Building renovation would be astronomically expensive

(Megan, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-nuts-isnt-a-great-pitch-for-a-green-new-deal/2019/02/07/f605b220-2b2f-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html , 2-7)

I’m in the middle of renovating a house, so it’s probably not surprising that when I started reading Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) FAQ for a Green New Deal, published Thursday by NPR, I was immediately struck by a casual proposal to “upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.” Homeowners tend to start renovations hoping to make their houses greener and more energy efficient, if only for reasons of parsimony. They quickly discover that what they lightheartedly imagined to be a few minor upgrades are in fact massive expenses. All they wanted was energy-efficient windows, better insulation, a tankless water heater, a radiant system to replace their (dry, noisy, inefficient) HVAC and . . . dear God, did the contractor misplace a decimal point? We’re updating a modest row house, not building Versailles! Ceilings and walls must be removed, then replaced; fancy new equipment installed; ductwork rerouted; slabs perhaps broken and repoured; ancillary systems brought up to modern housing codes. Much labor is required; much homeowner patience and cash, too. And the older the building, the more expensive and disruptive the process, since decades of obsolete junk have to be ripped out, with all appropriate environmental remediation measures taken along the way. Yet Ocasio-Cortez, or someone in her office, apparently thought those repairs could be made to every building in the United States within a decade. And this is only one of the minor details of the plan; it barely merits more than a mention.