SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Welcome to Passive Aggressive, the podcast that brings you, the average citizen, the information you need to answer the questions you have about high-performance housing and electrification. Like what is Passive House? Is it the same as net zero? And what's the deal with all this talk about heat pumps and electrification? We'll meet and get to know the people that design, build, renovate, and test these homes and the systems that they use for easy to understand explanations about how all of this works and how this can actually help us save our planet. I'm Jeff Eckis, founder of LDR Group, an employee-owned high-performance and passive house home builder in the beautiful Hudson Valley, New York. And I'll be your host in this ongoing journey to discover why climate change is very much about housing and how we can all make better choices and have a much larger impact, reducing our own carbon footprint than we ever thought we could. Hello, I'm Jeff Eckis, and this is episode one of Passive Aggressive. For our inaugural podcast, I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with Marcy Cleveland, a talented energy assessor and green real estate professional, an all-around interesting person. She is going to share with us the importance of assessing your home's energy profile and how that can save you hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars if you do. Enjoy. With me today, I've got Marcy Cleveland. Marcy is the owner and operator of Green Building Specialists, a home performance assessment company in the Hudson Valley. She's a BPI certified building analyst and envelope professional, Department of Energy, home energy score assessor, as well as a realtor with a green designation and Earth Advantage broker certification. And that's the short description.

SPEAKER_01: 1:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:55

Marcy is a really talented person, and she's somebody that I use in my business all the time. Um, you know, I'm I'm I'm good at swinging a hammer and conceptualizing systems, and she's really good at the nuts and bolts, the the blower door tests, you know, the infrared stuff, the the the the basically assessing what what's going on with your home. And so that's the reason Marcy's here today. Um say hello, Marcy.

SPEAKER_02: 2:20

Hello, everyone. Glad you could join us.

SPEAKER_00: 2:24

So tell tell me something. I I you know we've had some great conversations um at at different symposiums and and and roundtables and wherever you have to be passing. And um I know you're you're you're you're as passionate about this uh about building science and the climate and things like that as I am. But I also you know understand that you have a lot of other passions. So what is it right now um that you are like your number one passion here? What is it that you're trying to get out into the world?

SPEAKER_02: 2:54

Yeah, you know, I thought about this question a lot when we when we first discussed doing this podcast, and you asked me, you know, what am I passionate about? And um I gotta it kind of goes back to three things for me. And it all ticks and ties with what I'm doing right now. But I look back in my life and everything that I've been doing professionally is it's about identifying and correcting inefficiencies that I see. And inefficiency could be in process, it could be in design or energy inefficiencies, which is what I'm doing right now. But then it's discovering those opportunities for betterment. You know, how can we do something better? How can we leverage technology to make things easier for us? Um, how do we break down a complex subject and make it easier to understand? And that kind of leads into awe, which we're gonna talk about later in the podcast. Um, but then making improvements that add value. So, in terms of homes, you know, those improvements make homes more comfortable. They make them safer, healthier, less costly to operate, and they also make them more valuable. Um, and so we wanted what I'm really excited about is how do people and the planet benefit from these improvements? Um, and then it's advocating for those changes, uh, promoting these better and more efficient ways of doing things, talking to people, sharing that message, educating community outreach. And really the reward for me is is just seeing how these efforts are making a difference for people. You know, they're happier in their homes, they're more comfortable.

SPEAKER_00: 4:33

Um you mean you're not getting rich doing this?

SPEAKER_02: 4:36

Uh no. Unfortunately, no. But but it's it's that reward of seeing that, you know, you're identifying these things that aren't really great and you're figuring out ways to make them better, and then you're passing that on, and people are benefiting from it, and the planet's benefiting from it. So that's great. I I mean, I'm really passionate about doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:58

I find that in in in the passive house industry and high performance uh building and energy and things like that, all those things, there's a lot of very, very passionate people. And it's a good thing because that was a joke, but it's true. We don't make a whole lot of money doing this. Um, we're trying to get, I think, um, pushing, get the cart moving forward, you know, and and hope that there's enough passionate people behind us that are going to get up and say, hey, I'll give you a hand with that cart. And, you know, maybe they maybe they'll maybe our kids, my kids' generation will make money with it, you know, because it deserves to. It's very important. So your job every day, what what if you get up in the morning and you go out and you do your job. Well, describe what you do every day as a job.

SPEAKER_02: 5:39

Well, I I think it it depends on which hat that I'm wearing. Um, am I wearing the energy assessment hat? Am I wearing my realtor hat? Am I wearing my volunteer for habitat for humanity hat? I mean, so I have a few different things. So my day could uh look very different from day to day depending on what I'm focused on. But all right, so which hat do you wear the most?

SPEAKER_00: 6:03

Which one do you wear the most?

SPEAKER_02: 6:05

Right now it's about a 50-50 split, but I'm leaning more towards the the energy assessment side of things. Um so let's just go with that one. All right. So, what what would a typical day be for me? So I'm gonna go out on a home assessment. And I like to say the word home energy assessment, not home energy audit, because I think the term audit has a negative connotation around tax time. So uh assessment and um assessments, if I'm going out to do an assessment, and and for people that are not really familiar about what that would be, is it's kind of akin to a doctor checkup for your house, both the exterior, interior, room by room. And so, you know, I'm gonna be looking at and analyzing people's utility bills. Um, I want to know where they're using their energy in the home and looking at their current mechanicals. You know, are they in good condition? Are they running efficiently? You know, how old are they? What what type are they? Um, how about their appliances? Are they old appliances? Do they have energy star appliances? What kind of lighting do they have? LEDs versus incandescent. And and for anybody out there that doesn't know, LEDs are such a very easy, low-hanging fruit. So if you're still using old incandescent light bulbs, change those out right now. Don't wait.

SPEAKER_00: 7:26

I think I think in I think incandescent light bulbs are actually going for a pretty good penny on eBay right now.

SPEAKER_02: 7:31

Maybe. I mean, LEDs, the the price of LEDs has come down a lot. So there's there's no reason to wait and for an old light bulb to burn.

SPEAKER_00: 7:39

And the color, you can't tell the color apart these days. You can't some some of the bulbs you can actually tune the color on your on your phone if you don't like it.

SPEAKER_02: 7:46

There there are lights that you can install that have a selection switch on them right on the switch. So you can change them and you'll you can all it's it's pretty cool stuff. I love technology for for that reason.

SPEAKER_00: 7:59

So that sounds like a pretty broad mandate. I mean, you you're looking at everything. How do you how do you how do you find yourself as um with enough expertise in all those different fields to to be able to do this kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02: 8:11

You know, life is a learning process, Jeff. And and I feel like I'm still pretty young in the building science world. I'm I'm always learning day by day. I have several building science manuals on the side of my bed that I pick up from time to time and be like, what was that concept again? So um yeah, it's a it's a process, it's education. I've been through a couple of certification courses. I I do have a personal goal just to get one new certification every year. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I've been on track for that for the last couple of years now. So um, yeah, you gotta, you gotta always learn. And I ask people, look, yeah, I'm not afraid to admit if I don't know something, but gosh darn it, I'll find the answer out and it's gonna be the right answer.

