Re-Energized

Let’s start with the certification issue. Many home improvement companies entering the energy retrofit business have not found it necessary to get their employees BPI or RESNET certified. That’s because the company doesn’t offer a full-on energy audit — i.e., an audit with test-in/test-out procedures conducted by a technician or an employee who is trained and certified by one of those organizations. Instead — like AAPCO, a home improvement company in Richmond, Va., with its own energy retrofit division, called eShield of Virginia — they assess or analyze the house based on a checklist of places or ways that energy could be leaving it. EShield of Virginia — projected to do $4 million in sales this year — sent its personnel to a baseline college course on home energy.

Getting BPI or RESNET certification for your company or for someone who works for it can help in two ways. First, it lends credibility to your effort. Second, you may need it to qualify for certain incentives offered at the state or local level. Such incentives definitely get consumers to act, says Larry Lassiter, president and CEO of WellHome, the retail home performance division of manufacturer MASCO.

“The tax credit [from ARRA] clearly made a difference,” Lassiter says. “[Homeowners] spent more when they knew they’d get more money back.” Another consideration is finding existing incentives for your homeowner. Most, Lassiter says, now come from state and local utility programs. WellHome makes a point of knowing where the rebates and credits are and of steering homeowners to them. When Bob Connolly reinvented his company Con-Lyn Home Improvement, in Avon, Pa., as a solar installer, he added extra admin staff who, among other things, take care of the paperwork for rebates and incentives that can reduce the cost of a solar installation by 50% or more. (See “Reach for the Sun,” page 38.) Most homeowners would have no idea where to look.

SINGLE SOURCE & CREDIBILITYTo position yourself as an energy retrofit company, the core products and services include air sealing, insulation, energy-efficient windows, and — since the roof can be the biggest culprit when it comes to energy exiting or entering the house — possibly a radiant barrier product that halts heat transfer between the attic and the roof. If you’re in the roofing business, creating ventilation in a stale, sealed attic can reduce attic temperatures by 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit and cut the cost of running air conditioning. A padded vinyl siding product reduces heat and cooling loss. Reducing energy consumption is the marketing theme that marries all these together.

Many home improvement companies have already added insulation. But insulation’s effectiveness is limited, the Department of Energy points out, if air is escaping through walls, floors, and the roof. This has motivated a number of home improvement companies, such as Franzoso Contracting and AAPCO, through its eShield of Virginia division, to offer air sealing.

EShield of Virginia recently upped the ante by offering an energy demand control box device that monitors home power use and automatically shuts off power-consuming appliances such as hot water heaters at non-peak times, saving homeowners what AAPCO/eShield CEO Jim Harless says is a documented average of 22% savings on power bills.

The important thing for dealers looking to enter the market is to position themselves as the single source for energy-retrofit needs. “We try to make sure that they’re not just showing one product,” Ferrero says. “Show the consumer air sealing. Explain how to bring insulation up to code and why they probably need reflective barrier on the rafters. When you do that, consumers sense a true-value package.”

EXTEND THE SALEThe cost of an energy retrofit — a package of products and services — is typically anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000, depending on what’s needed. WellHome’s average ticket, for example, is $6,500. But another benefit of adding those products and services is that installing them can lead to sales of other, more profitable items. Companies that have added those products and services say that sales of an air sealing or insulation job aren’t intended to take the place of, say, windows. “The real revenue is in the traditional products,” says Mark Sacherson, a salesperson at Franzoso Contracting who this spring got his BPI certification as a building analyst and building envelope specialist. “Air sealing and insulation are a great addition for an established company [because] they make you more credible all around.” It’s the difference, he says, between selling windows and siding versus selling a complete assessment of the home along with whatever is needed to make it comfortable and efficient. “It separates the salespeople who are selling in a traditional way — buy four windows, get the fifth one free — versus going in and pointing out, in a purely practical sense, why this room is cold. Homeowners understand that there are other problems in the house besides the windows being bad.”

A&A Services, in Salem, Mass., has offered energy retrofits for years. Owner Chris Zorzy is BPI-certified, and the company provides a complete home energy audit, including a blower door test. Zorzy says that consumer awareness is high, but that it waxes and wanes depending on where fuel bills happen to be falling that year.

Homeowners, he says, may not even understand the term “weatherization,” but they understand that fuel costs will continue to go up.