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Have your BPI Certification means you are rolling several trades into one and becoming a whole-house energy auditor or home performance contractor.  I know many of my peers come from backgrounds as home inspectors, HVAC, framing, general contracting, electrical, plumbing, handymen, engineering, roofing and painting.  Having such a diverse background of people means some terms you may be an expert in and other terms you may not be as familiar.  Personally, I had to overcome huge hurdles and spend lots of time crawling through attics and inventing new yoga positions to fit into return plenums to get up to speed on this stuff.  To make it easier for you, I want to attempt spelling everything out and get you on your feet ASAP.  If you find something is missing that you would like shown here, feel free to email me above and I will be sure to include it in this guide.  Good luck!

Atmospheric-draft furnace

Unlike fan assisted furnaces, which use a mechanical fan to push the combustion gases out of the flue, an atmospherically vented furnace does not have a fan to assist the exit of combustion gases but rather relies on dilution air from the combustion appliance zone to move gasses out of the flue to the outside.

In Arizona, I have only seen 2 atmospherically vented furnaces after performing more than 1000 audits.  The majority of furnaces I've seen are fan assisted.  When I found one, it was like a relic and I actually got excited.  Anyway, I assume they are most common-place back east where homeowners have not upgraded their original heating and cooling systems yet.

If you come across one, you must perform a smoke and draft test just as you would an atmospherically vented water heater (plus your CAZ and gas leak checks as you would for any combustion appliance)

Also remember for fan assisted furnaces you need to get on a shingle or flat roof or find the discharge on the side of the house to measure the CO at the output (I say this because in most homes we have tile or two stories where accessing the roof is a risk so we do not need to take an undiluted CO reading).

Return plenum

Return plenum is behind the grille, under the AHU

The return plenum is made from plywood

The return plenum is the metal box (left) attached to the AHU cabinet

A return plenum is any piece of sheet metal, drywall or wall cavity that the return airflow passing through before it reaches the AHU. Sometimes, AHU do not have return or supply plenums with ducts coming right off the AHU cabinet. This is not a good practice as return plenums allow for better mixing of the air before it goes past the A-coils. Plenums also easily allow for adding new returns to the unit to reduce static pressure. The more returns, the better (think of breathing through 2 straws (only one return) compared to breathing through 10 straws (4 returns)).

Air barrier

Air barriers are open cavities connected to the attic. They allow attic outside air to directly heat interior walls because they were not capped or sealed off. 

Insulation misalignment

Insulation misalignments occur when the insulation is not 100% in contact with the drywall. Another way to define insulation misalignments are when the thermal boundary is not 100% aligned with an air barrier. Misalignments most often happen with fiberglass batt insulation but they can occur with loose fill insulation that has clumped together. Good auditors can identify possible misalignments by walking the house and looking for arches, columns, potshelves, transitions between vaults and horizontal ceilings and canned lights. These are the areas you need to look for in the attic. Review the insulation misalignment section here.

Jump duct

A jump duct has two registers in the ceiling, connected by a closed loop flex line in the attic. One register is in the bedroom and one register is in the hallway. The registers will look different than the other registers in the house. Some times if there are multiple jump ducts in a home, they will all jump to one common, larger can in the hallway.

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