FREE BPI PRACTICE EXAM

PUT YOUR HOME PERFORMANCE BUSINESS ON ROCKET FUEL

ENERGY AUDITOR NEWSLETTER

Get the only Energy Auditor Marketing Newsletter with monthly strategies and tactics to grow your home performance business.

Passing the BPI Exam With Energy Auditor Training

BPI Written Exam - Section 2 Buildings and Their Systems

1. Appropriate Insulation Applications and Installation Based On Existing Conditions

Most of your recommendations for insulation tune-ups will be for blown-in insulation, whether it be loose fill fiberglass or cellulose.  There are issues however with every type of insulation, including loose fill insulation that you should be aware of.

Cellulose and Loose Fill Fiberglass

These types of insulation are great because they ideally get around canned lights, under wires and fill soffits but that is only if the installer was paying attention to what he was doing.  As energy auditors looking for problems, you will sometimes find misalignments even with loose fill insulation that has clumped together to bridge over a narrow soffit or above a pocket-door, causing a misalignment and a large source of heat gain.  These are tricky to find since you need to explore and penetrate the insulation to break the false bridge to find.  When installing insulation, you need to be aware that loose fill insulation does clump over narrow soffits and attention does need to be paid while blowing.

Multiple Insulation Layers

The denser insulation type should always be on the bottom, you can tell which is more dense from the R-value. The higher the R-value per inch, the denser it is.  So for example cellulose is more dense than fiberglass so you can always blow fiberglass on top of cellulose but never the other way around.  If you find an attic that has loose fill fiberglass, you can blow loose fill fiberglass on top but never cellulose because you will smash the fiberglass and compromise it's R-value.

Loose fill fiberglass and cellulose can be both blown on top of fiberglass batts.  This is because the batt is rigid enough to not get smashed by the cellulose.  
Baffles

When performing energy audits on homes with loose fill insulation and bird venting along the perimeter of the attic you should check that there are also baffles installed.  A baffle is a card board or plastic diverter that redirects the attic ventilation up along the roof slope and away from the attic floor where the insulation/drywall would otherwise get exposed to direct outside temperatures AND it prevents the loose fill insulation from being blow back, leaving the attic uninsulated. 

Fiberglass Batts

Fiberglass batts must be aligned and 100% in contact with the drywall to work correctly.  Remember, just a 5% gap in a gap will compromise the entire attic's R-value by 50%.  I have never found a home with fiberglass batts that has been 100% perfectly aligned and I would bet that if you do enough sleuthing, you will find the same thing.  If you are doing an energy audit and find misaligned fiberglass batts in the attic you can give a homeowner 3 options in order of my preference.

  1. Lift and fill (is the only way I fly) - Lift and fill is blowing under the batt so the loose fill insulation is on the bottom, touching the attic floor (at least 4 inches) and the batt is on top.  Then I usually add another 2-3" to close the gaps.  I have the crew touch EVERY batt regardless of whether they THINK it is aligned or not.
  2. Realign the batts - I don't like this way because it is more laborous to cut or rip the batts to fit around things and everyone has to be checked so why not just lift and fill.  Plus is your crew gets lazy and skips some batts, you are not doing any good.
  3. Remove all the fiberglass batts and replace with loose fill insulation - This method costs the most, takes the most time, and is the most labor intensive.  Unless a homeowner wants to extract the insulation before you were called, there is no need for this. Amateurs will call for this and if they sell it, they should be the ones doing the work.


I never recommend adding fiberglass batts as a retrofit unless you are in a commercial building, or insulating walls for new construction.

Next Section

2a. Building Components
  1. Identify basic duct configurations and components
  2. Identify basic hydronic distribution configurations and components
  3. Identify basic structural components of residential construction 
  4. Thermal boundaries and insulation applications 
  5. Basic electrical components and safety considerations 
  6. Basic fuel delivery systems and safety considerations
  7. Basic bulk water management components (drainage plumbing gutters sumps etc) 
  8. Vapor barriers/retarders 
  9. Radiant barrier principles and installations 
  10. Understand fenestration types and efficiencies 
  11. Understand issues involved with basements, crawlspaces, slabs, attics, attached garages, interstitial cavities, and bypasses 
  12. Understand issues involved with ventilation equipment 
  13. Understand basic heating / cooling equipment components controls and operation 
  14. Understand basic DHW equipment components controls and operation 
  15. Identify common mechanical safety controls 
  16. Identify insulation types and R-Values 
  17. Understand various mechanical ventilation equipment and strategies: spot, ERV, HRV 
2b. Conservation Strategies
  1. Appropriate insulation applications and installation based on existing conditions 
  2. Opportunity for ENERGY STAR lighting and appliances 
  3. Identify duct sealing opportunities and applications 
  4. Understand importance of air leakage control and remediation procedures 
  5. Blower door-guided air sealing techniques 
  6. Water conservation devices and strategies 
  7. Domestic Hot Water (DHW) conservation strategies 
  8. Heating & cooling efficiency applications 
  9. Proper use of modeling to determine heating and cooling equipment sizing and appropriate energy use
  10. Understand the use of utility history analysis in conservation strategies 
  11. Appropriate applications for sealed crawlspaces basements and attics 
  12. Identify/understand high density cellulose 
  13. Appropriate applications for fenestration upgrades including modification or replacement 
2c. Comprehensive Building Assessment Process
  1. Determine areas of customer complaints/concerns in interview
  2. Understand / recognize need for conducting appropriate diagnostic procedures including when to refer to a specialist for further investigation
  3. Interaction between mechanical systems, envelope systems and occupant behavior
2d. Design considerations
  1. Appropriate insulation applications based on existing conditions
  2. Understand fire codes as necessary to apply home performance in a code-approved manner.
  3. Understand/recognize building locations where opportunities for retrofit materials and processes are needed to correct problems and/or enhance performance
  4. Understand climate specific concerns
  5. Understand indoor environment considerations for the environmentally sensitive
  6. Understand impact of building orientation, landscape drainage, and grading
  7. Opportunity potential renewable energy applications: geothermal , photovoltaic, wind
  8. Understand impact of shading on heating / cooling loads
  9. Awareness for solar gain reduction in cooling climate/solar gain opportunities in heating climates
  10. Understand need for modeling various options for heating, cooling and DHW applications, as well as other efficiency upgrades