Life or Death: Why Getting Home Energy Audits Right Matters

By A Concerned Building Scientist

When homes don’t operate how they’re designed to, the consequences can be life altering.

This week’s guest helps us understand the life and death stakes of faulty residential construction and home energy retrofits — and why modeling transparency is critical for the future of the auditing industry.

You’re drifting off to sleep, trying to relax in this new home. The long day at work got to you. You feel like you barely made it through the day to dinner. Your son saw you were tired. He hugs you and lets you know how happy he is you’re eating with him. You barely notice his voice sounds a little scratchier than normal.

A hoarse cry erupts from the other side of the house. Your son is crying for you, but it hardly sounds like him. You race to his room, grabbing the inhaler from the medicine cabinet on the way there. As you comfort him from his panicked breathing, inhaling the medicine, you wonder: “Why now?” He hasn’t had an attack in a year.

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Home energy ratings and home energy audits are a niche in the residential construction market.

It is made up of trained professionals who use equipment to test how leaky the home and duct systems are. But they do more than that. They assess the quality of the insulation installed. They look for the holes where bugs and moisture can enter the house. Some use thermal cameras to find issues without having to take gypsum board off. Others perform design reviews and verify the installation quality of the HVAC equipment. Most of them rely on software tools to “model” the home. It helps them find places of improvement in existing homes or more cost-effective ways to meet high-efficiency programs. Programs like ENERGY STAR® and the Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home.

In most States, the building department relies on these third parties to be the “boots on the ground” as well. At a minimum, they verify the homes are being built to meet the Codes. This can range from the plumbing and mechanical codes, all the way to the “energy code”. This energy code dictates a broad swathe of requirements. Things like insulation R-value, energy efficiency aspects like whole-house mechanical ventilation, and more.

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You’ve gone to the hospital again.

Your son had another attack, this one severe enough that the medication hardly made a dent. You’re wracking your brain. Sure, the air quality has been really bad recently with the wildfires, but he wears a mask outside. And his home - it’s a high-efficiency, certified house. It went through an in-depth inspection. Surely it can’t be that?

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The industry has three national entities that participate. Building Performance Institute (BPI) was founded and headquartered in the Northeast. Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET®), is a 501c3 headquartered in California. The "youngest", Building Science Institute (BSI), is a quality management provider headquartered in Texas.

BPI tends to attract, train, and certify home energy auditors and contractors who work in existing homes. They use third-party approved training centers across the USA for training and certification. They’re also a standards-writing organization. They maintain several American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards. They don’t have a quality management component in the same way as RESNET or BSI, but their training and certification is top-notch.

RESNET was originally founded as a public outreach organization. It was a joint-project of Energy Rated Homes of America and National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO). But, in the early 2000s they took national guidelines developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)  and the HERS Council. This formed the basis of their own national system, MINHERS®.

Since then, they’ve pushed their proprietary calculation output, called the HERS® Index, into the public sphere. They did this by partnering with the U.S. EPA’s ENERGY STAR program. For over a decade they were the de facto monopoly in the home energy rating industry. How? The ENERGY STAR certification could only be attained through the use of their network. It wasn’t until 2019 the U.S. EPA modified the program to allow other oversight entities. And it wasn’t until 2022 that another organization received the same recognition.

RESNET is actually three separate business models in one company. It is an ANSI Standards development organization, setting industry standards used by the EPA and DOE. But it also has its own proprietary system of standards. These are only available to use by their network members. Awkwardly, these standards layer on top of the ANSI Standards they alsodevelop, which is how the HERS Index is made. Many places will accept or even require the use of their proprietary system. In this way the required use of RESNET’s network without specifically calling RESNET furthers their monopoly.

The third business model in their organization is the Home Certification Organization (HCO). As an ENERGY STAR and DOE Zero Energy Ready Home recognized entity, they’re required to implement QA programs on their network. But, here’s the funny thing - they accredit companies in their network to do the vast majority of oversight. They call them “QA Providers”. And these QA Providers? Well, they’re mostly “vertically integrated” and perform QA on their own inspections.

