Category — home performance in the media

Here is the link to the fact sheet presented by the White House on Cash for Caulkers. Finally!

We’ve been waiting for this for a while. We are still interested to find out exactly how this will all go down, but the basics of the program (cut and pasted directly from the fact sheet) seem pretty good:

Rebates delivered directly to consumers: Like the Cash for Clunkers program, consumers would be eligible for direct HOMESTAR rebates at the point of sale for a variety of energy-saving investments in their homes. A broad array of vendors, from small independent building material dealers, large national home improvement chains, energy efficiency installation professionals and utility energy efficiency programs (including rural utilities) would market the rebates, provide them directly to consumers and then be reimbursed by the federal government.

$1,000 – $1,500 Silver Star Rebates: Consumers looking to have simple upgrades performed in their homes would be eligible for 50% rebates up to $1,000 – $1,500 for doing any of a straightforward set of upgrades, including: insulation, duct sealing, water heaters, HVAC units, windows, roofing and doors. Under Silver Star, consumers can chose a combination of upgrades for rebates up to a maximum of $3,000 per home. Rebates would be limited to the most energy efficient categories of upgrades—focusing on products made primarily in the United States and installed by certified contractors.

$3000 Gold Star Rebates: Consumers interested in more comprehensive energy retrofits would be eligible for a $3,000 rebate for a whole home energy audit and subsequent retrofit tailored to achieve a 20% energy savings in their homes. Consumers could receive additional rebate amounts for energy savings in excess of 20%. Gold Star would build on existing whole home retrofit programs, like EPA’s successful Home Performance with Energy Star program.

Oversight to Ensure Quality Installations: The program would require that contractors be certified to perform efficiency installations. Independent quality assurance providers would conduct field audits after work is completed to ensure proper installation so consumers receive energy savings from their upgrades. States would oversee the implementation of quality assurance to ensure that the program was moving the industry toward more robust standards and comprehensive energy retrofit practices.

Support for financing: The program would include support to State and local governments to provide financing options for consumers seeking to make efficiency investments in their homes. This will help ensure that consumers can afford to make these investments.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s required of already certified, licensed BPI analysts and HERs Raters. Hopefully not much more than what they’ve already done. A national standard exists – there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
No matter what you think about Obama, the stimulus program, or government spending, there’s no doubt that this program has massive potential for companies like ours. If this goes into effect anytime in the next couple of months by the years’ end we could see tripling or quadrupling our workforce, for sure. Good for us and good for potential employees. Especially good for homeowners who want to make long-term changes in their homes’ energy efficiency!

Minnesota Power is responsible for this wonderful graphic that prioritizes how homeowners can achieve energy efficiency:

I like how the arrow on the left has the equation: complexity/investment. Return on investment is exactly what we have been preaching all along. What can a homeowner do that does the most good for the least amount of money? This is what the graph says are the top 4 things you can do as a homeowner (of a preexisting home) that will get you the MOST bang for your BUCK:

#1 In-home energy audit.  This helps the homeowner understand what is going on. Hey! This is what we do here at Home Performance NC!

#2 Rid yourself of energy vampires and change habits.

#3 Look at easy, cheap fixes like switching out bulbs and getting rid of inefficient fixtures

#4 Air sealing. This is the primary thing that we suggest once we complete an audit. Please read my ode to caulk here as well as an entire category of blog posts on the necessity of duct sealing. And  A couple of blog entries back I thought of a good analogy as to why adding more insulation to an unsealed attic is stupid: it’s like adding more water to a cup filled with holes. It won’t make a bit of difference until you plug up the holes.

I’ll let you read the rest of the suggestions by yourself, because you can clearly see that the items at the top are those that cost the most for the consumer (like replacing your windows, your HVAC system, and installing solar panels, for example – none of which are bad things to do, mind you) but which clearly give the least return.

Interesting, no?

The people behind the HOMESTAR stimulus proposal (also known as “Cash for Caulkers”) have just announced that they will include BPI analysts in any recommendations for workforce and standards development in the areas of energy audits, weatherization, and the rest of this (we think) FANTASTIC retrofit program that will create jobs and help homeowners save money and save energy. 

Here’s part of the initial announcement, which we got straight from BPI:

A formal recommendation to the President…last week cited BPI as a key contributor to the proposed HOME STAR program by providing training and accreditation for the development of the new home performance workforce, as well as third-party quality assurance on the installed retrofit measures: 

“In addition to creating immediate jobs and economic activity, to provide long-term sustainability, we must ensure that companies deliver measurable and reliable results…. Standards for home performance contractor accreditation and Building Analyst auditor certification will be implemented by the Building Performance Institute (BPI) and through a national network of third party providers… Program standards will be maintained with the help of a robust program of third-party verification and inspection designed to ensure that homeowners get what they pay for under HOME STAR. Inspections will be calibrated to program performance and the adoption by contractors of front-end quality measures, such as BPI accreditation and use of a well-trained construction workforce in order to quickly address quality problems.”  

Obviously, us folks at Home Performance NC think this is a very good thing, as it looks like there is lots of work for us coming down the pike, but his is actually very good news for the homeowner who wants to take advantage of whatever this stimulus package will have to offer. By associating with an organization that already trains certified analysts to do this kind of work, this program will have a built-in guarantee that the work will be done correctly. Which isn’t something that actually exists in the building/retrofit industry right now, unless the homeowner specifically seeks it out by finding contractors with appropriate training or by employing a BPI-trained energy auditor to do an audit and a test-out after the work is done.

