BPI Energy Auditing Standard and Analysis of Buildings Includes Wood and Pellet Stoves and is Open for Public Comment

On Oct. 4, the Building Performance Institute (BPI) released BPI-1100-T-201x: Home Energy Auditing Standard and its companion, BPI-1200-S-201x: Standard Practice for Basic Analysis of Buildings for public comment for a period of 45 days.

These standards were developed in an effort to standardize and clarify what is included in a whole-building, science-based energy audit of existing homes and include assessments of wood and pellet stoves for the first time. Up until now, hundreds of thousands of home energy audits have been done without any provisions to inspect the efficiency and safety of wood and pellet stoves.  Audits often lead to upgrading old and unsafe heating appliances and can involve subsidized or low interest financing.

The Alliance for Green Heat identified the omission of wood stoves in energy audit standards in 2011 and began campaigning for their inclusion. In the spring of 2012, an Alliance article about this systematic omission that particularly impacted rural, low and middle-income households led to serious talks with BPI who agreed to work on it. The Alliance and BPI built the Solid Fuels Task Group, inviting representatives from EPA, HPBA, CSIA, and the Washington State Department of Ecology along with Scott Williamson and Mike O’Rourke.

The standard will direct BPI certified energy auditors to do a visual inspection of wood and pellet stoves and how they are installed. It will outline the indicators that will guide the audit process and tell the auditor when a recommendation should be given to the homeowner to call in a trained hearth professional with either National Fireplace Institute (NFI) or Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) Certification.


The Home Energy Auditing Standard addresses energy usage, occupant health and safety, and includes a cost-benefit analysis. This standard has received wide interest and has undergone multiple rounds of public review. 

The Standard Practice for Basic Analysis of Buildings parallels the Home Energy Auditing Standard. This standard is primarily focused on energy conservation measures and criteria.

The standards are undergoing American National Standards Institute (ANSI) review, which includes a 45-day public comment. Comments are being solicited from stakeholders and the general public.

To view the standards, visit: Standards Under Review 

To submit comments, visit: Formal Public Comment Process.

Task Group begins work to include wood heaters in energy audits

Tens of thousands of energy audits happen every year, but wood and pellet stoves are almost always left out of them.  The Alliance for Green Heat took this on, challenging energy audit institutions to justify overlooking such a critical piece of heating equipment. The leading institution in this space, the Building Performance Institute, agreed to work with us to develop standards. We then invited key industry and government experts to be on a BPI Solid Fuels Task Group, a sub-group of a BPI working group (WG-7) addressing the development of BPI-1200 Standard for Basic Analysis of Buildings. 
 

BPI is an ANSI-accredited standards development organization, which means that the procedures used by BPI meet essential requirements for openness, balance, consensus and due process. As part of that process, the Solid Fuels Task Group has begun the important but tedious task of developing standards that will then be published for public comment. 

The Solid Fuels Task Group is made up of John Ackerly of the Alliance for Green Heat, John Dupree of the EPA, Rod Tinnemore of the Washington State Department of Ecology, Ashley Eldridge of the Chimney Safety Institute of America, John Crouch of HPBA, Rick Vlahos of the National Fireplace Institute and Mike O’Rourke of  TBHI Presentations. From BPI, key people are John Jones, Darlene Welch and Jeremy O’Brien.

Our Task Group addresses the solid fuel components for the Combustion Appliance Testing section of BPI-1200. BPI-1200 provides the step-by-step procedures for conducting an evaluation of the home that addresses energy usage, and limited aspects of building durability and occupant health and safety. The evaluation will provide a comprehensive scope of work to improve the home and will include a cost-benefit analysis. 

Key issues to be addressed by the Solid Fuel Task Group surround how to assess the safety and efficiency of a wood or pellet stove and how to educate and urge the homeowner to upgrade or repair old or poorly installed appliances.

In August 2012, the New York Biomass Energy Alliance wrote to NYSERDA asking for answers about how and why wood stoves could be excluded from the energy audits that they subsidize, particularly in the northernmost counties. 

For more background about the need for this standard, click here.