Housing Nutrition Label
A free, nutrition-label-style scorecard for any U.S. home: what it costs to run, how well it holds up, and what the neighborhood is like. Thirteen dimensions, all from public data — flood risk and energy bills through walkability, air quality, and drinking water.
Enter an address or place name to see its live label. Nothing is scored until you do. Switch to a hypothetical build to see how construction choices move the scores, or to a denser version of the same lot to see what sharing streets, pipes, and services across more homes would change. You can also view the project on GitHub.
The problem
A home is one of the biggest purchases people make, yet it's surprisingly hard to judge. Buyers can't easily see how well a home is built, what it will cost to run and maintain, or how exposed it is to disasters. Builders get little credit for doing better, because the market can't tell the difference. And cities struggle to show how much cheaper it is to serve compact neighborhoods than sprawl.
No one has put all of that into a single, open scorecard for every home. That's what this project is building.
The idea
A clear, color-coded scorecard for any home. It shows how the home does on the things that matter to buyers, neighborhoods, and cities. Each of the thirteen dimensions is scored from 0 to 100, with a national grade and a national percentile that show how the home compares to homes across the whole country.
Scored Dimensions
Disaster Resilience
How much damage floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and fire are likely to cause in a typical year, and how much the home's construction, age, and upgrades (like a reinforced roof) change that. Built on FEMA and USGS hazard data.
Energy Efficiency
How much energy the home is likely to use, and what that costs each month at local utility rates, based on its age, size, construction, and heating and cooling system. Benchmarked to U.S. Department of Energy data.
Durability
How much useful life the home's major systems (structure, roof, HVAC, plumbing, wiring, windows) have left, adjusted for its condition. A longevity score, kept separate from disaster risk.
Environmental Footprint
The home's yearly climate impact: the energy it uses (on the local power grid), the carbon built into its materials, and its water use. A higher score means a smaller footprint.
Infrastructure Burden
Whether the home covers the cost of the city services it needs: roads, water, sewer, fire, police. Compact housing shares those costs across more homes, so it scores better.
Health Impact
How healthy the surrounding neighborhood is, from local rates of conditions like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and asthma (CDC data). This describes the area, not the building.
Air Quality
How clean the local air is: annual fine-particulate (PM2.5) and ozone at the census tract from the CDC Tracking model, plus the county EPA radon zone. Scored against all U.S. tracts; higher means cleaner, safer air.
Noise
How quiet the neighborhood is: the share of the census tract's residents exposed to loud (≥60 dB) transportation noise from aircraft, highways, and railroads (US DOT BTS National Transportation Noise Map). Scored against all U.S. tracts; higher means quieter.
Socioeconomic
The neighborhood's economic profile: income, poverty, education, and jobs (Census data). Like the health score, this reflects the area, not the building itself.
Walkability
How easy it is to run daily errands on foot, by transit, or by bike (EPA National Walkability Index: intersection density, transit proximity, and land-use mix).
Climate Projections
How the local climate is projected to shift by mid-century: more extreme heat, heavy rain and flooding, and drought (USGS downscaled projections). Shown as a range for lower- vs. higher-emissions futures.
Solar Potential
How productive rooftop solar is here: the annual energy a standard array makes per kW installed (PVGIS on NREL NSRDB satellite data). Higher means sunnier; the details estimate what a typical system produces, saves, and offsets in CO₂.
Water Quality
How safe the tap water is: of the county's residents on a community water system, the share served by a system that had a recent health-based drinking-water violation (EPA SDWIS). Scored against all U.S. counties; higher means cleaner, safer drinking water. Covers community water systems, not private wells.
Grade & National Percentile
Every dimension shows a grade and a national percentile, because context matters:
National Grade
Fixed thresholds (A≥80, B≥60, C≥40, D≥20, F<20). Tells you how the home compares to the rest of the country, useful for comparing across cities.
A B C D F
National Percentile
Where the home lands among comparable U.S. homes on this dimension (e.g. “72nd US”). It's the share of the country the home beats, drawn from a bundled national reference distribution.
Where the project stands
You can score any U.S. address across all thirteen dimensions right now (try the box above). The scores draw on national public datasets: FEMA, USGS, EPA, CDC, the Census Bureau, and the EIA. The project began as a pilot in Shelby County, TN, and a few cost baselines are still being generalized to the whole country; the label flags those where they apply. You can also model construction choices, including multi-unit buildings (duplexes, quadplexes) and 20+ above-code upgrades.
The scoring engine, data pipeline, and address-search service are all open-source under the MIT license.
Data Sources
| Source | Provides | Access |
|---|---|---|
| USACE National Structure Inventory | Building details auto-filled from the address (sqft, stories, foundation, material, year) | Free, public |
| FEMA NFHL | Flood zone designations | Free, no key |
| NOAA Climate Normals | Temperature, degree days, precipitation | Free, no key |
| USGS NSHM | Seismic hazard (PGA values) | Free, no key |
| FEMA National Risk Index | Tornado & wildfire expected annual loss | Free, no key |
| NREL ResStock 2024 | Energy use intensity benchmarks (building type × climate zone × vintage) + foundation/HVAC factors | Free, reference data |
| EIA state utility rates | Residential electricity & gas prices by state | Free, reference data |
| EPA eGRID2023 Rev 2 | Grid carbon intensity: average rate (environmental footprint) | Free, reference data |
| NREL Cambium 2023 LRMER | Long-run marginal grid emissions: credits solar/efficiency-avoided kWh | Free, reference data (CC BY 4.0) |
| USGS CMIP6-LOCA2 | Sub-county climate-hazard projections | Free, no key |
| CDC PLACES | Health metrics by census tract | Free, no key |
| CDC Tracking + EPA radon zones | Air quality: PM2.5 & ozone by tract, radon by county | Free, no key (bundled) |
| US DOT BTS National Transportation Noise Map | Transportation-noise exposure by census tract | Free, no key (bundled) |
| PVGIS (EU JRC) on NREL NSRDB | Rooftop solar specific yield by county | Free, no key (bundled) |
| EPA SDWIS federal reporting | Drinking-water compliance (health-based violations) by county | Free, no key (bundled) |
| Census ACS 5-yr Summary File | Socioeconomic indicators (national reference) | Free, no key (bundled) |
| EPA National Walkability Index | Walkability by census tract | Free, public domain (bundled) |