SPEAKER_00: 8:57

Um, yeah, we're blessed in this industry too, with a very collaborative uh uh group of people nationwide, worldwide. And and with a lot of big brains out there, you know, a lot of big brains writing really, really good books and putting out really, really good numbers. Um there and and and we're gonna have uh quite a few of these people on this podcast over the next year or two. Um we've uh we've been talking about this a little while, and people have actually kind of like reached out and said, Hey, I heard you doing a podcast. It's like, yeah, we are, weren't you here? And so we're hopefully gonna be able to uh get some really big brains on here and really kind of stir up the pot, as they say. Yes. Um so your your your mission, you know, is is obviously green. It's obviously with for lack of a better catch-all term, um, which may be an overhyped term, uh even now. Uh but what is, you know, where do you see you know the the the biggest opportunities in this business? Because you talk about all these certifications, it's very, very science-based. You know, this isn't, you know, when you get into building today, it's not just you know, pick up a hammer and and and and and put your glasses on. It's sit down in front of the computer, get certified, know your math, you know, stuff like that. There's all kinds of positions in this in this industry. So, so what is what is you say you want to learn one certification a year, what is it your goal? What's your goal here? What's what are you trying to go after here? What's your ultimate thing?

SPEAKER_02: 10:27

Well, um uh I'm still trying to figure that out a little bit. I I do see I do see some big needs in the market. And I had a conversation with somebody a little uh earlier today about this, and that you know, we were asking people, and I might be jumping the gun here a little bit, Jeff, but we're asking people to make some major improvements to their homes. Um, let's talk about the existing building stock because with 90% of our 90% of what we have out there existing.

SPEAKER_00: 10:57

Yep. And and they say the average age is supposed to be 50 years. It turns out it's 100. And now it's gonna be even more than that because we have the technologies to keep them going. So all these buildings are gonna be around for the next hundred years, too.

unknown: 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:09

And and particularly in our state here in New York, you know, our building stock is pretty old, uh, way before energy codes were even in existence. So we we are asking people to decarbonize and electrify because we we know in New York State, 32% of our greenhouse gas emissions come from heating our homes with fossil fuels and our hot water. So we're asking people to take those.

SPEAKER_00: 11:38

Well, I decided decarbonize has kind of been been vilified. You know, it's yeah, you see ads all the time from the gas companies and stuff like that about how you know New York State's goals are unrealistic and they're not gonna happen. But you you say that's not true. You say there's there's there's a way to make sure that we do this correctly, right?

SPEAKER_02: 11:54

There there is. And, you know, electrification is we're getting, you know, once you electrify a home, you're no longer using fossil fuels. Um, but you know, you can also electrify in other parts of your life too, what you choose to drive, what you choose to use for your yard equipment. Um, you know, so there's a lot of things, but we're asking people to do these major changes to their homes. Um, you know, you got to get your home assessed. You know, this kind of we're gonna go into awe here just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 12:23

Well, you can go ahead and go into that. I I got no problem with that. You know, it's obviously something you're passionate about. I know about it. And I think it's absolutely brilliant. Um, but yeah, let's do it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02: 12:34

All right. So we're gonna talk about awe, AWE, assess, weatherize, and electrify. And I kind of I think I need to give everybody a little bit of the backstory behind why I even came up with this acronym. Um, so one thing that I do as a realtor when I'm working with with buyers is we start this conversation very early on about what is decarbonization, what is electrification? And and so that they know what they should be doing once they purchase the home. This was a client that was kind of early on in my green realtor days. And um, maybe I didn't explain it a little bit to him as I should have. And so he closed on his house and he calls me, I don't know, a year later, and he's all excited to tell me about how he's covered his roof with solar panels. Um, and he went out, he got a heat pump system, he's got this four-ton heat pump system. He was really excited. I was really excited for him. And then I was like, well, you you got an energy assessment, right? Because he he was concerned. He's like, I so I did these things and my electric bill is still really high, and I don't know why. And and we, you know, we went through the winter and it wasn't that warm in the house. And and I said, Well, you got an assessment, right?

SPEAKER_00: 13:54

He's like, No, that nightmare, that nightmare scenario that everybody's telling everything's gonna happen, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 13:59

Right. And uh and I'm like, dang, he didn't get an assessment. So this was this was the night before my BPI certification test. I went over with my partner who has a ton of experience in the energy efficiency world, and we did his assessment. And we found so many things wrong with his building shell, like just a gigantic hole. It looked like it was a central return. It was over his stairs to his attic, like a two by three grate that was going to just his attic. It did, it had no rhyme or reason. I no idea why it was there, but it's just a massive hole. Um, you know, holes over his soffits in the in the kitchen were wide open. So all of these problems with his building shelf. And yeah, of course he was having high electric bills. Of course he was still cold and in-house. It didn't matter that he had the solar panels, it didn't matter that he had this great heat pump system.

SPEAKER_00: 14:57

He was heating the outdoors, is what he was doing.

SPEAKER_02: 14:59

Oh my gosh. And so I felt like such a failure. I was like, here I am, I'm telling people what to do. And he went out and he did everything backwards. And I'm like, there has to be a way. There has to be a way to make it easy for people to remember how to do these upgrades. And I'm like, well, you should have sense. And then you should weatherize and you should electrify. And I just kind of put it all together and I was like, oh, it's awe. And I'm like, oh, make an awe-inspiring move. And then uh someone came up today on LinkedIn in my post that I did about this, and they said, Bill, that's just awesome. And I was like, oh my God, I love awesome better than awe-inspiring. So like we're going with that. And so the, you know, this acronym just came out of me wanting people to not make that mistake. I don't want people to make the mistake of doing it in the wrong order because the order is really important.

SPEAKER_00: 15:53

So you know, the best contractors that do deep energy retrofits, they'll test the house before they ever start working on it.

SPEAKER_01: 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:00

And then when they get all done with it, I to be honest with you, most of the good ones have their own, their own blower-door system. Um, but they'll test during the time and then they'll test when they're when they need to certify. And it's it's it's not everything, but it is a really good shorthand for how well you're building your envelope. Now you can still have gaps in in insulation and and your your your WRB could be in the wrong place, and you could, you know, have all kinds of the wrong materials. But you're still, if you're doing that and you're shooting for a tight shell, tight envelope, then that's the great thing. So you do a lot of blower door tests, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_02: 16:34

I love that. So I have to say, blower door testing is like my favorite thing that I do.

SPEAKER_00: 16:39

And so explain what a blower door test is because people hear this, and there's there's a lot of lot of like imagination out there. It's like you're a blower door test, really.

