The Origin Story Behind One of Housing’s Most Influential Programs

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:27
Mike Collignon: Right. Hello, everyone. Oh. Are you in for a real treat today? That's right. We've convened the pioneers who helped build one of the most successful public private partnership programs in housing history. I'm talking about the Energy Star for homes program. We're going to hear first hand stories from inside the EPA. The early academic partnerships, and the builder adoption efforts that transformed Energy Star for homes from an idea into a national standard.

00:00:27:00 - 00:00:58:07
Mike Collignon: And since it's no homework day, you all get to sit back and relax. Here to take us down memory lane are Sam Raskin, Howard Bashford, and Darren Walsh. Jack. Now, Sam Raskin was once the chief architect at the US Building Technologies office, and was probably the most public facing person associated with Energy Star for homes. But he has also served on national steering committees for US GPCRs lead for homes, green building videos, Green Builder guidelines, the EPA's Water Sense label, and EPA's Indoor Air Plus label.

00:00:58:12 - 00:01:23:14
Mike Collignon: Now, he's most recently partnered with Green Builder Media to deliver the housing 2.0 program. Howard Bashford is a registered professional engineer in Arizona and Utah, and an emeritus professor at Arizona State University's Fulton School of Engineering. Doctor Bashford is also a past president of the Associated Schools of Construction, and he will speak to his early role in the Energy Star program in just a few minutes and moderating this discussion will be Darren Walsh.

00:01:23:14 - 00:01:45:13
Mike Collignon: Jack, who is the president of Learning Edge LLC, a firm that specializes in residential energy efficiency training and building science consulting. Darren was a key implementer of the EPA's Energy Star for homes program for more than 20 years, so he knows the program in and out. Now we can't do this without sponsors, and we have a longtime stalwart with us today and be energy.

00:01:45:15 - 00:02:09:10
Mike Collignon: And they want you to know about their incredible benefit called Powershift. It helps residential and business customers conserve energy and save money on their power bills. The partnership is a one stop resource to find energy efficient products and services. For more information, check it out at NV energy.com/power shift. All right. So we're not going to have a normal presentation today.

00:02:09:11 - 00:02:30:00
Mike Collignon: This is going to be more of a discussion. But even still you can submit questions for our panel. Simply use that Q&A box located at the bottom of the zoom window. And I'm going to be looking at those questions and interjecting them as we go about discussing the Energy Star for homes program. So, Darren, I'm going to go ahead and hand things over to you to start off.

00:02:30:02 - 00:02:54:18
Daran Wastchak: Thank you very much, Mike, and thank you to Green Builder Media for hosting this. This was an idea that I had to bring together a conversation around the start of Energy Star for homes, which was 30 years ago. And or I should at clarify that it really started in earnest 30 years ago. I started in January of 1996, which does seem like forever ago.

00:02:54:20 - 00:03:20:08
Daran Wastchak: And, your introduction for us as pioneers, I think, is fitting, but I also want to recognize that there's a whole lot of other people that were involved in the program at the beginning as well. So we're not the only ones. We're just the ones here sharing information today. There may be even a few of you that are in the audience today, and I'm sure that you'll throw some questions or comments that Mike can share that we would look forward to for sure.

00:03:20:11 - 00:03:37:28
Daran Wastchak: And so, what I wanted to start off with, though, is, as we talk about, the origin story or the beginning, I want to, take a little bit of a round robin here with Howard and with Sam talking about how they came to the energy Star program, and then I'll bring up the, the the back end there.

00:03:38:00 - 00:04:00:00
Daran Wastchak: And, and and how I came to the Energy Star program. But I want to start off with Howard and honestly, I would, I would, I would wager that most of you guys are not familiar with Howard and, and, and his involvement, but he was very involved at the very beginning. And so I want him to share a little bit of, of that experience because I think it's relevant to the, to the origin.

00:04:00:00 - 00:04:19:05
Daran Wastchak: So, Howard, thanks so much for being here. Long, long time friend of mine. And, so happy to be, and Sam, of course, to be with you guys. So, Howard, share with us, a little of your front end story. How did you come to Energy Star and how did it develop from from your perspective and your involvement?

00:04:19:08 - 00:04:46:14
Dr. Howard Bashford: Well, thank you, Darren. I'm I'm happy to do that. And I guess probably I'm, I'm probably the senior member of this group here today. So if I do drift off into the story land like old people are, tend to, do, you know, just grab me by the neck somehow or other and pull me back. But, I guess when I guess where this really starts with me is back in 1991.

00:04:46:17 - 00:05:11:11
Dr. Howard Bashford: I moved from California to Arizona, and that's when I became faculty at Arizona State University. And one of the things that was surprising to me when I was moving here, my wife and I were looking for a place to live, and we were looking at new houses to buy and, you know, Arizona's Phoenix for a long time has been really a hotbed of new houses.

00:05:11:13 - 00:05:37:15
Dr. Howard Bashford: And one of the first things that I noticed and, you know, we're looking at school starts and then in September, so it's July when we're looking for a new place, is I'm noticing a lot, most of the homes, all of the homes that we looked at, as a matter of fact, had single plane, single pane glass windows. And so talking to the sales people, like, touch those windows and they'd be really hot when I touched them.

00:05:37:15 - 00:06:06:16
Dr. Howard Bashford: And, I asked a couple of them, what? Why do you not put in dual pane windows? And I can remember specifically one salesman telling me, oh, those are a terrible thing to put in. They, they actually lose way more heat through, through those dual pane windows than these single pane windows. They, they're better. And I, you know, being, college professor and whatnot.

00:06:06:16 - 00:06:31:18
Dr. Howard Bashford: I asked him to if he could explain to me how that is because I touch that glass and that aluminum frame. It's really hot, and I can't quite remember what his explanation was. So anyway, fast forward a few years. There was a fellow from EPA, and I think, I think his name was Mike Ledoux, but I'm not exactly sure about that.

00:06:31:21 - 00:06:34:23
Dr. Howard Bashford: Who was, going.

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Sam Rashkin: Let me make sure we have it right. Michael.

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Dr. Howard Bashford: Secure Mercure. Okay.

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Sam Rashkin: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:06:42:00 - 00:07:10:23
Dr. Howard Bashford: Liqueur. But anyway, he was, traveling and going to various universities and just setting up appointments with faculty who would like to talk to him about maybe some potentially some kind of research. And this was shortly after EPA came out with the, I think they had Energy Star copy machines, perhaps, and maybe Energy Star computer screens or computer monitors.

00:07:10:26 - 00:07:37:11
Dr. Howard Bashford: But I had been thinking about after that happened. My goodness, would it be cool if we could have an Energy Star house? And so that I signed up for an appointment with Mike to visit with him for, you know, for about a half an hour, 45 minutes. And I told him I thought that it would be really, really cool if we could set up something that was an energy and energy star house.

00:07:37:13 - 00:08:01:27
Dr. Howard Bashford: And we discussed that for a little bit. And, one of the things that we were talking was, what would it be? And, well, maybe something that would use 30% less energy than a standard house or something like that. And so Mike went on and, and I didn't hear anything more about this for, several months.

00:08:02:00 - 00:08:21:13
Dr. Howard Bashford: Maybe even as much as 6 or 8 months, when I got a phone call from Mike and said, you know, we're we're kind of interested in this idea of an energy star house, maybe you could write a little one sheet, one pager for me describing kind of what, that what that might be. And so I did that.

00:08:21:15 - 00:08:52:27
Dr. Howard Bashford: And, you know, this is back in the days before we really had, we were all using our word processors on our computers, but we weren't really storing things in, databases and things like that. And I looked to see if I could find that one pager, and I was not able to locate it. But anyway, so I sent that to Mike, and then, a few months later, he got back to me and we had more discussions about that.

00:08:52:29 - 00:09:15:26
Dr. Howard Bashford: And finally, early 1995, he said, you know, we would we'd really like to have a closer look at this. We'd like you to write a proposal, for a, what? They called it a cooperative agreement and send that, send that in, and, and we'll pass it around a little bit and see what we can come up with.

