New Certifications from BPI

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Debra Monte on March 22, 2012 at 4:22pm

This is the second post on the subject.  There were more responses on the first one.

Permalink Reply by Paul Lasicki on April 20, 2012 at 8:41am

So what is final verdict on all this? My BA and Envelope is due this June. I need to get re-certified and what to do with the 26 CEU's that I got?

Thanks

Permalink Reply by Joseph Lamy on April 26, 2012 at 6:43am

I started my career in Energy in 1979 with Midland Energy Institute training weatherization workers in how to reduce energy costs for low-income and elderly folks in 4 states. We caulked and weatherstripped, insulated attics and band joists, floors and even insulated walls first with the 'two-hole' method and then in 1980 with one hole and a tube inserted into the wall cavity and two electric motors in series to increase the pressure to arrive at a density installed that was beyond the settled density of the material - today known as dense-pack.

Then Princeton came out with blower doors and then President Ronald somebody whacked our budget and MEI was no more. I have worked on and off in the retrofit world for many years as a contractor, subbie and trainer and have performed quite a few audits and trained quite a few folks in the art and science of discovering and sharing the understanding with home-owners and folks who would perform the upgrades. In 1994 I took a class from John Tooley at FSEC about duct leakage and whole-house pressure diagnostics and then performed a study on a hundred already weatherized homes to determine frequency and intensity of BACK-DRAFTING as a result of fan usage, door closure and duct leakage.

Imagine my surprise when in December of 1994 I saw a news article about how a woman had been gassed in her home (CO) and had seen 6 different doctors - all of whom misidentified the CO poisoning and then sent her back into the house that was killing her. She made the news because a furnace tech found over 1000 ppm of CO in the exhaust of her oil-fired furnace and then when the fan kicked on, the place became so depressurized that all the fumes came DOWN the flue into the house.

The nexr day I met with Oregon Senate President Kate Brown and she and I crafted a bill that SPECIFIED  A WORST-CASE DEPRESSURIZATION test be done at all real estate transfers in the name of full disclosure and health and safety..

We lost our chance because the GAS co and Real estate lobby wrote their own bill into Standards and  Practices Bill specifying that INVISIBLE things such as CO, Radon, friable asbestos were not the purview of the real estate inspectors - they were held harmless for omitting them.

At Affordable Comfort that next year, i had a poster session to promote the idea of mainstreaming this simple check to set standards for home performance. later BPI picked it up and incorporated it into the training (CAZ).

Here's my long story short: I am forced to take classes that I have taught in order to maintain my status in a field of life-long labor of love. I find the pecuniary aspect peculiarly poignant - it's NOT about the quality of work anymore. It's about the money.

So many commenters have said this on this thread over and over. We're being shafted and railroaded. I echo the sentiment that there is poor training by inexperienced and unqualified personnel in it for the dough. My BA is up soon, and I doubt that I will find my funds to re-up. Why??? so next week I can take a class from someone who has little experience and some credential who last week was selling used cars, took a BPI class and now stands and reads the words from the slides??

Permalink Reply by Leslie McDowell, BPI on May 1, 2012 at 3:02pm

On behalf of BPI I'd like to reply to Randy’s question about whether to recertify BA and BE, and Jon’s similar question about recertifying in the context of state or utility program requirements: 

The BA and BE are two of the most widely recognized certifications in the home performance industry -- to date over 120 state, local and utility EE programs across the country specify BPI credentials. So these and BPI’s other certifications are not going away. If your BA or BE certification is up for renewal soon and is required for program participation, it makes sense for you to renew this for continuity reasons. 

However if you are an experienced home performance professional, participating in the pilot for the new Home Energy Professional certifications is tempting. Passing would mean that you would be one of the first in the industry to earn these elite credentials, which will be ISO 17024 accredited. 

BPI expects the new certifications to be widely adopted by EE programs throughout the country. We are reaching out to EE program managers about the value of these job specific certifications, and how they relate to our existing certifications. We will be working with the programs to flesh out possible career paths from our existing certifications to the new ones. And we will be emphasizing the gradual adoption of these new certifications into program eligibility criteria over time. For example, because BPI certifications must be renewed every three years, it would make sense for programs adopting the new certifications to introduce them over a three year period. This means experienced professionals could take exams for the new certifications once their existing certifications are due to expire. Nobody would be in a position of having to carry both. Please check out our pilot program FAQs for more information.

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