InterNACHI goes deeper in Home Energy

Specific Inspection Topics Thermal Imaging, Infrared Cameras & Energy Audits
1

Hey all,

My name is Tom Zachar and I’m the program administrator at iNACHI headquarters. I have some good news: InterNACHI intends to deepen its involvement with the U.S. Department of Energy’s nationwide Home Energy Score program.

With the advent of Portland, Oregon’s decision to make every real estate transaction require a Home Energy Score (Jan. 2018 ), we believe that the ongoing and upcoming surge of home-energy related topics will continue to expand and thrive.

After some training, I was recently approved by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide Home Energy Scores to homeowners. My interest in (albeit debated) climate change, reducing energy consumption, and saving money via home efficiency, has inspired me to pursue this path and learn about home-energy related topics. Personally, I would like to acquire enough experience and knowledge in order to ultimately help in the efforts of making our nation more sustainable, energy-efficient, and aware of our carbon footprint.

My goal is for InterNACHI to become a Desktop Quality Assurance Provider and Mentor, meaning we can fulfill the DOE requirements for active assessors. This would essentially be a great opportunity for our members to get more business by scoring homes immediately and continuously, at little to no cost.

With that said, I’m available to assist and guide any of you who would like to explore the HES program. The Score is a great way to add a service to your current business, or to be used as a standalone service.

I encourage all of you to check out the Home Energy Score as it rapidly expands in the upcoming months.

Here is a link to our webpage on the Score

and

a link to the U.S. Dept. of Energy HES webpage

I’m greatly looking forward to expanding our involvement with the U.S. Dept. of Energy, and to provide yet another great service for our members. Feel free to send me an e-mail with any questions or comments that you have as well! Thank you.

Peace,

Tom Zachar
tom@internachi.org

2

Thanks Tom.

3

Awesome news! I am looking forward to helping with the Home Energy Score video in June!

Colorado Home Energy Score Assessor

4

Glad you finally got through the SIMM Tom, I plan on furthering my education as well and if I can be of any help let me know.

5

Great news. I have passed the test and got the boot because there were no mentors in my area. Will I have to retake the test and if so how will the mentor program work. I an not planning on wasting all the time to do the test again and losing it again. Thanks John

6

Thanks John,

As of now there IS an option for those trying to get mentored. Inspection Depot does remote mentoring and quality assurance, and they just reduced their fee. Depending on when you took the training, you may or may not have to retake the simulation test. Send me an e-mail or give me a call and I can discuss further, and point you in the right direction.

-Tom
303-242-8253

7

I didn’t notice that they reduced their fee. That was affecting the guys that were using the Home Inspector Pro HES integration. I’ll have to check that out. Is InterNACHI planning on providing it for free to it’s members?

8

Thanks Dominic,

InterNACHI is planning on providing it for free for its members, however, we’re not exactly sure when this might take place.

9

So nothing has really changed.

10

The sooner the better, the commission and other fees to inspection depot are a bit excessive.

11

Get rid of or simplify the Sim training process and I am in. I have talked with people here in VT and that is the barrier. Too much time to get through it. I could score 600 to 1000 homes per year, no problem. But I simply do not have the kind of time to put into playing with the Sim for such a basic set of data and collection method.

12

I passed the SIM on April 9th. I was looking through my emails with Tom and DOE to try to decipher how long it took me to get through it. I was emailed my packet from DOE on April 4th. I didn’t do much with it until Friday the 7th. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I went through all 9 senerios of the 1st sim which I didn’t have to do. You only have to pass 1 from each level as I recall, to take the test, but, it probably helped me become comfortable with the SIM.

It’s not 6-8 hours or whatever they claim, but if you spend a good weekend on it you should have it done, (long days, lol).

The real problem is getting the mentoring done after you pass the SIM! I’m hoping I will get that worked out very soon.

13

That is the issue…

I don’t have hours on end or a long weekend to do it. We are too busy with an average of 18 inspections per week right now. All of which, I could be scoring with ease.

The mentoring is easy here as they already have someone identified and ready. Would take one inspection. Which is all the process and training really needs to be. No Sim. They don’t get it. Too much for the end user.