HELP is on the way to Montgomery County Date:03/11/2010 - 14:28

Written by guest poster Matt Dirksen.

On Tuesday, March 24th at 1:30 in the afternoon at the Montgomery County Council Hearing Room, there will be a public hearing on the Home Energy Loan Program; better known as “HELP”. This program is designed to give homeowners a zero (yes – ZERO) percent loan toward energy efficiency improvements in their home. For the white paper, here is the link: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Apps/Council/PressRelease/PR_details.asp?PrID=5216

Basically, a homeowner will have to conduct a home energy audit by a County approved auditor, in order to illustrate what energy improvements will be cost effective. With that information, the homeowner can get a loan from the County and then have the work completed. The loan will be repaid over fifteen years though an adjustment to their property taxes. The real neat thing about this program is if a home owner plans to sell their house within the fifteen years, the loan will continue to be paid through the property taxes. Although this might be a slightly larger expense to a future homeowner, this will also be an authentic (and measurable) way to know that genuine energy improvements were made to the house. This, coupled with the previous years worth of energy bills (a County requirement), and the potential homebuyer will now have a real projection of their future energy expenses, and be able to compare one home’s performance with another home. So although one home might have slightly higher property taxes, they will probably be paying considerably less on electricity and gas compared with another house of the same size where no improvements were made.

“Renewable Energy Device”
The other great part to the program is that the loan money can also be used to install a “Renewable Energy Device”. If your home receives a HERS score of 100 or below, or the auditor can project the energy improvement savings to exceed 30 percent, your home may qualify for this loan. This will allow you to get a loan to install solar panels, wind turbines, or other renewable energy devices.

As time goes by, more and more people see fuel efficiency as one of the primary decision makers on their automobile purchases. I envision a day when people will look at their homes in essentially the same manner, and I see this new program HELPing this happen sooner. Once this passes (and I believe it will), I can now only wish to see other counties in the DC Metropolitan area offer the same program.

So I hope to see you at the hearing, to give it some support!