SPEAKER_02: 16:48

So we also like to call it the red door of truth because you're not hiding from those numbers. You're not hiding. So the blower door test, we we build a frame, we have a metal frame, we fit it to your door. Then we have this like red shroud thing that goes over it, and there's a big fan that fits in a hole. And what we do is it's secure to the secure to your exterior door. We make sure all the windows are closed, all the exterior doors are, you know, latched. Um, and we're gonna depressurize the house. So we turn on this fan and it sucks all of the air out of the house and expels it outside. And what that's doing is simulating, like if you had a really windy day, like a 20 to 25 mile an hour windy day, say like one of those cold fronts that comes through here in the northeast. And so it simulates that you have this pressure on the outside of the building shell, simulating wind as we're pulling the air out of the building. That causes the leaks in the building envelope to show up really good. So um, so we're looking for those leakage points in in the building shell. And we have like we have thermal infrared cameras that are really helpful. We have smoke pins. And so why I really like doing this with homeowners is that usually I give them the smoke pin. I'm like, hey, I'm gonna use the infrared camera, you're gonna use the smoke pen, we're gonna run around, we're gonna look for stuff. And just to be able to show people, oh yeah, put your hand up to this window. Put your hand up, you know, over here, close the door a little bit, feel all that air trying to get out. These are all the holes in your building shell. And I think when people can see it and they and it's tangible, it like it starts to make sense. And you see the light bulbs going on with people.

SPEAKER_00: 18:33

Pardon the expression, but so a blower door sucks. Does it blow as well?

SPEAKER_02: 18:38

Well, if you're standing on the outside, it's blowing. It's definitely blowing.

SPEAKER_00: 18:42

Oh, it's a joke, it's a joke with passive house builders because when you're certifying for passive house, you depressurize and pressurize at 50 uh. So it's it's one of those things where, you know, I it's just a it's just a pad, it's a really bad dad joke, is what it is. It's a bad passive house joke.

SPEAKER_02: 18:59

Yeah, and I've done some testing where I flipped the fan around and I have pressurized the house because um the the house was actually under construction and we were looking for leaks. So we pressurized the house and went up in the attic. So we were blowing the air into the attic, and it was easier to find where those spots needed to be tightened up and filled.

SPEAKER_00: 19:16

So it also can make some dramatic uh infrared video if you're if you've got a heated house in a very cold day that's very still out, and you start blowing it out, you can actually see where it's coming out in the attics and stuff like that. So it describe describe the difference, and this is a kind of an important difference that that I've always thought is the difference between convection, loss through convection and loss through radiation.

SPEAKER_02: 19:40

Oh God, you're gonna give me the building science question.

SPEAKER_00: 19:43

Okay, I'll do it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 19:44

You do it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:45

So so here's the thing. What you're testing for with a blower door test is loss of heat through convection. And that is the equivalent of putting on a parka and a hat and mountains and gloves and everything else, and walking out in the wind and having it go up your jacket into your back and freezing your butt off anyway. That's loss of loss of heat through convection. The other loss of heat through through radiation is when you go out with that nice jogging suit and it's tight around the wrists and tight around the waist and everything's nice and tight and tight around the collar, and you go, wow, it's it's not really that cold out. A, because your body's you know developing heat like it always does, maybe a tiny bit more if you're actually you know jogging. But it more than anything, it's keeping out the air, the wind, the loss through convection. So one of the reasons that you your A is assessment A, and then weatherized, which is seal. Seal, sealing is actually almost more important than insulating. Because you're going to lose a lot more heat out of your out of your house, even when it's not windy. Because if it's not windy, then you got something called the stack effect, which means that it's always gonna be a little warmer it is on the top than it is on the bottom, and air is gonna flow from the top, from the bottom to the top. And what by the way, it's coming in the bottom for the leaks in the house, and it's gonna go out the top through the leaks in the house. So that's you know, what you're what you're testing for with that is is really important. And as builders, we're you know, we're charged with much, much finer performance metrics, you know, than than than almost any even a passive house that's a renovation. Yeah, so uh this is the kind of thing I need we need, we the entire industry needs more people to understand this. Yeah, and and what you're doing is invaluable for that.

SPEAKER_02: 21:25

Thank you. And I people, you know, people need to know just because you have insulation, you don't have an air barrier. Insulation is just an air filter. And so, um, you know, unless you're unless you've got rigid foam board that's been foamed in place, then then that insulation is gonna be. Well, then it's also an air barrier.

unknown: 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:45

It's both.

SPEAKER_02: 21:46

Yeah, then it's both. But most people most people have pink fiberglass insulation and they don't realize that just because their attic is insulated, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's airtight. So

SPEAKER_00: 22:00

And you can blow in 28 inches on top of that. And what you've got is a finer filter.

SPEAKER_02: 22:06

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to do they're definitely things that need to be done in conjunction with each other.

SPEAKER_00: 22:12

So correct. And you got to seal light fixtures. There's a lot, it's a lot of stuff you got to do. But renovation, you know, there's a lot of things that a that a homeowner can do if they're handy. Okay. You know, so you know, like you we're talking about, and I know you we're dealing with a client, you know, that that is that needs insulation done. And a lot of contractors will come in and just toss insulation in on top. Um, oh, well, it's deep, it's fine, it doesn't matter, it's old, it doesn't matter. It does because what you know, something a homeowner can do if they're willing to get themselves dressed up in the safety equipment that's needed, is to get that old insulation out of there, vacuum everything up, get it nice and clean, and then seal it. And you can seal it with with half a dozen different products. They're not that hard to come by. And so, you know, even if you don't want to do the sealing part, if you're doing the cleaning out part, then you're basically giving the guy who's coming in to give you a quote on sealing it and insulating it a clear view of everything.

SPEAKER_02: 23:07

Right. You know, and you know, and I wanted to say something about old insulation. You know, some I I've heard stories out there that some contractors are like, oh, let's just leave that old insulation in there. But really, I mean, mice, you know, squirrels, rodents, they they get into this. The mice love fiberglass insulation. They get in there, there's urine, there's feces, there's god knows what, there's mold spores. Just rip it out.

SPEAKER_00: 23:31

Just rip it out, start over and vacuum everything up.

SPEAKER_02: 23:34

Yeah, and vacuum it, disinfect it. Um, and wear a mask. And oh, for sure wear a mask because it's itchy and you don't want to breathe it in.

SPEAKER_00: 23:42

So but I gotta be honest with you, there's a lot of people out there. I get a lot of questions from my my kids' friends and other uh uh clients' kids and stuff like that. They're like, you know, we don't have a lot of money, we're working hard, we just got our house. We want to do something we know how to clean, we can follow directions, we can watch YouTube. So what can we do? Well, there's something you can do, you know. But but most people won't because they don't know. They don't know they can just rip it out, they don't know they're supposed to rip it out.

SPEAKER_02: 24:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:11

You know, so it's it's that's part of what the the mission of this of this podcast is is kind of give us people like you and me and the other people we know like us the extension, the the reach to talk to people, to talk to the everyday person, the everyday citizen, and say, Oh, this is easy stuff. This is stuff you can do. Here's how you can save some money. Oh no, this you need to go to a professional for this, like an assessment. You know, so it's it's it's great. Um, let's talk about some of the other testing you do. You do a blower door test, you do something with the with the thermal camera. Yeah. What else do you do? What other kind of testing do you do?

SPEAKER_02: 24:44

Well, you know, some of the things that we're going to be looking at when we do an assessment is if there's gas in the home, propane or natural gas, you know, we want to make sure there's no leakage. So we do have something like we call it the gas sniffer. And that's really what it's doing.

SPEAKER_00: 24:57

It's more common than you think.

