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It is not unusual for California to be first and unique. Just one year after the 1973 oil embargo exposed this country’s reliance on foreign oil, California was the first state to implement a minimum energy standard for buildings, in an attempt to reduce this energy dependency. At the same time, the California Energy Commission was created to maintain and enforce the new California Building Energy Efficiency standards (see “What Is Title 24”)....

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Scores of programs in the United States and abroad have the goal of saving energy and improving human health. Programs commonly address exposure to mold, lead, and radon as well as malfunctioning or inefficient appliances, which are potential sources of fire and CO. Some programs take measures to eliminate pests, such as cockroaches and rats, which can carry disease and expose people to allergens. The Next Nexus report highlights several of these programs, describes common practices, and include...

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At Columbia Gas of Ohio, we work to identify and engage income-qualified customers, with the goal of providing them no-cost services to increase the energy efficiency of their homes and reduce their energy bills. We made a switch in 2017 from marketing primarily to customers who were participating in the utility energy assistance programs to marketing campaigns designed for lower-income customers who were not participating in the energy assistance programs. Although we succeeded in increasing pr...

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What is the home performance workforce and what can we do to support it This is the question that the new Building Performance Association has been asking itself. When I have asked home performance contractors about the policies and programs that best support their businesses, their answers have changed dramatically over the last decade. In January of this year they told me, “I do not need you to create jobs, I need you create job applicants with the skills I need, ready to work.” Th...

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Bill Miller was our interim Executive Director (ED) during the merger of Home Energy Magazine and Efficiency First with the Home Performance Coalition, later to become the Building Performance Association. During the approximately two-year transition, Bill kept us moving in the right direction through the loss of crucial staff and other challenges. He did this while working full time as a program manager in the Energy Technology Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab....

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We all know the basics of energy efficiency. Air seal high in the building, then low, then insulate. Seems simple, right Stop the air from leaking into or out of the building. Save money. Increase comfort. Promote healthy indoor air quality (with the appropriate ventilation system, of course). However, when you go to execute these simple principles on a complex house, you find that this black-and-white directive dissolves into seemingly endless shades of gray. Different planes, penetrations, and...

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Kara Saul Rinaldi manages Building Performance Association’s government affairs team. Her team develops and advocates for policies and objectives that address obstacles to scaling the home performance industry, or that take advantage of new opportunities for contractors in that industry. Kara and her team go to bat at both the federal and state levels, working on issues such as the Federal Budget, regulatory issues with public utility commissioners, and legislative policies to advance buil...

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"Environmental" Product Sub-categories