00:09:15:29 - 00:09:56:12
Dr. Howard Bashford: And then the end result of that was, in October of 1995, Arizona State University was, received a cooperative. Let's see, it was called, a cooperative agreement to study to that. And there were three other organizations also to just look at the idea of what would an Energy Star home be, how, you know, and and then once we got to the point where we had defined that, then our job was going to be to see if we could get any builders interested in such a thing.

00:09:56:14 - 00:10:19:09
Dr. Howard Bashford: And of course, I'm a faculty member and I have classes to teach and other things to do. And so the first thing that I have to do is I have to go recruit a graduate student who would be interested in something like that and see if he would, you know, come on board and this would be his, graduate assistantship, his graduate project.

00:10:19:11 - 00:10:53:13
Dr. Howard Bashford: And, Darren, I believe that's how you came into this program. You were a project manager, maybe for kids construction. And I found you in a project trailer. Working as project manager for the Arizona Science Center project. I believe that's where you and I had a discussion for a while, and, took a little bit to convince you that it was time for you to go back to school and to start working on a master's degree.

00:10:53:15 - 00:11:05:06
Dr. Howard Bashford: And I think about October of 1995 is when that cooperative agreement was all signed. And you probably came on January.

00:11:05:06 - 00:11:09:18
Daran Wastchak: January 1st or January 2nd, not the first, but.

00:11:09:20 - 00:11:32:29
Dr. Howard Bashford: And so Darren then became the person, you know, faculty take the credit and the, the, graduate students become the slaves and, and do all the work. And Darren, you were the one who did a lot of work. There was another faculty member who was involved in this with me.

00:11:33:01 - 00:11:33:25
Daran Wastchak: Ken Walsh.

00:11:33:28 - 00:12:02:22
Dr. Howard Bashford: And you get these Ken Waltz. Thank you. Ken Waltz, this is what happens to faculty. He left Arizona State, went over to California, and now I believe he's an associate vice president for a, university on the East Coast. But anyway, Darren, you're the one who did all the hard work from that point on. You and I, of course, been a lot of time meeting and and and discussing this.

00:12:02:24 - 00:12:28:06
Dr. Howard Bashford: We brought in some other people from the university, and I would guess that at one point we had as many as six graduate students at a time working on this project for a period of about five years. That's right. So that would that would be the beginnings of Energy Star at Arizona State University, at least. And and my involvement in that in those early times.

00:12:28:08 - 00:13:06:18
Daran Wastchak: Now, I think that, that story is the origin, but who knows what. Look here was doing Sam, Sam, you came in in that 1995, range. The other three partners were Conservation Services Group in Massachusetts, Florida Solar Energy Center and New Jersey Institute of Technology. And Sam, give us your kind of your your, your your step into the program because I think you, you told us or shared with Howard and I that when you came on, those contracts were just in place and you inherited this, this, this, program kind of at that point.

00:13:06:18 - 00:13:13:07
Daran Wastchak: But, anyway, give us your, your your on ramp, Sam. Look forward to that.

00:13:13:10 - 00:13:48:15
Sam Rashkin: Sure. So my on ramp was very similar to Howard's in terms of that, my liqueur connection. I was working in California at the California Energy Commission, moonlighting as an architect, doing energy efficient solar homes, and got a call from, Mike in Washington, DC. And eventually I came on along with about, almost 100 other people as Energy Star was expanding from just computers to dozens of other products, which the ambition to make a big program at EPA.

00:13:48:17 - 00:14:08:29
Sam Rashkin: And so there are about 100 of us that came in. I came in November 94th, and I think that full year people were coming in. So there's just one slight hiccup. And that was none of us knew a clue, had a clue how to do what we were asked to do, which was to lead a market transformation for all these products.

00:14:09:01 - 00:14:34:22
Sam Rashkin: And so that was, to me, a, a remarkable time. We, we like. So we were clueless and but we were certainly energetic. We were certainly motivated and passionate. We had a leader who was, very aggressive and, we, we were told we would be fired if we didn't get this job done. So it's not your typical government job.

00:14:34:24 - 00:15:05:29
Sam Rashkin: And as you mentioned, I didn't hurt those for contracts that, support contracts or agreements. And I also inherited, first round draft Energy Star home specifications. About 4 or 5 staff worked on it for months and months and months before I got there. And then it got handed to me there. Very much mimicked the IBA building guidelines that were published at that time and everything I knew that the housing industry told me that would be dead on arrival.

00:15:06:02 - 00:15:37:07
Sam Rashkin: It was it was exhausting for an industry to absorb that much all at once. And so, that was the first thing. And the second thing we quickly realized, whereas Energy Star was unlike any other Energy Star product, every other product had a metric to measure its performance. You know, their energy factors for appliances, their a if you leave for furnaces, Sere for air conditioning, everything else had metrics.

00:15:37:10 - 00:16:03:25
Sam Rashkin: Housing did not have a metric for performance. And so there is this nascent, barely functional thing called a home energy rating system out there. Do you had support of the Hers council? There were some efforts prior to that, but even though it is nascent, barely serviceable for a national program, we made a decision to hitch our wagon to a hers rating.

00:16:03:25 - 00:16:29:15
Sam Rashkin: So there's a verification and a metric that can be tied to the program and that was pivotal because everything worked around that connection. The hers industry, in my mind, would not exist today, but for that decision, because it was basically originally intended for existing homes and to help them retrofit to higher performance. So in terms of getting the energy star, that's the background.

00:16:29:18 - 00:16:51:13
Sam Rashkin: And then there's a whole litany of of just having a whole bunch of fun, making a whole bunch of mistakes, correcting, adjusting and trying to figure this out. And, the interesting thing was when we got traction, the most important thing in my mind that I needed to do was to figure out what the heck we got right.

00:16:51:15 - 00:17:15:14
Sam Rashkin: I wasn't worried about what we got wrong. We were correct. What why was what we were doing working? And that led to a massive literature search and, and for research to come up with everything that was out there could help explain why does scaling happen? Why do some innovations get to market and not others? And that has been serving me the lessons learned from doing that.

00:17:15:18 - 00:17:36:27
Sam Rashkin: Understand the fundamentals for why change happens is basically what I've been making a career around, because I made so many incredible mistakes. I sure wanted to learn and apply what we learned, so I'll leave it at that is a quick introduction because I can go into so many different directions with that. Yeah, hopefully that teaches you.

00:17:37:00 - 00:17:57:20
Daran Wastchak: No. That's perfect. Great. You and Howard did wonderful. Howard gave a little bit of of of my, introduction to the program. I was, undergraduate at the Arizona, at the, at ASU in the Del Webb School of Construction. Howard was my advisor, professor, advisor. He and I did some really fun things together when I was a student.

00:17:57:20 - 00:18:26:03
Daran Wastchak: I graduated and went to work in the commercial construction industry. And, my interests were kind of evolving on what I wanted to do. My master's degree is in public administration, instead of in business, because I had an interest in government and politics. I am on the job site, running as a assistant project manager for the construction of the Arizona Science Center, in downtown Phoenix on behalf of the city of Phoenix.

00:18:26:03 - 00:18:43:04
Daran Wastchak: So we were there. We were there. Construction manager, basically. And then Howard calls me and said, you know, I got this grant for this brand new thing called Energy Star for homes. Darren, are you interested in coming back to the ASU, the campus? And I'm like, yeah, man, I want to get out of the construction industry, so sign me up.

00:18:43:04 - 00:19:07:16
Daran Wastchak: So I remember in January I was off a construction project and I was in the, the, construction building down in the basement. And I was, you know, starting to figure out, along with Howard, what do we do with this thing? And, Howard and I and I remember lots of dialog about starting to go out and talk to the builders, and, that was a tough.