SPEAKER_02: 24:58

Yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Way more common than you think. And people don't even realize it. Um, we're, you know, looking with moisture meters, we're looking for water management problems because water's really bad for homes, deterioration, enemy number one. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:16

Inside or out.

SPEAKER_02: 25:17

Yeah, very very much so. So uh we just, you know, recently did an assessment where the homeowner just purchased the house. They were in it maybe a week and uh got there and they had no gutters. And let me tell you, the amount of damage that was happening because there were no gutters on this home was it was really surreal. And so, you know, you would say, well, how does that have to do with energy efficiency? Well, it has to do with the health of the home because if you have mold problems that are caused by water management, that's indoor air quality issues. It's just, it's really a health and safety thing. So we we're looking for those.

SPEAKER_00: 25:56

Well, it's also a structural thing. I've I'm dealing with a house right now in Wurzboro that the gutter has been running like this probably for 30 years, um, just down the side of the house. And the entire lower corner, which is concrete, is worn away.

SPEAKER_02: 26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:09

It's crumbling. I have to repair it.

SPEAKER_02: 26:12

Yeah. And and other thing that I tell people about, you know, air leakage, we're we're not just sealing the spots for energy loss, but we're sealing it because water vapor travels on convection. And it will get into your home. It will get into your wall assemblies where it has the potential to condense, mold behind the walls. I mean, it's just not a good situation.

SPEAKER_00: 26:36

Uh water vapor and a and a building scientist, you know, we could literally be here for the next six hours talking about this.

unknown: 26:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:42

Water vapor, I gotta be honest with you. If you're talking like, you know, DC Comics, you know, water vapor is the is the big villain. You know, I'm telling you. It walls, you know, when you open up walls as a contract, a repair contract, a handyman, homeowner, whatever, you open up a wall that's I got a window that's rotted, that's leaking, and you open it up all the way, and you realize that it's not leaking, it's basically creating a cloud inside the inside the wall. And the wall is basically raining. So what happens is that the same way when you see windows in a in a in a in a warm house, the old windows that get condensation on the inside, right? That's basically it's cold enough to bring the air, the the moisture out of the air. It's the same way an air conditioner works. Okay. So what happens is if that if it happens, if that process happens inside the wall, whatever vapor is inside that wall turns into actual water. And the water from that is what does the rotting year after year after year, 20, 25 years down the road. So today, there's no excuse for it because we have the knowledge. But I gotta be honest with you, I see homes going up all over the area, built on old codes that are still valuable in most towns that are you look and you go, Wow, you're putting plastic up on the inside? You know, and it's so so there you that that's a whole whole that's probably half a dozen different podcasts, but it's you know, one of the reasons that you're doing the real science with somebody like you, with an assessor, is to be able to spot stuff like that. Because that's the kind of stuff, no matter what you know or can you see in your house, my infrared camera can see further. You know, that kind of stuff. So it's really important.

SPEAKER_02: 28:26

And one of one of the frequent recommendations that we have if we just you know discover that there's there's water management problems, is you gotta address those first. You can't do the air sealing and the insulation work until you've taken care of where the water's coming from.

SPEAKER_00: 28:41

And you know, it's a the other thing is that it's it's such a it's such an opportunity for siding contractors and drywall contractors and people that are doing whatever they're doing, if they're pulling walls apart, doing residing. You know, when you reside something and you open it up and the sheeting is bad, or it's homosote from 1972 or something like that, it's a great opportunity to go to the homeowner and say, look, this homo sote really shouldn't stay. And if I pull that off, you got an insulation on the inside. And here's what I'd recommend that you do let's pull it all off, let's seal it up really good. Let's put some better insulation in there, then let's put some sheathing on it that actually will dry to the outside, and then let's put some siding on that makes some sense that's not vinyl or or something that's going to basically suffocate you if it burns. And there's so many opportunities out there. And what I find is that most clients are very open to the idea.

SPEAKER_01: 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:38

And most contractors are terrified of asking people because it's A, not what they're doing. And you know, I'll I don't do that kind of siding, or B, they don't understand it.

SPEAKER_02: 29:50

Yeah. I Jeff, I am this goes back to my passion about inefficiencies and missed opportunities. I've stopped. If I've seen somebody resigning a house, I've stopped. And I'd be like, hey, did you ever think about some things that you could do while you have the signing off? Like, oh, you could add more insulation, or this is a great opportunity. Still building, you know, leaks in your building. Like I'll just randomly stop and tell people my kids roll their eyes.

SPEAKER_00: 30:20

It probably looks better on a woman than it does on a guy because my my my kids roll their eyes and they go, Dad, nobody wants unsolicited advice. And I'll go, but they do, I swear to God, they do. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I have the same kind of passion. It's great.

SPEAKER_02: 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:33

So like how it can be more common, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 30:35

So so that brings me to a question for you. Like, how do we get more people talking about it?

SPEAKER_00: 30:42

How do we get the sighting contractors to say, hey, well, I've got a really simple, I've got a really simple answer for that. Okay. It there's nothing that motivates people like money. Okay. And if you can prove that that's where the market's going, just by simple metrics, if you can prove that that's where it's going, then more and more and more and more contractors are either going to see that it's going there or they're going to retire and quit because they don't want to go there. And that's going to leave room in the market for other people to come up, especially if we do our jobs well and we portray, you know, what building is today, it's it's equal part science and swinging a hammer. You know, there's so much science involved today that it's it's so many careers available for for people coming up, you know, architects and testers and energy modelers, and and just it's just amazing what's available out there. If you if you convince people, I talk to contractors all the time. They go, Oh my, you're one of those green contractors. And I go, no, I'm one of those contractors that makes money and has clients waiting two years down the road. And they go, Well, everybody's doing that now. And I go, Yeah, but I've been doing that for years, and I will continue to do it for years because there's not enough of us. And they go, Well, why are you telling me? And I go, because there's not enough of us.

SPEAKER_02: 31:58

Get on the bandwagon.

SPEAKER_00: 32:00

So eventually, you know, you know, so basically capitalism. It's it's what brought look, the reason we have so much activity in solar, in batteries, in electrical vehicles, in all of the in wind, the reason that that that there's so much interest right now and so much money going to that was not because the government put it in, because they started back in the in the 70s with with with Jimmy Carter's solar panels on the White House. If we'd basically been in that trajectory and we'd hadn't abandoned that later in in later years, good lord, at this point we'd be 100% in uh fossil-free, few fossil fuel-free um um grid, and everybody would have batteries in their basement, nobody would ever have power outages, and we we might even not even have a whole lot of electric lines anymore. So there's a lot of really interesting things that that are that are going on. And when I say not electric lines, not because we're not using them, but because we finally got smart and started burying them. Um, you know, so there's there's um I oh god, I could go on forever about this stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 33:00

I kind of want to take it just sort of tie off of what we're talking about here, which is getting the message out. And so, you know, one of the reasons why I got into home energy assessment, it's because it came out of my real estate business. And well, why did I go green with my real estate business? Um, because when New York State passed our climate act back in, it was passed in 2019, it was actually put into place in 2020, you know, that's when I learned about the problem with buildings, you know, and creating greenhouse gas emissions. And and uh and I'm like, well, dang, I'm a realtor. Like I'm talking to homeowners every day. And wouldn't it be cool if if I could spread that message and kind of tell everybody, hey, this is what you need to be thinking about. And oh, by the way, there's money available so you can make these improvements and this.

