New developments and applications in the residential energy auditing industry | Ask Us Anything

CIET's Ask Us Anything series is a free monthly Q&A session with industry experts.

In our Ask Us Anything session about new developments and applications in the residential energy auditing industry, our two subject matter experts (Arman Mottaghi, CEO of Properate and Cindy Gareau, Executive Director of Canadian Association of Consulting Energy Advisors (CACEA)) discussed the differences and opportunities of both virtual tools and an audit performed by a registered energy advisor.

With Natural Resources Canada, and provincial and municipal jurisdictions exploring mandatory home labeling options, there is a lot to be discussed about the value and opportunities of using virtual tools and the EnerGuide label delivered by registered energy advisors.

If you missed this session, here is a Q&A highlight.

Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Question: Is the automatic measuring tool something that a homeowner could use? What are the requirements to conduct a virtual audit or remote assessment and/or to become an Energy Advisor (EA)?

Answer:

Lisa: Could the automatic measuring tool be something that a homeowner could do? So I assume they mean that, you know, a virtual audit, is that something that a homeowner could take on themselves? And I think what I'd like to maybe have each of you talk about is the different requirements to you know, perform virtual audit or remote assessment and/or to become an EA.

You touched on that a little bit, Cindy, but maybe maybe Arman, maybe we'll start with you because that's about the automatic measuring tools. So could it be used by the homeowner? 

Arman: To clarify, the automatic measuring tool that we are working on is for doing on site assessments.

This is not something you give the home owner, I think because there is a lot of know-how of how to use this.

For example, if you're standing on top of a of an exposed floor, cantilever floor, you know, like explaining these kind of concepts to a person who is just the homeowner is going to take way too much time and it's just downright impossible.

So no, this is like made for professionals to understand the work, who understand the underlying technology. It just allows them to do the work faster.

However, we have worked, done a ton of work to make the equipment as accessible as possible. So anybody who has an iPhone Pro in the last few years can just use this technology. It's $35,000 worth of technology of like 2-3 years ago that we have crammed in an iPhone, and we joke that these are now hand warmers because they get so hot because we're doing so many things with them.

But I, I think it's great that we get to have a technology that just makes this so accessible. For the people who just want to do something DIY, I think something like a remote rating, they answer their 10 questions. It's designed for them. It doesn't ask about R-values, it doesn't ask about insulation. It just asks them about what they should know and then when they are the last steps, we are like, "OK, this is like what we think your home is, but these are the next steps for you to take". And that hopefully encourages those DIYers to understand all the intricacies. As Cindy mentioned, for example, the the house as a system mentality and the fact that they can't just like jump to the Home Depot and buy something and put it in and call it the day.

Cindy: I will say we get a lot of people reaching out because they've got this tool and that tool. And absolutely, if we can have tools that can reduce the time for energy advisors, that's fantastic because the energy advisors, if we can give them enough time to have those conversations with their homeowners, the challenge is like when there are rebates and such, homeowners don't necessarily want to pay a lot of money to have those conversations. Energy advisors are consultants. They're advisors. They're not just somebody who comes in plug, you know, takes a bunch of measurements, throws this blower door, throws some numbers in a modeling software and boom, you're done. They are a partner in your retrofit, in your equipment change.

The concerns that we have with the statements that the virtual tool can do, what an energy advisor can, can do. And there are some people out there saying it can. The concerns we have is that the recommendations of somebody making recommendations to someone you haven't seen the house with, there is a great risk of unintended consequences. There's a great risk, because again, that energy advisor is seeing things that aren't being captured in that virtual. Even in a remote, if the homeowner's going around videotaping because you might miss something.

There is the concern about, combustion issues, there's a concern about mold, indoor air quality. And again, that's where the energy advisor can provide a lot of advice and guidance.

One of our things is, we are advocating that these are not called labels per se. If it's coming from a virtual tool, there's going to be a lot of confusion in the marketplace. If you're having the virtual assessment that's done in BC, that's just really saying "here's sort of where you're sitting" and there's, there's a little bit of input, I believe, Armand, from the homeowners, but now you have the EnerGuide label. Using the word "label" is going to be confusing, using the word "audit" is going to be confusing, and between what is an energy advisor's role and, and these. So some of the things that we're advocating for is clear language and a clear understanding of the uses and the differences.

We want to be able to have the time to talk to the homeowners. When there are incentive programs and people are only paying a certain amount of money or, or being rebated and incentivized to use an energy advisor, there isn't often enough time for that energy advisor to spend time with the homeowner.

So tools like that Arman is showing where the measurements can be done faster. Fantastic. Bring it on. We want to see those things as long as they're also affordable for the EA to be able to use.

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