Home Performance Consulting ServicesA home energy consultant offers a range of services for home energy audits and then consulting with homeowners as they implement their projects. Some homeowners prefer to have a primary home performance contractor to handle the job. Others like the flexibility of working with a variety of contractors. Either way, the home energy consultant can help the homeowner guide their project to completion. Discussions in this article include: Home Energy Audit OptionsThere are a variety options for home energy audits, ranging from home energy surveys that can be done by a home owner to those requiring a home energy consultant. The best way to select services is based on your understanding of home performance principles and solutions. On-Line Home Energy Survey. A preliminary home energy audit can be done by a homeowner over the Internet. It can done using a basic set of assumptions or the homeowner can provide more details. In-Home Energy Survey. A home energy inspector can come to your house to perform what’s asked for in the On-Line Home Energy Survey for you. It’s a visual assessment and an interview. Only general recommendations are provided. Home energy inspectors may perform most of the visual assessment as part of their home inspection. Diagnostic Home Energy Survey. Specific recommendations for home energy improvements depend on diagnostic testing. Because of liability issues, home performance contractors require diagnostic testing to be done before accepting the work. This is the most common type of home energy assessment our home energy consultants perform. Comprehensive Home Energy Audit. When home energy improvement trade-off decisions need to be made or better heating & cooling systems are desired, home energy modeling is needed. Some of our home energy consultants have this ability. Home Energy Improvement Education ProcessThe beauty of the progression of home energy audits is there ability to build on each other. It’s not necessary to choose a Comprehensive Home Energy Survey immediately. In our experience, homeowners work up to the highest home energy audit level. The education process starts with heath or house concerns. In the process of sorting through those issues, they begin to understand basic possible solutions and start researching them on the Internet. Currently, the place most people start is with the Diagnostic Home Energy Survey, largely because no company offered anything different. Unfortunately, homeowners were hit with information overload and did nothing to improve their situation! We found an interim and less costly step is a visual assessment only—basically, a home inspection with an emphasis on home energy. If the decision is made to continue, diagnostic testing can be done later. Energy modeling isn’t necessary for many home performance projects because of the level decisions are being made at. For us, we found it easier to try some improvements first and learned a lot in the process. When it became time to remodel the house and replace the heating & cooling system, it made sense to model the energy characteristics of the house. Home Performance Improvement TimelineIt’s awesome when a homeowner decides to do everything the home energy consultant recommends right away. It happens, but most people are on the 10-year plan: home energy improvements are made and paid for over time. Building Consultants for Life. Home performance contractors and our home energy consultants have their own specialty businesses. There are times of the year when we’re busier than others. We don’t mind offering our services to you during our off seasons! Of course, we’ll help you when we’re busy too. The point is, improving the energy performance of your house may be a long-term work-in-progress. It’s helpful to have contractors and home energy consultants who stick with you through the life of your projects. Next: Home Energy Audit |
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