The following dialogue between William Keller of Weatherization Experts and Frank Booker of Weathertech Insulation Company is offered for consideration by those interested in MABEP. Both of us are interested in joining MABEP if there is room for the kind of practicality we represent. We both have extensive contracting and building experience, but are relatively new to the practice of weatherization. We wish to get better, because we feel strongly about the need for energy independence in Maine and the USA, and we feel weatherization is a viable approach.


MABEP Blog
Bill says:
Hi Frank,
Thanks for the email. I have been following MABEP for the last week. The more I dig into everything the more complex it gets. We should have a conversation back and forth about how to take us to a program of home energy efficiency and conservation, then get to work. I want to be able to work the retrofit with all the knowledge about ventilation and moisture cures, health and safety issues in check, all the heating options in mind but the blog in MABEP smacks of special interests, money and over doing weatherization that will make entry harder, jobs more expensive and less work getting done. Some of these guys know more about weatherization and keeping it safe than I do right now. I will learn what they know to do a better job but I still think any carpenter who wants to learn how, can learn this stuff quickly and get to work. On the other hand without a background in construction a person cannot just learn weatherization or auditing and set out to do the work. Here’s my take on a few of the issues that I started writing about. What does Frank say?
Frank says:
I think it’s important that some standards be established, because there will be significant public money spent, and it should be wisely spent. Many carpenters and contractors have a sense that they know how buildings work, but they do not. There is also a great potential for abuse and scams by those who are less than honest. You are one of the good guys. Most of us are, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a significant number of scoundrels. It only takes a couple to create great problems for us in this business for the “right” reasons. I think, rather than taking shots at MABEP, we could join it and influence it. There is much in favor of a simple approach to credentialing weather techs, but there is also much to be said for a more rigorous training than we received. Probably not as rigorous as that being proposed by MABEP, but if we’re in there, we can influence the outcome—what does Bill think?

Bill:
The need to audit:
When I began thinking about how to understand a home to improve energy efficiency, energy auditing seemed to make sense. But when I read work orders that prescribed similar work over and over, particularly in MSHA’s Governor’s Weatherization Program, it occurred to me that since homes had been studied so many times with energy auditing equipment to determine problem areas needing attention, the work could be done more simply and at lower cost by eliminating the auditor function at least for retrofits at the $6,000 mark or lower. The retrofits repeat over and over and could be determined by the Weatherization Technician with his own home review resulting in a lower cost for the work. However, if you add safety and health considerations to the equation then whether this argument is true or not is moot because a good audit will assure that possible dangers are avoided. If a heating system is not properly balanced or balanced in such a way that barely enough air intake is provided, a good air sealing of the home can result in back drafting. Air sealing and insulation traps moisture within the heated space and sometimes requires ventilation. And there are other reasons as well, so an energy audit or something similar to deal with health and safety issues is a must. However…..
Frank:
Surely, the need for an audit for residential units is real for several reasons:

• To prove the need for the work,
• To identify where the specific work needs to be done
• To ensure the health and safety of both the weather techs and the residents
• To quantify results for the homeowner or the agency,

I’m sure more could be stated.

Bill:
These are all good reasons to audit. From another angle , the few good reasons to argue in favor of WT’s monitoring their work as it progressed could be overcome with an audit report that diagramed or photographed blocks in walls or complex parts of a home that couldn’t be easily understood by a WT for air sealing. At every point, cost effectiveness needs to be weighed in. Funds are always going to be limited. There will always be something else worthwhile to spend the money on like alternative energy.

Skill level and training of auditors
Argume