00:19:07:16 - 00:19:36:06
Daran Wastchak: That was tough. We actually relied Sam, you probably recall we relied on the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona. Connie Wilhelm I remember, Sam, you coming out and us doing some drives with Connie to go in because she opened the door, to builders, so she got us into some of the big production builders in the Phoenix market, and, and then, Sam, I think we knew inherently that, the Phoenix market was somewhat of a key because it was a production builder market.

00:19:36:06 - 00:20:04:03
Daran Wastchak: If we get the production builders to embrace energy Star, they're going to implement this, not as a one off option within a community. That's not how the builders operate. It's like we're going to do this and every home is going to get it in 100 homes subdivision, or we're not going to do it at all. And so we started those discussions, and I do remember being in the car, with Connie, drive in between deals and, you know, Sam, you said something to piss off.

00:20:04:05 - 00:20:06:09
Daran Wastchak: He took Connie and and what.

00:20:06:16 - 00:20:10:24
Sam Rashkin: I said, I said I didn't say something. I said many things to me.

00:20:10:27 - 00:20:32:28
Daran Wastchak: Oh, I wasn't going to go that far, Sam, but I appreciate your honesty on that. And so the home to. And the real reason that that the homebuilders were, and they work on behalf, of course, of the home builders. So what they expected Sam to do was show up in Phoenix with a wad of cash to pay for marketing or subsidies or whatever.

00:20:32:28 - 00:20:57:11
Daran Wastchak: But unfortunately, Sam was all he had was his, was his per diem money to for buying lunch and dinner. That was all he came with. And he actually never got much more than that. Sam at the EPA. So, what I would love to talk about as we talk now is, is, the importance of partners? Sam, when there was no budget, I mean, I remember there was always this.

00:20:57:15 - 00:21:19:02
Daran Wastchak: Where's the marketing budget? How are you guys going to raise the profile of Energy Star so homeowners know about this thing so that they'll ask for it? And I know that there was constantly hands out to the EPA on that, but you guys never had a big, if at all. I know you had some, but it certainly wasn't a, you know, $100 million marketing budget.

00:21:19:02 - 00:21:24:26
Daran Wastchak: So talk to us about how you navigated that ask and and not having that available.

00:21:24:26 - 00:21:26:09
Dr. Howard Bashford: Sam.

00:21:26:12 - 00:21:51:07
Sam Rashkin: Well, I would frame it as it was much more than not having a marketing budget. We didn't have a supply chain. So every product needs you need the product manufacturer and you distribution, you need sales, and then you need a customer. And we looked at this program. We didn't have any of that. Anyone no customers out there saying, I gotta have an Energy Star home.

00:21:51:07 - 00:22:12:14
Sam Rashkin: There's none of that existing. There's no sales for us to go, and there's two and, there are two customers. There is a builder. And then there was the end customer, the consumer. So there's no customers asking for Energy Star. So there's no builder, primary customer. Because without a builder, there is no Energy Star home on the landscape.

00:22:12:14 - 00:22:37:06
Sam Rashkin: To be a product to buy, there's no bill to say. I'm like, I gotta build an energy star home because I got all these customers asking for it. And then there was no distribution because the ERS industry was nascent and it was barely operational and functional. And so we were there with a product without a supply chain. And so the real job of this program was to build the supply chain.

00:22:37:08 - 00:23:06:27
Sam Rashkin: And that's where you get something called, I mentioned all the research from the studies and learning fundamentals of change. One of them is you need a collective impact process that came out of at Stanford research study that was done, that looked at why change happened, why did why was a group successful and Virginia getting a river that was so polluted it was dangerous to be swimming it were in a city school system in Boston go from just doing nothing to having leading test scores.

00:23:07:01 - 00:23:38:11
Sam Rashkin: What happened to create change? And the study basically said, you know, you need a backbone organization. You need a common agenda, you need continuous communication. You need you need all these pieces. And so and you need to have mutually reinforcing activities was probably the most significant aspect of collective impact. So what we had to do is create those mutually reinforcing activities, create the champions, create coordination among all those players who are doing the mutually reinforcing activities.

00:23:38:13 - 00:24:03:05
Sam Rashkin: So to some degree, utilities and and, and the Raiders were kind of a distribution system that you can get a utility on board, but we started meeting with Raiders and utilities. So we had someone to go out and talk to builders traveling on for them. A couple of trips to Phoenix is not going to bring builders into the program, and you need a message.

00:24:03:05 - 00:24:16:07
Sam Rashkin: So we had a marketing consultant working with the group, and he was developing some marketing messaging, but we had all the wrong messaging up front. And because we were emphasizing energy efficiency and we had let me.

00:24:16:10 - 00:24:45:10
Daran Wastchak: Sam, let me interject on that very point, because it's a good story and that is that, at the very beginning, I remember you were very hot on the idea of, trying to convey the message, about the mortgage and the savings and positive cash flow. And I just remember you, you you came into town and we were talking to the builders eyes as eyes are glazing over, they're like, we can't give that message to homeowners.

00:24:45:10 - 00:24:54:15
Daran Wastchak: But I know you were really working hard at that for quite some time. Was was the economics of it that you think would make sense? It's money, right? What moves people. Look.

00:24:54:17 - 00:24:55:19
Sam Rashkin: No it's free.

00:24:55:22 - 00:24:56:16
Daran Wastchak: Yeah.

00:24:56:19 - 00:25:09:16
Sam Rashkin: The the extra costs on your mortgage might be $25 a month, but you're saving $40 a month and you're living in a more comfortable, more durable, more healthy house. So you never.

00:25:09:16 - 00:25:11:20
Daran Wastchak: Gave it up. Sam. You're still preaching it, man.

00:25:11:22 - 00:25:15:24
Sam Rashkin: No, but we don't. We think about the software. Do you remember home calc?

00:25:15:26 - 00:25:17:09
Daran Wastchak: Yes, I remember you had.

00:25:17:09 - 00:25:44:08
Sam Rashkin: The whole plan was working. I actually developed home calc. All you do was put in your mortgage amount and and your energy savings. It would tell you your, your cash flow. And so you are absolutely right. It was a crash and burn like many others I think like a whole litany. So but you asked me what, what was the real message that we were missing and okay, you evolve and you learn and if there's anything good about the program is we were told to make mistakes.

00:25:44:10 - 00:26:03:27
Sam Rashkin: That was the wisdom of the leadership. Unlike any other place I can think in the federal government I've ever been. I've never, ever been told to make mistakes. Like here, they want you. The more mistakes you made, the better. As long as you didn't make the big one. That would take make you down. But make the make the ones you had to make.

00:26:03:29 - 00:26:24:15
Sam Rashkin: And so the message we get back to marketing, the message we realize after that. On the builder of the builder. And I took like almost three months to do nothing but travel and seed builders all over the country just to kind of figure out our customer, you know, customer discovery is really important. The message was we had nothing to say to a production builder.

00:26:24:16 - 00:26:51:27
Sam Rashkin: They were, you know, cheaper, faster and whatever product people wanted. So the only customer we had was the production regional builder, who couldn't compete in cost and needed a leg up on the big national builder and for them, we gave them the differentiation. And eventually we were smart enough to realize the it's certified, a certified home versus just an energy Star home.

00:26:51:29 - 00:27:16:28
Sam Rashkin: It became Energy Star Certified home because certification. When you buy a certified pre-owned car, it's like $1,000 more than the same car. That's sold as a used car. Being certified is a big deal, and being differentiated as one of the top builders in the country, meaning the country's highest requirement, highest standards for excellence for builders. So we saw the differentiation and we didn't say energy savings.

00:27:16:28 - 00:27:37:16
Sam Rashkin: So as you mentioned, that was a crash. And burn. We said you are a top builder in the country. You are being certified to these highest levels of excellence. That's your message. And then we got we just for getting people to say this and train to this. But we gave a lot of bad advice for a long stretch before we got to the right message.

