To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/QptKPRH_2h4
In this episode of the Structure Talk podcast, Reuben Saltzman and Eric Houseman welcome Trent Fuller to discuss construction-phase inspections, RESNET, and residential energy ratings. They explore how HERS scores help evaluate home energy efficiency, the role of insulation, windows, and blower door testing, and how energy ratings can help builders meet compliance requirements and qualify for Energy Star certification.
Trent shares the challenges inspectors face when implementing new standards, particularly the ACCA 310 HVAC performance verification standard, which can require specialized equipment, training, and additional time. He also introduces the Rater Overhead Impact Index (ROII) initiative, which aims to improve transparency around the time, costs, equipment, and practical demands of new requirements. The discussion highlights the importance of better communication between RESNET and field inspectors to make standards more practical and effective.
Learn More About the ROII Initiative: https://roiiletter.org/
Explore Upcoming Inspector Empire Builder Events:
https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
Takeaways
Construction-phase inspections help identify defects before they are concealed by finished materials.
Third-party inspections help builders maintain quality and reduce liability.
Efficient scheduling and territory management improve inspection team productivity and profitability.
RESNET standards support residential energy ratings and energy code compliance.
HERS scores measure home energy performance and can support ENERGY STAR certification.
Energy ratings consider insulation, windows, solar heat gain, and building orientation.
Window specifications must be documented to verify energy model accuracy.
Blower door tests measure airtightness and help verify air leakage requirements.
ACCA 310 HVAC performance testing can contribute to additional HERS points.
New standards require proper equipment, training, documentation, and field time.
Clear guidance and reliable testing equipment help inspectors produce accurate, defensible results.
Standards should account for implementation costs, administrative work, and operational efficiency.
ROII advocates for greater transparency around the costs and workload of energy rating requirements.
Inspectors should participate in public comments and industry discussions to improve standards.
Better collaboration between standards organizations and field inspectors can strengthen the industry.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction & Eric Houseman Joins the Show
00:24 Inspector Empire Builder & Upcoming Events
02:05 Trent Fuller’s Construction Inspection Business
03:57 Construction-Phase vs. Home Inspections
05:07 Construction Inspection Services
06:24 Who Pays for Construction Inspections?
07:55 Why Builders Hire Third-Party Inspectors
08:43 Inspection Results & Reinspections
09:44 Managing an Inspection Team
10:29 Scheduling & Service Coordination
12:22 Handling Last-Minute Requests
14:12 Understanding RESNET
14:37 RESNET & Energy Code Compliance
17:31 The Growing Importance of Energy Ratings
18:10 HERS Scores & ENERGY STAR Certification
19:06 Key Factors in Home Energy Ratings
21:13 Window Performance & Energy Modeling
23:33 Blower Door Testing & Airtightness
25:12 Air Changes per Hour & CFM Measurements
27:03 Energy Modeling vs. Field Inspections
27:26 Helping Builders Meet Energy Requirements
28:36 Challenges With RESNET Standards
28:41 ACCA 310 & HVAC Performance Testing
30:59 Implementing New Standards
32:02 Understanding Testing Procedures
33:30 Reliable Equipment & Accurate Results
34:22 The Need for RESNET Transparency
34:33 Introducing the ROII Initiative
35:36 Simplifying Standards Implementation
36:02 Evaluating Time, Equipment & Administrative Costs
38:02 How Inspectors Can Support ROII
39:26 Industry Perspectives on Standards
40:39 Balancing Costs & Benefits
41:34 Improving Inspection Standards
41:50 Understanding the Rater Overhead Impact Index (ROII)
42:25 Closing Remarks & Contact Information
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.172)
Welcome back to the show. We’re back again. We got we got a guest today, but before I introduce him, Eric, how are you doing today?
Eric Houseman (00:09.89)
I’m great, Ruben. I’m great. Beautiful, beautiful fall day here in Minnesota. It’s like was it sixty five, seventy degrees outside? It’s just it’s it’s lovely. I I love this time of year. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (00:11.756)
Yeah? What’s new in your world?
Reuben Saltzman (00:21.726)
It it is. Yep. Yeah. Doesn’t get any better than this. Yeah. before we get too far into the show, want to give a quick shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. And I’ve been talking for the last few weeks about an event that’s coming up in like a day or two from when this is gonna air. That’s rapid gain training. Look, if you haven’t registered, it’s too late. You’re not going. But let let’s
Eric Houseman (00:27.225)
Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (00:50.306)
Let’s talk about another one that’s going to be coming up, and this is IEB Unite. This is IEB’s biggest event of the year, and it’s coming up in February. It’s going to be February 3rd through the 5th. And this is going to be happening in Florida. And this is the big one. This is where like all the vendors show up. If you’re only going to go to one event of the year, this is the one to go to. I I heard
Already there’s like I think 170 people signed up for this one. And I don’t know how many more are gonna be signing up. We got a lot of time. I’ll be bringing this up more and more, but check it out. I will have a link to that in our show notes. And with that, I want to bring on our guest. I’ve I’ve been well, we we’ve been going back and forth about this one for a little while, and this is all about energy. So let’s see.
