InterNACHI: one of first to be licensed to offer the Home Energy Saver tool.
February 17, 2011
InterNACHI, the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, Inc., has just received a full license to develop its own residential energy calculator – called the Energy Savings Report ESR.
The InterNACHI Energy Savings Report Tool is based upon the the DOE's Home Energy Saver tool. The Home Energy Saver (HES) is a web-based residential energy calculator developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
InterNACHI's Home Energy Inspection Training and Certification Program will qualify our membership to perform energy assessments.
Scoring Points for Energy Efficiency
Initially launched in November 2010, the DOE's Home Energy Scoring Program is aimed at “…giving American families the tools they need to invest in home energy upgrades,” according to Vice President Joe Biden. The program’s ultimate goals include putting less demand on public utilities and natural resources, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and helping homeowners save money on their energy bills and decrease their carbon footprint, which will potentially make them eligible for discounts on home supplies and even insurance coverage.
Training
Working in cooperation with approved training providers of The InterNACHI School, InterNACHI will provide its members with free education and training as part of its new InterNACHI Energy Rating™ Training and Certification Program.
How the Score Will Benefit Homeowners
The Home Energy Score will be a quick way for homeowners to understand how their home's energy performance compares to that of others in the same region. And, the Home Energy Score will be more than just a simple number or label. Along with the score will come customized recommendations for simple energy upgrades, intensive energy audits, as well as an estimate of how much energy improvements can reduce the homeowner's utility bills.
Secure Certificate
To help prevent defrauding the U.S. DOE, home buyers, home sellers, REALTORS®, and financial institutions, InterNACHI has developed a ‘Secure Certificate’ for our Energy Rating. Our ‘Secure Certificate’ contains security measures, including Fourdrinier watermark paper, visible and invisible fibers, extended stains indicators, tonefuse, prismatic background, microline borders, thermochromic ink, hologram images, unique ID numbers, and QR codes. All Energy Ratings generated through InterNACHI’s web-based HES Tool system will be secure, verifiable and backed-up.
InterNACHI Energy Ratings Will Benefit Homeowners
Homeowners often find that energy improvements can dramatically improve the comfort and integrity of their homes, so it makes sense for homeowners to act as soon as possible to enhance their quality of life. Using the InterNACHI Energy Rating, home inspectors can assess areas in the home for energy improvement and make specific, cost-effective recommendations to clients so that they can develop a specific plan of action to address their home’s energy deficits. Whether they’ve lived in their home for years or have just moved in, and whether it’s a newly built or older, classic home, all homeowners and prospective homeowners can benefit from a home energy inspection.
By getting an InterNACHI Energy Rating performed by a specially trained InterNACHI inspector, homeowners can quickly learn how to save energy and money, while also seeing how their home ranks compared to others in the area. After the homeowner makes energy improvements, the home's energy efficiency is likely to increase. So, similar to radon testing that is performed both before and after mitigation, homeowners can ask their contractor to include a post-upgrade assessment as part of the energy improvement package to compare pre- and post-upgrade scores.
An InterNACHI Energy Rating can help homeowners understand how to integrate energy upgrades into a home renovation project or addition. When done as part of a larger project, it makes sense to have the home inspected before and after work is done so the homeowner can verify that the home's energy performance has improved. The Rating serves as a way to document these improvements, thereby enhancing the home's appeal and value when it’s ready to sell.
The Real Cost to Homeowners
American homeowners often neglect a comprehensive home energy audit as an unnecessary or even frivolous aspect of home inspections. Historically, it's also been cost-prohibitive, ringing up at a national average of between $400 and $600. InterNACHI's Energy Rating Training and Certification Program is a perfect match for the DOE's ultimate goals, which VP Joe Biden summarized well. InterNACHI is committed not only to affordable and comprehensive training for its inspectors, but also to affordable and comprehensive home inspections for consumers, which help make them responsible homeowners who maintain their homes properly, which, in turn, saves energy.
Consumer education is the most cost-effective energy conservation measure known to man, and that's what InterNACHI inspectors do every day:
• educate homeowners; and
• provide low-cost energy inspections.
Driving down energy costs and expanding green-energy technology have been among the top priorities of government for more than two decades. Everyone has a stake in this program’s positive outcome.
The inspector then enters the data into a web-based energy calculator developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy to:
- estimate the home's yearly energy usage;
- pinpoint potential energy inefficiencies;
- calculate a score based on these estimates; and
- develop recommendations for energy improvements.
The house is scored on a scale from 1 to 100. A 100 would represent a home with perfect energy performance whereas a 1 would represent a home that needs significant energy upgrades. This score can be used to compare homes. A higher score generally means a lower energy bill and a more efficient home (with less of an environmental impact).
The Home Energy Inspection Report lists recommendations for energy upgrades that are specific to the house, as well as an estimate of how much these improvements can reduce the utility bill. The report is based upon the data collected, the national average of costs for installation of specific energy improvements, and the state averages of the utility costs.
Some of the recommendations for energy upgrades are simple for a homeowner to do. Others require more effort and investment but promise large financial savings over the years.
INSPECTIONS DONE RIGHT