00:27:37:19 - 00:27:55:10
Daran Wastchak: Excellent. And so, Mike, let's take a question. But then, Howard, I want to take it over to you after the question and and talk a little bit about the builder recruitment process that you and I went through. So we got Mike. Mike, your. Are you. Yeah.

00:27:55:14 - 00:27:57:23
Mike Collignon: Yeah. So we, we missed learning.

00:27:57:23 - 00:27:58:08
Sam Rashkin: To do this.

00:27:58:08 - 00:28:20:22
Mike Collignon: Then we have like first time I think, we mentioned Ken Walsh earlier. He was at Arizona, then he went to California, then he's out East. The question came in from Connor about, did you ever interact Howard with anyone in California during the development of the Energy Star for homes program?

00:28:20:24 - 00:28:50:21
Dr. Howard Bashford: Not directly. But I mentioned that I moved from Northern California to Arizona when I was in Northern California. I had a consulting engineering business. And so I was very much aware of title 24 and the energy requirements of, of homes. In California. And that's why it was so amazing to me to come to Phoenix, the hot spot of the world, or the hot spot of Arizona and find out they're using single pane windows.

00:28:50:21 - 00:29:02:17
Dr. Howard Bashford: I mean, it was just absolutely amazing to me. But no, I didn't have any direct involvement with anybody on an academic level from California. Well, thank you.

00:29:02:20 - 00:29:15:13
Daran Wastchak: So, Howard, let's talk a little bit about some of what you and I dealt with. With the with the homebuilders when we were approaching them. Let's talk about, what kind of pushback we were getting.

00:29:15:15 - 00:29:44:15
Dr. Howard Bashford: Well, I, you know, thinking about that one of the, I'll just never, I'll just never forget one of the discussions we had with a large builder. And I don't know if it's okay to say who that large builder was or not. On this program, but since out there gone, it was Centex Homes and we were trying to convince with our discussion was just about, you know, this really this really wouldn't cost you a lot more to do.

00:29:44:21 - 00:30:08:23
Dr. Howard Bashford: We were doing a lot of energy modeling, and I think this must have been before Sam, you guys came up with the idea that we were going to rely on Hertz ratings because we were using a lot of different software. We were we were working with, a fellow over in the School of Architecture who was and whose whole thing was energy modeling.

00:30:08:26 - 00:30:34:07
Dr. Howard Bashford: And he, he had developed it, along with the team at, one of the national laboratories. Doe to energy modeling project. That was my goodness, what a program it was. But you can't even imagine what the amount of input had to go into the program. And it it worked on an annual basis, hour by hour modeling.

00:30:34:10 - 00:30:59:00
Dr. Howard Bashford: So you had to have temperature data for by the hour for a, for, for years in order to make this program work. We looked at, rem rate. We looked at that. It seemed like a number of things that we were trying to, to use to model energy because our, our goal was we were trying to say, okay, what's the typical home?

00:30:59:03 - 00:31:31:15
Dr. Howard Bashford: And we want to be 30% better than a typical home. So we had gone around and just kind of, you know, see what people were typically doing. And I know we were using that in our energy modeling project or, and energy modeling. And then we would go, one of the services, I guess you would say is we would go to builders and say, give us some of your house plans and we'll see what you would need to do in order to make this be 30% better than what we're kind of getting as the average for the Phoenix area.

00:31:31:17 - 00:31:59:19
Dr. Howard Bashford: And I remember that, fellow from Centex Homes said, well, that's fine. Anything that we could do that costs no money, we would we would be happy to do it. Like, okay, if it's going to cost no money, then that means we're going to do nothing. So how much would it cost? And he said, you know, if it costs even $20 more per house, you just don't realize that does to us.

00:31:59:25 - 00:32:28:29
Dr. Howard Bashford: We're building a thousand houses every year here in Phoenix, and that that $20 a house is going to come right off our bottom line. And we're talking to the, the regional manager for, for construction there. And he's saying, you know, my bonuses based on how well we do. And so if I want to take $20,000 a year off of the basis for what my bonuses figure on, well, we're not going to do that.

00:32:29:02 - 00:32:30:12
Dr. Howard Bashford: But anyway.

00:32:30:15 - 00:32:35:19
Sam Rashkin: And I just again, that's why the vision for.

00:32:35:21 - 00:33:07:24
Dr. Howard Bashford: Yeah. And another thing I just might mention to that that we did and during you'll probably remember this, but we went out and looked at some attics and some houses and and what's going on with the ductwork and everything because you're in Phoenix, everything's up in the attic and of course, the attic 160 degrees in July. And, it seems like we looked at about 50 houses or 60 houses and on about 25 of those houses.

00:33:07:24 - 00:33:36:07
Dr. Howard Bashford: Don't remember for sure right now. There was a disconnect in the duct work. There was a duct that was up in the attic that was not connected to anything, that was just blowing cold air into the attic. We did a little paper about that, as I recall. And, we went and talked to one of the, companies that was the Hvac company, a very large Hvac company in Phoenix, and told us about that.

00:33:36:09 - 00:34:02:26
Dr. Howard Bashford: And and they just flatly said, that's impossible, that that can't be happening. We have our quality control management programs, and we would never do something like that. And this same group was using duct tape to seal up their ducts to where the duct connects to the boot. That where the, that connects to the register, all kinds of things.

00:34:02:29 - 00:34:34:11
Dr. Howard Bashford: And I remember we had quite a, quite a hot little meeting with the owner of that company and Connie Wilhelm, whose name has been used before about, you know, somehow or other, you guys are going to have to be fired if you're doing if you're putting out this kind of done sense that and, and and so there were some things that that we found that really would be no, no cost if somebody would just look and see what was happening in the attics.

00:34:34:13 - 00:34:54:11
Dr. Howard Bashford: The part of this that I would like to say is that company sense actually looked at their whole quality control and what they were doing, and they do a much, much. Well, the last time I was involved with this, which would be, you know, 15 years ago or so, they do a much better job now than they did later.

00:34:54:13 - 00:35:18:28
Dr. Howard Bashford: But this was one of the things that our big push, the big push back, was, if this we can't charge any more for this, nobody is willing to pay any more for this. So the amount that it's going to cost has to be kept to a minimum. And then we were trying to get, builders, Sam, like you had mentioned, maybe regional builders or something like that.

00:35:18:28 - 00:35:48:05
Dr. Howard Bashford: We really didn't have any regional builders here in Phoenix. Everybody was a national production builder, or they built five houses a year or something like that. And actually the first company that we got to sign up to be an energy star builder was the guy who built five houses a year. He was our first one, and he built custom homes and so he could see the wisdom in, in doing exactly like you said, something that would differentiate his custom homes.

00:35:48:10 - 00:35:52:09
Dr. Howard Bashford: We'll do a better job. We'll make it a more comfortable home.

00:35:52:11 - 00:35:53:06
Daran Wastchak: So how are.

00:35:53:08 - 00:35:55:06
Dr. Howard Bashford: You going to add anything to that?

00:35:55:08 - 00:36:26:13
Daran Wastchak: Yeah. Let me let me add a couple of things. First of all, the large the largest air conditioning contractor, in the state of Arizona, in fact, one of the largest in the country is who you're referring to. And when I left Arizona State University and started Dr. Wash, check my company, when I started it the summer after I started it, I actually had I sat down with the owner of that air conditioning contractor and he goes, you know what I'm going to have?

00:36:26:13 - 00:36:47:00
Daran Wastchak: I'm going to have, okay. So I'm there with the owner and the vice president, his right hand person, and he said, we're going to have, Bob's, son go out with you all summer while you're testing ductwork and testing. He goes free labor. Darren. I was like, whoa, new business owner. I need some free labor.

00:36:47:00 - 00:37:13:09
Daran Wastchak: That's awesome. So I basically had, a guy, that was an intern, if you will, all summer out there in the in the field doing testing to provide that feedback and improvement that they ultimately did. Now, I will tell you that, one of the we we're not interested in paying a lot for had to do with our services, which is testing and inspections.

