You want your home to be as healthy, safe, and comfortable as possible, as well as energy efficient and durable.

To reduce your risks and be sure you’ve picked a contractor who’s been trained to get it right, insist on the credentials of the Building Performance Institute and its nationally-recognized training and quality assurance programs.

Building Performance Institute trades persons have shown their commitment to continuous education.

BPI is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting excellence in the building trades. It sets standards and defines best practices for its trained and certified contractors.

The Whole-House Approach

Your house is a system and everything is connected.

The relationship between your insulation, air sealing, windows, heating, hot water, AND cooling system, is the key to your home’s overall performance in terms of health, safety, comfort, durability and energy efficiency.

BPI contractors, regardless of their specialized trade, keep up with and use the most current building science to evaluate EACH element of your home for its potential to effect other systems within the home.

Because a BPI certified contractor is trained to understand your entire house as a system, he can help guide you in your decisions to maximize your energy savings, and ensure your family’s comfort and safety.

For instance, a BPI Insulation Contractor may recommend a ventilation system along with insulation to make sure the house doesn’t become too tight.

Or a BPI Heating Contractor who installs high efficiency heating equipment, may also advise you regarding where and how to employ air sealing, to ensure air quality, comfort, and savings.

BPI Certified tradesmen can eliminate any and all of these problems in your home:

* High energy bills
* Drafty areas
* Rooms that overheat or don’t heat
* Ghosting (unexplained black marks on walls and ceilings)
* Moisture, mold, and mildew problems
* High carbon monoxide levels
* Ice dams on your roof
* Poor air circulation or air quality

Raising the bar in building performance contracting

If none of the subcontractors for your project are BPI Accredited, making sure to hire a BPI Accredited General Contractor/Builder will assure you at the very least that those subcontractors will have proper supervision for Quality Assurance.

Can’t find a BPI Builder? (Sadly, they are rare in our area.) A second-best choice are Energy Star Builders. These New Construction professionals must have their building plans and homes reviewed by an independent third-party Home Energy Rater who is also certified under the Energy Star program.

What if you’ve already hired a non-accredited Builder who normally employs subcontractors who aren’t BPI trained, either? In this case, you can specifically request that the Heating and Insulation Sub-Contractors for your project be BPI accredited.

Often, this will mean requesting that these Sub-Contracts be separated from the General Contract, so that you can directly hire someone who’s properly trained. (Contrary to your best interests, not all Builders will agree to this, unfortunately.)

The Rigorous BPI Training

Don’t be fooled by programs that provide technicians an official Certification Document for simply sitting through a training session.

The rigorous BPI Certification program is based on a combined written and performance exam. Technicians must demonstrate competence with design, diagnostic evaluations, and installations according to BPI standards.

Then they have to pass a hands-on exam in the field to demonstrate their ability to apply what they know to particular real-life situations.

Being sure that the right and most inexpensive work will be done on your new home project is as easy as choosing a Building Performance Institute Accredited Organization to do the job.

“When I arranged for a professional Energy Star audit on my home, I learned that I could dramatically improve my home’s energy usage by replacing my old heating system.

“David Sellers was called into my project because he participates in the Home Performance with Energy Star Program for New York.

“My concern was the size of the project. The Energy Star measures on my heating system involved a new furnace, a programmable thermostat, new duct work, sealing and insulation of ducts, an air cleaner, and 2 carbon monoxide detectors.

“Frankly, I’m always uneasy about hiring contractors, especially for a big project like this. It seems they all can talk a good game, but it’s hard to find ones that will actually follow through.

“So I was pleasantly surprised that Mr. Sellers was on time and pleasant to deal with. His prices were fair, and installation work very well done.

“I recommend him to anybody looking to get heating work done. The only caveat I tell my friends is that his expertise is in demand and he’s very busy, so they may have to wait to get their project scheduled with him.”

–Dale Willman, Saratoga Springs, New York

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