Today I I want to introduce Trent. He reached out to me because he has well, you know what? I want to turn over to you, Trent. Why why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself, what your business is, and how you got here.
Trent Fuller (02:05.75)
Sure, thanks. I I’m I run a small organization of inspectors. we inspect phase inspections during construction. right now we have several dozen inspectors from Phoenix to Brownsville, Corpus Christi. Most of our work is in Houston. We do some work also in Louisiana. we basically do a lot of
Phase inspections during construction for volume builders. though a lot of single family residents, we don’t do a lot of commercial, but we do some commercial. And got into the business when my old Sunday school teacher saw me at a basketball game and said, Hey, why don’t you come out and learn post-tension rebar reinforcement? And we’ll
Look at concrete reinforcement. I didn’t know what post tension was. I didn’t know what he was talking about. But that was back in nineteen ninety-five when I did my first inspection for a little outfit in the Dallas Fort Worth area that did post tension engineering. And since then, it’s been a wild ride. it’s been fun. As you know, inspecting can be a lot of fun because it’s hard to master, right? I mean
Reuben Saltzman (03:27.63)
Yeah. It never happens.
Trent Fuller (03:30.214)
It it never happens. It i you can’t master it. It’s like it’s like a for me, I could never master the Rubik’s Cube. I bored of it, but I but you get bored of video games as soon as you master And if you have a video game that you can’t master, it really intrigues you. And that’s kind of what we’re doing as inspectors. We’ll see things any day of the week that we’ve never seen before and that’s that’s exciting.
Reuben Saltzman (03:57.059)
Yeah, yeah. And so when when you say you’re doing these inspections, I mean for me and Eric, w and for most of the guests that we have on who say they’re doing inspections, we’re doing home inspections. We’re doing an inspection when someone’s buying a house, they’re telling them what they’re getting good, bad, and the ugly, all that fun stuff. What exactly do your inspections look like?
Trent Fuller (04:20.512)
So we handle about three or four hundred inspections a day. and yeah yeah five days a week. but there it’s it’s it’s not like real estate inspections. I compare it to the eating s soup with a fork, you know. You can eventually get fed, but you have to work hard at it, you know what I mean? So
Reuben Saltzman (04:29.846)
Okay. Holy cow.
Reuben Saltzman (04:48.354)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (04:49.382)
They’re kind of low margin inspections, but we’ll show up and inspect the foundation before they pour the concrete. We’ll inspect the frame when it’s ready to inspect. In high wind areas, and a lot of my work is in high wind areas. There’s a lot of regulatory inspections that involve insur whether the house is insurable for high wind speeds. So that could be shingles, roof deck, structural
Got steel walls, framing. And then we do energy. And energy is the last stage that before they put sheetrock up and everything’s hidden. and then at the final we do final energy and we even do buyer walks for some of our customers where we walk the homeowner through a house and show them what the house is gonna be like and what maintenance they need to do. So it’s basically professional services for construction that really
For the most part, anybody in your audience could get involved with. so it’s it you already have the tools, you already have the computer, you have the tape measure, you have the flashlight. but it’s it’s actually you have to get linked up probably with the engineer and help them with field services. It’s the one who does the design work. But it’s it’s basically
related to engineering design. So we deal a lot with the construction documents in our hands while we’re on a ha on a job site.
Reuben Saltzman (06:24.654)
And who is paying you to do these inspections?
Trent Fuller (06:29.086)
Right, so Texas is a little weird. Texas Texas is a little weird. And the reason I say that is where you build where people build in your part of the woods, do they have road enforcement inspectors from a municipality come out and inspect it at phase? Okay. So in Texas they don’t do that.
Reuben Saltzman (06:33.976)
Did you say Exus? Texas. Excess. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (06:50.178)
Yeah, we do.
Trent Fuller (06:57.138)
So yeah. So some cities actually have a code enforcement crew and they come out and do some inspections. But a lot of a lot of construction is done in a county. County does not have code enforcement, and really the builders themselves say, We know what happens if none of our work gets inspected, and it’s not good. So
Reuben Saltzman (06:57.326)
What? Okay.