00:37:13:11 - 00:37:40:23
Daran Wastchak: And so, one of those discussions that we started out with, because EPA Sam, you might recall, was very pretty, pretty insistent, kind of Howard's word, actually, actually, you might correct it pretty insistent that every single home gets tested. And so, Howard, though I know, for quite some time went back and forth with EPA on that discussion, saying, look, we got to test 1 in 7.

00:37:40:23 - 00:38:05:00
Daran Wastchak: We should be able to do that. That'll allow us to bring the cost down so that we can get people into the program. And, Sam, you might comment on that here in a second. After I finish. But I'll tell you that one of the things that made the biggest difference in the builders, the production builders taking on this program, was exactly the point that you made, Sam, which is let's talk about them.

00:38:05:06 - 00:38:27:12
Daran Wastchak: Let's talk about the builder benefiting from this. Maybe not the homeowner, although we can create messaging around that. And so what I did is I would I would get a production builder like, like Centex, on board, or Beazer or at the time it was, not D.R. Horton, but it was the, the before they were bought a local builder that became D.R. Horton.

00:38:27:15 - 00:38:50:23
Daran Wastchak: And what I would do is I would get that builder and I would get them excited about the program. And finally we got them to start saying, okay, we'll do energy star. And I had a map of the Phoenix metro area, and on that map I started putting the the names of builders and and, and Beazer was, was red dots and, and you know, Centex was yellow dots.

00:38:50:28 - 00:39:12:20
Daran Wastchak: And then what I would do is I would start putting those dots on the map where their communities were, and then I would start walking into builders going, yeah, we got Beazer and Centex and Pulte, you're on board, where are you? And they were like, well, we got to be on there. And so it was the power of the competition between the builders because they it was the, you know, don't leave me out.

00:39:12:23 - 00:39:29:25
Daran Wastchak: I want to be on there. I need to be on there. I talked to builders later and they said I talked to them about Energy Star. And it was fascinating because they told me after three, 4 or 5 years of doing this, they basically said, you know, you can't be a builder in the Phoenix market and not the energy star.

00:39:29:27 - 00:39:57:06
Daran Wastchak: This is before incentives happened, by the way. The utilities hadn't put a penny into incentives. It was all built at the beginning around internal competition, wanting to be not left out. And Sam, over time, the real value of the Energy star label and member. We did do some marketing events. You guys did show up with what few dollars you had, and we did some some builder showcases or whatnot where we would do an event.

00:39:57:06 - 00:40:05:12
Daran Wastchak: And yeah, but the point being is that we would raise the profile. We would. You guys were helping to get some news stories in the, in the local news and stuff. That kind of.

00:40:05:13 - 00:40:34:03
Sam Rashkin: Yeah, yeah, we were helping. But you know, Darren, I mystery shop too many homes in California, Phoenix, Las Vegas and if I'm being honest, energy Star had no presence at sell it. I would assume that 3,040% environment probably didn't even know the homes of certified energy Star. And so we did was helpful. The Energy Star is showing up in a lot of, advertisements for appliances and utilities and doing some stuff.

00:40:34:03 - 00:40:56:15
Sam Rashkin: Right. People knew about it, but honestly, when someone thought they got an energy star home, they thought they got an energy star dishwasher and an Energy Star refrigerator. That's how much they thought. And understood. So that's why I do this, because the branding is if you look at the program, you look at the supply chain. The customer was a builder and there was a block of builders who needed to differentiate.

00:40:56:17 - 00:41:20:05
Sam Rashkin: And that once they got that differentiation, they were asking, no, there was a half hearted effort to really leverage it at point of sale or explain it. And in fact, the way it was, there's some labels or stickers around it was not very impressive from my view. So but that's okay. The point was, they got the industry to move and do enough homes, and eventually the codes had to follow suit.

00:41:20:05 - 00:41:41:06
Sam Rashkin: No. We could no, it was that whole iteration. We kept increasing, ramping up and going to follow. We ramp up and the codes would follow and so we got the numbers. But, you know, sometimes you want to impose a world view. Everyone should buy a house because it's energy efficient. That doesn't mean the world adopts that. Oh do you, you hats.

00:41:41:08 - 00:42:04:17
Sam Rashkin: And to your point about my selling the cash flow or the energy savings, that's not a world view. I could I could sell. So the point was, we got the builders to differentiate, and then they started to have to copy each other as just as you're saying. And that what I think was a getting the why will return sort of, sort of sort of speak.

00:42:04:20 - 00:42:07:26
Daran Wastchak: You get things moving. Mike, did you have a question for us?

00:42:07:29 - 00:42:17:14
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Well, you know, we talked before coming on that we weren't going to take any questions from Eric Whirling, but, I guess we can take 1 or 2, maybe just good with Eric.

00:42:17:17 - 00:42:22:06
Daran Wastchak: Thought you were going to shut Mike down. Eric down, but. Okay. All right.

00:42:22:08 - 00:42:52:02
Mike Collignon: So Eric's Eric's got one for Sam and one for Howard. Sam, the question to you is you talked about the collective impact research. Now, Eric's saying that that happened a bit later than the beginning of the Energy Star program, so I like it. So really, Eric's question is, what or who was the inspiration for Energy Star strategy based on collective impact before the collective impact model was invented?

00:42:52:04 - 00:43:20:07
Sam Rashkin: There wasn't I it came in to late. We were already late by time. I, I did the research so that I could at least understood what was driving the success of this program so it could be repeated. I believe change is a science, just the way building science is a science or biological science. Material sciences change as a science with fundamentals that get you to predictable outcomes.

00:43:20:09 - 00:43:59:25
Sam Rashkin: And I want to know what were the fundamentals that gave us the outcome. So if I did them again, it would be, repeatable. So I, we didn't know collective impact when we did the program, but I realized those principles of getting mutually reinforcing activities and having a common agenda, all those things were essential. So when I jump over to daily years later and do zero energy ready home, it takes one fifth to staff, it takes one third the cost, and we have just the same amount of exponential growth, because instead of instead of having to reinvent all those change fundamentals, it's just apply what we learned.

00:43:59:28 - 00:44:30:11
Sam Rashkin: So that's been forever in my career moving forward since those programs, what I believe have really helped me work with the industry in a good way. So no, we didn't know the collective impact because it came along after we were getting traction, but it helped explain why we got traction and that was what I cared about in doing the research, just the way other books and other research, gave me more fundamentals about change that are just so critical to the work I do.

00:44:30:14 - 00:44:59:29
Mike Collignon: And then, Howard, Eric wanted to know you were talking about QA, and, you know, it was, it was required, was valuable, didn't cost more in Eric's. And, of course, QA does cost more at first. So, you, Howard or actually anybody in the panel, can you talk a little bit about the contractors perspective on the cost of QA, the early stage of the program, how did they rationalize that extra work?

00:44:59:29 - 00:45:12:26
Mike Collignon: Was it like, for example, Darren, was it was it the the value that you brought in, helping them address the problem that helped them offset the cost of Energy Star certification?

00:45:12:29 - 00:45:13:10
Daran Wastchak: Yeah.

00:45:13:10 - 00:46:12:17
Dr. Howard Bashford: So let me just I just say, I think one of the first things that, and it maybe took us just a little while to learn this to the homebuilders in the Phoenix area, really, our managers, they're not home builders. Homes here are 100% built by subcontractors. And so when you're looking at, okay, here's here's the home builder that we were working on, but the Q&A problem was down here at the subcontractor level, which we had absolutely no control over, the only person that had any control over the that Shay was the subcontractor themselves, or in some cases, home builders did try to exert some control over the subcontractors in in the early stages.

00:46:12:17 - 00:46:57:01
Dr. Howard Bashford: When we started doing this, the only quality control person out there was the building inspector from the from the, locality that issued the building department, whatever, whatever governmental or organization that was, you know, and here it was either the county or it was one of the city, 21 cities issuing building permits in the greater Phoenix area, plus two counties, and one of the things that we had to learn that wasn't readily understood was that, the inspections that cities and county building departments make are not necessarily focused on quality.

