Online Energy Auditor Certification Training Course
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    • BPI WRITTEN EXAM >
      • Section 1 Building Science Fundamentals >
        • 1a. Basic Terms & Definitions >
          • 1. Airflow in Buildings
          • 2. Equipment Efficiencies
          • 3. Power and Energy
          • 4. Effective Leakage Area
          • 5. Area Weighted R-Value
          • 6. Baseload / Seasonal Energy Use
          • 7. Driving Forces (Including Natural and Mechanical)
          • 8. Behavior of Radiation
          • 9. Thermal Resistance / Transmittance: R and U Values
          • 10. Latent / Sensible Heat
          • 11. Total Equivalent Length
          • 12. Dehumidification / Humidification
          • 13. Convert Pressure Units
          • 14. Thermal Bridges
          • 15. Pressure Boundary
          • 16. Stack Effect
          • 17. Exfiltration and Infiltration
          • 18. Natural / Mechanical Ventilation
          • 19. Net Free Area
          • 20. Input & Output Capacity
          • 21. Peak Electrical Demand
          • 22. Permeability and Perm Rating
          • 23. Standby Loss
          • 24. IAQ (indoor air quality): Moisture, CO, Dust
        • 1b. Principals of Energy, Air & Moisture Thermodynamics >
          • 1. Thermodynamics: Conduction, Convection, Radiation, ΔT
          • 2. Factors That Affect Insulation Performance
          • 3. BPI certification online with BPI practice exams and study guides.
          • 4. Heat Gain / Loss
          • 5. Power and Energy
          • 6. Moisture Transport Mechanisms
          • 7. Identify Areas of Highest Relative Humidity
          • 8. Principles of Combustion
        • 1c. Combustion Safety >
          • 1. Combustion Analysis
          • 2. Carbon Monoxide (CO) Testing
          • 3. Combustion Appliance Venting, Draft, Combustion Air & Sizing
          • 4. Understand Combustion Safety Issues
      • Section 2 Buildings and Their Systems >
        • 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
          • 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
          • 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
          • 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 / Solar Gain Opportunities
          • 10. Understand Need for Modeling Various Options For Efficiency Upgrades
      • Section 3 Measurement & Verification of Building Performance >
        • Section 3a Measurement & Verification of Building Performance >
          • 1. Air Leakage Test Results
          • 2. Understand Building Shell / Envelope Leakage
          • 3. Apply Fundamental Construction Mathematics and Unit Conversions
          • 4. Calculate Building Tightness Levels (Minimum Ventilation Requirements)
          • 5. Calculate Heating Degree Days and Cooling Degree Days
          • 6. Identify Proper Appliance and Combustion Appliance Venting
          • 7. Ventilation calculations and strategies
          • 8. Proper methods for identifying / testing fuel leaks
          • 9. Blower door setup, accurate measurement and interpretation of results
          • 10. Combustion Appliance Zone (CAZ): depressurization, spillage, draft, Carbon Monoxide (ambient and flue)
          • 11. Carbon Monoxide (CO) evaluation: ambient
          • 12. Proper applications and use of temperature measuring devices
          • 13. Pressure pan and room to room pressure diagnostics
          • 14. Recognize contributing factors to comfort problems
          • 15. Inspect for areas containing moisture or bulk water in undesirable locations
          • 16. Understand and inspect for basic electric safety (e.g. frayed wires, open boxes, etc)
      • Section 4 BPI National Standards & Project Specifications >
        • 1. Understand applicability content and intent of BPI National Standards – Do no harm, make buildings more healthy, comfortable, durable and energy efficient
        • 2. Recognize need for a professional local/state/national codes evaluation
        • 3. Be able to specify appropriate materials and processes needed for building performance projects
      • Section 5 Analyzing Buildings Systems >
        • 1. Recognize need for air sealing measures and their impact on other building systems
        • 2. Recognize need for mechanical equipment improvements
        • 3. Understand blower door use for identifying critical air sealing areas
        • 4. Apply blower door test results and Building Tightness Limit (minimum ventilation requirements) in development of improvement strategies
        • 5. Using combustion analysis and safety testing results to develop appropriate recommendations
        • 6. Determine appropriate method for assessing wall insulation levels
        • 7. Equipment control strategies for maximizing occupant comfort and minimizing energy consumption
      • Section 6 Conduct and Communications >
        • 6a. Conservation strategies
        • 6b. Personal Safety & Work Practices >
          • 1. Locations in which to identify indoor air quality issues
          • 2. Material Safety Data Sheets
          • 3. Isolation procedures for household pollutants
          • 4. Practice building science within your limits of professional competency
          • 5. Precautions when working around chemical biological and other potential hazards
          • 6. Understand role and responsibilities of the building analyst professional
    • BPI FIELD EXAM >
      • How To Put The House Under Worst Case & CAZ
      • What's What? Pa, CFM, CFM50, CAZ, Draft, Room Pressure
      • What To Know In The Attic
      • What To Know In The House
    • BLOWER DOOR TEST >
      • Manometer Setup
    • BPI BUILDING ANALYST STANDARDS >
      • BPI Standards Decoded
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How To Get Started Working Full Time As An Energy Auditor

