About the Home Energy Score | Better Buildings Initiative

What is the Home Energy Score™?

A Home Energy Score rates energy efficiency on a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 indicating the most efficient homes. Like a vehicle’s miles-per-gallon rating, Home Energy Score uses about 50 different data inputs, like insulation levels and window characteristics, to estimate how much energy a home is expected to use.

The Home Energy Score also generates recommendations for cost-effective improvements and associated annual cost savings estimates, as well as a "Score with Improvements," reflecting the home’s expected score if all the recommended improvements are implemented.

Interactive Home Energy Score

The Home Energy Score generates a report that estimates home energy use, associated costs, and provides energy solutions to cost-effectively improve the home's efficiency. The graphic below reveals what specific parts of the label mean. Click on the "Show All Hotspots" button to see all places information is hidden in the graphic.

Background

In 2012, the Energy Department launched a national Home Energy Score program to give homeowners, buyers, and renters a low-cost, reliable method to understand a home’s energy efficiency.

The tool is uniquely refined to require minimal data input – to save on time, money, and training for Assessors – while producing maximum accuracy for energy use predictions. Read the Home Energy Score's Scoring Methodology on the tool and its assumptions, and the Summary from our 2014 Report about the tool's updates and analysis.

Home Energy Score is a powerful tool that can lead to an improved U.S. housing stock with better energy performance, lower costs and greater comfort as well as more efficient use of natural resources. Our goal is to build market value for energy efficient single-family homes and townhomes that improve quality of life. Home Energy Score accomplishes this by:

Providing renters, homeowners, and homebuyers cost-effective recommendations to reduce energy use and costs.
Producing reliable home energy efficiency information for consumers to consider in real estate transactions.
Integrating energy information into financing products to bolster the market for comfortable, energy efficient homes.