Colorado residents residing within Douglas County  now have one more reason to take advantage of a new energy efficient rebate program. The rebate, is a 20% rebate directly from Douglas county with a maximum of $1,000 returned.  If a homeowner spends money on energy effient windows in Douglas County, 20% of the contracted price is refunded back from the county. It will come in by check ,three to six weeks after the job is completed.

The county does require homeowners to pull permits for the job, however. The contractor also needs to be licensed in Douglas county and most commonly, the contractor will handle the permit. After the job is complete, Douglas county will send a inspector out to review the install and verify new windows were installed. After the inspectors leave, simply fill out the one page form and send in the contract. The county will then send you a check for 20% of the contracted price.

This, combined with the 30% discount applied by the federal $1,500 tax credit, can help the homeowner to save up to 50% of the cost of the windows! What a wonderful time to take advantage of these savings.

With the tax credits that have been given to homeowners this year, people are looking even closer than in the past to the quality of windows that they are buying. Something that most windows have in common is the Argon gas. Argon gas is denser than plain air, so in theory the window unit should be more energy efficient. Many people these days are looking very close to the NFRC ratings on the windows because windows that have both U-Factor and SHGC ratings under.30 will give the homeowner up to a $1500.00 tax credit. Upon looking at the NFRC web site there seems to be a 2 to 5 point swing in a window built without gas.  A window with a certain kind of glass pack option rated at a .29 might be .32 with out the gas (The exact window, but with out the gas). The point is, all windows with gas will lose the gas in it at some point and the ratings on your new windows will not be as good tomorrow, as they are today. If you can get a window that has a .26 with out the gas in it, than tomorrow it will still be a .26. If you buy a window that comes with gas and has a .26, tomorrow it could climb to over thirty, which does not meet the requirement for the tax credit.