Well not much really. But let’s be honest, would you have even had interest in reading if the title was “Why I Love My Job”? So this is basically my year in review of working for Conservation Services Group performing home energy audits and to share a little more about my job that I did not get to share during the panel discussion at the AIA Ohio Valley Region convention in Dayton, OH last week.
So let’s stick with the title and what I do not enjoy about my job. First, 90+ degree days, it makes for very uncomfortable working conditions as the attic is 100+ degrees. However that is a condition of the job and is only an issue of comfort. The hardest, as well as worst part of the job is delivering news to customers as I was reminded of today. First is the customer that already has decent levels of insulation and based upon calculated paybacks and program goals do not qualify for very attractive incentives for energy efficiency improvements through the utility rebate program that we do work for. I get a lot of eye rolling, but that is easy to handle, just lots of additional table talk which can add a lot of time to an appointment that only allows 4 hours to inspect, test, generate a report and present it to the customer. However the absolute hardest part about my job is telling a customer, especially an assisted customer that is getting free work done that cannot have any air sealing or insulation work done until combustion safety issues have been resolved such as back drafting water heaters, or high CO levels. This can really tug on the heart strings when you are in a home that has little to no insulation and you can see they would greatly benefit from lower utility bills and truly cannot afford to make some of the repairs necessary, yet their income level is not low enough to qualify for weatherization assistance that would actually make these repairs.
As I am now performing home energy audits, I am inspecting way too many homes built before the 1960′s with small to large additions or alterations. Yet the majority of the original structure in not touched. This is why I am visiting these homes, they have these brand new additions and brand new high efficiency furnaces, yet they are not comfortable. No surprise when a newly insulated addition is added to the home and the original structure stills sits uninsulated. But what may be more disturbing is the rare addition built within the past couple of years that are extremely under-insulated at the ceiling. And what amazes me even more is that home owners are so conditioned into thinking that they are uncomfortable because they have “bad” windows.