Trent Fuller (07:24.426)
They contract usually with the engineer, but not always with the engineer, and say, look, we want a team of inspectors at at different phases of construction, just make sure we’re not doing something crazy. And and even fail us. I mean, we hold this to a high standard and it’s really it’s initiated by the builders scared of the liability of the home. So we kind of partner with them on making sure that they’re they’re building the way they want to build, which is right.
Reuben Saltzman (07:55.577)
So let me let me say this back to you to make sure I understand it. To correct me if I get any of this wrong. You guys don’t have mandated inspections in Texas. And the builders say we we don’t wanna build a total piece of garbage. If we’re doing stuff wrong, we want a trained eye to look over it and let us know we got it wrong. So we’re gonna hire you to come in at these different phases and tell us if we got it right or not.
And if we got it wrong, we’ll we’ll probably want to fix it because that’s what we’re paying you to check. But if they decide, you know what, it’s close enough, there’s no teeth and they can just continue on even if you fail something. Do do I have that right? Okay.
Trent Fuller (08:43.006)
Even if we fail something, yeah, I I tell people we we will say it’s not approved. We won’t tell you you have to get a reinspection, we offer reinspections. It’s a little bit different, I will say, in high wind areas. They’re not able to close at home without certain in insurance documents. So in high wind areas, they will not be able to close at home unless they can show that they’ve passed certain inspections.
Reuben Saltzman (08:53.326)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (09:13.278)
there’s also lenders now, some lenders are saying, We don’t want to close on this home unless you can show us that someone did a code inspection at the end and this house passed. So and not correct or proceed, not fail, but pass. They want a clean document at the closing table for the for certain lenders. So there’s not s necessarily teeth like a city code enforcer. The city code enforcer will say red tag, I’m shutting you down.
Your permits in jeopardy and that kind of thing, and we don’t have that teeth.
Reuben Saltzman (09:44.888)
Got it. And you said you’re doing three to four hundred a day. How many people does that does that require to do three to four hundred a day?
Trent Fuller (09:55.221)
Right. So we keep everybody we try to keep everybody doing anywhere from eight to thirteen inspections a day. So so we have several dozen inspectors.
Reuben Saltzman (10:03.48)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (10:08.706)
Okay. All right. So do the math. You can figure out how many you got. Okay. All right. And I I suppose at that point, your your path you’re taking, which houses you’re going to becomes really important because drive times could just absolutely kill you, right? Okay.
Trent Fuller (10:29.822)
Right. Right. And I’m sure you have a a team too, and you’re not trying to get them to zigzag zigzag the Metroplex kind of efficiently, send them where they can do the most good. And that’s a big part of it, especially with lean margins. you wanna send someone to a neighborhood if they can in that zip code handle a full day’s work. It makes a big difference, especially with gas prices to what they’ve done this fall.
Reuben Saltzman (10:55.888)
yeah. Yeah. I mean for home inspections, we only do one or two a day. We still do our best to not have people going from the north side of the metro to the south side. I’m not saying it never happens, but we sure try. But you know, that’s home inspections. But then for other stuff like radon testing, we we’ve got just a few guys who do radon. And I mean that that we get into some serious logistics on how we’re planning that. And Eric just
What what does that look like? How do we schedule our radons and sewers and stuff like that?
Eric Houseman (11:30.481)
I mean we have a couple of people that will, you know, are capable of doing multiple services at a property. So if we can double up, that’s a huge plus. It’s less intrusive for, you know, the seller and the listing agent rather than having three different people come in, they’ve got one person that comes in that does all of them. But you know, radon always takes two stops. So inevitably during the busy time of the year.
radon technician might have somewhere between ten to fifteen to twenty stops in a day. And it’s a can be a logistical nightmare. If you get even one of those stops where it gets declined access or there’s a time restriction, it becomes very complex and complicated to to get it done.
Reuben Saltzman (12:22.232)
Yeah. And then Trent, for the inspections that you’re doing, do you just get to tell people here’s when I’m coming? Or do you need to coordinate all these?
Trent Fuller (12:32.374)
So
I I might do things a little things a little different than my my competition. but they’re able to order all the way to six p.m. at night for next day turnaround. And the reason we do that is let’s you know today is Thursday. So let’s say after this I go to the next neighborhood and I fail a couple of inspections. Well, build times are increasingly more and more of an issue, so that builder might say.
Reuben Saltzman (12:46.19)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (13:05.482)
Look, I can’t afford a day on my schedule, much less two, much less go over to the weekend. So I’m gonna order a reinspection for tomorrow. And I’m gonna get this guy out here tonight or tomorrow morning, and then we’ll be able to hang Sea Rock or whatever the next phase is that’s that’s holding them up. And so so I have to be able to accept late afternoon orders for the next day fulfillment.
so all the way six o’clock they might be ordering inspections. I don’t e really even look at what Friday holds. I know all the inspections have come in and then I assign the work based on you know basic basically group it together by territory and then try to send the right people the right direction. But it’s a real hairy mess. It sounds like radon could be the same thing. Is that like a timing a sensitive issue where when they need it on Thursday?
