Avoiding The Snarl

You probably heard that there’s a new law in Portland requiring that starting in 2018, any home that’s sold has to have an Energy Score. Here’s a quick overview of what that means: You can’t game the score. A house’s Energy Score has nothing to do with how many times you flush the toilet or what temperature the thermostat is set to. It’s a measurement of how efficient the home is: The effectiveness of its insulation, the energy efficiency of its appliances, stuff like that. The idea is to give buyers a sense of what it would cost to live in the home.  The score is relative. A house that scores a 4 is less efficient than a house that scores a 5. Since so many houses in Portland were built in the early 20th century, nobody expects a ton of houses to score super well. The requirement isn’t just for houses. It applies to “...any residential structure containing at least one dwelling unit or house, regardless of size, on its own lot.” This includes attached single dwellin...