00:46:57:07 - 00:47:27:03
Dr. Howard Bashford: They're focused on conformance with the building code. And we learned that. And I have to say that I got a really nice grant later on from from the National Science Foundation, to just look at just that particular issue. And how can you get subcontractors, how can you get them on board with quality programs? And, and it it's it's a really difficult problem, Darren.

00:47:27:03 - 00:47:29:06
Dr. Howard Bashford: You probably want to add something to that.

00:47:29:08 - 00:47:54:00
Daran Wastchak: Yeah. The the the first of all. Well said Howard the, the building officials, and this is not a unique, understanding, to just me because I know this is pretty much I would assume, a nationwide, and that is that because energy efficiency or the lack thereof is not going to kill anybody. It's not a life safety issue.

00:47:54:02 - 00:48:27:03
Daran Wastchak: We were pretty low on the totem pole from a building code building code inspectors perspective. Or for the builder, I mean, they're not going to. And there was always this danger of, like, we can give a building permit even if it doesn't hit the energy efficiency. And as the International Energy Conservation Code has gotten, you know, more and more robust over time, this is an argument that has been, more for, in the, for, and in the work I do now is all about training to the, the, the code and, and all the building science that now we've built into the code.

00:48:27:06 - 00:48:49:10
Daran Wastchak: But early on, when we were doing our training, the builders were really good at giving us time with their trade contractors because we were failing them on inspections. You know, you're failing. You're failing, and I'm, you know, it's not just, your failing. Fix it will be back. We always took an approach at my company.

00:48:49:14 - 00:49:15:04
Daran Wastchak: We always took an approach of. We take responsibility for this thing not working just as much as the as the builder and their trade contractors. What can we do differently? What can we do in the way of of training so that they have the information that they need in order to be successful? And, I will tell you that one of the challenges as a Raider and, you know, Sam's already tipped his hat to the his industry.

00:49:15:04 - 00:49:36:08
Daran Wastchak: We were the sales force for the Energy Star program. And we had an economic incentive. My business was energy Star. So if I didn't recruit a builder, I wasn't going to get a paycheck. Right. So I have an economic incentive to go out and recruit builders into the program so that I could then offer up my services as a home energy rater to them.

00:49:36:10 - 00:50:01:02
Daran Wastchak: So I'm not going to dispute one iota Sam's early comment that the hers industry, would not be what it is today without Energy Star. I'm 100% in agreement with that. Sam and I was doing energy. I was doing the Energy Star program, years before hers, was actually required, as part of it or that I needed to be hers.

00:50:01:02 - 00:50:25:23
Daran Wastchak: Raider. I just remember getting this call one day from the EPA saying, Darren, I know you've been doing this for a couple of years without. But you need to become a hers raider. And I'm like, what's that? You know, who's that ResNet you got to go get with ResNet. I'm like, okay, I guess. So that's when I started my relationship with ResNet, which was very deep, being on the board of directors and all the stuff that I did with ResNet for so many years.

00:50:25:29 - 00:50:59:15
Daran Wastchak: My heart's with ResNet because I did so much and gave so much to ResNet, and, and wanted and, continue to root for the success of the organization and all the Raiders that are a part of it. But I will tell you that, one of the things that was important to us was making sure that we did the training for the trade contractors to make them successful, but the hard job of a Raider is that I would get a brand new person and get them trained up as a, as a raiding field inspector or raider.

00:50:59:18 - 00:51:18:21
Daran Wastchak: And I wouldn't even get him to, to Raider, just raiding field inspector. They would be doing inspections. And I would say every time we have a brand new community, it's like a white sheet of paper. You get to start from scratch. They haven't screwed anything up yet. You get everybody trained up so that they can they can be successful on the models and then everything that follows after that.

00:51:18:21 - 00:51:42:06
Daran Wastchak: And I got my guys and a couple of gals pretty fired up about that. And so they would come out and they would do all this work, extra effort at the front end. And then at about three months into the project, the insulation crew that they had trained, the air conditioning contractor crews that they had trained, they were gone and a brand new crew came in and they didn't know anything about thermal and air barrier alignment.

00:51:42:06 - 00:52:04:21
Daran Wastchak: They didn't know nothing about using mastic on on the ducks and doing everything the way it needed to be done, so on and so forth. And so, my the life expectancy of a lot of my Raiders was probably about two years, maybe three, because they would get all fired up and they realized that the construction industry was basically, a real tough thing to navigate.

00:52:04:22 - 00:52:26:23
Daran Wastchak: Just suck the suck the spirit out of my guys because of that challenge of working so hard and then a brand new people would, you have to start all over again. Takes quite a stamina as a Raider to be able to do that. But the QA process was essential, making sure that the homes truly were performing and, and, and making sure that everything worked well.

00:52:26:24 - 00:52:33:20
Daran Wastchak: Long answer, Mike, to, to Eric's question and after Howard. But there you have it. Anyway.

00:52:33:23 - 00:52:40:09
Mike Collignon: Well, and another one came in from Connor. What was the hers council doing in the 90s.

00:52:40:11 - 00:52:41:21
Daran Wastchak: Before my time? They were.

00:52:41:24 - 00:52:42:09
Sam Rashkin: Yeah.

00:52:42:14 - 00:52:45:10
Dr. Howard Bashford: They were. No, no, no, I didn't heard of them.

00:52:46:09 - 00:53:24:27
Sam Rashkin: They they were formed to, create a framework for the industry. They, developing, a basic construct for what hers reading was, set up some, various, operate, operations who are providing her as ratings. It was mostly trying to build and grow, the system so that you had this service in the marketplace and some of the background infrastructure you needed, really lined up that ResNet carried the heavy weight of developing the fully adopted standards and, protocols.

00:53:24:29 - 00:53:44:19
Sam Rashkin: But they were formed first, and they had a number of we had, various groups, like the hero was a group, in Virginia where we were what when we started Energy Star, they were, one of the systems that came out of the Hers Council. There are a few others around the country, but they quickly, disappeared.

00:53:44:21 - 00:53:53:22
Sam Rashkin: And then you were left with just ResNet as the main, oversight organization for her trainings.

00:53:53:24 - 00:53:56:00
Daran Wastchak: See that question, Mike? That came in?

00:53:56:03 - 00:54:07:08
Mike Collignon: Yeah, I think it's it's where you're heading anyway, with the discussion, there. And so, yeah, if we want to go and start to kind of move towards the current day.

00:54:07:11 - 00:54:11:20
Daran Wastchak: Okay. Mike, you want to read that question since it went just to the panelists and us.

00:54:11:23 - 00:54:31:25
Mike Collignon: Yeah. No, that's fine. That's fine. So well the question came in as to the panel, what are your thoughts on the future of participation in the Energy Star New Homes program with the tax credit going away, do you think that builders are still going to use this as differentiation in their respective markets?

00:54:31:27 - 00:54:52:15
Daran Wastchak: I can kick us off on that one. Because, I've continued to dialog with, with the production builders, and I was asking that question a lot, even though I'm not, you know, working in the Energy Star program as a trader any longer. One of the things I, continue to do is interface with the production builders.

00:54:52:15 - 00:55:10:20
Daran Wastchak: And I ask them, you know, are you going to continue doing Energy Star? I will tell you, at least in Phoenix, as far as it's concerned, many, many of the big production builders are saying, again, it's standard operating procedure for us. Darren, you know, and remember I was doing Energy Star before there was incentives in the Phoenix market.

00:55:10:20 - 00:55:31:28
Daran Wastchak: So there's already a competitive, nature to the builders. At least in Phoenix, if a builder drops out and a homeowner shows up and it's an energy star home and they know how to sell it now, Sam, you can feel gratified all these years later. They do sell. They do know Energy star. You might sticker shop a little bit of failure here and there, but they at least give it a yeoman's effort.