Friday’s no good, right? So it things can get pretty, you know, hairy when you’re doing phase inspections or radon inspections in this in your case, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (14:02.556)
yeah. yeah.
Eric Houseman (14:02.767)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (14:12.056)
Yeah. So we were we were talking earlier about the different types of inspections you do and and we talked a lot about ResNet. and I know that was kind of the more focus of what what we were going to discuss today. Can you can you explain what what what is ResNet? Why should anybody care? And and we’ll get into some of the problems you’re running into right now.
Trent Fuller (14:37.088)
Sure. I mean Big Pixar ResNet is it’s a non profit. profit. I think i.e. the International Code Council is not a for profit business, right? I mean, it’s sort of it’s a publication house, it’s a commit I mean, it’s a group of committees, it’s a lot of things, but I don’t think it’s a for profit company. Is it safe to say? I don’t know. But
Reuben Saltzman (14:53.282)
I don’t know. Yeah, I’m not sure.
Trent Fuller (15:07.542)
It’s not that important. I do know that ResNet is a nonprofit. It’s an organization that supports the construction industry and the already built homes industry with technical specifications for energy compliance. And the three people at the table when it comes to energy compliance are ResNet, ANSI, and the International Cold.
Code council, the IECC. So as code inspectors, like you guys dabble in the code, and you have to kind of look at what’s code compliant and what’s not, and what you do, that’s a big part of it with energy. the IECC relies on resnet because they’ve published a way to rate a house’s energy efficiency. And so they
Resident has come up with a way to say this house scores and give it a number. And so it really simplifies sim simplifies things from the IECC standpoint. They can just say, hey, we’re gonna roll out a new, more energy efficient standard in the next code cycle. And what we’ll do is we’ll require this, this, this, this, as far as minimal rated features and
We’ll say instead of scoring a f 60, now you have to score 55. And they point to ResNet on how you do that. And ResNet supports the community that actually rates the homes. So if the house I’m standing standing in now, and this is a house that’s under construction, if we say it rated 65, that should be understood nationwide, why it rates a 65.
As opposed to 66 or 64. And supposedly every raider that comes in this house and gives it gives it a rating scores it about the same, like probably sixty-five. And ResNet provides all the standards that arrive at that score. And that’s and ANSI kind of oversees that and says, we approve ResNet’s way of arriving at a score. So that’s basically what ResNet does.
Reuben Saltzman (17:31.99)
Okay. And why w why does ResNet even exist? I mean, are there areas that require this scoring?
Trent Fuller (17:41.119)
Good question. So just for energy compliance, it’s more and more required to have an energy rating. So there’s a score that Resnet calls a her score that the IECC now calls a home rating, home energy rating. So they’re the same thing. Home energy rating and a her score is the same thing. So it’s now becoming sort of sort of built into the code. It hasn’t always been the case.
Reuben Saltzman (18:10.253)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (18:10.834)
but there’s a there’s other reasons to do it. So hers score and hers rating is a big part of an Energy Star compliant house. before the big beautiful bill was put in place and even after it, there was incentives for builders to build energy star compliant homes. And a lot of times it would mean thousands of dollars per house.
That the builder would get for every Energy Star certified house. So there is money on the table, there’s meat on the bone, and it hurts the builders to not get the Energy Star certification because they miss out on that check. And a lot of builders, they’ve already spent that check in their head. They’ve already put it on the bottom line before that check ever comes in. They don’t want to miss a single house. Even if they’re building thousands of houses, they don’t want to miss a single house.
Reuben Saltzman (18:43.448)
Hm, okay.
Reuben Saltzman (19:03.501)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (19:06.946)
Yeah. And and so what all goes into this? I mean I I gotta assume some of the more obvious stuff in my mind is gonna be insulation, appliance efficiency, and the blower door test, checking for leakiness, maybe even ductwork test. What what else is there?
Trent Fuller (19:25.078)
Mm-hmm.
Trent Fuller (19:29.78)
Right. So what what they’re a what we’re able to do with our builder clients is tailor a solution for them. So it could be better rated windows, it could be triple pane instead of double pane, it could be you know you know of course vinyl vinyl frame windows and that kind of thing. Whatever the case may be.
