Send well wishes to ailing George Brazil

by Robert Mader January 20th, 2012

Service Roundtable member Kenneth D. Goodrich, president of the Western Zone for ARS/Rescue Rooter in Las Vegas, informs us that industry icon George Brazil is in the hospital.

George, a plumbing and HVAC innovator in Southern California for decades before semi-retiring to Phoenix, has been battling health challenges and is in the hospital in Phoenix healing a broken hip. For those of you who have not had the privilege of knowing George he is one of the original innovators of flat rate pricing, the creator of the cab-over aluminum box service truck, one of founders, with the legendary Frank Blau, of Contractors 2000, which is now Nexstar Network, and one of the first multi-branch, multi-state operators in our industry.

Like the old saying goes, he’s forgotten more than most contractors ever know.

George, now in his early 80s, has been an active participant in PHCC’s Quality Service Contractors. At one QSC meeting, I recall hearing another contractor say, “Can you believe that George Brazil is coming here? He should be teaching this stuff.”

“I have learned much from George and his commitment to the industry and his willingness to share and contribute his experiences to the trade is unmatched,” Goodrich says. “There is not one of us on this [Service Roundtable] forum who isn’t benefiting from one of George Brazil’s innovations today.”

Goodrich says he is sure that it would help George feel better and heal faster if some of us — the people in the industry who owe him so much — would reach out and wish him well. He is at the Mayo Clinic Hospital; the contact information is:

Mayo Clinic Hospital
5777 East Mayo Blvd.
Phoenix, AZ 85054
800/446-2279 ‎

Please take a moment and reach out to an industry leader, contributor and friend that could use some encouragement right now.

Get well, George.

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Forecast is cautious but at least it’s up

by Robert Mader January 11th, 2012

Associated Builders & Contractors reported that total nonresidential construction spending increased 0.9% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $555.7 billion, according to the Jan. 3 report by the U.S. Commerce Department. However, total nonresidential spending is down 0.1% from one year ago.

Private nonresidential construction spending was unchanged for the month, but is 4.5% higher than November 2010. Public nonresidential construction jumped 1.8% in November, but is still down 4.4% year-over-year.

“November’s nonresidential construction performance was solid and the increase in spending encompassed both private and public construction,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu.

So that’s where we’re at these days — up a little bit but still down.

According to the ADP National Employment Report, the construction sector added 26,000 jobs between November and December. The report is based on payroll data. ADP said that total private-sector employment rose by 325,000 for the same period.

Fortunately, all the signs are pointing up for 2012. It’s not great, but it’s going in the right direction.

You can read our industry forecast for 2012 starting on page 1 of this issue. One of the better sources is construction consulting firm FMI Corp., whose insights most of our interview subjects agree with.

FMI, Raleigh, N.C., is forecasting a 3% increase in 2012 for construction put-in-place in 2006 dollars to show the effects of inflation. In current dollars it’s a nominal 6% increase.

“Our forecast calls for a 12% increase in residential construction for 2012,” FMI said in its Construction Forecast. “While that appears to be a strong recovery, consider housing is just starting to move off the bottom. The total represents stronger multifamily construction and home improvements as well as single-family housing; however, the total of $303.9 billion is equivalent to 1997 CPIP. In constant 2006 dollars, the gain is more like 9% for 2012.”

On the commercial side, FMI data shows CII market sectors bottoming out in either 2010 or 2011 and beginning to increase in 2012. The two exceptions are religious buildings and public safety, both of which FMI is forecasting to bottom out in 2012 and resume growth in 2013.
Chris Peel, chief operating officer for Rheem, said the common wisdom is that the plumbing and HVAC markets will be up 3%-6%, but he thinks it will be more like 1%-3% on the commercial side. Residentially, he believes 2012 water heater sales will increase by 1%-2%, but the residential HVAC market will be flat. The only hotspot in the water heating market is tankless, Peel said, but he was quick to point out that tankless sales are less than 4.5% of the total water heating market.

Peel also pointed out an interesting market dynamic — Rheem and most other suppliers are minimizing the importance of the new construction market.

New construction accounts for only 10% of the water heating market, he noted; in 2006 it was 20%.

“On the HVAC side, we’re hanging steady at 15%-17% of the market for new construction, which is substantially lower than the 2005-2006 timeframe,” Peel said. “Most of our competitors in the spaces we serve have adjusted their businesses for the new construction market being borderline to non-existent.”

Anthony J. Guzzi, president and CEO of EMCOR Group, expects a slight upturn in 2012, in line with the FMI Construction Outlook.

