New Buffalo Impact's Whole House Approach to Energy Savings is made up of three steps:

 

1.        The home energy assessment (energy audit).

2.        Workscope development and financial assistance.

3.        Home energy improvements performed by our BPI-certified technicians. 

 

We help you every step of the way to maximize the return on your investment, and get the most out of the energy savings potential of your home.

 

A home energy audit is your road map to getting the most savings possible for your home improvement dollar.  A New Buffalo Impact certified energy inspector will visit your home for 2-3 hours and perform tests to determine insulation levels, air leakage levels, heating system efficiency, combustion appliance draft, & CO levels.  We then model your home using software and calculate the energy savings that are possible by performing various measures (such as insulation, new windows, a new furnace, etc.).  You can then prioritize the various recommendations in order to get the most out of your available home improvement budget.

Some contractors provide "free energy audits" as a sales gimmick to help them get into as many homes as possible.   The real cost to a contractor to provide each fully completed whole house energy audit is between $200-$300.  Consequently, the contractors that provide lots of free energy audits will be under a great deal of pressure to cover the cost of not only your free energy audit, but also all of the other free audits that they perform.  They do that by pressure selling work that you don't neccessarily need, or charging higher prices for work than you need to pay.  At New Buffalo Impact we charge a small audit fee to cover costs, so that we don't have to inflate the prices of our work.  If you choose us, we then credit your energy audit fee towards any work we perform for you. We don't "sell" you any product or service until the energy savings calculations prove that it makes sense for you. An energy audit should include a 2-3 hour home visit with full regimen of home performance tests, & full written report that includes the contractor's recommendations along with energy savings calculations based on pre and post work computer modeling of the home. 

 

New Buffalo Impact has services and assistance available for homeowners of every income level.   We work with you to determine what programs and incentives are right for you, and to put together an affordable scope of work.  For example, for low to moderate-income homeowners, we can put together a package of grants and low-interest loans that will result in your monthly loan payment being less than your monthly energy savings, immediately putting more money in your pocket!

Work in the following areas is eligible for assistance and incentives from Home Performance with Energy Star®, and may be recommended:

 

Insulation and blower door-assisted air sealing

Energy Star-rated heating and cooling systems

Energy Star-rated windows and doors

Energy Star-rated lighting and appliance                       

Domestic hot water systems

 

No.  When you work with New Buffalo Impact, you work with our licensed, insured and certified employees from start to finish & there is a quality assurance inspection process in place to make sure that each and every customer is satisfied.

Whether you or your tenants are directly paying the energy bills, it makes sense to perform energy improvements on older income properties to increase their value and improve tenant retention rates.  Substantial subsidies are available for properties with low to moderate-income tenants.  Assistance is also available through New Buffalo Impact for multi-family buildings of 5 or more units.  Call 881-1477 for more information.

 

Of course.  Although the way to get the best possible result is to generate the interactive savings by doing all the recommended work, we realize that for many reasons, customers would like to do just insulation (or just a heating system).  Your comprehensive home performance assessment is still a very useful tool to use to plan your energy improvement activities for years to come - even if you just want to do a few windows this season.

We serve all of Erie and Niagara Counties.  And if you're located in another county, call us.  We'll refer you to a certified, reputable home performance contractor in your area.

There are different levels of incentive available depending on your household income.  These incentives are offered by New York's Home Performance with Energy Star program, which is a public benefit program designed by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).  The program's funding comes from money collected from electric utility companies as part of a statewide utility restructuring plan.  There is no taxpayer money involved and it is not a government program.  The available incentives are:

 

1.        A 50% grant available to low to moderate income homeowners (call us for more information.

2.        5.99% Low-Interest Financing for qualifying borrowers.

3.        A 10% Homeowner Financing Incentive for those who choose not to access the Energy Star financing.

Your Energy Impact is simply the percentage of your household income that is spent on Energy.  Lower-income households tend to have a higher Energy Impact than higher-income households, but the good news is that there are a number of different programs available to assist lower-income households to reduce their Energy Impact rating.

New Buffalo Impact will always return to your home at no cost, within one year after the job is performed, to address any deficiencies in our work.  Products that we install such as windows, doors, appliances, and heating and cooling equipment come with their own manufacturers warrantees.

A comprehensive home performance assessment takes 2-3 hours at your home.  Shortly thereafter, we present you with a completed assessment report.  Applications for the program's monetary incentives can take several weeks to process.

If you choose to finance the work yourself, then we accept a 30% down payment, with the remainder due upon completion of the work.

We are a home performance contractor accredited by the Building Performance Institute (BPI).  What that means is that our employees are trained and certified in the various areas of home performance building science (such as building shell, heating, and cooling).