Jon LaMonte's Blog (7)

So the price of gas is hovering near $4.00 a gallon again.  Have you noticed a change in your driving habits?  More people are choosing to stay home over driving long distances for vacation.  They’re also combining trips to multiple locations to get more things done all at once and if they forget to stop at one,…

We all go through transitions in our lives.  One of the biggest is choosing or changing a profession.  As I mentioned in previous entries, my background for the previous 9 years was doing class action and warranty inspections on residential building products.  This meant I became keenly…

A buddy of mine, Dennis, that’s an exterminator called me the other day while I was standing in Home Depot.  “Jon, I’ve got a problem and I need some of your building science expertise.” The problem he was having was being caused by some granules he had put down to repel some flying squirrels.  The granules…

This very question was recently posed in the BPI Group.  Is there a conflict of interest when an energy auditor also offers contracting or weatherization services to their clients?  At first glance, many would say that the easy answer is "yes". The common reasoning is that people will steer their clients towards the products they sell in order to make as much money as possible.  After all, that's what we are all in business for, isn't it?  The other answer was "it's just human…

It's amazing what excuses homeowners will come up with when it comes to avoiding spending money.  Even though I have found that most people in our field truly feel they are helping people, salesmanship (often uneasily) still comes into play based on homeowner perception of sales people (and based on all the BS that floats around out there do you blame them). Getting past objections can sometimes become an art form.

I recently performed a full energy audit on the home of a…

Have you noticed that there have been a lot of commercials about electric cars lately? Do you think that electric cars are really the answer to our energy issues and reliance on fossil fuels? I started to think about the process associated with electric vehicles and did some simple research. Following are some simple points to consider.



First let’s look at the manufacturing process. Vehicle parts are manufactured all over the world in…