Saving money on home energy costs through improvements that pay for themselves over time is a sound economic strategy, if you can afford the initial outlay. But when it comes to new residential construction, the added costs of energy efficient buildings run headlong into legislative efforts to increase the affordability of new housing. We are seeing the politics of this play out now, in Concord and in Washington.
The baseline for constructing energy efficient homes in New Hampshire is the Energy Conservation Code, which adopts the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). It establishes minimum requirements for such things as insulation R-values and window U-factors in building thermal envelopes. When, in 2024, the Legislature adopted the 2021 revisions for updating building codes generally from their 2018 versions (Blog #138), the IECC was not updated. This year House Bill 1159, which has passed both houses, is poised to update New Hampshire's building codes to their 2024 versions effective July 1, 2026, but once again excepts the IECC, which will remain at its 2018 version. With the 2024 IECC entailing an increase in costs of about $9,000 compared to the 2018 version, the “make housing more affordable” mantra at the State House is still the majority chant.
At the federal level, the President’s expressed view that climate change is a hoax, and his love affair with fossil fuels, make energy code updates a natural target for the Trump Administration’s push to boost housing affordability. On March 13, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14394, captioned Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction. Its avowed purpose is to spark residential housing through a variety of red tape cutting measures, including “curtailing mandates that increase housing construction costs, such as green-energy building requirements or other energy-choice restrictions.” The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development promptly announced that “green energy mandates in building codes can add more than $30,000 to the cost of construction,” and applauded eliminating the effect of “woke ‘green’ building codes.”
I can’t tell you where the HUD Secretary’s $30,000 number comes from – possibly from a 2024 publication from the National Association of Home Builders based on data from outside New Hampshire. The New Hampshire chapter of the NAHB pegged that number significantly lower.
Federal mortgage programs show no sign of requiring compliance with more recent IECC codes. For the past decade, the 2009 IECC has been the minimum standard for both new single family housing and low-rise multifamily housing built with HUD and USDA assistance and new FHA-insured mortgages. HUD’s and USDA’s Biden-era effort to change that minimum to the 2021 IECC was struck down earlier this month by a federal court in Texas, largely based on the government's own projection that implementation of the new minimum would result in a 1.5% decline in the quantity of new construction. It’s a safe bet that the current Administration will not be appealing the ruling.
Housing affordability conclusions are best drawn by viewing the situation through the eyes of a putative home buyer. She will be looking at her total monthly payments, not at the discounted present value of energy savings over the expected life of her home ownership. At current interest rates for 30-year mortgages, every $10,000 borrowed adds about $65 to the homeowner’s monthly mortgage payment. Whether lower monthly utility costs will equal or exceed the added mortgage payment required to finance a new home’s 2021 or 2024 IECC code compliance changes will depend on several factors – not the least of which is the rising price of electricity, oil and natural gas.
Of course, building codes merely establish minimum requirements. Even if the Energy Code isn’t updated, new home buyers can always contract for more efficient residences. And lest we forget: New Hampshire utilities offer rebates through the NHSaves program for ENERGY STAR® certified new home construction, with savings of up to $10,000 for a single-family residence that uses 15–30 percent less energy than standard homes.
The baseline for constructing energy efficient homes in New Hampshire is the Energy Conservation Code, which adopts the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). It establishes minimum requirements for such things as insulation R-values and window U-factors in building thermal envelopes. When, in 2024, the Legislature adopted the 2021 revisions for updating building codes generally from their 2018 versions (Blog #138), the IECC was not updated. This year House Bill 1159, which has passed both houses, is poised to update New Hampshire's building codes to their 2024 versions effective July 1, 2026, but once again excepts the IECC, which will remain at its 2018 version. With the 2024 IECC entailing an increase in costs of about $9,000 compared to the 2018 version, the “make housing more affordable” mantra at the State House is still the majority chant.
At the federal level, the President’s expressed view that climate change is a hoax, and his love affair with fossil fuels, make energy code updates a natural target for the Trump Administration’s push to boost housing affordability. On March 13, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14394, captioned Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction. Its avowed purpose is to spark residential housing through a variety of red tape cutting measures, including “curtailing mandates that increase housing construction costs, such as green-energy building requirements or other energy-choice restrictions.” The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development promptly announced that “green energy mandates in building codes can add more than $30,000 to the cost of construction,” and applauded eliminating the effect of “woke ‘green’ building codes.”
I can’t tell you where the HUD Secretary’s $30,000 number comes from – possibly from a 2024 publication from the National Association of Home Builders based on data from outside New Hampshire. The New Hampshire chapter of the NAHB pegged that number significantly lower.
Federal mortgage programs show no sign of requiring compliance with more recent IECC codes. For the past decade, the 2009 IECC has been the minimum standard for both new single family housing and low-rise multifamily housing built with HUD and USDA assistance and new FHA-insured mortgages. HUD’s and USDA’s Biden-era effort to change that minimum to the 2021 IECC was struck down earlier this month by a federal court in Texas, largely based on the government's own projection that implementation of the new minimum would result in a 1.5% decline in the quantity of new construction. It’s a safe bet that the current Administration will not be appealing the ruling.
Housing affordability conclusions are best drawn by viewing the situation through the eyes of a putative home buyer. She will be looking at her total monthly payments, not at the discounted present value of energy savings over the expected life of her home ownership. At current interest rates for 30-year mortgages, every $10,000 borrowed adds about $65 to the homeowner’s monthly mortgage payment. Whether lower monthly utility costs will equal or exceed the added mortgage payment required to finance a new home’s 2021 or 2024 IECC code compliance changes will depend on several factors – not the least of which is the rising price of electricity, oil and natural gas.
Of course, building codes merely establish minimum requirements. Even if the Energy Code isn’t updated, new home buyers can always contract for more efficient residences. And lest we forget: New Hampshire utilities offer rebates through the NHSaves program for ENERGY STAR® certified new home construction, with savings of up to $10,000 for a single-family residence that uses 15–30 percent less energy than standard homes.
RSS Feed