“Absent our acquisitions, our backlog is up 30%,” Guzzi said, “but it had fallen in half from the peak to trough. So going back up is a good sign, although it’s not a broad-based recovery in commercial, and residential has to eventually come up.”

Given the uncertain economic climate, such as the Euro crisis that may destabilize the world economy, it’s difficult to forecast.

“We live in an economy right now that if we have a three- to six-month window, that’s as good as it gets,” Guzzi said.

Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors – National Association President Keith Bienvenu said there are some positive economic and industry trends occurring throughout the country.

“This leads me to think business will be slightly better than 2011,” said Bienvenu. Contractors, however, are still uneasy, Bienvenu said, making them reluctant to start new initiatives or hire new employees.

Remember 2009? Still gives me the creeps, just thinking about it. Employment is increasing, retailers had a good Christmas, American car companies are booming. Things will get better.

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John Smith prospers on the green road

by Robert Mader December 20th, 2011

Each year about this time we select a Contractor of the Year with the idea that our contractor should be somebody worth emulating. That’s why one of our previous winners was John Ward from Applewood Plumbing, Heating & Electric, Denver. I once wrote that John Ward is such a brilliant businessman that he could make a million bucks from a lemonade stand. Last year we picked Brian Nelson and Dave Sprague, Nelson Mechanical Design, Vineyard Haven, Mass., because they are all geeked up about mechanical contracting. Mechanical systems, to them, are just the greatest things going. The first person who told me about high-SEER air-to-water heat pumps that run on CO2 was Nelson, who probably read about them in the middle of the night because he never seems to sleep.

John Smith is our Contractor of the Year for becoming the Arizona Green Plumber and becoming such a leader in the field that GreenPlumbersUSA named him its national Green Plumber of the Year for two years in a row.

If you’re not into the green thing, here’s the takeaway. John was running Rooter 2000, a commercial plumbing contractor in both Tempe, Ariz., and Tucson, when he, like many others, got hammered by the recession. He needed to change course. What to do? When he received an email from GreenPlumbersUSA, John just didn’t grab the ball and run with it, he sprinted. He’s taken the whole GreenPlumbers concept farther than anyone else.

Steve Lehtonen brought the GreenPlumbers program over from drought-ravaged Australia back when he was running California PHCC because he knew the U.S. would be facing the same issues. We are. Ask any Texan.

“John Smith embodies the concept and mission of Green Plumbers,” says Lehtonen, who is now with the International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials. “We know that contractors and plumbers are rejuvenated when they take our courses, but John has taken the energy and commitment to new levels. He inspires me!”

The business in Tucson is now 60% to 70% residential and that’s because of green. John’s involvement in causes, such as the Ronald McDonald House of Southern Arizona and Habitat for Humanity, has gained him exposure and resulted in revenue.

He will always rep Gerber because of all of their generous donations when he was plumbing the Ronald McDonald House in Tucson. We toured the Tucson Children’s Museum where John installed the plumbing and Gerber won his loyalty by donating the water closets and faucets and Sloan donated a 1-pint urinal.

John plumbed the Ronald McDonald House in Tucson with 1.5-GPM Gerber showerheads and Gerber dual flush toilets. The Gerber lav faucets are all Water Sense rated. John removed all of the old toilets from the previous Ronald McDonald House and donated them to Habitat for Humanity’s Tucson HabiStore. Because of his work on the Ronald McDonald House, John sits on its board of directors along with five owners of McDonalds franchises, for whom he now does all of their plumbing work. The Ronald McDonald House, which Smith estimates uses 20% less water than a comparable structure, has been WaterSmart certified by the City of Tucson.

We swung by the Tucson HabiStore, which is run for Habitat for Humanity by Terry Dee, the director of retail operations. The store sells all sorts of building products and the money goes to support Habitat building projects. John donates products to the HabiStore, participates in its green shows and volunteers his time for Habitat building projects.

Contractors can spend a lot of money going to home shows but green shows are always looking for exhibitors and they are free. It’s important to have working displays for toilets; Smith has a working, pumped rain barrel display that’s in the booth mostly to attract attention.

Smith says that the secret to success is to find a product that you know will work and sell it. Find a product you believe in, he says. He says Niagara flapperless and Caroma dual-flush toilets always work. He doesn’t get any complaints.

There are a lot of contractors that have not survived this recession because they were unwilling to change the way they were doing things. John Smith isn’t one of them.

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D.C. energy efficiency world gets murkier

by Robert Mader August 30th, 2011

At first I was going to begin this posting by saying I’m stunned, I’m surprised, this situation is ridiculous and stupid. But then I remembered that I’m writing about the government.

