Home Energy AuditsHome Comfort Assessment?

John Fassler

Home Energy AuditorBPI Building Analyst

Your Trainer

• John Fassler– Home Energy Auditor with CLEAResult– Have performed over 2,000 home energy audits in

Fort Collins, Cheyenne and Northern Colorado.– Over 20 years of experience in the homebuilding

industry. 10 years as a general contractor.– BPI Building Analyst– LEED AP?– RESNET certified

Home Certifications

• HERS Index• Energy Star• LEED for Homes• Home Energy Score, DOE• Passive House• Pretty Good House

Why Do People Get Audits

• House is uncomfortable.• Received an O-Power report that said they use

more energy than most people in their neighborhood.

• Windows are leaky?• The audit is required to receive a rebate.• High energy bills.• It’s a great deal. ($60 in Ft. Collins,Loveland…)

Common Report Recommendations1. House to garage connection2. Crawl spaces3. HVAC ducts and equipment in the attic or crawl space4. Attics5. Knee walls6. Rooms over the garage7. Cantilevered floors8. Leaky homes, ACH50 over 4.0?9. Basements10. Fireplaces11. Windows… “We do audits to inform homeowners that the

windows are not the problem.”Not always true, but usually.

House to Garage ConnectionUse Zone Pressure Diagnostics (ZPD) to measure

Crawl SpacesThe anti-logic zone.

Often a source of indoor air pollution. (Dust, mold, radon)

Insulate the walls and cut holes. Ventilation?

Crawl space with insulated floor. 92% efficient furnace and

ducts in crawl.

Knee Walls

Infrared

• Love it/Hate it… Great when it’s hot or cold outside. Can be misleading, use with caution.

Rooms Over the Garage

Cantilevered Floors

Attics

Ducts and Air Handler in Attic

When you see a home with ducts in the attic, you need to understand, that’s a design failure and it’s a quality failure and a performance failure. And if we just would educate people with that understanding, that that’s just a defect that the builder is forcing upon you the homeowner to have to live with. Then, if people understood it that way then that would shake a lot of people up, wouldn’t it?--Sam Rashkin

Fireplaces

Auditing Principles• Address Health & Safety/Indoor Air Quality First.• If a home has a crawl space it needs to be fixed. Vented crawl spaces are never recommended.• A home is never too tight. We can achieve acceptable indoor air quality in air-tight homes. We are

not likely to achieve acceptable indoor air quality when air enters through random leaks like the mouse droppings in the rim joists or the dead bird in the attic.

• Poorly done improvements make it more difficult to do it right in the future. The reason we do audits is that the work was done poorly the first time. Don’t recommend or allow “band-aids”. Do the work right or do nothing.

• The only way to air seal an attic correctly is to remove all existing insulation. • Problems in homes occur in difficult to access areas. If we just fix what is easy to get to we might

not make a difference. • Be sure you know why you are doing the audit. Health & Safety, comfort, comfort, comfort, save

energy. • Typical recommendations: Crawl space, Attic, Floor over garage, Cantilevered floor, Knee walls,

Basement rim joists and walls.• Do not recommend water heater blankets. They don’t save much and can cause a safety hazard. • Don’t use modeling software to make recommendations.

“Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” –George E. P. Box (1919-2013), statistician

Lessons Learned

• It’s OK to say “I don’t know.”• It can be difficult to identify and address health and

safety issues.• Physics is more reliable than intuition.• Indoor air quality is rarely addressed effectively.• Misinformation and myths about energy are abundant.• Computer modeling doesn’t work for existing homes.• Utility bill analysis is useful and often under utilized.

Simple to Complex

Resources

• Green Building Advisorwww.greenbuildingadvisor.com

• Home Energy Magazinewww.HomeEnergy.org

• Residential Energy by John Krigger and Chris Dorsihttp://www.srmi.biz/bookstore/books/bkre-residential-energy

• Building Science Corporationwww.buidingscience.com

• IAQ Radio www.iaqradio.com

Contact

John FasslerHome Energy Auditor

CLEAResult(970) 691-6971

John.fassler@CLEAResult.com

Bicycle Audit

5 Key Takeaways

• Compare risks and benefits over life cycles• Limits of legislation?• Utility of the future• Participatory democracy• The opportunity of remaking

Resources

Informational• Utility Dive• Center for the New Energy Economy• RMI/Reinventing Fire• Clean Energy Action• NREL• CEO • ACEEE• EPRI• EIA• IEA• Residential Energy• Green Building Advisor• DSIRE• CSU Extension – Energy FB page

Training• BPI Building Science

Principles of Knowledge Certification

• Solar Energy International