Here’s an example: you get new ductwork installed by a HVAC contractor. He/She comes highly recommended, does the job, you pay – and you’re sure he/she did a fine job. Why? Did you go under the house to look? Do you know he’s been trained to modern standards of duct sealing? How about his or her crew? Have they been trained? If your answer is: I don’t know…then that’s just it. You don’t know. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve gone into a home – a NEW home, or a home with ductwork that was installed JUST LAST YEAR – and found that they were poorly installed! It isn’t rocket science nor is it hard to take the extra measure to seal up ductwork but time and time again we find that contractors either didn’t know or didn’t care to do the job right. 

And I’m just talking about ductwork. The same goes for insulation, additions, renovation, plumbing, new construction, blah blah blah. Never assume that contractors know about energy-efficiency! I’m sure a lot of them do…but a lot of them don’t. Or maybe they don’t know that they don’t. 

Anyway, the point of this little rant is that it’s a very good thing that there will be some standards that contractors have to meet when doing this work. You want your contractors’ work to have to be checked by people who know what they’re doing. 

So, what is BPI exactly? Here’s a description direct from the BPI website. This says it all:

• certification of individuals in building analyst, heating, AC/heat pump, shell/envelope, and multi-family designations
• accreditation of contractors committed to delivering quality, home performance improvements
• quality assurance to verify conformance to BPI Standards and provide feedback for continuing improvement
• affiliation of organizations that deliver BPI services in their market
• open, transparent, consensus developed national technical standards based on sound building science      

I just ran across this great little podcast on The Brian Lehrer Show, which features David Leonhardt, New York Times economics columnist and staff writer for the magazine. The podcast covers the idea of “Cash for Caulkers” – which is an economic stimulus idea for people to weatherize their homes. The first 10 minutes or so (minus a little at the beginning w/the host) are on this proposed program.

Here’s the direct link.

In case you can’t listen, or my link doesn’t work, here’s what he says:

• Cash for Caulkers (also called HOMESTAR, although this isn’t referenced in the podcast) is a program supported by former president Clinton, who is proposing it to President Obama as a way to stimulate the economy.
• The great thing about this idea is that it will stimulate the economy, create jobs, and will have long-term benefits to the homeowners. By having an audit and weatherizing their homes, people will reap $ benefits for years to come.
• But weatherization is more complicated than you’d think. Mr. Leonhardt just had an audit on his house and he’s not sure exactly what he’ll do. His audit suggested weatherization that will have a 10-year pay-out, and he is not sure he’ll be in his home 10 years. He’s also not sure that the future buyer will value a weatherized home, so he may not get the $ back when he sells, either.
• He suggests that the cost of weatherization be added to the property tax bill and be billed to the homeowner over time. This way the cost of the energy upgrades will convey with the house, instead of being all on the homeowner who originally did the work. The current homeowner is splitting the cost with the future homeowner.
• Cash for Caulkers would create incentives for large box stores (like Home Depot and Lowe’s) to get involved with the project.
• Weatherization is “the perfect kind of stimulus,” although complicated. It needs to be simplified for homeowners.
• The Obama campaign promised a lot of green jobs, but once everyone got to Washington they found that it’s not a simple matter of flipping the switch from lost jobs to green jobs – there aren’t as many opportunities out there as they thought.  The stimulus package didn’t create as many green jobs as were promised. Something else needs to happen (like the Cash for Caulkers idea) if we want to create green jobs. The stimulus funds sent to states prevented a lot of lay-offs (like teachers and police officers), which was definitely a stimulus to the economy, but not the stimulus that they’d originally discussed. Leonhardt feels that if they’d put the money towards “caulkers” instead of teachers and police officers this would’ve been a mistake on many levels, but they could’ve done more to support those original goals.

Here at Home Performance NC we obviously think this is potentially a wonderful idea. It will directly impact our company if this kind of thing comes to pass – but what kind of impact has yet to be seen. If there isn’t a clear call for full-scale energy audits by a qualified professional as part of this program, it could be disastrous for us. You’d think that because there is an industry complete with national guidelines and training and tests and independent verifiers in place that a national program like this would recognize this and take advantage of this. On the other hand, if all control is given to Lowe’s and Home Depot – I don’t know what will happen. Will Lowe’s and HD show some of their employees how to do a blower door test in a 2-day training and send them on out? Will they have a simple checklist and stick to that, instead of evaluating each home separately, as professional auditors do?

Or will there be acknowledgement that trained professionals already exist?  And the best way this whole thing can go down is to take advantage of the HERS raters and BPI analysts – stimulate their companies so they can expand and hire people to do weatherization in the most effective way possible?

Hopefully it’s the latter. It only makes sense. Because if the audit and weatherization is tied to the property tax bill there needs to be some assurance that the work was done properly. I certainly wouldn’t want to buy a house that any random handyman had weatherized…especially if I was still paying for the repairs the previous homeowner had arranged.

Let’s hope that if this program comes to pass they’ll get it right.

For more details about the program, please see Leonhardt’s columns in the NYTimes, here, and here.

Ed Begley is an actor-turned-green-activist whose reality TV show based on environmentalism is going to be out soon, so he’s doing a bunch of press appearances, book promotions,  talks, and various other attention-getting activities.

Last week or so he spoke at his alma mater, Los Angeles Valley College, about his work as an environmentalist. The moderator asked him what would be the one thing he would do for people if he had a magic wand, and here’s what he said:

“A home energy audit for every home in America that wanted it,” Begley replied. “Today’s home energy audit with the blower door, with duct blasting; with an infrared camera so you can really look and see.”

That’s right, Mr. Begley. We think so too.

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This is hilarious. A Green Buildings music video from Stanford.
Although, as my partner, Mark, the RESNET® HERS rater, energy auditor, and BPI analyst says, there’s too much focus on windows and not enough on ductwork.
True, but really funny just the same!