They can decide, well, what is my bang for buck? I can we you know, we coach them through it, but it could be look, if you go to R thirty-eight addic, it will help your res your hearse score two points, you know, or something like that. If you do radiant barrier, it’ll help your score three points. so we we help them decide on what what those things are. I kind of lost track of your question. Did I answer it or did I
Reuben Saltzman (20:27.01)
well yeah, I’m just I’m wondering what else goes into that. So you the the one thing I didn’t mention would be the the window. And I mean I’m just curious how much detail you get into. Is it like a double pane is worth this and a triple pane is worth this, or do you look at the overall value of the window? I know we had a window expert on Eric, you you weren’t on this podcast, but we had Ryan Carey.
Get into the nitty-gritty details of Windows talking about how you know there’s the U value of the glass. People will brag about that. People will brag about the U value of the frame, but it none of this really matters. The only number that really matters is the U value of the entire opening, the entire assembly. And and when you have people bragging about just one number, it’s like, no, we can look right through that. that that doesn’t really matter. And and I’m wondering, like
Trent Fuller (21:13.003)
Mm-hmm.
Trent Fuller (21:19.722)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (21:21.912)
Do you guys take those things into account? What what are you looking at?
Trent Fuller (21:25.618)
It okay, so there’s basically division in our industry between it doesn’t have to be. so one person can do the design work on a computer, one person can do the field work out in the field that collects the data and makes sure that they’re building according to the design. But when it comes to to windows, you know, it could be we look at the U value in the solar heat gain coefficient.
we actually have to document that. So we have to take a picture of it. Wasn’t always the case. That would be something that is a new standard that we actually have to show that we took a picture of that window sticker when we did an energy rough. So we’ll get back to the ROII initiative, but basically every nitty-gritty part that we’ve always done, sometimes they’ll say, Well, now you need to document it and keep that document.
on hand so we can show that it was exactly that window, not just pencil whipped at the end when you had to get the rating to but you actually saw it and inspected it and made sure. So it it does get complicated whether it’s windows, you can even in in the software that we have and we use, it looks at the overhang of the win of the of the roof.
Reuben Saltzman (22:50.21)
Mm. Okay.
Trent Fuller (22:50.472)
And how many feet it overhangs over the window. So is it shaded or is it not shaded? And then when you model the house, you can say, Well, this was a north facing window when I designed it, but they built that same model. Now it’s south facing because the the street’s on a different side or it’s on the opposite side of the street. So then you then the software makes it easy. You could just say, Well, I’m rotating the house 180 degrees and it figures out the the way the sun hits
Reuben Saltzman (23:06.819)
Yeah.
Trent Fuller (23:19.22)
different sides with different overhangs. So luckily a lot of the the nitty gritty is done on the computer and the computer software is getting more and more sophisticated, which is is good, but it is tedious.
Reuben Saltzman (23:21.848)
Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (23:33.026)
I bet. I bet. Okay. And then d I I assume blower door testing is a part of this too.
Trent Fuller (23:39.957)
Yes, I think most of your users have seen it’s usually a red fabric panel door that an inspector will put up over front or back door or even the garage pedestrian door. And there’ll be a a hole for a giant fan to sit in there and somebody will have hoses and a a meter and they’ll be turning the fan up and seeing how airtight the house is. It’s really an interesting project pro
Reuben Saltzman (23:49.486)
Yeah.
Trent Fuller (24:08.906)
What what did I say? It’s an interesting it’s it’s an interesting test. It’s a just interesting assessment, yeah. because it it will depressurize the house. and or you know, when the fans blowing air out, it depressurizes the house. You’ll see the fabric blister in towards the person. You can push on it and feel how much pressure it is. Of course the gauges tell you when you have it right, but under that sort of pressure, you what you’re looking for with a blower door
Reuben Saltzman (24:09.55)
Test assessment.
Reuben Saltzman (24:30.542)
Yeah.
Trent Fuller (24:38.846)
Is the meter to tell you how much volume of air you have to push through that fan, keep it at that constant depressuriz level. So if you only have to move a little air to keep the pressure difference where it says, you move that little air to keep the pressure difference, that means it’s a tight house. If you have to push a lot of air for that same pressure difference, then there’s leaks all over the house. And you’d be surprised.
What you can get away with in new construction. It isn’t much. You can’t get away with very many leaks and still pass that test.
Reuben Saltzman (25:12.098)
And what what d what’s your number? I mean, I’m assuming you’re measuring the number of air changes per hour under fifty Pascals.
Trent Fuller (25:21.598)
Mm-hmm. Yes, exactly. You got that right. So the air changes per hour is calculated based on the volume of the house. So the person at the gauge may not know the volume of the house, but they’re just trying to get a reading of how many cubic feet of air passed to that fan at 50 Pascal pressure difference. And so there’ll be a target number, and you can’t be higher than that. So you can’t push if the target number is twelve hundred.
