Energy inspections.

[TLyons]

Alot of energy audits are offered for free now a days. I think they are effective if performed properly, and results gone over.

http://www.sunriseenergynow.com

[David Meiland]

I've done the BPI and RESNET training and think it was very well worthwhile. An earlier poster is correct in that BPI has standards and a procedure for testing combustion appliances and the area(s) they're installed in for CO issues, and I would not recommend or perform air sealing without following this. In houses with sealed combustion appliances or nothing burning gas it's a non-issue.

There are a lot of organizations out there training energy auditors and my expectation is that a lot of the trainees will not find much work performing audits as independent operators. In general, someone coming into "the booming business of energy auditing and weatherization" is going to face a steep climb. There are plenty of auditors who work for community agencies doing WAP work, and they are busy as long as the funding keeps coming. Increasingly, builders and remodelers are tooling up and adding an energy angle to their projects, and I think this is viable (it has proven so for me).

The Home Star program died in the Senate a few weeks ago and may or may not reappear after recess. If it does, it might create some work for auditors, as one level of the program was set to require BPI audits to qualify for incentives. A few municipalities are starting to require audits when properties are sold, at least in some circumstances. If that catches on, watch out, the market will open up nicely. Other than that, make your business plans very carefully.

[RickSab]

I am glad to see this discussion continue. I have not found a lot of interest in energy audits and found it better to hook up with some one to recommend than to spend the money myself. As for CFL's I cut my electric in half changing lights out. I did find out though that a lot of occupancy sensors do not work with electronic ballasts. Read the fine print. I hope LEDS continue to fall in price. They work fine with occupancy sensors. Right now it takes a long time to save the cost of a LED though.

[Jim Baird]

I was going to start a new thread but decided instead to jolt this old corpse into a new dawn of the dead.

Our state has adopted '09 IECC and amended it to require Duct and Envelope Tightness inspections by certified personell, with certificates issued to be stuck on main panel or on HVAC equip housing. Blower/blast required, a whole protocol issued.

As mentioned above the local building science trainers are doing a "land office business", but new home construction is down in the dungeon still.

Our area has an estimated 10 to 40 years' worth of new platted subdivisions approved and almost no building activity.

[Jim Baird]

ABSTRACT: ANNALS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM about energy efficiency and the Jevons Paradox.

Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century was the world’s leading military, industrial, and mercantile power. In 1865, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman named William Stanley Jevons published a book, “The Coal Question,â€