Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#111

Post by ghaff » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

antonymoose wrote: post #105

antisthenes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The labor put in would be _at least_ as much as materials, so $20k total cost for this project to lower the bills from $450 to $225 on average. That puts it roughly at 7.5 year ROI. How many renters rent a single space for that long? There goes the answer to the article. It's a great project if it's your forever home, though.

That’s an incredibly low rate for the breadth and depth of work here. I, a homeowner, can do all of this work with no permitting involved and no certification. Were I to hire out to a GC he’s going to sub out to a plumber and electrician at a minimum. Probably also a drywall+paint crew. Maybe they’ll handle trim and flooring? Who knows! My in-laws, a cost conscious couple, recently had a bathroom remodel. Nothing fan…

A bathroom remodel cost me almost $20K 6 or 7 years back. And that was a small bathroom and keeping a couple of cabinets.

More recently I had a kitchen fire that mostly involved redoing the kitchen completely but also involved move-out/in, seal/paint, for the rest of the house and some other things that made sense while everything was ripped up--and that probably ended up >$200K. Insurance covered a lot but I also paid quite a bit out of pocket.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#112

Post by foxglacier » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 3:14 AM UTC

tharkun__ wrote: post #11

foxglacier wrote: post #5

Could be solved with more free markets. What a funny phenomenon this is: "reluctance to make even basic upgrades" -- landlords don't care because they have too much market power and aren't even attempting to compete with each other. Imagine if car makers didn't bother with fuel efficiency because buyers had almost no choice and any car is better than nothing. We'd say that market isn't functioning well. Perhaps the p…

Car makers really don't care about fuel economy and have to be made to care about it by regulations and even those they try to skirt.

It might depend on what country they're selling to. Maybe petrol is too cheap in America for it to matter much but it's a big deal where I live and fuel economy is a major selling point that people look for in cars, hence the popularity of hybrids despite them costing more up front than conventional cars.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#113

Post by compsciphd » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 9:19 AM UTC

lou1306 wrote: post #108

reactordev wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, what they don’t do is pay for a new fridge. Or energy efficient windows.

Yes, because it's silly to pay for things that effectively won't belong to them anymore if they move/get kicked out.

not silly if they have confidence that they will live in the place long enough to get paid back (and more). shortsighted to think otherwise.

I've renovated kitchens in apartments Ive lived in with coordination with the landlord (when I had confidence that I was going to be there 3+ years, with likelihood of 5+) as the $10k or so it cost me when amortized over a 36 month period came out to a few hundred a year, and finding an equivalent place with such a kitchen would have cost me significantly more in the area.

While I can't say its universally true (many landlords are just as shortsighted as renters), good landlords will be happy to give certainty to good tenants who want to take care and improve their unit in manner that the landlord is happy with.

I had an apartment in NYC that over a 10+ year period my landlord never raised my rent, because I never complained, paid my rent on time and took care of the place in a manner that enabled him to rent it for even more than he could have otherwise after I moved out. Part of this is NYC rules (rent stabilization and other rent rules would have controlled how much he could have raised it anyways and also provided me certainty), but also partly that good tenants are worth their weight in gold.