Comments on: ACCA vs BPI—The Brouhaha Over Home Energy Audit Standards

By: pj

pj — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:11:41 +0000

"Your standard is a
"Your standard is a clusterfk!", "No Your standard is a Clusterfk!", "no yours is!", "no your is!"

Guys, calm down, you're Both right!

This is about one thing, who gets to shake down the contractors.

Hey Allison, Why don't you tell your readers who wrote the letter to ANSI, that information says it all.

By: Peter Troast

Peter Troast — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:42:14 +0000

Thanks Allison. A real
Thanks Allison. A real service to all of us to have you sorting this out.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:29:37 +0000

All this organizations, terms
All this organizations, terms, rules, and regulations. At the end of the day contractors still fail to insulate and seal houses properly and still size AC units at 500sqft per ton just like they did in the 60's. Saw a 3200sqft new construction house last week where the homeowner was concerned about environment/energy use. It had 21 SEER FIVE TON AC downstairs and 2 tons upstairs. Systems were 2 stage, but had single stage thermostats installed.. A single 3ton could have easily handled the house if it was sealed properly. The homeowner won't know how it performs until summer, he just moved in.

By: David Butler

David Butler — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:04:20 +0000

I agree with what Corbett
I agree with what Corbett said

By: Stan

Stan — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:29:53 +0000

I agree with Sean@SLS; all
I agree with Sean@SLS; all about money. I recall a few years ago the (very short-lived) proposal to combine BPI and RESNET. It sounded really good to lots of folks, but the top dogs couldn't even be in the same room together to present it. In my opinion, there is little real concern for doing what makes the best sense for everybody.

By: Carl Seville

Carl Seville — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:25:35 +0000

Sounds like another set of
Sounds like another set of dogs marking other's fire hydrants. As mentioned above, not that different from LEED and NGBS. NGBS is an ANSI Approved standard and they like to hold that up agains LEED and complain about USGBC process. The lumber industry has been lobbying for a while to get governments to decertify LEED as a certification because it excludes many domestic wood certifications. Ultimately I think we will have these two green building standards run parallel, and we may see the same with the ACCA/BPI dust up.

By: John Poole

John Poole — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:41:18 +0000

Ha! I worked for many years
Ha! I worked for many years in developing standards under various consortia in the computing industry. But I'm nor surprised to see the same stuff that we went through happening here, as well.

As the old adage goes, "the nice thing about standards is there's so many to choose from". :-)

My prediction: You'll end up with two standards in the end, and the end user and vendor communities will ultimately decide, over time, which one lives and which one eventually dies out.

~ John

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:33:25 +0000

And who said soap operas have
And who said soap operas have gone out of style?
For clarification, are you saying that the letter complaining about not following protocols got rejected because it didn't follow the protocol for filing complaints? Nice.

By: John Proctor

John Proctor — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:21:00 +0000

ACCA is very hypocritical
ACCA is very hypocritical about this. They routinely ignore comments and refuse to meet to discuss the issues. They produce standards that are not in standards language. I think BPI is trying to do better than them. The only standards organization that I know of that really takes due process seriously is ASHRAE.

By: kim shanahan

kim shanahan — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:48:07 +0000

Allison, excellent article.
Allison, excellent article. You made a complex argument succinct. The kerfluffle between these two well-intentioned and smart organizations is symptematic of international building science as a whole.

NGBS vs USGBC LEED for Homes vs Passiv Haus, open the window vs mechanical exchanges, HERS rating vs BPI rating, spray foam vs cellulose, Energy Star vs HERS index, etc, etc. It'll wear you out! Can't we all get along?

Some day in the net zero energy future where zero is a code-built home, we'll look back on these chaotic days with fond memories of our passionate and necessary ignorance as we wrenched the built environment in a radical and revolutionary direction. It wears us out because we are having so much fun wrestling with it. Onward!