As reported on page 1 of CONTRACTOR magazine’s September 2011 issue, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have picked a certifying body to test and certify workers for the federal Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) and home energy upgrade industry.

It is not an organization that should have won the contract. Instead, DOE and NREL picked the Building Performance Institute, Malta, N.Y., a group whose expertise seems to revolve around winning federal contracts.

DOE and NREL made this award despite the call by an industry coalition of 22 organizations to start the selection process over in a transparent manner.

The coalition is composed of every significant organization in the plumbing-heating-cooling industry, along with other allies such as the National Association of Home Builders. The coalition formed when the industry realized that the Feds were on the cusp of creating a huge national energy efficiency program that involved plumbing and HVAC, yet nobody had asked the plumbing and HVAC industry about it.

There’s no doubt this program will be huge. Thousands of workers will be trained and certified to perform what may turn out to be billions of dollars in work. If workers are going to be trained to perform gas fitting or change out plumbing fixtures, it might be a nice idea to ask the people who know how to do it.

The organizations in the ad hoc coalition are:

• Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Safety Coalition
• Air Conditioning Contractors of America
• Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute
• Carbon Monoxide Safety Association
• Educational Standards Corporation Institute
• ESCO Press International
• Heating, Airconditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International
• HVAC Excellence
• Indoor Air Quality Association
• International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials
• International Code Council
• National Association of Home Builders
• National Association of the Remodeling Industry
• National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association
• North American Technician Excellence
• Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors – National Association
• Refrigeration Service Engineers Society
• Residential Energy Services Network
• The ESCO Group
• The Green Mechanical Council
• Window and Door Manufacturers Association

I’ve discussed the problems of the Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades and the WAP program before in CONTRACTOR’s July 2011 issue, p. 58, and at http://bit.ly/jEELiE. In that blog post, I talk in detail about BPI’s long history with DOE and how intertwined it is with the Washington energy efficiency government/NGO milieu.

Charlie McCrudden, vice president, government relations for the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, is spearheading the coalition.

Back in late June, McCrudden and the coalition sent a letter to Dr. Henry Kelly, acting assistant secretary, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, saying, “We are alarmed at the limited and opaque process by which the Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades and the selection process for the Workforce Guidelines Certifying Body are being carried out.”

The coalition expressed alarm that they, the people with the expertise to perform home weatherization work, had never been consulted.

At the time Peter Schwartz, president and CEO of North American Technician Excellence and the former top exec at the plumbing wholesalers’ American Supply Association, told me, “I have not seen many other examples during my professional career of a federal agency developing standards and guidelines of far reaching impact in such secrecy and restriction.”

On August 4, McCrudden received a reply from Kathleen B. Hogan, deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency, Office of Technology Development, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, that said, “Progress has also been made to help strengthen the worker certifications available to the WAP and broader home energy upgrade industry. The Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC, managing and operating contractor for NREL (“Alliance”) issued a competitive Request for Proposals on March 21, 2011, to nine organizations. Alliance and NREL intend to make one subcontract award to an industry-recognized certifying body to expedite the delivery of four new ISO 17024 accredited certifications for the job classifications most relevant to the WAP workforce. (ISO 17024 is an industry and government-recognized standard for ensuring the quality and integrity of personnel certifications.)”

By mid-August, Alliance and NREL did indeed make that one subcontract award to BPI. McCrudden found the announcement buried in a DOE website. The fine print at the bottom of the website said it had been last updated August 18, so the award was made in the days before that.

The coalition is composed of organizations that have spent decades training and certifying workers, including ACCA and North American Technician Excellence and Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors – National Association. The industry’s unions, the Sheet Metal Workers, United Association and the IBEW spend tens of millions of dollars on training, not to mention the non-union training programs that are run by contractor associations. HVAC Excellence, which accredits trade and secondary school vocational programs, runs an instructor training conference that competes with a similar instructor training conference run by ACCA, PHCC, NATE and the Refrigeration Service Engineers Society.

The industry has done all of this training, testing, certifying and accrediting for years. BPI has not. In fact, BPI has no idea how it’s going to do this.

The day I wrote this editorial, I received an email from BPI that startled me.

“The Building Performance Institute Inc. (BPI) is calling for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to help prepare test questions for four new certifications being developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) National Worker Certification Program for the weatherization industry,” the email began. “All SMEs will earn up to five BPI CEUs for their participation, and be invited to take a free alternative (beta) certification exam for the designation area they participated in.”

Subject matter experts would create the certification test for Crew Leaders, who will be the supervisors, Energy Auditors, Retrofit Installer/Technicians, and Quality Control Inspectors.