SPEAKER_00: 33:57

Well, let's talk about that too. Yeah, we got to talk about rebate.

SPEAKER_02: 34:00

So to me, it seems like a natural thing to do. And then that's why I ran out and I got my NAR designation and my Earth Advantage broker because I really wanted to learn more about what I was preaching. And then ultimately that led to me starting my own energy assessment company. But when you look at the real estate industry and the fact that we have between five and six million million home sales a year, like if every realtor was doing the same thing that I was doing with their clients, like how much faster could we move this needle?

SPEAKER_00: 34:31

You know, how much more business would be there would there be for contractors? How much more, yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_02: 34:36

And imagine if the home inspectors that were doing pre-purchase inspections with buyers, you know, when they see that 25-year-old furnace, they don't just write down in the inspection report, oh, you got a 25-year-old furnace, but they they take the little extra step to say, don't wait until this 25-year-old furnace fails.

SPEAKER_00: 34:54

Because home inspectors don't do that? There's a very good reason for it.

SPEAKER_02: 34:59

Well, I think it's whatever the reason is, Jeff, we need to change it.

SPEAKER_00: 35:03

Because there's no reason they're not trained enough.

SPEAKER_02: 35:07

But it doesn't take, I mean, it doesn't take that much additional training to be able to have that conversation with with a home buyer.

SPEAKER_00: 35:13

It's interesting because as an energy assessor, you're you're you're holding certifications that give you a um, I wouldn't I don't want to say gravitas, but it gives you a an official opinion. Okay. No, no, I'm seriously. It gives you my daughter's a certified, she's a she's a certified um um geologist, okay, which and now she's a consultant, and so it gives her an official opinion.

SPEAKER_01: 35:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 35:37

She can render an opinion. Um, and this is what I tell people all the time when they're going to buy a house. Anybody I know that's asked me, I say they're going to buy a house. We want to get an, you know, we want to find a good home inspector. And I go, No, you don't. You want to find a good engineer. And you want to pay the extra couple of hundred dollars on a home that you really think you want to buy and have an engineer look at it. Because the engineer is licensed to give you an opinion. The home inspector is not. The home inspector is there is to confirm facts, and that's why he'll say, You've got a 25-year-old furnace. But he won't say you have a 25-year-old furnace, and I think it needs to be replaced, because he's not covered. His professional certification, his professional papers do not cover an official opinion. So there's actually a reason for this. So it's but it's a lot harder to get this kind of thing moving that we want to get moving than you think. But this is why I always say we need more assessors, we need more energy, we need more testers, we need more certifiers. And and that having the ability to have an official opinion is what allows you to do what the average home inspector can't. What we need to do, not necessarily get home inspectors trained to do this. We need to get home inspectors trained to say, all I can do is confirm facts. If you want to understand how all these things work, here's the card of an energy assessor. Call them and have them come. Um, so it there's a lot of ways we can do these things, but we need to be able to do them within the structures that we have until your generation, my kids' generation, gets into positions of power and changes those structures, um, including building codes. And now I'm getting up on my soapbox. Yeah. So a shout out to our award-winning design build company, LDR Group, in the beautiful Hudson Valley in New York. LDR is the evolution of my journey as a builder into high-performance housing and passive house. We design, build, and renovate homes that are more comfortable, healthier, and cost far less to operate and maintain than the typical code limin house produced by the large national builders and even most local companies. We invite you to visit our website at ldrgroup.net or give us a call to discuss your project. Whether you're building new or doing a deep energy retrofit on an older home, we would be happy to spend some time helping you understand the science, the process, and the cost of creating your high-performance greenhouse.

SPEAKER_02: 38:04

Yeah. I do I do think, Jeff, though, it doesn't take much for an inspector, and it's not an opinion. It doesn't take much for an inspector to say there are options out there that when this does die on you, this heat, this heating system, that you should consider. Here's why you should consider them.

SPEAKER_00: 38:22

And oh by way, there's a lot of the way they can render that opinion is to leave printed brochures by by by people that are authorized to make those opinions.

SPEAKER_02: 38:30

Sure. Great. Let's get some let's get some awareness materials in the hands of all of our home inspectors.

SPEAKER_00: 38:35

Completely agreed. Completely agreed. And so what you need to do is you need to approach the organizations that train these people and license them because they're the ones that are going to be convinced, which is the same reason that I started my my my re insane push to get passive house certification in Bosties last year.

SPEAKER_01: 38:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 38:53

Which may be actually moving forward here. Um, so that might that would be a podcaster six all on its own. But um, but yeah, and I agree with you. Everybody needs to vote and know about it. But here's the thing let me ask you a question. Regardless of who's trained what or anything else, if more and more people that are actually buying the houses, more and more people that are doing the renovations, if more and more Joe citizens is actually saying, Well, what about this? Can I get this? Why aren't you asking me about sealing a house? Why are you in recommending insurance uh insulation before why are you telling me to put a heat pump in an uninsulated house? If clients, if customers understand more, yeah, then that pressure alone is going to change everything above it. The same way we now have electrical, uh, electric cars and batteries and wind power and solar power, not because the government got behind it and said you need to do it, but because smart money went, hmm, there's money to be made here. You know, how do we how do we how do we how do we exploit this? I hate to say it, we live in that kind of a of a of a society, but it can be used for good. It doesn't have to be just bad all the time. So yeah, I I agree with everything you say, but I always what I always say is it comes back down to the Benjamins. It always does. So where are the Benjamins going? Well, I mean, look at the money that's gone into you know uh wind and into solar, and guess where that money's going now? Heat pumps, you know, and and oh, wait a minute, the grid's gonna overload if we don't do something. Well, there's a couple of things we can do. We've been talking about what we can do. Yeah, here's another thing we can do, and Vermont's doing it now. It's called virtual power plants.

SPEAKER_02: 40:32

Very cool concept, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 40:33

It's amazing. Yeah, it not only gives the client a backup source of energy in it in their home, but it really literally is going to little by little literally eliminate all the fossil fuel plants because the big question has always been demand, demand, demand. What do we do when we got high demand? Yeah. Well, if everybody's got a battery in their basement and this power company can draw from those batteries at will, what demand? What do we want? What do we need? There's nothing we need, you know, and then start augmenting that with rooftop solar.

