Washington State considering energy audit requirments for home inspections

That’s right folks. There are duplicate bills in front of the Senate (SB 5076) and House (HB 1181) that would require home inspectors to:

**NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that the state’s consumers and real estate industry recognize the benefits of home energy efficiency. The legislature also finds that home inspections occur in a majority of residential real estate transactions, and that the state has recently adopted a comprehensive system of educating and licensing home inspectors.

It is therefore the intent of the legislature to ensure that residential home inspections provide consumers with information about home energy efficiency based on standards developed by the home inspector advisory licensing board.**

The written report must include information describing those systems and components of homes that affect energy efficiency, consistent with the standards of practice developed by the board.

Jan 23 Scheduled for public hearing in the House Committee on Environment at 1:30 PM. (Subject to change)

Jan 24 Scheduled for public hearing in the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment & Telecommunications at 1:30pm. (Subject to change)

There is a possibility, although somewhat remote, that if this law is passed, the Board could develop a program that would require a blower door test and the use of infrared on every inspection. And how much new equipment and training do you want to purchase?

Steve, We had a bill similar to that a few years back except they wanted home inspectors to distribute brochures on energy efficiency with every report.

These brochures would be provided at no cost to the inspector by the utilities. If I remember correctly it never made it out of committee.

Keep us posted.