Of course, what is defined as “success” can be viewed from many points of view. Usually, the success of an home energy audit is judged by the homeowner in terms of his or her need. Did it solve the comfort issue? Is the home now more energy efficient? More durable? Clients rarely wonder if their home is safe, but I have seen homeowners immediately decide that their $400 (or so) was well worth it after learning about a back-drafting water heater or a leaking natural gas line. Of course, as a business I’ve always got to keep my ears tuned to what clients define as success.

In fact, some homeowners seem to feel that their home energy audit is successful even if all they have to show for it is a report. It’s puzzling that people will pay good, hard-earned money for an audit and then do nothing about it.

But what about the auditor him or herself? How does an auditor define a successful audit?

Sadly, many gauge simply getting a job as success – at least historically. The history of this industry is rife with examples of utility and government program that funded residential energy audits, but which then have nothing to show for all that funding since the audits were never acted upon. Early on, many defined simply getting an audit done as “success”. Even now, I suspect some colleagues would define it that way. Sure, they’d love it if their audits were acted upon, but short of that, with families to feed and bills to pay, they’d be happy if their businesses was successful financially. One friend of mine, James Trout (who is behind www.mygreentoolkit.com, a website promoting energy efficiency to realtors), should know. The way he put it, “a lot of auditors are home watching Oprah these days”. Sadly, many of us energy auditors are indeed “all fired up going nowhere”.

Perhaps you already see where I’m going with this. Energy auditors absolutely must define the success of their work as going beyond the mere generation of a report and collection of their fee. They must do everything possible to get the homeowner to act upon the report. By my definition, anything short of that isn’t success.

Of course, I’m not always successful.

But am I being disingenuous? Hardly. Which of the following two scenarios do you think is more successful? A homeowner is entertaining in their home and a friend remarks that she is thinking about having an energy audit performed on her home. The homeowner replies, “Oh, we had one done by Show Me Home Energy Solutions a year ago.” The friend then asks how it came out.

In scenario one, the homeowner answers: “Oh, it explained a lot, and the report was very interesting, although we haven’t done anything with it yet. I can show you the report if you want – if I can find it.”

Or, how about this scenario instead: “Oh, it explained a lot – it was very interesting, and very effective. We had the work done and couldn’t believe the difference it made in the kids’ bedroom. You’re not going to believe what else we found. Here, let’s go upstairs and let me show you…”

You get the idea. The latter, of course, is the truly successful home energy audit. And it is the only path, I think, that will reliably generate future business. Remember, only if the recommendations are actually implemented can the house become more comfortable, or more energy efficiency, or more durable, or safer, or cost less to operate, or increase in value and desirability in the marketplace – or ALL of these things! Consequently, this is what people will be more than happy to talk about to others (for you).

In my own business model, I build the cost of a follow-up quality assurance (QA) visit into the price of any home energy assessment. When the homeowner has the work done, I’ll come back out and check it, and also re-test the home. The homeowner has already paid for this up-front so there’s no additional charge. Hopefully, this serves as an incentive to have work done.

What often happens, though, is that the work is performed but I’m never called back for QA. The homeowner is satisfied with the results and apparently never gets around to anything more than a phone call back to me. (In contrast, do-it-yourselfer’s almost always call me back for a follow-up.)

So be warned, homeowner: once I do a home energy audit, you can expect a phone call (or two) from me in the weeks or months ahead.

The whole industry is struggling with this issue. An alternative business model is to combine the contractor/remodeler business with the energy audit (the latter usually as a loss leader). But as models go, that business model has it’s own foibles. But, then, that’s another blog post…

Thus, that’s how I define a successful home energy audit. Whether you are a homeowner or a colleague, I’d be interested in what you think. What makes an energy audit successful, and what suggestions you have to help auditors make them so?