Tax Reminder - 10% Credit Retroactivity

Just a friendly reminder (hopefully) before you have gotten too deep into your 2012 taxes. If you upgraded the insulation, windows or other selected energy improvements to your home in 2012, it may be NOW eligible for a 10% tax credit.

To be eligible, the improvement must be up to certain levels, based on where you live. For instance, in Wichita, KS, if you added attic insulation, it would eligible for the 10% credit on materials if it's up to R-38, as per the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), which is the new benchmark. If you're curious about if your improvement counts, I would poke around online or contact the company that did the work.

A reasonable summary of the rules and paperwork can be found here.

An energy must read

I'm adding it to the sidebar about 2 years after it's become a must read but, if you care about how a house should be put together, Dr. Allison Bailes' blog / website, Energy Vanguard, is one of the best places to go. That's all for this Friday update.

Reboot?

In effort to get myself to write more, I have decided to try and make a concerted effort to start up the ol' NorthStar blog again. Since I doubt anyone will read this for a while (note the over 2 year window since the last post), this will serve as a test post to make sure I can fumble through Blogger well enough.

So you want to make your current house more efficient?

Some good reading about energy audits & working on existing houses -
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=before-we-began-a-home-energy-audit-2009-03-02
and
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-old-houses-doomed-the-conflict-2010-03-26

Some Perspectives

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/01/06/cash-for-caulkers-poised-to-return/

NorthStar in the News

Featured on KSNW - http://www.ksn.com/news/local/story/New-program-will-help-residents-become-energy/c6wVQTyE3Ums9yX5oTdHxA.cspx

Efficiency Kansas

If you own a home and would like to do some energy efficiency upgrades (but don't want to pay for it out of pocket now), you should check out Efficiency Kansas. (http://efficiencykansas.com/index.html) It's a program set up by the state of Kansas to loan people money through a bank to get their houses tighter, more comfortable & use less energy.

Or you could just call us directly, in that we do energy audits, insulation & air sealing work. Either way.