Reuben Saltzman (25:23.393)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (25:40.75)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (25:49.353)
C Fm at fifty Pascals because you’ve modeled it for that volume of house, and you get twelve hundred and one C Fm, that house does not pass. But if you get nine hundred, it passes. so yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:01.888)
Interesting. Okay, I’ve never heard of this number before ’cause in our area, I mean, Eric, isn’t what you always hear just a number of air changes per hour, not total cubic feet?
Eric Houseman (26:11.96)
Yeah. Like if you look at the the energy placard that’s put, you know, down on the on the furnace plenum, that that’s what it says.
Reuben Saltzman (26:22.092)
Yeah, and our our standard is ACH three, right? Three?
Eric Houseman (26:26.806)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:28.248)
Pretty sure it’s gotta be three or less, or maybe it’s less than three. I don’t remember. Yeah. But but but so you guys just use CFMs.
Eric Houseman (26:31.173)
Yeah.
Trent Fuller (26:34.314)
Ring is tight. That’s hard to hard to reach. All right. So the per the technician that’s working at the house, he might not know the volume. And so it’s already been told him three air changes per hour or four air changes or four and a half or five air changes per hour, whatever the target is for that house, he’ll be operating on a CFM number for his fan. So he knows whether to pass it or fail it.
Reuben Saltzman (27:02.167)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (27:03.346)
So that’s where the di the jobs become a little bit divided. There’s somebody who works on the computer to do the modeling, and then you have field people. Now sometimes it’s the same person, but a lot of the industry is you divide the tasks so that when you’re in the field you’re just doing field work. You’re not constantly checking a bunch of digital inputs, you know.
Reuben Saltzman (27:26.638)
Sure, sure. Okay. All right. So you got tons of builders who are trying to meet these standards because they want to get the energy rebates. And you’re the one who’s going out there as the third party verifier to say, yeah, you met your target or no, you didn’t. Is that right? Okay. All right.
Trent Fuller (27:38.251)
Mm-hmm.
Trent Fuller (27:46.869)
Right, right, right. And we want to advantage our our builder clients. We want to give them advantage. The advantage we can give as smart inspectors is an easier way to comply. You know? So if our client is building right next to somebody else’s client and they’re having to put in more insulation or
Reuben Saltzman (28:00.29)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (28:14.89)
fewer windows because they’re afraid windows will take away their value. Well then the appeal of our customers is higher than theirs. So the advantage we want to give the customers is an easy road to compliance. You know, so that they we’ve modeled it and helped them get to compliance, get across the finite line with as little pain as possible.
Reuben Saltzman (28:27.34)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (28:36.578)
So what are the pain points that you’re running across? How does this turn into a pain?
Trent Fuller (28:41.43)
Okay, I’ll give you example. recently, and this is a a great thing that that Resnet provided for us is a way to give the HVAC equipment its full value of
SEER rating. So let’s say they installed a SEER 16. It could be even though the equipment is SEER 16, it could not it could be that that equipment is not performing as efficiently as it’s designed to perform. So if you can certify it in the field and say it is performing exactly as it’s designed to perform, then that might give that home
Two or three valuable rating points. And that’s just in the inspection process. That doesn’t mean they’re putting in better doors or thicker insulation. That’s just because you certified that their equipment is running efficiently, that it gives them a lot of points that they would have a difficulty time a difficult time arriving at and an expensive time arriving at those same points on a on a HERS score. So the way we would do that in the field, just to let you know, is we would
roll up to the house and we would measure how much air is flowing through the cabinet. We would measure the temperature of the the suction and we would basically the lines, the the coolant line, the refrigerant lines of the AC. We would measure the temperature difference from across the coil. So we would measure a few things and say, yeah, this
This cabinet is running efficiently. And if we’re able to do that, if it passes, they call the ACTA 310 standard. If it passes the ACTA 310 standard, you get full value for this SEER 17 system that you put in, where you may not, if somebody doesn’t come by and certify that. But that led to a lot of complexity on our end, as you might imagine. So what would you do if someone said, Go certify this equipment is
Reuben Saltzman (30:52.407)
Okay.
Trent Fuller (30:59.018)
CR 16, you’d look at the standard and hope to figure it out as you go along, right? I mean it’s complicated, right? I mean you wouldn’t really even know where to begin. Trust me. Trust me, I didn’t either when this came when this rolled. I wanted to give my customer this advantage, right? I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t even know what equipment to buy. And I didn’t know how to train. I didn’t know how to document that and maintain it. But the standard was there. And
Reuben Saltzman (31:05.292)
Yeah, I I wouldn’t have any idea how to do that today. Yeah.