11/5/2015

4 Comments

 
It is not often clear the path a BPI Certified energy auditor should take, or where exactly the opportunities lie… to buffer existing business, as side work, to full as a full time energy auditor, or to go out on your own, the opportunities are vast and diverse.   Often times we get our energy auditor certification as a kind of back-up plan or to aid a struggling business.  Or maybe you attended BPI training as part of the federal grant money and hope to start off slow and learn the ropes from another home performance company.  Or maybe you are like me and are all-in, starting your own home performance company from scratch purchasing your own blower door and creating your own field sheets for your jobs.  Regardless of your goal, one thing is for certain… earning your BPI Certification is just the beginning.

​There are three routes you can take if you want to work full time as an energy auditor, work in weatherization, gain experience first by working for someone else or jump out and see if you can swim.  Each path can lead you to the end goal of owning your own business if that is what you want.  Let’s say that Tim has his BPI Certificate in hand but owns no equipment and has no energy auditing experience.  How should he get started?

Work in weatherization

Weatherization work has been around since the 70’s.  It has traditionally been government funded or non-profit operated.  Most organizations that do weatherization also are BPI Test Centers or give their own week class.  How do you land a job with a weatherization group?  Because they do a lot of government work a criminal free background is usually a must.  If you take your BPI exam with a weatherization group/ BPI Test Center it helps to do well on your exam and show the instructor you are a quick learner during the class, and then ask if there are any openings for energy auditors or retrofitters. 
 
Those organizations have an aplothera of equipment for energy auditors.  Either apply for a job there and stay in touch with the auditors and supervisors in the future if something does come up.  Relationship building is key here as I have seen several independent auditors borrow for free or rent blower door equipment from these organizations if you need a blower door and yours happen to “brake.”  If you land a job there you have a powerful asset behind you with the organization being experts in energy auditing and retrofitting, cranking out high volumes of both each year.  The down side is the pay isn’t very good and the homes are limited to low income housing so you will see a lot of smaller homes, bitchy tenants and manufactured housing.  The fundamentals will be the same no matter what house you go to but your habits of looking for defects will need to be adjusted when going into larger homes.  Working in weatherization you will learn to do everything by the book and not pick up the bad habits of lazy contractors and crews who are for-profit. 

Gain experience working for another energy audit company

Playing it safe and getting experience on someone else’s dime has its advantages and disadvantages.  The advantages are:
  1. You learn the mistakes of other people without cutting your teeth too bad.
  2. You can gain experience.
  3. You may miss a significant income increase by working for others.
  4. You may miss family time by working on someone else’s schedule.

The disadvantages of starting your own business rather than working for someone else are:


  1. You also can pick up bad habits from others. Have your heart in the right place and always do the best thing for the client and charge appropriately to cover for mishaps.
  2. You may get comfortable and never go out on your own.
  3. You become liable for others mistakes.  Set up a training program right away and get rid of bad employees fast.  It’s no fun getting a $60,000 insurance claim filed against you and battling it out.  If you start out before you are prepared, you leave the door open for bigger problems if you grow too fast without controls in place.

What is the best way to find these kinds of jobs? Search your local utility company website for energy audit programs and rebates along with a Google and Yelp search.  They will have a list of contractors who perform home performance and start contacting them.  Some of the companies will be HVAC companies who do energy audits as an-add on. It will be hard to get in with them as a newbie unless you have HVAC experience.  Usually these companies take one of their own and train him to do audits.  You will have better luck going to a solar company and pitching them to do energy audits with you as a lead into solar.  Create your own field sheets, report and contract to show as examples and ask them to do a trial with you where you will take their last 20 customers and offer them an energy audit as a thank you for their business.  Sign a few of those people up and you’re off!  It’s also worth calling other energy auditing companies to see if they are hiring but I suspect they will mostly want to hire auditors who have some experience.  If you’ve made your calls and still don’t have a company to grow into, you can give up or start on your own. 

Start your own energy audit company

By jumping into the fire right off the bat you will likely hit more road bumps but your learning by doing will go off the charts.  Nothing compares to doing everything yourself, you learn really quickly what works and what doesn’t and it doesn’t take very long to get it right or you don’t eat.  Click to read about how I thought I killed my first customer.  By going it alone you are also maximizing your financial gain two to three fold.  You get to keep almost all the money you bring in.  If you charge $300 for an audit, that’s almost all yours rather than $100 per audit if you worked for someone else.  I say that $300 is almost all yours because of course you have expenses but if you are smart, you aren’t wasting $3000 relying on a Val Pak direct mail piece but instead are boots to the ground door knocking, making cold calls and using your network to drum up your first customers.  Once you have the first couple in the door, put real effort in building your referral base and warm-lead marketing.  Do not go into debt trying a new marketing campaign, you already spent enough on your blower door equipment.  I would even skip on the IR camera when you just start off or get the iPhone thermal camera attachment.  Going out as an independent energy auditor is also good because you get to experience first-hand all the aspects of the business.  Go lean and go hard should be your motto. 