00:55:32:01 - 00:55:52:17
Daran Wastchak: And so if they're selling energy star in in a, in a in a community with subdivisions one subdivisions. Paul do you one of them is going to be, you know, Lennar. And if Lennar's got it and Pulte doesn't, the homeowners are going to say, hey, lennar's got this energy star thing. If I got the order right, where's Pulte?

00:55:52:17 - 00:56:13:27
Daran Wastchak: Do you have this? And I learned early on that if, I think the numbers either 5 or 7 homeowners ask for something, then the purchasing department gets a call that says, hey, the customers are asking for this. We need this in. So as little as 5 to 7 homeowners that ask for something, then all of a sudden it's something that the builders say, we need to put this in our houses.

00:56:13:29 - 00:56:34:23
Daran Wastchak: And so the Energy Star program, we will see its longevity over the long haul, with the loss of tax credits. My sense is, is that the builders are going to keep doing it also because the codes are up there. And so when the codes start looking an awful lot like energy Star, despite Energy Star wanting always to be a little bit better, which they are.

00:56:34:25 - 00:56:54:11
Daran Wastchak: Then then it's it's not they're going to have to do most of that work anyway. Duct testing is required. Blower door envelope leakage designs required, thermal and air barriers required. Ventilation is required. The only thing that's not required by the code, right now is jump talks and transfer grills for room pressure balancing. Everything else is already baked into the code.

00:56:54:17 - 00:57:17:24
Daran Wastchak: So I think that the history, continues to be positive. You're going to have those that only came in for the $2,500 tax credit. Yeah, they're going away. But the ones that were stalwarts and were in for the program from the very beginning, again, it's their DNA, it's their culture. I have a feeling, that we're going to see a continued maintenance, albeit somewhat of a drop off.

00:57:17:26 - 00:57:28:04
Daran Wastchak: And it may not be the starter homes. Maybe it's just the move ups if we're talking a pure cost perspective. So that's my $0.02. I don't know, Sam. What you're what you think.

00:57:28:06 - 00:57:54:16
Sam Rashkin: You know, if any of you start as a solution, what's the problem? Well, let's let's get back to the basics. And and so from the beginning, Energy Star was created because the codes were pretty weak. And we needed to make the homes much more efficient. So when Energy Star began, the codes were about 6,070% were energy consuming in terms of the homes that resulted and reduced that by 30%.

00:57:54:19 - 00:58:31:04
Sam Rashkin: Okay, now we've dropped in the latest versions of the International Energy Conservation Code. We dropped home 70% energy use, and we're only saving about ten, 11% of that very, very substantially reduce energy use with Energy Star. And so, you know, the solution to a problem is completely changed when you look at the landscape of how homes are built today by code, I think builders will stick with it because they get something very valuable from it, which is, and how we alluded to this quality assurance.

00:58:31:06 - 00:58:53:23
Sam Rashkin: No one's checking the code, guys, just as how we, as Darren said, are going after life safety issues. That's if you only have an hour to do a building department inspection. You're not going to check the insulation in the earth, sealing the duct leakage. You don't have the time. So you get this. All this additional quality control and you get assurance about the building science control layers.

00:58:53:23 - 00:59:17:02
Sam Rashkin: You get a lot of benefits that builders are learning to realize. I think stick with it. But I think at the same time, we went from a huge savings to a very small savings to programs. Friction and burden got like ten. Great. And I love to see the program innovate towards much less friction. I don't think it needs to be nearly as complicated as it is.

00:59:17:05 - 00:59:57:14
Sam Rashkin: More importantly, I think the imperatives of the day are moved from energy to way more important things in Arizona, if you don't have water, you're in deep trouble. And so many cities in the Phoenix market don't even know where the water is going to come from. The the importance of water, conservation of energy. It's like in that market if you look at, disaster resistance in so many markets where you're virtually living with a reality that the oceans are like 30% warmer, there's like way more evaporation and moisture in the air, greater temperature gradient gradients.

00:59:57:17 - 01:00:27:16
Sam Rashkin: You have magnitude. The increase in the magnitude and frequency of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts. You need to build homes that are resilient. Again, that's probably more important than that. Small energy savings from the energy star program. So the fortified home program becomes something of a greater significance. My point is, you know, it's very easy when you're institution. You keep doing the same thing over and over and keep trying to get more and more, squeeze more out of a very smaller piece of smaller prize that's available.

01:00:27:18 - 01:00:39:27
Sam Rashkin: And I think that's huge. The future the program needs to look at how it can still play a very important role. It's just not the same problem. But we had the same solution.

01:00:39:29 - 01:01:10:27
Dr. Howard Bashford: And I'd like to add one more thing to I think that Energy Star was one of the first things that helped, homebuilders measure their performance. And starting there in the early 90s and continuing on, you know, the early 2000s, a lot of a lot of home builders, especially large ones, faced these class action lawsuits and when it was time to show, you know, where's the proof of what you built?

01:01:10:29 - 01:01:35:13
Dr. Howard Bashford: There was there was just nothing. The only thing that they had to show what they would have done that measured any kind of performance was, well, the building code inspector, passed what we had. So it was built to code. And this whole idea of having performance, performance measurements, I think, is really taken hold with a lot of the builders in the industry.

01:01:35:15 - 01:02:09:04
Dr. Howard Bashford: If that's going to continue on into the future. I'm not sure. I'm kind of turning into an old man here. So I'm not as I'm not as closely connected to what's going on in the industry as, as I used to be. But the, kind of the proof of performance was a very important thing, like in the 2010 to 2025 period of time and Energy Star, I think really helped become kind of the first place where there was we're going to do some measurements to see how you've done.

01:02:09:06 - 01:02:36:00
Mike Collignon: We got a little bit of history to share. And then I want to get to kind of our final question as we, as we start to wrap up here. So, our friend Mike DeWine, wanted to share that in 95, the, Department of Energy and his council were setting up the technical guidelines, and, that he was on that original committee with people like Dick Tracy, film theory, and Michael Holtz, and they were essentially setting up the rules for what became home energy ratings.

01:02:36:06 - 01:02:56:03
Mike Collignon: So, and then Eric chimes in that they were the council was originally formed to develop a performance based metric for home energy efficiency under a federal rulemaking process that were funded by Congress. The rule never made it to law because the home to the industry fought it ironically, for fear it would had cost homebuilding to lead to more regulation.

01:02:56:05 - 01:03:25:07
Mike Collignon: But the rulemaking failure enabled early years participants to turn it into an industry standard instead. And I think we're better off, compared to the regulatory approach. So thank you, Mike and Eric, for chiming in. And I want to get to the final question that we're going to take here from Tom white. What has been the ongoing role of home performance with Energy Star in developing a home performance workforce?

01:03:25:10 - 01:03:28:26
Sam Rashkin: Then about the retrofit program.

01:03:28:28 - 01:03:35:08
Mike Collignon: I don't know if you didn't say retrofit specifically. You were just talking about an energy star, kind of in a macro level.

01:03:35:10 - 01:03:44:27
Sam Rashkin: It's home performance with Energy Star as the name of the Energy Star program for existing homes. So that's that's what he's asking for. That's switching topics here.

01:03:44:27 - 01:03:47:18
Mike Collignon: But okay.

01:03:47:20 - 01:04:14:01
Sam Rashkin: If he wants it. That program's been discontinued. It had way too much cost, friction and uncertainty to get traction delay energy start for new homes. Did so. The workforce that is out there is there. There's some measurable improvements because that program came about, but they have to find their own way to get more and more jobs.

01:04:14:01 - 01:04:28:18
Sam Rashkin: So we'll see if it sustains. But I don't know the numbers and how it grew. But high performance with Energy Star was a workforce of contractors, insulation, duct ceiling. And so forth to fix new homes, existing homes.