SPEAKER_02: 41:04

I think you need to tell everybody exactly what Vermont is doing because you and I know it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:08

So what Vermont's doing is basically they had a really bad storm a few years ago and it and it it knocked out their grid for a long time. And people died, you know, they died in the cold. So what they said was, how do we how do we deal with this? They're putting up massive amounts of of solar power and and and even some wind up there, but it's it's basically it's only when the sun shines and the wind blows. So they've been using fossil fuel plants, and nobody wants to build a new fossil fuel plant. They just don't because they're expensive, they're not going to be around for long. Everybody knows it. It's not like anybody the oil companies and the fossil fuel companies can scream and holler that you know, oil, oil, oil. But if you look where their money's gone, it ain't an oil. You know, not a lot of it. Talk about all the exploration uh uh licenses that are to be had in this country that are going unused because the companies don't want them. They want to find the new EV battery because that's what's gonna make them billions, you know. So um so what they're doing is they're basically now providing battery packs to their clients with the agreement that they can draw off those batteries when they need them. So if they've got a very hot day coming up and pre-cooling office towers in Boston or in Burlington make sense, then they're going to draw power at night when you're not using it. They're gonna draw your battery packs down to 25% or so. We're not looking for there's no storm coming, you don't really need the battery packs, but it's gonna be able to allow them to shift that power around without having to build new fossil fuel generating plants. And so they've done a, I think it was 6,000 customers, and it was such a raging success that the biggest problem now is finding batteries. Um, Massachusetts looked at Vermont and went, hey, that's pretty cool. We're gonna do that too. New York looked at it and went, yeah, we think that's cool too, but we're gonna wait for a little while and see what everybody else does. And then when it started really working, New York went, oh, we want to do that too. And everybody's looking at it now. It's going on out west, it's going on everywhere. And um, I I think even the Texas grid is doing this too, uh, or they're looking at it. Although they probably make people pay for the batteries. Um, but it's it's it's true, unfortunately. But but here's the thing I think that um that is gonna be the wave of the future, not solar necessarily, but batteries. You know, and there's another company called Plug Power that's doing it with hydrogen. Um, they're basically using electricity to crack hydrogen out of water, storing the hydrogen, and then using a thermal generator at night to generate power. Hospitals are using hydrogen, it's called a fuel cell. Hot hospitals are using hydrogen fuel cells for backup power. Westchester Medical has one. I think St. Mary's uh St. Mary's is it the trauma center in Poughkeepsie? Um but the trauma centers that require have 24 power, uninterrupted power, are going away from all their generators and they're putting hydrogen fuel cells in it. The military uses them. So this is where it's all going. And and and so virtual power plants are the are going to be the bomb. It's what's going to be it's it's going to stop all the arguments and all the disagreements about solar and alternative energy because it solves the problem.

SPEAKER_02: 44:20

Yeah. And let's let's just take a step back, Jeff, when when we're talking about demand on the grid, um, you know, cheapest energy is the energy you don't use in the first place, which goes back to that whole like, let's just have a better building shell shell so we're not using as much energy in the first place.

SPEAKER_01: 44:39

Correct.

SPEAKER_02: 44:39

And the more homes that that we can button up so they're not using as much energy when we ramp up all these new electrical appliances that we're slapping in it, you know, we're keeping that demand lower on the grid.

SPEAKER_00: 44:53

Do real estate agents need to do continuing education like like architect?

SPEAKER_02: 44:57

Yes. Yes. I'm so glad that you said that because one of my things that I want to do in 2024 is start a sustainability committee for New York State because I can't believe we don't have one as progressive as a state as we are, but we don't have one for our real estate agents and and I think we need one because everybody needs to be talking about this and I agree. Everybody needs some sort of basic building science so that they they can speak more intelligently about what it is that we need to do to solve this climate crisis.

SPEAKER_00: 45:29

Do you know that most architects is it I'm not sure if it's most or I know it's a lot of architects are certified for passive house but but not very many of them build with it. If they're it if they're approached with it they'll they'll they'll re-up and and research or hire on consultation. But the reason they're certified is because it pays it it it's covers continuing education. And so you know I'm certified and I have to do continuing education every year. And so do architects which have to do a little bit more. So it's it's always fun you know going to Colorado or going somewhere for a week and and taking a course and doing this and writing off the whole trip because you're doing continuing education. Oh and by the way you come home study a little more take a test and you're certified cool I can stick that after my name now too we need to do the same thing with other trades and other people we need to do the same kind of thing. Real estate agents there's no reason that when you sit down with a client and you qualify that client because that's what you're supposed to be doing in sales right uh is qualifying the client. What are you looking for? What are you trying? Get sparking a conversation where they give you real information. You know and then by the way here let me give you this brochure you know one thing is when you buy a house you know one of the things if you're looking for an old house like you say is that and you and you say you want to renovate here's a way to do it. Here's what to look for because you really don't want to do the inside and then take the siding five years later. You want to do the siding first.

SPEAKER_02: 46:57

Yeah I mean it's a conversation that I'm having with my clients all but not a lot of realtors are yeah not a lot of real no no they aren't and you know and here's the other thing I just want to mention about improvements made to homes whether you're building or you're retrofitting is that's they're just more valuable. Let's talk a little bit about the home buyer that's out there right now. Pearl certification everything else yeah they're you know millennials are making up our you know our large bucket of home buyers and this is the generation that was raised on reduce, reuse, recycle they understand sustainability they're they they care about the earth. And so they want homes that are better performing homes. They want to be comfortable they want to be safe in their homes they want to be you know they want the healthy air in their homes um they don't want to spend a lot of money heating and cooling them so building performance is is becoming a thing you know people are getting aware of it they're hearing about heat pumps they're they're knowing that we need to be driving EVs. And so if you're a home builder you better get on the bandwagon. Like this needs to be part of what you're doing. And you know they're just more valuable. So you're adding value you're making an investment in your home when you do these and it's not just an inferior you know you know like a wishy washy value it's real value. No there was a study there was a study that was done um it was it's a little old now it was done in 2017 between the appraisal institute and Pearl certification and they really looked at if you put two identical homes side by side so some of these like major subdivisions where they're kind of cookie cutter and one homeowner has done all of these improvements they've got better insulation they have the heat pumps they have the solar the buyer's gonna gravitate towards that home and they're gonna be willing to pay five percent more for that home because of those features there are so many great benefits about a having a high performing home um you know and and people are starting to understand this and they're the demand is there.

SPEAKER_00: 49:06

I I have way more work than I can do even if I stick to just doing high performance housing I've got way more people that are you know I they'll call me and they'll say we want to when do you want to get started? We want to get started this year. I won't be able to start this year. So the first thing you need to know and I'll help them out. I'll talk to them for an hour or so and help guide them at least on what to think, you know, where to go, what to do what to look for. And then I'll say look I don't have capacity this year. I'm already starting to plan for next year. And the first thing I'll I'll hear from from the vast majority of people is how do we get on the list? People are willing to wait to get what they want. They're willing to pay a little bit more to get what they want. Although my mission is to basically make my mission really i with passive housing high high performance housing is to make a high performance house no more expensive to build and operate over as little as a five year period. You know and and that's when when it stops becoming passive house or net zero when it just becomes house and that's the way we do things is when you said when how when you know that's when everybody figured out that there's this is where we're going and this is where the money is you know simple as that. So listen I wanted to ask you something here. I had this theory and I've had this theory for a long time that the most passionate people in this business are people that are former artists okay of some sort of art uh whether it's performing art or whether it's uh representational art or craft or something like that. But not just these aren't my my my my experience is that even if the guy's with a PhD and he's a building scientist there's something in his background oh I went to Juilliard for piano or something like that. It's like what so I found out and I didn't know this I've known you for a while and I did not know this I found out recently that you had as weird and a twisted way to get here as everybody that I know that did. So let's talk about that for a little so I asked I I I plan on asking all of my guests how did you come to where you are and and not just like you know why the science did it and everything but how did literally how did you start what was your first job and where did you go from there and why so let's go over this a little bit. Let's start with with with what as you put it plan A.

