts to roughly 22 percent of new homes built in 2024.
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“Strengthening building efficiency codes is an essential element of increasing resilience and improving health and safety,” concludes a new report from Just Solutions, a climate organization that works with communities disproportionately impacted by climate change to improve outcomes.
The report, released last month, urges the adoption of the 2021 IECC efficiency standards in new single-family construction, conducting more benefit-cost analyses of investments in building energy efficiency retrofits, increasing the passive survivability of homes, and committing to a holistic approach to resilience to mitigate the impacts of worsening climate extremes. The organization joins a long list of NGOs and for-profit companies, including Zillow, now advocating for increased resiliency in U.S. housing.
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