01:04:28:20 - 01:04:41:08
Mike Collignon: And and he was asking about that one. So, you said this now no longer programs. Sam points that, you know, he was asking about the existing homes. So you said it's no longer a program anymore. Okay.

01:04:41:10 - 01:04:48:03
Sam Rashkin: Was that do you want some EPA to do? And do is, since shuttered the program.

01:04:48:05 - 01:04:50:00
Mike Collignon: Okay.

01:04:50:02 - 01:05:06:01
Daran Wastchak: Actually, Sam, the home performance with Energy Star program, I thought it was gone as well, but then last time I checked, which wasn't too long ago. Ultimately, they didn't shut that down. It still exists out there. So. I mean, I went on to the website, you.

01:05:06:01 - 01:05:09:27
Sam Rashkin: Know, when they were doing it, I don't know that. Well, that's a different question.

01:05:09:27 - 01:05:37:04
Daran Wastchak: That's a different place. Who's doing it? But it does still exist. And I will tell you that I had a conversation last week with one of the large utility companies in Arizona about, rebuilding around success with Energy Star. Maybe not using success with Energy Star as, as maybe the, the moniker and the label. But wanting to basically use the infrastructure that we had built for success with Energy Star several years ago.

01:05:37:12 - 01:05:56:14
Daran Wastchak: So it's not quite gone yet. And as far as a, a workforce development tool, I don't know how well it would play that role. But, at least the program is still out there, with some life left to it. But, Sam, it's not much life. It's it's it's on resuscitation. I'm sure at this point.

01:05:56:14 - 01:05:56:27
Daran Wastchak: Definitely.

01:05:56:28 - 01:06:26:02
Sam Rashkin: Yeah. I read or shuddered with that word shudder, but it's okay. Right? So. Well. But yeah, it nonetheless. It's a it did a lot of homes. I think ultimately a million homes are affected out of 100 million, existing homes. And so, they must have created some significant, workforce additions to, to service that.

01:06:26:04 - 01:06:41:08
Mike Collignon: All right. Well, any final thoughts from our panel before we, before we say goodbye to our audience, who very much enjoyed this and would love to see this be a weekly effort because of all the things that we didn't get to yet.

01:06:41:10 - 01:07:22:28
Sam Rashkin: Yeah, I would like to say something. Just, while there's still time, which is, I just don't know. There's a better example of good government than the Energy Star program. You know, it may have evolved and I think there are things that can be improved and, you know, the savings are less. But the idea that voluntarily, without incentives and mandates and regulations, you can work in partnership with industry to radically transform and change that industry to such a substantial improvement, where everyone's better win, win, win, win from everywhere across the board.

01:07:22:28 - 01:07:45:14
Sam Rashkin: The builders are doing better, the cities are doing better. The, local governments and their tax bases are doing better. Everyone's doing better because of this program. And it didn't look at the cost to the to the, public and the taxpayers. It's like it was generating revenue because of all the ripple effects of the economic impacts of this program.

01:07:45:16 - 01:08:07:06
Sam Rashkin: And so this, you know, I know this is a one hour conversation with us all guys, but it the importance of discussing Energy Star is really huge. This is the best form of good government. It didn't impose a worldview or a burden or a tax or any friction. It simply said, can we work with you industry? Figure out how to do this better?

01:08:07:13 - 01:08:28:21
Sam Rashkin: Can we be partners? Can we just create a better product? And that's pretty unusual. And there's nothing else about the conversation people should take away. It's that that government can do an amazing thing when it has the right leadership, the right direction in solving the right problem, where government is tougher is pivoting and evolving and continuing to improve and innovate.

01:08:28:24 - 01:08:37:22
Sam Rashkin: And I think we can just give a general push for that to happen. But this is pretty impressive, and I hope people understand that.

01:08:37:24 - 01:09:02:03
Daran Wastchak: And, Sam, I'm going to add to the arguments that I was making last year when Energy Star was threatened. Now the arguments that I was making were so similar to what you said, the idea that the federal government is leveraging pennies to get get, you know, not dollars, $100 bills for those pennies that that pay off is, is amazing.

01:09:02:03 - 01:09:30:11
Daran Wastchak: If there were ever any, example of what we should do, Energy star embodies what good government is and the leveraging of that and successful and Sam, you know, in no small part you and those that were part of what you were creating there get huge credit for the success of the program. Because of your innovation and your thoughts and always looking forward and making the program more of what the industry wanted.

01:09:30:13 - 01:09:49:04
Daran Wastchak: We didn't even have time today to talk about which I thought we might, but we're we'll have to save it for another time. And that's talking about the evolution to 2.0, and then the even bigger evolution to 3.0. There's a whole discussion around that, Sam, I know, that is fascinating. I was along for that ride, but I wasn't behind the curtain.

01:09:49:04 - 01:10:23:10
Daran Wastchak: Of course, like you, I was just the recipient of all the hard work that you and your team were doing. But the Energy Star program is incredibly, good example. So grateful that everybody, many people in this, webinar today were the champions out there, making sure that that those that were in decision, positions were understanding the importance and and the, the, the reach and the depth and the breadth of the Energy Star program across the board, not just homes, but all of the Energy Star program.

01:10:23:13 - 01:10:46:21
Daran Wastchak: And so thank you, Sam, and thank you, Howard, for being here today. And for, sharing some of this walk down memory lane, I like to say, on Energy Star, because it was so rare, I was excited to be able to bring the two of you guys together, to share in this conversation. So my parting words, Mike, are to say thank you to my two friends for, doing this.

01:10:46:23 - 01:10:51:16
Daran Wastchak: This webinar today. And now Howard gets the last word.

01:10:51:19 - 01:11:32:12
Dr. Howard Bashford: Yeah. Last word. Nobody said anything about the academic partnership that happened with this also. And so I guess that was good. That would kind of be my piece. And I think it's always great when you can engage a few academics into actually being involved in industry and, and, and helping. I mean, it's always been amazing to me as we move forward with this program to find out that there were all these other things that were happening at the same time as what we were doing with, fors and, and ResNet and whatnot, that, that we really weren't aware of was as we were getting our feet on the ground with this.

01:11:32:14 - 01:11:55:01
Dr. Howard Bashford: But, you know, and this idea of looking forward, Sam, you mentioned, you know, the water is a big issue here in Phoenix. And and there's no doubt about that. It is, but also energy. My goodness, everybody is sticking solar panels on their roof out here now on their roofs. And and that is just strictly a cost issue.

01:11:55:03 - 01:12:28:14
Dr. Howard Bashford: People are wanting and they're not even realizing what a benefit this is in so many ways. And it's great to have a really energy efficient house for you to put solar panels on your roof because you use less energy, fewer solar panels. But anyway, looking forward, I certainly hope that this continues because I think nowhere have we reached, you know, that, optimization of what the, energy efficiency could be.

01:12:28:16 - 01:12:29:15
Mike Collignon: Well, thank you all.

01:12:29:15 - 01:12:31:24
Dr. Howard Bashford: For to be on the panel with you.

01:12:31:26 - 01:12:54:12
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Thank you for being here. It's, really, really enlightening to hear the history. I know that we've gotten a ton of thank you's in the chat from, from our our audience. So they thank you. I thank them for being here. Always asking wonderful questions. Thank you. Also, the power shift by NVA energy for their continued sponsorship of these webinars.

01:12:54:14 - 01:13:15:13
Mike Collignon: Speaking of webinars, you know, we got one coming up again in two weeks. That's May 20th. It's going to be at 2 p.m. eastern time. And one of these guys, right here named Darren will be with us. He's going to be discussing solar and battery installs both before and after incentives. So, be sure to join us again this May 20th, 2 p.m. Eastern Time.

01:13:15:13 - 01:13:30:26
Mike Collignon: For more information and to register please go to Green Builder media.com. Thanks again, everyone for joining us today for this very special webinar. I hope to see you again in two weeks. Until then. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Take care everyone. So.