SPEAKER_02: 51:20

Yeah so best laid plans right yep so as long as I can remember the one thing that I wanted to do in life was be a ballet dancer. And I danced and I trained and I did it that was my plan A. I, you know, I was a professional ballet dancer with the Houston ballet and the Houston Grand Opera and that was Oh really yeah it was pretty cool achievement. Wow how long was that I did that I did that until my my early 20s and wow you know my mom I have a very very smart and wise mother and she said to me you know um you're not going to be able to dance forever. You know it's very hard on your body and you should really have a plan B. And so while I was dancing um I you know went to college and uh I decided that my plan B was going to be a pilot. So I bought an airplane and I did all I did all my pilot training and that that is what I was going to do. Aviation was my was my plan B. So I sustained a career injury a career ending injury in my 20s. So my mom was right you know I would have liked to have danced until my mid-30s but that wasn't in the cards for me. And so I found myself now in the world of aviation but I didn't have enough hours to really become a professional pilot at that time. So um I got an aircraft dispatcher certificate and I worked for a Fortune 500 uh flight department for several years and flying you know some really prominent people around the world and um and I continued to work on my aviation and flying my little airplane I took some great trips flew to Key West and flew out to you know Wyoming and so some really cool fun aviation stories. But then a very major event happened in US history and that was 9-11. Oh many many of the airline's furloughed pilots and um my husband at the time was uh he was a pilot and he got furloughed and so he was doing some aviation consulting work which took us to the West Coast and um so we were out there for a few years and plan C happened when we decided to have children. So um so it went from ballet aviation to plan C, which was children, also got a customer experience um senior manager job and a clothing company. So this was like plan C was my was was all my nowhere's near exciting as plan A and B.

SPEAKER_00: 54:10

It was just this was like the bridge career.

SPEAKER_02: 54:12

Right children clothing and then consulting ultimately for uh you know I I helped my my ex-husband with his consulting business while I was raising kids. So fast forward 12 years later and then we have plan D, which is the plan that nobody plans for, which was we decided to get divorced.

SPEAKER_00: 54:34

And that's usually what plan D is right.

SPEAKER_02: 54:37

Yeah and there was a lot of decision making that needed to happen because I needed to get back in the workforce.

SPEAKER_01: 54:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 54:44

And I was like okay well what do I do? My kids are still kind of young um what do I do? What do I what do I like? Um and I'm like well you know I I I've thought about maybe being a real estate agent because during the time that we were married when we we actually ended up coming back here to the East Coast because he did get reinstated with the airlines um several years later. And so we came back to the East Coast because he was based here you know we really interested in building a home. We couldn't find the type of home that we really wanted um he had some knee problems so we really needed a first floor master and believe it or not those are really hard homes to find. And so I was like well we're just going to build our own home and I wanted to design it. I was very very interested in the design process um in particular solar passive solar design not the same as passive house there they're two different things but designing a house to take advantage of the path of well it's actually where passive house started. Yeah I mean there there are some very interconnected concepts there. So you know I did a lot of research um I searched for just the right piece of land that had the right southern exposure. I put a lot of time into it I actually had the plans made I still have them oh cool and the day we were supposed to close I know everything in life happens for a reason right Jeff I really believe this. So we went to we went we're going through the construction loan process and the house didn't really appraise for the amount that it was going to take to build it oh wow um it was it was a it was a when was this it it well part of the home was partly underground.

SPEAKER_00: 56:22

No no what year?

SPEAKER_02: 56:23

Oh so this was uh 2011 ish yeah yeah and so part of funding for a passive house back then yeah part part of the house was underground so the appraiser said oh well that's not technically living space so your appraisal value was going to be lower and so we said you know fine fine fine we have extra money we'll just put whatever the extra money is into the cost of the construction loan so we fine dodged that hurdle will you will and then the night before we were to close on the construction loan a friend of mine called and said hey I heard you were thinking about building a house out in the subdivision that's right around the corner from me. Don't do it. And I was like what are you talking about? Now I put my heart and soul into these plans. I mean like you know burning the midnight oil making adjustments the whole bet. Don't do it she said I'm like why she said they're putting a natural gas pipeline in a mile away from the subdivision they're going to have you know one of the stations there where they release some of the chemicals in the air she's like don't do it you don't you've got little kids what are you thinking don't do it and I didn't know anything I didn't know this was even going on.

SPEAKER_00: 57:36

The crime is that that's even allowed to happen.

SPEAKER_02: 57:38

God yeah so and there were people trying to stop it trying to stop it so I was like okay this isn't sounding good I don't want to do it. And so we didn't move forward with it. And thank God we didn't Jeff because I found out like five years later that the builder of that subdivision was like going to jail for all these fraudulent things. He was he was like um not performing and in like taking people's money like skipping town and I was like holy crap. So I'm glad that it didn't work out. But what I learned in that process is that I love design I love good design. I love design that that harnesses what we have in nature to work with. And I understood how to search for property and how to research and find things. And so maybe it just really appealed to my natural like bloodhound instincts but real estate was like I think I can do this. I think this makes sense for me. It's kind of I can do it part-time or I can do it full time. I can scale my business however and so I got divorced and I got into real estate and within two years of being into real estate is when I found out about the Climate Act and I started learning about energy efficiency. And it also helped that my my partner my new partner has been in this field for you know 12 years now and so now you're in plan E, right? Yeah so then plan E is what Earth and energy efficiency.

SPEAKER_00: 59:11

I realized this first time the the notes that you sent me the that they're like that.

SPEAKER_02: 59:15

And then I went wait a minute plan E is ballet no no no yeah they're flopped right it doesn't quite go does it yeah the ballet was A but the aviation was B. So the first two were flip-flopped but anyway the whole thing does make sense you like acronyms don't you so that's it you like acronyms don't you I do I'm telling you oh I came up with a new well so I can I tell them about eaw oh god please well so you were talking about your awe your access yes because I came I came up with another one this morning I came up with another one this morning so so we have Awe assess weather eyes electrify right and I did an assessment last week on somebody's house who they went straight to the E.

