There are 130 million existing homes in America, and many were built before modern energy codes were established. Residential structures are responsible for 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the country, because they use so much fossil fuel. For many homeowners and tenants, energy bills account for far too much of the monthly budget.
These are problems that product rebate programs, regular contractors or the best homeowner cannot solve. Sometimes, they can do more harm than good by inadvertently creating problems with mold, moisture, ice damming, poor indoor air quality and even combustion appliance back-drafting.
When you choose BPI standards for contractor development, you’re creating sustainable, green-collar jobs in your communities – jobs that cannot be exported. Your entire workforce is following the same protocols – in every city and town, across each county and throughout the state. That lets you compare results between regions and accurately measure your program’s success. You can also compare your results with those of your peers across the country, because so many jurisdictions in the United States are already using BPI as the foundation of their energy efficiency retrofit programs and weatherization assistance programs.
Why? Because unlike offering rebates for products or do-it-yourself projects that may or may not have the desired effect, individuals that have been trained, tested and certified to BPI’s nationally recognized standards use the house-as-a-system approach to improving the performance of existing homes – an approach proven to reduce homeowner annual utility bills by as much as 20% or more1.
Starting with a comprehensive whole-home assessment, they locate and diagnose problems at the source and prescribe solutions that not only improve energy efficiency, but also protect homeowner comfort, health and safety – including indoor air quality and mold prevention. A second whole-home assessment at the end of the job proves the work was done right and that your incentive dollars were spent on real solutions. Extra security is provided by quality assurance protocols for BPI accredited contracting companies that include homeowner satisfaction and conflict resolution provisions.
1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy, Home Performance with ENERGY STAR® Brochure, EPA 430-F-09-001 January 2009, http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/reps/pt_reps_home_performance/HPwESSampleBrochure.pdf
