Energy Saving and Incentives
Hi there,
we recently installed new, double pane windows and are about to upgrade out house with insulation.
Does anyone have any recommendations about City incentives, PG&E incentives, and tax credits we could apply for and most importantly where to do that?
I have heard people talking about them, but have not been able to find where to do that yet.
Any specific tips appreciated.
Thank you!
Sep 26, 2021
Parent Replies
BayREN has a lot of incentives and you can speak to an advisor: https://www.bayrenresidential.org/
Good luck!
Unfortunately you need to get an energy audit BEFORE doing any upgrades to get the discount. They measure the house's efficiency before and after the upgrades and in our case it got us about $8k. We worked with McHales for insulation and they did the audit and submitted all the paperwork for us. In your case you should look at PGE's website to see if you can get any rebate for just the windows, after they've already been installed. I haven't heard of anybody doing it ex post facto, because the majority of the efficiency comes from the windows more than the insulation. I'm so sorry your window installer didn't walk you through the process more thoroughly before you did that step!
The incentives change over time and it's going to depend on the city. Berkeley had a really good program we took advantage of, but I think they aren't doing it any more. I would start by calling the city/county and ask them. Next call PG&E and your tax preparer. And lastly talk to the installation contractor. But be careful, they are usually commissioned sales people who may give you misleading information to get a sale. I'd also shop around and get several estimates. In the bids we received prices were all over the place. Some companies were charging double.
We really need to insulate the home where we are living. Once we looked at the cost to insulate we realized it would take over 20 years to break even. What we decided to do was install solar using solar electricity for heating a cooling. It's been several years now and it's worked out great for us.
The PG&E residential program information isn't organized at all well, with info for some programs on the PG&E website and some on 3rd-party provider websites (that is, PG&E is outsourcing management of the program). This might be what you are looking for: https://comfortablehomerebates.com/about-comfortable-home-rebates/. There's also financing for energy efficiency improvements: https://gogreenfinancing.com/residential.
The Federal Tax law had and may still have energy credits for new energy effective windows. It is available as a credit on your federal income tax return. It is not much, and there is a life time phase out. When I get a chance to review the tax law I will update this post.
If you haven't started the insulation yet, note that to get BayRen rebates (for insulation and some other upgrades), you must use an approved contractor. More info here: https://www.bayrenresidential.org/rebates