Avista, the main local utility in Spokane WA, and North Idaho, presently offers very lucrative incentives for homeowners to upgrade their heating systems. For instance, they will pay you $400.00 to install a 90% efficient gas furnace, and another $400.00 to install a 9 HSPF heat pump. If you do both, they will pay you $800.00! Unfortunately, those incentives will be changing as of December 31, 2010. Instead of a flat guaranteed fee incentive, payments will be based on the amount of energy actually saved per year. In addition, electrical incentives requiring over an 8-year payback and natural gas incentives over a 13-year payback will be discontinued entirely. The net result for homeowners will be smaller and have few total incentives from their local utility.

The $1500. federal tax credit for energy efficiency improvements is scheduled to end Dec 31, 2010. Now homeowners are also losing another source of incentives at the same time. It is very timely and advantageous for Spokane and North Idaho homeowners to act before the end of 2010 to upgrade their heating systems and lock in these payments. Those who do not will lose these lucrative incentives forever.

Fortunately, there is still time to capture these incentives. If you have questions, call (509) 924-0018. An Air Control Heating and Electric, Inc representative will be happy to answer your questions and help you evaluate all your options.