You Won't Find Anything Else Like Checkbook
- Nonprofit and independent
- Takes no advertising or referral fees
- Ratings and reviews by surveyed Consumers' Checkbook and Consumer Reports local subscribers
- Undercover price comparisons
- Complaint counts from local consumer agencies and attorney general offices
- Advice to help you get the best service and value
Although the cost of equipment has come way down, for most homeowners the biggest obstacle to going solar remains price: For a typical house in this area, you’ll have to plunk down about $17,500. But you’ll eventually get your money’s worth.
Making simple repairs or improvements and changing wasteful habits will yield enormous energy savings for most families. Before spending thousands of dollars on new windows, a furnace, or solar energy system, take basic steps toward fixing common sources of waste.
Most of us want to reduce our energy usage, regardless of upfront costs, but limited budgets prevent many homeowners from paying for expensive improvements. Here are affordable-to-most projects that will, in relatively short periods of time, pay for themselves via lower utility bills.
If you wanna go big, these projects dramatically reduce energy use—some even offer paths to completely eliminate your home's net energy usage. But the high up-front costs or long payback periods make these improvements impractical for many families.
Roofing work is expensive, and, if you hire the wrong contractor, you can spend thousands of dollars too much and still get terrible work. Our ratings of area roofers will help you nail down the best roofers for your job.
To make sure your heating and air-conditioning systems work when needed, they must be properly installed and maintained. We’ve rated area heating and air-conditioning services for quality and price.