Home Energy Raters

A Home Energy Rater is a specialized contractor who performs an evaluation of the energy efficiency of your home. These raters can vary from experienced home construction and remodeling contractors, to specially trained utility employees, to certified ENERGY STAR, LEEDS, and other Green council representatives using the latest state-of-the-art equipment and standardized producedures. Energy Raters are frequentlly used in exising and new construction homes.

Existing Homes

If after reviewing your energy bills, you feel that your home’s performance may not measure up, first contact your utility to find out if they offer free or discounted energy audits to their customers. These audits generally use a checklist to review general energy loss characteristics of the construction of your home and will frequently make recommendations for improvements and give an estimate for the cost of each recommended item. If such audits are not offered, you may wish to contact an experienced, but trusted, energy improvement construction contractor to evaluate and make suggestions along with quotations. Finally, you retain a CERTIFIED GREEN RATER to evaluate and actually test your home for energy efficiency.

Although it is frequently not cost effective to modify an existing home to receive ENERGY STAR or other green certificatiton certificates, you may wish to do this if you are already planning extensive modifications or need to compete with other green certified homes in the real estate market.

New Construction Homes

A third-party Home Energy Rater is most prevalent and plays a huge role in the certification of ENERGY STAR and other GREEN homes. Such raters are retained by the builder before construction even starts to advise and help plan for the home’s energy efficiency cost and final certification. Inspection and testing points during construction are established, and the efficiency rating and verification is earned only after rigid product evaluation and satisfactory test results. In the case of ENERGY STAR, the verification and testing results are then sent to a Regional Home Energy Rating System (HERS) provider who will double-check the inputs, rate the home and most importantly, issue the ENERGY STAR certificate for the consumer’s protection.

For an explanation of ENERGY STAR ratings, refer to our October 3, 2008 posting, “How Do Homes Qualify for ENERGY ATAR Rating?”

To find a Home Energy Rater, visit the ENERGY STAR for Homes Partner Locator, or contact us for a list of “recommended” local providers.

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