FREE HERS RATER PRACTICE EXAM

PUT YOUR HOME PERFORMANCE BUSINESS ON ROCKET FUEL

COMMUNICATING TO YOUR CREW

Let's face it, we all want to have a successful home performance or energy auditing company.  From an auditors point of view the better you can do your audits (which includes communication to the crew), the more sought out you will become and the more money you can demand for your services.  If you are running a home performance crew, the faster your team can complete the job with zero call backs, high customer satisfaction and excellent quality, the faster you will get promoted to a project manager and the more money you can make.  For small business owners, the better you can train your auditors and crew to work together, the less headaches you will have and better more time you can focus on bringing in more business.  For anyone in this industry, clear communication to your crew is essential.  I want to give you some tips I've picked up over the years to help grow my business, put more equity in my business, get me out of the attics, and essentially reproduce myself.

Essential Audit Details

Want a higher pay per audit?  Want to be well known in your region for performing awesome audits by both homeowners and home performance contractors?  Here is what you should be doing.

1. Drawing an attic map.  Draw a layout of the house, with rooms and all for each floor.  Label where all the supply and return registers are located in each room.  Then while up in the attic identify the following: flex duct size, how the flex comes off the plenums, where each ductwork goes, air barriers, fireplaces, kneewalls, splices, Y's, reducers, soffits, AHUs, plenums, junction boxes, locations of proposed jump ducts and new registers and ductwork and skylights.  Your crew will love you, your contractors will be impressed and homeowners will think you really have your stuff together.
2. Take too many pictures, I have never complained to an auditor that they took too many photos.  The more the better.  I like general photos of inside soffits, all four sides of the house, general crawl space shots, general attic shots, and general AHU shots as well as the close ups.  Want to label them with the problems you found or recommended solutions?  Even better.
3. Measure the flex ductwork if you are recommending replacing it.  Your crew is not going to magically know what sizes to buy and install.  Take the time and find out the correct sizes.
4. Make sure there is room.  This applies when recommending increasing the size of a return, adding a jump duct or

Essentials for a Successful Crew

1. Having all the proper tools.  Does this seem basic?  It is but having your tools and equipment well organized and readily available is essential to your success. 
   
2. Knowing exactly where the problems are to be fixed.  A crews job is not to identify problem areas in a house, that is what an energy auditor does.  The energy auditor should identify ALL the problems to be fixed during their audit.  This means the energy auditor will spend a good deal of time creating work orders or working with the crew lead to crew work orders after the audit and before the install.  This is probably the most neglected area energy auditors are guilty of.  To help increase communication to the crew an energy auditor should draw a diagram of the attic, labeling the location of any soffits or air barrier issues, duct layout and duct connections and sizes.  Good reinforcement is to spray paint the roof truss where any issues are so the crew can easily spot areas they need to work on.  Then the final reinforcement should be to have the auditor take photos of all problem areas in the attic and the corresponding areas in the house. This way the crew knows exactly what parts of the house to go to.
3. Knowing how to fix them.

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