“The whole point we’ve made to window dealers and home improvement company owners in general,” says John Jervis, executive director of The American Window and Door Institute, in Juno Beach, Fla., “is that there are programs that will give homeowners money back. Everywhere you look, there’s an opportunity to help you get some money that will improve your home. That’s what every dealer should be using to help generate leads. People will make that call if you can say: ‘We offer you help in replacing your windows or siding.'”
Jervis points out: Marketing that calls attention to government tax credit programs can be just as effective, if not more effective, than ads which promise that replacing windows will result in double-digit reductions in energy bills. Such promises, he points out, are made too often and “you can’t literally guarantee that.”
New Rules With Stimulus
All that said, now comes the better news. The rules governing energy tax credits may change with passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, i.e., the stimulus bill already passed by the House. Surviving in both House and Senate versions are new rules that raise the total one-time amount of tax credits available to homeowners buying home improvement products from 10% of their purchase to 30%, to a maximum of $1,500.
Better yet, the new rules contain no sub-cap on windows or skylights. Translation: A homeowner buying $5,500 worth of your company’s Energy Star-approved windows could get a full third of his or her purchase amount back when filing their taxes.
At press time the new figure was “still in discussion,” according to Nils Petermann, of the Alliance to Save Energy, in Washington. Petermann says that with 60% of windows now qualifying for tax credits under the current plan, some Senate researchers want to raise qualifying criteria so that only 10% to 20% of windows on the market would be eligible for tax credits. “If more than half the product on the market qualifies the homeowner for tax credits, that’s a big cost for Uncle Sam,” he says.
Steve Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, says the fact that these expanded tax credits are part of the stimulus bill ? and are therefore only available for a limited time ? may create a sense of urgency among homeowners who are considering replacing windows, doors, or other qualified home improvement products.
Should the new rules for tax credits be included in the stimulus bill, and the stimulus bill passed, “it will make it much more attractive for consumers to replace their windows or their heating or cooling system,” Nadel says. “That’s the whole idea of ‘stimulus.’ To make some activity kick in that otherwise wouldn’t happen.”
Some home improvement company owners feel that even raising the amount available for tax credits to $1,500 is just a step. Tax credits for energy-saving home improvements “should be a standardized deduction, like children,” Moeslein says, given in any year to homeowners willing to spend what it takes to replace windows or to insulate an attic. “If they’re willing to spend $30,000, why not help them?”
