Quote:
Originally Posted by Student 07
Hi,
As Piwoslaw says most of Europe uses an energy certificate. I know Germany does. It does help when you're trying to decide which home to buy or the value of a house you're trying to sell. When you buy a car you expect the EPA sticker to tell you how efficient the vehicle is- why would you not want the same information for a house? When comparing houses you now have an additional factor (efficiency) to compare.
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Energy Certificates are required in the EU as a consequence of signing on to the Kyoto Protocol (50% of GHG emissions come from fossil fuels burned heating & cooling buildings). ALL residential or commercial buildings that are to go on sale MUST have an energy audit done & results made available so that the potential buyer knows what it will cost to operate the building. Also, the sticker also tells you what reasonable conservation measures could be done to improve energy efficiency & how the building would rate after said improvements.
It created ALOT of jobs for energy auditors & raised public awareness of energy efficiency.
We tried to implement this in PA, but Realtors, Developers & Construction lobby defeated it. They do not want an informed consumer.