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Improving Home Performance a New Niche for Remodelers
With interest in residential energy efficiency growing steadily, small builders and remodelers have an opportunity to sell their customers on advanced technology that will improve the performance of their homes, according to panelists at the Oct. 9-12 Remodeling Show in Las Vegas.
“Customers are asking about green, and one study shows that 70% of green in building today is energy efficiency,” said Bill Zwack, vice president of energy efficiency for SENTECH, Inc., a consulting company.
Remodelers can get started, Zwack said, by including energy in the design discussion; using diagnostic tools; sealing gaps and holes and insulating when adding new space or opening walls; and introducing ENERGY STAR products and processes.
Zwack advocated making a whole-house energy assessment that includes air sealing gaps and holes before insulating; insulating completely and correctly; designing or repairing ducts so that they are sealed and insulated properly, keeping the ducts inside the building envelope if possible; and specifying ENERGY STAR appliances, HVAC equipment, lighting and other residential products.
He also recommended a complete visual and diagnostic inspection of air infiltration, duct leakage and combustion safety.
The cost of testing equipment suggested by the Environmental Protection Agency is roughly in the $8,000 to $12,000 range, but remodelers don’t have to start out with it and can work their way into it, he said, noting that it is “the ultimate sales tool.”
Looking at the Whole House
“You have to look at the entire house” and then specify solutions, he said, because the wrong approach can make things worse.
Air sealing the house is one of the most important things to do to improve its performance, “and every home needs this to some extent” because of air coming through the foundation, basement and attic, he said.
For remodelers contemplating getting started in this business, “the good news is it’s not rocket science, but it is building science,” Zwack said. With home performance contracting now wrapped around the ENERGY STAR brand, there is an expanding network of professional home performance contractors around the country, he said.
Information on training is available through Home Energy Magazine, ACI and the Building Performance Institute.
Getting Your Hands on the Tools
“There is lots of good technical information out there,” said Bill Asdal, of Asdal Builders in Chester, N.J. “You really want to get your hands on the (diagnostic) tools and depressurize a house just once,” he said.
At the same time, “I find it incredible how much bad work is out there and it’s not just one trade, it’s everybody,” he said. The trades people and the contractors managing them are not up to the current level of building technology, he said, and the skills and techniques used to improve home performance are evolving.
Remodelers have two opportunities in this field: they can do the work, or they can become evalutors. The former is best suited to those who want to avoid risk, but they will be testing only one or two homes a day, at a cost ranging from $250 to $1,000, limiting annual gross sales to a maximum of about $200,000.
Remediation contracting, on the other hand, will bring in jobs that are $7,500 and higher for those who are interested in running a $1.5 million a year business. “You need to sell jobs and ramp up quickly,” he said, “but there are all kinds of opportunities.”
However, “if you cannot run the business you have currently, you’re not going to be able to run this business,” Asdal cautioned. “You have to be a sharp business person. You can’t wing it” and knowledge of testing and evaluation, and solutions and products, is essential. “Don’t try and sub that.”
Success in this field will come from “all the resources you put at your disposal,” he said, such as case studies from the Department of Energy.
He also suggested telling customers “what you are going to do and what you won’t. You are making better houses, not perfect houses.”
Don’t Sell on Cost Alone
Where consumers are involved, Asdal emphasized that builders are missing out on sales opportunities by focusing on first costs and ignoring the many other factors involved in the customer’s decision-making process, such as social responsibility, contractor pressure, warranties and peer pressure.
The motivation behind a consumer’s decision “may not make financial sense,” he said. “And you will sell differently when you know that the decision-making process is not just cost recovery.”
Showing that “there is logic and order to buying decisions,” Asdal has devised a tool that provides a hierarchy of options for consumers based on their priorities. For example, in analyzing one of his customers for whom dissatisfaction with the location of her home was the most important factor, the best option was moving instead of remodeling and staying in the house.
“I had a solution to fix the house,” he said, “but it wasn’t going to fix their zip code. They would never have been happy with a $300,000 remodel.”
An analysis of work on a demonstration home in Las Vegas in 2000 where energy savings was the only criterion and $2,000 was able to reduce the energy bill by 44% yielded quite different results. Looking at additional costs versus how many years it would take to pay them back, a programmable thermostat was the best option and aerosol duct sealing was the worst.
To illustrate the limitations involved in not considering the full range of factors behind consumer decisions, he cited a wind power company in Okalahoma that is selling its products on operational costs alone. “Had he made this multi-dimensional, there may have been people who would buy wind towers just so the neighbors could see them.”
Asdal cited a study showing that “everybody wants green things, but only 13% are willing to pay for them.” That’s why, he said, “you have to sell other options.”
 New Master-Level Designation for Remodelers Available Soon
Starting in February, Certified Graduate Remodelers (CGR) can attain further recognition for their commitment to educational excellence and longevity in the remodeling industry by earning the Graduate Master Remodeler (GMR) designation — the master level of the current CGR designation.
For more information, visit www.nahb.org/GMRinfo or e-mail GMRinfo@nahb.com.
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