SPEAKER_00: 59:58

They went straight to the electrify and we can disclose this because this is a client that is the the the adult children of one of my best clients and it's you know it's the same as parents and children have been the same all forever since Rome. And basically they kept saying to him call Jeff he'll help you out and they were like we don't need to bother him he's always done these nice things for us he doesn't ask for anything for it I'm and so they went and they they put a bunch of heat pumps in and so they complained to you because they're using a bunch of electricity they basically they basically got they got to the point where they they trusted a contractor to do this they did it and then when they complained to the contractor and said we have a problem the contractor then sold them something wanted to sell them something else. Yeah and so they basically went back to their to their pair tours uh their parents and said what the heck give me Jeff's number so you know and my response was always like guys you just just call me it's just a phone call it's not that big a deal um so so we're yeah you're getting them straightened out now so you came up with what you came up with the fact that so then I was yeah I was at their house and I was like oh well they didn't do the steps in the right order.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:20

Instead they went electrify assess weatherize and then I put it together and I was like well that's eaw and I was like eaw that's what a donkey says so I'm like don't be a donkey get an assessment first so now here's my new one that I came up with this morning. Okay we're gonna do like a schoolhouse Rodney so yesterday the assessment um the people spent like thirty thousand dollars on Windows first right and so I was like oh they did the W Windows a W E which is I'm like wah wah don't be a wah wah so windows is an interesting and you know here's but here's the thing that drives me crazy Jeff so they spent a lot of money on these really nice windows when the windows usually aren't the problem unless you have a gaping hole and the window pane is like broken out and you have air flowing through that sucker windows aren't the problem.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:22

But people they they can be the problem but they're also very easy to make not the problem temporarily while you do everything else.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:28

The sidewalls aren't really the problems of our house it's the pressures the right the bottom and the top and the sidewalls. Right. And but people think oh well I open and close the window and I let the air in and out so if the air is it comes leaking in and out of my house it must be the windows but here's the thing like they spend so much money on these windows and they could have taken that money and replaced their electric baseboard heaters which are and a lot of times the air coming around a window a lot of times the air coming in around a window isn't the window's fault.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:00

It was the way the windows installed yeah I know so it's coming in outside the assembly of the window if you actually tried to make a claim with the window manufacturer they'd go Yeah wait a minute yeah that's not our window doing the problem that's the wall and and here's the other thing you know a lot of houses today are built with double hung windows and double hung windows have something called counterweights I hate those windows. And so counterweights go up and down in a pocket that's on the left side and the right side of each window and it's pretty big and it's a great big hollow pocket right and so people go oh you know the the contractor comes in cuts the weights they drop into the bottom nobody bothers to insulate the pocket they seal it up and then what you got is two of these big steel weights sitting in the bottom getting cold. Okay you've got air infiltration you've got and this great big uninsulated spot on either side of the windows. So now something that's very easy to do drill a couple of holes and stick some foam in are are now becomes an issue because now you've got a situation where the windows have been put in where you can actually insert the foam has been covered up you know and now you've got more more difficult thing to to redo it. So yeah windows are are again one of those things where that should be coming along maybe right before heat pumps you know yeah yeah and I mean just maybe not even just to like recircle to this client and once again let's hit home this point of just get the assessment first because if I had showed up before they did the windows you know the electric bills are killing them.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:32

It's a townhouse it's not even it's it's less than 1200 square feet. They are using 1900 kilowatt hours a year. Jeff that is a lot more than I'm using in my fully electrified almost 3000 square foot house that I'm charging an EV. I mean but I've done it all I how many I've weatherized I have heat pumps.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:53

Is it 1900? 1900 I added it up I saw their bills I saw their bill but it's because they have resistant baseboard heating right and it's not effective in heating the space so if I had you know what a three bedroom two bath house uh passive house what kind of of their what the load is you can weather with a hairdryer a couple hairdryers but the yeah the the kilowatt load that we usually specify is 3500 and I will tell you that every single person I send it to goes that's not right that can't be right at all and I'll go here's the information here you go here's this all the modeling that we did and I've my one of my best friends is an electrician 30 years I've known him and I to this day he's still I still have to prove it to myself I'm like okay dude but it's it's there's such a a low demand it like you said the the cleanest and cheapest energy you use is the stuff energy that you'll ever consume is the stuff you don't consume.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:51

Right right but I just I mean I I hate seeing you know these clients that are going through this and they're doing it in the wrong order because You know, if I had just showed up and did their assessment first, I could have said that 30,000 that you were going to spend on windows, let's put it towards heat pumps. Let's get you off of this electric resistant heat uh, you know, situation and get you some insulation, get you some air sealing, get you a better heating system for the same amount of money or less.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:22

So let's talk about information then. Yeah, you're talking about that. Let's talk about information. So two of the things that we're going to post on the website for this show are going to be some of the information that we have, which is both information to reach energy assessors and also information for other things. And one of the things I'd like to talk to you about is there's a lot of money out there right now. There's a lot of a lot of money for doing all these upgrades out there. Talk about that for a few minutes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:50

Yeah. So I mean, we have our state programs. NYSERTA has some some great programs. They also have some income eligible programs that you can you can go to the NYSERTA website and plug in your, you know, how much you make, how many family members are in your in your household. And uh if you don't have to be pro for those programs either.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:09

No, no, they it's based on local income.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:12

So they have a really a lower income threshold, and then they have one that's a little bit more moderate. But even if you don't income qualify for those, they have the comfort home program, which has some insulation weatherization, you know, money available. Um, so people really need to look at what NICERTA offers, but we also have a lot of funding coming through the national or the um national funding through the Inflation Reduction Act, which there are tax credits available right now for people to do improvements. Um there'll be direct point of sale rebates coming later this year, which NICERTA is going to be rolling up into their current programs just to keep it from being too confusing for folks. And you can find out about all of this very easily. NICERTA has something called the Clean Energy Hubs. We have one right over in Duchess County. You can call, you get free energy advice. They hook you up with an energy navigator to to help you understand what kind of programs are available.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:12

You're gonna hook us up with links to put in the website, right? You're gonna hook us up with that. You're gonna hook us up with links to put on the website, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:17

Yes. Um, there's also New Yorkers for Clean Power. It's a nonprofit. They have free energy coaches that you can call and and talk to. Um and there's, I always like, I like Rewiring America. They've done an amazing job with their online resources. I wish they would push the assess and weatherize a little bit more than they, it's very good for electrification guides and stuff. But they do have an inflation reduction act um calculator where people can see what they could be eligible for. So great information out there. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:52

That's great. Well, I'm working, I'm definitely gonna push you for making sure we get all these links and contacts for the um so I I'm gonna leave on a little note here. Um You know, they tell you when you when you're studying to to to build a podcast that the last thing you should do is a call to action. All right, so we're gonna do a little call to action here. Uh, several things here that that you should do. One, get yourself informed. Two, talk to your local representative, state senator, state representative, county, whatever it is, tell them that you're thinking about it. Call them up and say, I'm interested in this and I'm thinking about this. Just doing that will help move the needle as much as we can in our local area. Um, but more importantly, I think that we need to question everything that comes across our desk and our purview as far as housing goes, as far as electrification goes. There are, like everything else in life, there are right ways and wrong ways to do things. I want everybody out there to put some effort into this. Put some effort into finding out, put some effort into letting people know that you want to find out. And what's gonna happen is the more you put that effort in, the more you're gonna find out, and the more people are gonna start helping you find out. So um, that's my call to action. What's your call to action, Marcy?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:13

Get an assessment if you haven't gotten one. They're free. They everybody gets a no-cost energy assessment in the state of New York. So if you haven't had one done, give me a.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:25

So that's what that's one of the main things we're gonna put into that into that website. So thanks for listening. If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe and share this podcast. The more people that understand this science and are passionate about it, the better. Don't forget to visit our episode website for more information, links, and bonus materials. Oh, and leave us a review and tell us who and what you'd like to hear about in future episodes. Thanks for listening.