Bend City Council considers making Home Energy Score mandatory, gaining opposition

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) –The Home Energy Score encourages greater energy-saving changes, but the downside is high costs.

The Bend City Council is considering mandating a Home Energy Score to be prepared by anyone selling a home to encourage upgrades to more energy efficiency and to help inform homebuyers.

John Schwencke, a Home Energy Inspector with PorchLight Home Inspection, is one of the few home energy inspectors in Bend.

“We’re looking at the home’s physical assets and how it effects the performance and energy efficiency of the house,” Schwencke said Monday.

The Home Energy Score is a one in 10 rating that creates transparency for how to compare a home’s energy performance with other homes. It also offers recommendations for improving efficiency.

“We’re looking at the heating equipment, the air conditioning, the thermal envelope which includes the windows, the attic insulation, the crawl space insulation,” Schwencke said.

Mike Tucker is a Bend homeowner that finds the home energy score to be beneficial.

“I just think it’s super exciting that we’re using technology that just really wasn’t available 10, 15 years ago to inspect homes and see things that we couldn’t see before,” Tucker said.

The energy score gives an idea of ​​what the cost of utilities will be for a house.

However, as informative as home energy score is, Cindy King, a Principal Broker with Remax Properties doesn’t believe it should be mandatory.

“The mandatory nature of it puts property owners in a position where they could be faced with doing improvements that they can’t afford to do at the time,” Principal Broker with Remax Key Properties Cindy King said.

The Central Oregon Association of Realtors recently sent a flyer to city residents, urging opposition from the public at a Nov. 16 council meeting. They call it the wrong approach at the wrong time, while claiming that Bend is already facing affordability issues with rising house costs.

In the mailer with a QR code linking to a website called “Keep Bend Affordable,” the organization says requiring a home energy score for home sales would only add more costs, helping to price some homebuyers out of the market.

King said atleast 25 percent of homes in Bend were built before 1980, which means they’ll likely require more upgrades to raise their home energy score.

“If the City of Bend adopts this, it’s going to cost the city homeowners and taxpayers up to half a million dollars a year annually to pay just for the score, and that’s based on a score cost of $250,” King said.

King said having a mandatory home energy score program may also have a disproportionately impact on low income residents which could be burdened with upgrade costs.

She also pointed to another concern-capacity.

With the very few home energy assessors in Bend, King said that may cause delays and drive up costs.

The proposed Home Energy Score, in the works for the past several months, is part of the Bend Community Climate Action Plan, to reduce community greenhouse gas emissions.