New Hampshire
Pushback on adopting new building energy codes in NH highlights climate, affordability tensions
New Hampshire is poised to update its building codes, the laws meant to keep homes and commercial buildings safe and comfortable.
But in the bill approaching Gov. Chris Sununu’s desk, the code that regulates the energy efficiency of new homes is set to stay at the 2018 version.
The energy conservation code has been the subject of a long-running debate in New Hampshire, intersecting with some of the state’s thorniest issues: the affordability of homes, the livability of our climate, and the cost of living.
Proponents of adopting the 2021 energy conservation code highlight that more efficient homes would help people reduce energy use, lowering monthly bills and reducing the climate-warming pollution that homes produce.
Federal agencies that insure mortgages adopted the codes after making the assessment that they won’t impact the affordability and availability of the housing they cover. Some studies have shown that households save money in more energy efficient homes, though updates do have an increased upfront cost.
The codes have faced strong opposition, particularly from New Hampshire’s chapter of the Home Builders Association. In keeping with years of work pushing back on energy efficiency efforts, that group has come out in force against the 2021 codes across the country.
In New Hampshire, the Home Builders Association has testified to lawmakers that the 2021 codes would raise the cost of building homes too much, arguing they would make new homes unaffordable. The numbers they cite, from a survey of a handful of builders in the state, are about five times higher than federal estimates of the cost of upgrades.
All told, the 2021 codes would make homes almost 10% more efficient than the previous codes from 2018. The past two model codes adopted by the International Code Council barely made efficiency improvements for residential buildings.
What the 2021 codes would do
The 2021 codes require efficiency improvements like more insulation and expanded testing for how much air leaks out of a building.
It could also improve the barriers that keep moisture out during the summer and in during the winter, said Paul Bemis, president of the state’s chapter of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.
“An environment like New Hampshire varies quite dramatically,” he said. “Having a proper vapor barrier is key to indoor and human health.”
Lighting systems and their controls face new requirements, too.
Bemis is a proponent of the 2021 energy codes. He says the updates there are important to improving the indoor environment, since people spend 90% of their time indoors.
Federal officials have said the codes could help lower asthma rates and respiratory symptoms.
More efficient buildings also put less strain on the energy grid and draw less power from fossil fuels.
Buildings are responsible for about 40% of energy use in the United States, and account for around 35% of the carbon dioxide emissions that fuel warmer and wetter conditions in New Hampshire.
The 2021 codes, if implemented in New Hampshire, would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 660,000 metric tons over 30 years, according to a reportfrom the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy.
That’s the equivalent of taking about 157,000 cars off the road, or almost as much of an emissions reduction as closing two gas-fired power plants.
“Climate change is upon us. We need to do something to try to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere in the building sector,” Bemis said. “It’s a big task. It’s going to take many years to do it. But we need to start somewhere.”
The cost of the codes
When it comes to cost, there’s agreement on one thing: making homes more energy efficient costs money.
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s study estimates the increase in the cost to build a home to the 2021 energy conservation code instead of the 2015 energy conservation code is around $4,000 for a single family home in New Hampshire. (New Hampshire currently uses the 2018 version of the code).
For multi-family apartment or condo buildings, the increased cost of construction would be between about $1,200 and $1,700 per unit.
The cost varies based on the design of the building and the part of the state it is in, with communities in colder areas facing higher costs.
The study says the average person in the state would pay about $400 more in down payments and other up-front costs and would have an annual mortgage increase of about $140.
Compared to the 2015 energy conservation code, the 2021 code would save a homeowner a bit more than $500 a year on energy bills, according to the study, leading to positive savings by the second year of homeownership.
But in testimony in front of state lawmakers, Matt Mayberry, the head of the New Hampshire Home Builders Association, estimated the upfront costs of building a home to the 2021 standards would be much higher, around $20,000.
“Housing is the number one issue facing the state of New Hampshire,” Mayberry said. “Everyone is touched by this. By staying with the 2018 energy codes, that produces energy efficient homes at affordable prices that people can maintain and can afford to stay in.”
Mayberry said he came to the $20,000 estimate by asking six home builders in the state how much they thought the new codes would cost to implement.
“You’re weaponizing these codes for societal agendas and political agendas, and that’s wrong,” he said. “We think you can decide the home you want to live in.”
Home builders would build homes to more energy efficient standards if customers want them, Mayberry said. But, he said, the association believes that should be up to individuals.
New Hampshire’s consumer advocate, Don Kreis, has expressed his support for the codes and their ability to save people money. In a column on his website, he notes the Home Builders Association supported a law that reinstated energy efficiency programs through the state’s utilities in 2022.
“New Hampshire’s home builders – or, at least, their trade association – are perfectly happy to champion energy efficiency (and make some money installing energy efficiency measures) when the costs are buried in people’s utility bills,” Kreis wrote. “They grow less enthusiastic when they have to reflect those costs directly in the prices they charge buyers of new homes.”