Trent Fuller (31:29.782)
And so the challenge, see what I’m saying? Like the standard is there. I could be I could lose my license if I do it wrong. You know, ResNet could come down on me if I do it wrong. I want to do it right, but I don’t know how to do it. So this is how standards roll through the energy energy sector of our industry, and it’s difficult to hit the ground running as an inspector.
Reuben Saltzman (31:32.536)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (31:52.307)
Interesting. Okay. All right. So they they say, look, here’s a new target you need to meet. You figure out how they’re meeting that target and how to do this test. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it.
Trent Fuller (32:02.492)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Now they publish it. They’re they’re not trying to be obtuse about it. but I’ll give you an example. We for the ACCA three ten, since we’re talking about ACCA three ten and certifying the SEER rating of a HVAC system. We we invited HVAC companies to meet us at houses and for them to show us how they figure out how much refrigerant they used and what
Tools they used. And we thought, let’s buy their exact same tools. So if they’re using field piece as their gear that they test it with, we want to use field piece because the last thing we want to do as an inspector is say, you fail, and for them to go, my field piece equipment says I pass, you know, because then they’re like, this inspector doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s using wacky Chinese equipment and
Reuben Saltzman (32:52.834)
Yeah, yeah.
Trent Fuller (33:01.14)
My better equipment. Yeah, yeah. My better equipment would still allow the pass. So he maybe he needs maybe he’s the problem, not me. So a as we got into it, we found an unending battle where we couldn’t do anything the easy way. Because if we did it the easy way, even the easy way that they do it as HVAC contractor, you get into a battle over everything. So
Reuben Saltzman (33:01.314)
And you’re the bad guy. Yeah.
Trent Fuller (33:30.09)
We had to do things the gold standard way. You see what I’m saying? So when we measure the airflow through the cabinet, we had to basically get the gold standard equipment, the best equipment out there, which is a true flow grid, insert it where the the where the filter is in the cabinet and measure the air in a way that anybody could try to poke holes in it.
But they wouldn’t be able to win because we’re using the right equipment to measure that, even if the HVAC contractor has never seen it before, never used it, never wants to buy that. So we didn’t learn that till months into it. and and meeting after meeting and climbing up in hot attics in Texas, dripping with sweat with managers going, Why’d you fail this again? you know. So this is the kind of thing that that we would hope.
Reuben Saltzman (34:18.947)
Yeah.
Trent Fuller (34:22.796)
ResNet be willing to support the industry with a little bit more transparency on what we’re being asked to do.
Reuben Saltzman (34:28.94)
And what what would that look like then? What do you want ResNet to do?
Trent Fuller (34:33.426)
So the and the website set up so so you can see it and I hope your your audience will check it out. Even if you’re not a yeah, even if you’re not a raider, even if you’ve never done these type of inspections, if there’s a way to just say I agree with this, I would like to add my voice when Trent talks to the president of ResNet about it. But
Reuben Saltzman (34:42.476)
Yeah, I’ll put a link.
Trent Fuller (35:01.748)
What what I’m hoping to do is create a more welcoming environment for smart people like you and for the your audience to enter the energy industry with full view of what is required from their end, what the risks are, what the capital investment is, and know that they have a good support in ResNet to that they’re not gonna be hung out to dry and not
be left in the dark about what exactly is coming down that they have to do. I don’t think I really answered your question though. What what was the question again?
Reuben Saltzman (35:36.771)
Well, I I can I can summarize. I mean, basically you’ve got a a website and you’ve got a petition that you’re asking people to sign to make it so when ResNet is making these changes, it’s much easier for everybody else in the field to understand exactly what it is they want to have done and you can follow along with this and do your job. I mean, is that is that a good summary of what you’re looking for?
Trent Fuller (36:02.772)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That’s a great summary. And and they already have processes in place that work to one degree or another, and we’re not saying to replace those. For example, they have public comment. You know, we’re gonna make this change. Now we have a session for public comment, we have voting rights and you can vote on it. The problem is we don’t vote and we don’t publicly comment because we’re busy on a ladder and in an attic.
And we’re hoping that the the committees are looking out for our best interest and are not making something onerous that’s gonna really make it difficult to do our job. and I don’t think for one second that they want to do that. But what happens is it it goes forward and then it’s not just one group of people deciding how much it costs, it’s the entire industry.
Not I say cost, but I’m just saying there’s an overhead involved. And it’s not necessarily about the the dollars, but there’s trouble, the difficulty, the time, and the equipment, basically. And so if all those things are accounted for and are published with the proposal, then you can hit the ground running and and offer the builder. Say if we go with active three ten, then it’s gonna be an extra half hour on our part in the field.