You get market to your prospects, do the energy audit, sell the upgrades and even install them all while learning what customers expect at every step along the way and then use your feedback to improve the process the second time around and so on.  Does showing the zonals on recessed canned lights help you sell the job but you learn that there is no energy savings and is super time intensive on the install side?... stop showing and talking about your zonal readings on canned lights during your energy audits.   Did you learn when selling your upgrades at the kitchen table that homeowners don’t care about going green or reducing their carbon footprint?... stop using that as a selling point on your website and at networking meetings.

No matter which method you choose to take your home performance career, one constant is the need to practice you butt off.  Take zonal readings everywhere in the house, spend some extra time exploring in the attic and do an extra modeling scenario or two because that’s how you will become a master energy auditor in your region.  Dedicate yourself to practicing and asking questions and you’ll soon be a high quality energy auditor with a great reputation.  


4 Comments

What is needed to start your own energy audit company? Part two

11/4/2015

5 Comments

 
Since many of our readers plan on starting their own energy auditing company this is the second part of our list of essentials you will need to get off the ground. The second part of the essential list starts out a little unconventional on purpose to help stress important highlights to help you avoid going out of business. You may be thinking, "What? You are trying to help us by helping us not go out of business?" My answer is yes, because I have seen a dozen of my peers close their doors as energy auditors and home performance contractors. Some of them were good energy auditors and good people, some of them weren't, but they are all out of business regardless.

This is more than a marketing and advertising plan. This post can help you avoid their mistakes and try new things and if you get nervous thinking about trying something new, it's probably something worth your full effort.

What is the difference between successful independent energy auditors and energy auditors that go out of business?

A willingness to do whatever it takes
I mentor a new energy auditor who started his own independent energy audit business. He is qualified with lots of experience and over 1,000 audits under his belt and does a good check up, is personable and has good customer service skills. We had talked about getting new business by acting as an independent energy auditor to home performance contractors in our Home Performance With Energy Star Program. He would have to call each contractor and solicit his energy audit services highlighting his independence and ease of gaining trust with homeowners, experience in the Energy Star program and flexibility and adapting to each companies process and requirements. He would have already set a set schedule of availability, how much he would charge per audit and what deliverables and services he would provide. That was all set so after a week of quitting his existing job, we met and I asked how his process was going? He replied that he hadn't called anyone yet. We were providing most of his leads thus far on overflow audits we had but I knew that it was going to eventually dry up and he would be up a creek if he didn't act fast. After discussing the inevitability it was clear his lynch pin was that he was very hesitant on picking up the phone and calling anyone. Cold calling is intimidating and scary, but what is more scary is not having any money in the bank account to feed the kids! This guy needed to get on the phone and start dailing, knocking on doors, connecting with managers on LinkedIn, showing up at home shows and introducing himself, writing letters and take massive action to put himself in front of companies. I knew his service was needed, he just needed to take the jump and put himself out there everyday.

That's where a lot of companies fail, they won't do anything that makes them uncomfortable and so when one marketing source dries up, they have nothing to fall back on to keep the money flowing in. A marketing plan is only as good as its implementation and back end execution. Too many energy auditors aren't willing to do what makes them uncomfortable out of fear of rejection,  being seen as pesky and annoying, and because of the negative connotations surrounding the action. I heard on my local news talk radio show during their news round up that any door to door sales people should be avoided because that way of marketing is outdated. I thought that was a stupid and ignorant thing to say that just makes it harder for companies to do what they do. Yes, there are companies that do door to door sales that are crooks but there are also ethical companies that offer good products and services that do door to door sales. That mindset of being an annoying pest keeps many energy auditors out of the game and leaving thousands of dollars on the table. If you practice ethically, there is no reason why you should be hesitant in promoting your energy audit services in any way possible. Energy auditors offer a service that is needed by the public and with a clean conscious you have given yourself the green light to promote yourself to the masses.

Are there times you will have to do things that take you out of your comfort zone? Sure, but the more you practice and build up your "muscles" the easier it gets and the more effective you get. Don't become paralyzed in a state of inactivity or comfort.

Will you maybe not hit the mark every time and have to go back to the drawing board to alter course? Maybe, but an imperfectly executed plan is far better than a perfectly planed non executed plan.
5 Comments

    David Byrnes

    Owns and operates Green ID, a residential home energy auditing and contracting company in Phoenix, AZ. He is a BPI Proctor and has trained over 40 energy auditors.

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