Ripple effects
Many of New Hampshire’s multi-family affordable housing buildings are already built to higher energy efficiency standards than the 2021 codes, said Ron Dapice, the head of New Hampshire Housing.
That organization helps first-time homebuyers with financing and works with developers to create affordable apartment buildings. Dapice hasn’t taken a position on what codes New Hampshire should adopt. But, he said, the state’s minimum standards don’t necessarily affect what kinds of affordable housing is being built.
“Most of these properties already exceed code requirements. Most of them are built to Energy Star standards. And the owners and contractors, I think, see the value long-term for affordable housing and keeping their operating costs as low as possible,” he said.
Dapice said the upfront cost of building more efficient buildings wouldn’t be borne by lower-income renters. Property managers set rents based on income, and Dapice said construction costs wouldn’t raise the gross rent – rent plus utilities – for folks living in those buildings. Landlords might pay for the utilities themselves, and raise the base rent instead.
If New Hampshire does not adopt the 2021 codes, the state will have different minimum standards than those adopted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture and the Veterans Administration.
The largest portion of homes affected by this change is likely to be those insured by the Federal Housing Administration. But the standards only apply to new construction, and Dapice said new construction homes are less likely to be purchased using FHA or USDA backed loans.
“It may not be an everyday occurrence if that type of buyer would be shut out of their financing options,” he said.
But if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were to adopt the 2021 codes, homeowners using conventional loans would also be subject to the new requirements.
“Then I think you could have a situation where buyers are, they want just a conventional loan and they can’t get it because their house isn’t built to the newest energy code,” Dapice said.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, says they are considering ways to support more energy efficiency and have been conducting outreach.
That agency has come under pressure from New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen to adopt the 2021 energy conservation code. In a letter earlier this year, she said those standards would improve health, reduce wasted energy and lower costs.
“Energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with our energy needs,” Shaheen said in an interview earlier this year. “If we’re going to address our long term energy needs, thinking about how we make those buildings more efficient is really important.”
High winds and widespread rain contributed to more than 12,000 power outages Saturday as a low pressure system passes over New Hampshire.
A high wind advisory remains in effect for southeastern New Hampshire until midday.
There is a high surf advisory in effect for the Seacoast area until 8 p.m. Saturday, with large-breaking waves in the range of 6-9 feet, according to the National Weather Service.
The forecast warns of dangerous wintry winds for hikers and campers, with heavy wet snow likely at higher elevations and a foot of snow possible on summits in the White Mountains.
In southeastern New Hampshire, the wind advisory calls for steady winds of 15-25 mph, and potential wind gusts up to 50 mph.
Eversource reported over 10,000 outages as of 9:30 a.m. Unitil had about 1,400 outages at that time.
The Mount Washington Observatory has recorded winterlike weather over the past 24 hours. Weather observers there say over half a foot of snow and sleet has fallen at the summit.
New Hampshire
Opinion: The farm bill passed the House. Western New Hampshire got the bill. – Concord Monitor
In 1794, George Washington wrote that he knew of “no pursuit in which more zeal and important service can be rendered to any Country than by improving its agriculture.” Two hundred and thirty years later, the House just passed a farm bill that proves his successors stopped believing it.
Drive Route 12 through Walpole. Take Route 10 up through Haverhill. Cut across to Littleton, past the diner that has been feeding the town since 1930. The farms are there. Lush land that produces. People who work till their sweat and blood soak the ground they nurture. A region with every ingredient to feed itself.
What is not there is the processing facility that makes it worth raising the animal. The cold storage that keeps the crop from spoiling before it finds a buyer. The regional market that pays a price worth planting for. I want to believe Washington did not forget to build those things. Regardless, it built something else instead — a system that works beautifully for an operation running 10,000 acres in the Midwest and leaves the farmer on Route 12 doing the math at the kitchen table at midnight wondering if this is the last season.
And the 2026 Farm Bill just made that system more expensive to survive. Large commodity operations received a $54 billion subsidy increase over the next 10 years, with individual payment caps that can exceed $900,000 per operation. Is the farmer at your farmers market in position for this kind of payout?
The bill guarantees money, codified by law, for the people who need it least. Local food programs were reauthorized with zero mandatory funding, but plenty of empty words. They exist on paper and nowhere else. It means a farmer in Plainfield cannot count on them. It means Coos County, where one in seven people cannot reliably put food on the table, keeps waiting for help that has been promised and deferred so many times the promise itself has become an insult. Especially when supermarkets and superstores — just 15% of SNAP-accepting establishments — vacuum up nearly 74% of every food assistance dollar, while the local farm stand sees almost none of it.
And that is before the input costs.
