There’s No Such Thing as a Free Energy Audit

Nicolas Loris /

Typically when the government and business get together, it’s the consumer who ends up paying. So when Washington, D.C.’s Department of the Environment (DDOE) teamed up with Patuxent Environmental Group (PEG) and other contractors to provide “free” energy audits, of course it didn’t end well for the consumer. But most residents didn’t realize that PEG would place liens on their houses for not paying for the audit.

Let’s start from the beginning. For the past two years, the D.C. government has been contracting out to inspectors to investigate where homeowners could improve the energy efficiency of their homes. Then the program started to run into problems.

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