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You’ve been in the house less than a year but you’re desperate to discover why your son keeps having attacks. The doctors are adamant - there’s something in the home opening him to allergens. You’ve had a mold specialist out - nothing. But now the builder has called and asked for the 11-month warranty check.

You explained the consistent health issues experienced by your family and the hospital emergency room visits. “Well, I’ll have the inspector come back out and look at the house. See if he missed anything.” The clean-looking work truck arrives, and a man steps out with a small bag of tools. “I’m John, mind showing me where you’ve been having problems?”

You lead him to your son’s room, and he pulls out a thermal camera. You watch as he scans the walls, seeing mostly reds, yellows, and oranges on the outside wall. Deeper purples are on-screen when he scans the inside walls. He then aims it up to the ceiling, near a grill, and he makes a face. “Sir, can you show me where the attic access is?”

In the garage, John comes down the stairs sweating fiercely. “Those stupid subs… when will they learn?” You ask, “What happened? What did you see?”

“The duct to your son’s room wasn’t connected. We see that sometimes when insulation contractors blow-in, they turn the system on and disconnect a duct to manage the heat. But they never reconnect it right. Also, was this house a model home?”

You nod. Your home was the last model home in one of the most desirable new developments in the city. The best school district and measured quality of life. That, it seems to you now, was a lie.

“It looks like they used your garage as a sales office because I saw a couple of ducts to the garage. While they were disconnected from the system up top, it looks to me they were still connected in the garage, just covered up by the sheetrock.”

What does that mean? “It means every time you turned a car on, it could get the pollutants into the system - and those ducts laid on top of the duct to your son’s room.”

A dagger to the heart - on some level, you have been responsible for what’s happened. Simply turning on the car and going to work added even more to your son’s health issues.

“How did this happen, why didn’t the inspections catch this?”

John opened up his company’s project database to look at the address. “It looks like this house is a sampled project. It means we probably didn’t do any inspec-.”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he knew he spoke too much. “I have to send my report to the builder, and then I’ll get out of your hair.” John shook your hand and quickly left.

Your mind began racing. “What do you mean they didn’t inspect the house?” I thought they were all inspected for the high-efficiency program? Why wouldn’t he send the report to me? “It’s my house, isn’t it?” And why didn’t the label on the house say “Sampled”?

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Most people can agree: the optics don’t look good when the company doing the inspections also is the one reviewing their own work. It was such an issue that nearly ten years ago RESNET proposed a mandate that all certified individuals performing quality assurance duties be contractors of RESNET. They would be “Quality Agents”, and would provide third-party QA on the QA Providers. Rather than having direct employees doing the QA, it would all be contractors designated by RESNET.

But that never came to pass, despite the RESNET Board of Directors setting it as a priority. It was presented on by RESNET Staff, and public comments flew in every direction.

However, the scuttlebutt on why it never happened still persists. The most commonly heard story is this... RESNET Staff contacted a company with no background in QA/QC to run a pilot program on one of the largest QA Providers. When this company provided their estimated cost for this single company to be in the mid-6-figure range, word spread amongst the largest vertically integrated QA Providers. Some of the most common responses behind closed doors were:

“The builders are already price sensitive, what’ll happen if we tell them there’s a massive new price increase?”

“We can’t afford the cost, all our profits would go to paying this contractor!”

“What if the company designated to be our Quality Agent doesn’t agree with how we do business? They could tell RESNET and we’d have to change how we do things. How much would that cost us?”

And with that - systemic, independent quality assurance was killed. All because a company with no background in QA bid a top-5 company mid-6-figures for services they’d never performed before.

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You sit in a comfortably appointed office of a law firm. After telling them your story, they agree in writing to waive the initial advance. Maybe it’s your distrust of lawyers, but you swear you could’ve seen dollar signs light up in their eyes.

“Have you spoken to your neighbors about this? Does anyone else know their homes might be compromised?”

You hadn’t - yet. You just wanted your home fixed. You want to sell it and move away from a city where people built homes and didn’t have inspections. If word got out, it would damage your resell value.

“Oh, I think don’t think you’ll have to worry about recouping any costs with the home.”