Local farmers know this better than most. You buy fuel and fertilizer on global markets you have no vote in and no say over. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, causing record high prices for fertilizers globally, all because Russia is the world’s top exporter and suddenly it wasn’t exporting. And while that news cycle is long buried, remember that the Iran war has closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer travels. Diesel recently crossed $5 a gallon, which large trucks that move food and tractors rely on. Fertilizer went from $500 a ton to $850. One tractor cost $350 more than it did last year. You did not start either of those wars, yet you pay for both of them. And that is not even accounting for the sharp sting of tariffs on the inputs you depend on to plant next season.
Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies rose 55% in 2024. Then another 46% in 2025, and those numbers only count the farms that qualified for Chapter 12, which requires the majority of family income to come from farming. The ones that don’t qualify quietly disappear, not even a balance sheet to mark the years of struggle, labor and community these farmers gave. They just stop. Since 2018, this country has lost more than 158,000 farms, with every size category shrinking except operations over a million dollars in annual revenue. Those are still growing, and will do so as long as the policy is written to grow them. Another example of an unlevel playing field where the rich get richer.
To be clear about something: large-scale agriculture feeds a lot of people and nobody sat in a room and decided to destroy the small farm. But does intent matter when these are the results? The system produces what it was designed to produce. That is exactly the problem. It was not designed with you in mind, and after enough years of that, the results look intentional even when they are not.
I got involved locally here because I believe western New Hampshire has everything it needs to feed itself and then some. Four thousand farms, nearly half a million acres, led by a direct-sales culture that leads the entire country. What is missing is not the land or the people or the will. What is missing is a representative who walks into bill negotiations fighting for the farmer on Route 12 instead of the operation collecting a $900,000 subsidy check in a state they have never visited, and pretending it actually helps their constituents.
I have a specific plan for how existing federal dollars already flowing into this district get redirected toward processing, storage and regional market access that actually serves the farms here. No new appropriations. No new programs. A full breakdown is at livefreenh02.com/food-independence.
Daniel Webster, born thirty miles from where I am writing this, put it in the Capitol: “The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.” Washington and Webster were not just statesmen. They farmed. They understood what was at stake when the land stopped producing for the people who worked it. The authors of the 2026 farm bill apparently do not.
Robbie Mahrou is an independent candidate for U.S. Congress in New Hampshire’s Second District and a Walpole resident. She can be reached out robbie@livefreenh02.com.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Concord on Friday to discuss a new health initiative to prevent and combat Lyme disease.
The visit was part of the “Take Back Your Health” campaign tour, a multimillion dollar initiative to promote dietary changes and exercise as preventative measures for chronic illness. Kennedy has been traveling the country to outline projects, including changing federal dietary guidelines, gut microbiome research, and addiction recovery.
Kennedy said his goal was to reduce Lyme disease by 25% by 2035.
Kennedy announced that over $2 million of federal funding will be up for grabs for projects focused on the prevention and treatment of Lyme disease. The grants, through a program called LymeX, will be available to businesses, scientists, and the public.
At the press conference Friday, Kennedy said the grants will go to projects including education tools and public awareness campaigns, front-line solutions like medication, and AI technology.
“This initiative will harness artificial intelligence and open data to help patients with Lyme disease and other invisible illnesses. Get answers faster and connect to care sooner,” he said.
Lyme in NH
New Hampshire has long been one of the epicenters for Lyme disease. The state has the seventh highest rate of Lyme disease in the country, according to the most recent data from 2023.
Read more: It’s tick season in New England. Here’s how to stay safe.
Tick season is a well-established time of year in New England, with an increase in cases and hospital visits in April and May. Research from Dartmouth shows half of adult blacklegged ticks in the Northeast carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.
In a health advisory issued on Wednesday, State Epidemiologist Benjamin Chan pointed out that Lyme disease is one of the most common infections spread through tick bites. Other tick-borne infections include anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and Powassan virus.
Lyme is also the most common tick-borne illness in America, with an estimated 476,000 people getting the disease each year nationwide, according to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Service.
Kennedy’s record on Lyme disease
In the past, Kennedy has promoted a conspiracy theory that Lyme disease was bioengineered by the U.S. military. Late last year, he advocated for an investigation into a possible link between the military and the disease as part of a provision in a new defense bill, Scientific American and Politico reported.
Around that time, Kennedy said many patients’ claims were ignored, and he announced that “the gaslighting of Lyme patients is over.”
As an anti-vaccine activist, Kennedy launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2024. He then ran briefly as an independent before quitting and endorsing Donald Trump.
Trump later nominated him for health secretary, and he was confirmed by the Senate in early 2025 on a party-line vote.
Kennedy is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, and a son of Robert F. Kennedy, who was slain during his campaign for president in 1968. In his own bid for the White House, RFK Jr.’s name was never on the ballot in New Hampshire. In mid-2024, a UNH Survey Center poll found he mustered only 3% support among likely voters.
More resources
What to do if you’ve been bitten by a tick: Step one, don’t panic.
Tick season: How not to get bit
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