Exterior doors are the main focal point to your home when entering and existing your home. Therefore, purchasing a energy efficient door is a perfect place to start when trying to reduce your home heating/cooling costs. Down below I have some tips & tricks of the trades to give you more insight from a contractors point of view, and to better help you understand what to buy to recieve the 1,500 tax incentive.

Look For The Energy Star Label

Always, when buying a door, window, insulation, roofing and appliances, look for the Energy Star label. Energy Star is collaborative program between the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S Department of Energy, and their goal is to provide families and businesses across America with more energy efficient buildings. The doors and windows and other building supplies are put through a rigorous test to ensure their energy use, and only energy efficient doors and windows receive the label. So when your out looking for a new replacement windows and doors, look for the blue label.

What makes a door more energy efficient?

To receive the new tax rebate your door must meet certain requirments

In order to receive the newly updated tax rebate, your door or window must have a U-Factor of .30 or less to qualify. What is a U-Factor? U-Factor is a measure of the door or window’s overall energy-efficiency, many door and windows have U-Factors of .31 or .32 – those don’t qualify!

Furthermore, your energy-efficient door or window must also have a Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) OF .30 or less. Having a low SHGC will block the blistering heat that comes through the windows in the summer, reducing your the load on your air conditioning considerably- reducing cooling bills. Once again, .31 or .32 don’t qaulify! It has to be .30 or less!

Let’s look at other ways we can reduce our heating bills without buying a new door


With heating/cooling bill only on the rise, these helpful and cheaper tips will go a long-way in saving you $$$.

1. Test your existing door for air-leaks by inserting a dollar bill inbetween your door and close it. Next, try to see how easily it can be removed from the door. If the dollar bill removes easily, then you need to replace the weatherstripping around the inside of your door-jam.

Applying weatherstripping to your doors and windows, can reduce your heating/cooling bills by up to 10% – just with that home repair!

2. Check to see whether or not your door-sweep is working properly with the same dollar bill trick. If not, I think you already have the solution to that problem.. The door-sweep is located at the bottom of your door right above the threshold as you step in to your home.

3. Check your mail-slots to verify whether or not you need to apply weatherstripping to the back side of the mail-slot.

4. Look at the glazing on your windows, check to see if the sealant has worn out or not – if so, then repair it.

5. Step outside and have a look around your windows or door trim to see if there are any voids, holes, cracks, if there are any, seal them up with exterior caulking.

My final thoughts:

I hope these tips have been helpful in your goals to saving $$$ this year in energy efficiency savings. However, as a fully licensed & Insured contractor here in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, I can give you in home consultation and estimate for any of these home improvements described here – hassel free!

For energy efficient windows or energy efficient doors – click on any of the highlighted links provided free of charge!

MBM Construction