Event Description

Air sealing and insulating are foundational to high performance homes, with numerous interactive benefits for the home and occupants. The Air Sealing and Insulating for Electrification Projects series will provide job ready strategies and techniques for building more durable, healthier, comfortable and energy efficient homes.

Part 1 - October 6

Testing your work is imperative to meet or exceed performance targets and to ensure a feedback loop is in place for continual process improvements. Instructor Dan Perunko of Balance Point Home Performance will highlight two key home performance diagnostic tools, the blower door and infrared camera. The two hour session unpacks important testing metrics and ways to address opportunities that have positive interactive effects on the home's performance and occupant comfort.

Learning Objective - 

• Describe the operation of diagnostic tools like the blower door and infrared camera
• List additional enhancements for commissioning work
• Identify areas to prioritize air sealing opportunities in homes
• Discuss the ways to manage combustion safety appliance considerations
• Identify how targeted air sealing strategies enhance building envelope performance, reduce energy loads, and enable the successful implementation of electrification

Part 2 - October 15

Upgrading the thermal and air leakage performance of existing homes exposes a variety of hazards that many professionals either do not know how to address or how to communicate the importance of the issue to the customer. Estimators and installers, including DIY homeowners, take on additional liability when they fail to identify and remediate existing hazards during upgrade projects. In this two hour class, instructor Dan Perunko of Balance Point Home Performance will cover the most common hazards that are regularly uncovered during energy upgrades and provide some practical strategies for resolving those issues.

Learning Objective - 

• Identify three or more common hazards that may be uncovered during energy upgrades
• List two or more repairs to mitigate common electrical hazards that are uncovered during energy upgrades
• Identify the difference between fixtures which can be safely sealed with conventional air sealing material, and those that require high temperature sealant or treatments
• Learn one or more key differences between combustion appliances that have single wall metal, double wall metal and plastic vent systems
• Identify how targeted air sealing strategies enhance building envelope performance, reduce energy loads, and enable the successful implementation of electrification

Part 3 - October 22

Effective work scopes help contractors and customers achieve specific performance goals in a home’s attic efficiency upgrade. Developing a comprehensive, goal oriented work scope can help contractors sell more jobs, differentiate their work from other contractors bidding on the job, and enables customers to prioritize their home upgrades within their budget, allowing for the possibility of future improvements. In this session, Dan Perunko of Balance Point Home Performance will draw upon his contractor experience to discuss how he approaches attic efficiency work scopes, from demolition, material selection and installation, to commissioning.

Learning Objective - 

• Specify at least three or more performance outcomes the work scope helps define
• Explain one or more ways that a high performance work scope is different from an industry standard sale process
• Synthesize the home performance outcomes the customer would like to achieve
• Describe one or more examples of how to itemize the work scope to facilitate a better understanding of cost segregation
• Identify how targeted air sealing strategies enhance building envelope performance, reduce energy loads, and enable the successful implementation of electrification

Image: US Department of Energy