Extra quarter hour in the office entering it in and an amortized value of ten dollars per house and tell him exactly so that he can make an informed decision. Yeah, I want to use ACA three ten because even though it’s fifty dollars more a house, how else am I gonna get five or say fifty dollars, whatever the hour rate is plus the equipment? So it’s not necessarily about a dollar, it’s just about the the time and the
the equipment is basically what we’re trying to to to figure out. So
Reuben Saltzman (38:02.208)
Okay. All right. So how can people help you out with this?
Trent Fuller (38:07.456)
So if I’m I really hope smart people like you and in and your audience wanna get involved with energy inspections. Really, if you’re gonna do any phase inspections, like you’re gonna you wanna enter the the construction inspection industry and you don’t offer energy, it’s really hard to crack that that that part of the industry. But if you offer a full suite of services, which includes energy and
structural and code and that kind of thing, then it’s much easier. So we hope that more people will join ResNet and when you go to your conferences that you’re rubbing shoulders with other inspectors saying, yeah, we’ve added energy and and like like when we added Radon, it’s helped our bottom dollar, you know. We want that sort of buzz to happen and for people to join ResNet and to help facilitate the rapid changes in the indust in the energy industry.
But to do that, I think they have to be met halfway. You have to kind of know what you’re getting involved with or else you’ll never take the first step. and if it feels like there might be a rug pull, you’ll never take that step. So it’s just a way to sort of professionalize the business side of our inspection industry for the energy inspectors.
Reuben Saltzman (39:13.155)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (39:26.186)
Okay. All right. Excellent. Well, this has been great. Eric, do do you have any questions before we wrap up here?
Eric Houseman (39:35.055)
I don’t have any questions, but I’m just like I’m trying to, you know, kind of analyze this to something that, you know, we deal with. And I’m the first thing that comes to mind is like, you know, when Ashie proposes changes to the SOP. And you know, like what what time, what cost is it to us inspectors to be putting extra data into our reports?
Reuben Saltzman (39:50.232)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (40:00.777)
And what what’s truly the value to the end user, which is our client? And I mean that’s what this it it sounds very akin to that, right? Like resnet is Ashy, you Trent and your crew are the inspectors, and you’re just trying to create a bridge between these two entities to better understand is this something that we need, what is the cost in time and dollars?
that’s necessary to make these changes happen, if the changes are actually necessary and helpful. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:36.716)
Yeah.
Trent Fuller (40:39.286)
Or what if it’s not an expense? What if it’s a reduction of effort that is needed? Then why not have that incentive there in place too? Where, yeah, we found an easier way to do this. Now we can measure CFM by taking a trash bag and putting it over the vent and counting how many seconds it takes for that that air to evacuate the trash pad, you know? and then you don’t need any expensive equipment that needs batteries. You have a trash bag. I’m not saying
Eric Houseman (40:44.56)
Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (41:02.552)
Sure. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (41:07.884)
Yeah.
Trent Fuller (41:09.298)
that that’s just a silly example, but why not have a little motivation for those committees to say what exactly what you’re saying, Eric, are we adding a value? And at what expense? You know, is this does this make sense to introduce, you know, because those changes do add up over time. It’s not just one change. They add up over time.
Reuben Saltzman (41:34.466)
Yep. Cool. Well, Trent, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for coming on. And if I I will I will have a link to that website that you mentioned and if it’s a short enough URL, you wanna just throw it out quick.
Trent Fuller (41:40.81)
Thank you.
Trent Fuller (41:50.314)
Yeah, so ROI I is the initiative. It stands for Raider Overhead Impact Index. So the website is ROII Letter dot org. And it’s basically an open letter that you can sign on to that I will present to the president of Resnet, who I believe is on our side and wants to help Raiders and help the industry do this kind of thing. So we’ll
We’ll hope for the best. I’m gonna we have till the end of October and then I’m gonna submit it to her. So take it out and sign on.
Reuben Saltzman (42:25.422)
All right. Excellent. Well, Trent, thanks again for coming on. And again, it was it I don’t think I f I forgot to mention your last name in the at the intro. I don’t know why, but it’s Trent Fuller. F-U-L-L-E-R. And appreciate your time. Thanks again for coming on.
Trent Fuller (42:35.786)
Matheus.
Trent Fuller (42:42.07)
Thanks guys, I really appreciate it.
Reuben Saltzman (42:43.673)
All right. And for all the listeners, if you want to reach out to us, you can email us. We read them all. It’s podcast at structure tech dot com. And we will catch you next time. Take care.
Trent Fuller (42:54.807)
Thanks.