Reducing the cost of home energy upgrades in the US: An industry survey

Decarbonizing the US residential building stock requires a substantial acceleration in home energy upgrades. Numerous barriers exist to accelerating adoption of efficient and electric building technologies, but foremost among these is high upfront costs. Reducing costs is a top priority for accelerating decarbonization of existing US homes. This study uses an industry survey delivered to a sample of home energy professionals to examine promising cost reduction strategies across a range of project types, including HVAC, water heating, and envelope projects. The survey included quantitative and qualitative questions to collect evidence on the estimated cost reduction potential of these strategies and their likelihood of use in the construction industry. The 167 survey respondents included contractors, energy consultants, architects, manufacturers, and others with experience in delivering energy upgrades in single-family and multifamily buildings in the US. Results show that significant cost reductions are achievable by minimizing additional infrastructure costs (such as replacing electric panels), streamlining project planning/management, and deploying innovations that simplify installation. We find that for a typical deep retrofit project including heat pumps for space and water heating in addition to envelope upgrades, the strategies could result in a total installed cost reduction of nearly 50%, dramatically improving the customer economics of such a project. This research makes a novel contribution to the literature on strategies to reduce the costs of residential retrofits. We discuss how our study’s insights on the highest-value cost reduction strategies for home energy upgrades can further accelerate their uptake in the US housing stock. • Survey of 167 home energy upgrade professionals to assess cost reduction pathways • Top heat pump strategies include avoiding electric work and re-using existing ducts • Results suggest 21–37% in cost reductions for individual upgrade measures • Typical whole-building retrofit can achieve up to 48% reduction in installed costs • Paper highlights key challenges and opportunities for scaling home energy upgrades