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No one had a successful application to a new Home Certification Organization immediately. It took several years, till mid-2022, for another organization, Building Science Institute (BSI).

BSI was built from the ground up to be different from RESNET. As the founder stated, “I threw out everything I knew and looked for resources outside the industry.” ISO Standards like 17020 and 19011 became the basis for this new system. Sampling is limited to stacked multifamily apartments and ANSI Z1.4 was the sampling protocol. But these were just the building blocks.

The most important thing was to have a level of transparency that was never possible within RESNET.

In RESNET, you had three to four separate software tools at a given time. Each generated different outputs. Efforts to improve software consistency took time. And they were often moderated by whatever was the most widely used tool at the time.

But you also have human error (both intentional and not). If the software tools did their jobs right, you still had to contend with a human plugging field data into the tool. And that was never a simple solution.

Then you had another issue. RESNET, the home certification organization, only sees what is submitted to their Registry. They do not see the field data and supporting documents unless the QA Provider uploads them. If something is flagged, they could reach out and ask about it. But if the people they spoke with showed RESNET Staff different pictures and documents, RESNET was none the wiser.

That’s why BSI uses a single software tool. One where all the field inspections and supporting documents are uploaded before the project is submitted for review. And who does the review? BSI Staff members. If anything raises a flag, it is automatically required reviewal by BSI Staff. At any moment, BSI Staff can review the projects in-progress to verify that inspections are taking place. And best of all? This level of transparency is offered to code officials, as well as state and federal program managers.

Besides an integrated field and energy modeling platform with unmitigated transparency, BSI also relies on EnergyPlus for calculations. Rather than having a proprietary calculation in a black box, the software sends a data package via API to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Strangely, all these aspects are things the RESNET Board of Directors supported and pushed for in years past. But, for some reason, they never got implemented.

Then a year after BSI launched, the ENERGY STAR program began making the most significant improvements to the HCO system since 2019. Their first move was to sunset sampling for single-family dwelling units. In many markets, the cost of a home energy rating has been artificially low. The QA Provider used sampling protocols to avoid doing inspections. In essence it allowed them to skip homes and charge a reduced rate for their services.

Or QA Providers would implement a “sampling protocol” for insulation inspections. They still perform a final inspection on all the homes though. Then they would pass it off as a completely “confirmed” rating. This practice was never allowed under any recognized system. And beginning in 2025, sampling for single-family homes is completely disallowed.

Then the ENERGY STAR program made an additional modification. HCOs are now required to perform direct QA/QC.

Beginning in 2025, massive changes are being implemented by the ENERGY STAR program. Changes that have long been held as necessary by people behind closed doors.

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“Look, your son is fine and you’ve sold your house. Are you sure you want to do this?”

You’re sitting in your office chair in a new home. One you know for a fact was inspected and tested - you even got the photos and review documents from the oversight company. Your son plays in a room next door with dinosaurs. Quiet roars can be heard through the house as they gobble up some unknown prey. The builder is offering a settlement - sign the NDA, drop the suit, and this new home is basically paid for. It’d mean a lot financially due to the inflated market values.

What should you do? Should you go the path of least resistance? Raise the white flag and move past it?

Or will you move forward in collecting signatures from the old neighborhood? Some of the neighbors found insulation missing in their attics. Others got their homes re-tested by a different company, and their ducts are much leakier than the paperwork suggested.

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There are high stakes in the home energy rating and auditing industry. We are a necessary aspect to verifying homes handed to home buyers operate the way they’re designed. But if we as an industry don’t push for radical transparency and if we don’t excise the cancer of bad actors...

We will kill someone.

We cannot afford to let any particular company bend or sidestep rules to get their way. Even one empty lot being certified or one homeowner who got sick because their home wasn’t tested is an affront to human decency.

If you want to be a part of this wave of change, in making sure homes are built well with the end-user, the homeowner, in mind: join the industry now. Do the right thing. You’ll shine a light on those individuals and companies that have long acted with only profit in mind.

We need your help, and we need it now.

This post was submitted to The Clear Clean anonymously by a professional with extensive experience in the home energy rating and auditing industry.