The energy auditor will evaluate and analyze “buildings and their energy efficiency, health and safety aspects by gathering empirical data, conducting tests and using energy modeling software. The goal is to reduce energy consumption, improve health and safety, and increase the lifespan of a building while also improving the quality of life and comfort for building occupants.”

The installer/technician “installs energy efficiency measures to single family or 2-4 unit homes using a variety of building science best practices to improve safety, comfort, durability, indoor air quality, and energy efficiency.”

BPI said in the email that it is looking for industry experts who are members of the home performance or weatherization industry that are involved with production, assembling and/or distribution, or sells materials, products, systems, or services covered in the scope of the certification.

Why didn’t they just put a subject line on the email that said, “We don’t know what we’re doing”?

I would hope that members of the industry jump on this invitation to try to make this certification test halfway meaningful. But they better work fast. The deadline to sign up is September 9. That’s right, they’re giving people 10 days to sign up for a program with this level of significance. Here’s the contact info:

Email to Kirsten Richnavsky, certification development coordinator, at krichnavsky@bpi.org no later than close-of-business on Friday, September 9, 2011. She will direct you to the form you’ll have to fill out to apply for the committee.

BPI can be reached at Building Performance Institute Inc., 107 Hermes Road, Suite 110, Malta, N.Y. 12020, Phone: 877-274-1274, Fax: 866-777-1274, info@bpi.org, www.bpi.org.

The reason subject matter experts have to sign up for the committee that quickly is because work begins this month. SME panels will convene during two work periods: September 27-29 or October 4-6.

You have to work quickly when you get a big federal contract but you don’t have the in-house expertise to back it up. If you go on the BPI website, you can find a list of the people who sit on BPI committees. Far be it from me to denigrate what people do for a living, but the committees are full of government employees, academics, non-profits, “consultants” and other people who can’t tell a compressor from a condenser and wouldn’t know a thermistor if it bit them on the ass.

Toward the end of her letter to McCrudden, Hogan states, “The subcontract to be awarded through this Alliance/NREL procurement does not signify that DOE intends to recognize only one certification body for weatherization or home performance certifications. It is intended that the ISO 17024 standard will be used as part of the evaluation criteria for future determinations regarding DOE recognition of additional certifications.”

I would certainly hope so. Maybe next time they’ll certify an organization that doesn’t need to put out an open casting call for subject matter experts because it doesn’t have any expertise in-house. Coalition members should jump on this, either separately or collectively. Organizations like NATE could certainly do it themselves. Or, perhaps, the coalition can form a new non-profit just for this purpose and pool their expertise.

The alternative is that the program doesn’t get funded. I believe that government serves legitimate purposes, addicted as I am to clean water and paved roads. This particular program, on the other hand, would make a good target for Congressional budget cutters. What worries me, however, is that we need a residential energy efficiency program — properly functioning — and if this one gets whacked we may not see another one for years to come. I think we would be better off if coalition members do everything they can to steer this program in the right direction.

As McCrudden told me back in June, you have an appliance in your basement that’s on fire. This is not the time and place for amateur hour.

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It’s not just rainwater in California

by Robert Mader August 8th, 2011

And you thought Obama and Boehner couldn’t get along? The code battles continue in California over a rainwater catchment bill.

As we reported in our June 2011 issue, California AB 275 would enact the Rainwater Capture Act of 2011, which would authorize residential, commercial, and governmental landowners to install, maintain and operate rain barrel systems and rainwater capture systems.

The bill currently references the Green Plumbing & Mechanical Code Supplement, an overlay to the Uniform Plumbing Code and the Uniform Mechanical Code, published by the International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials.

The legislation states that property owners can install a rain barrel system, if the system is used only to supply water for outdoor, non-potable uses and is used in compliance with all manufacturer instructions; a rainwater capture system for outdoor non-potable use or infiltration into groundwater; or a rainwater capture system for indoor non-potable use, as long as the system complies with specific health and safety requirements.

The bill would require the system to include supplemental filtration, a disinfection device, or both or some other process or device that performs an equivalent function as determined by the local agency having jurisdiction. A “disinfection device” could be defined as a pressure filter, chlorination or ultraviolet radiation.

If the system is connected to the potable water supply to provide a backup water supply, the rainwater reuse system must be equipped with an appropriate backflow prevention device.

With the exception of rain barrels, the local AHJ would also have to issue permits for the systems. A system could also not be installed in such a way that it violates the California Building Standards Code.

The International Code Council has been trying — unsuccessfully— to get the rainwater recovery provisions in its International Green Construction Code included in the law. Now the ICC has sent a lengthy letter to Sen. Joe Simitian, chairman of the California Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Quality, saying that it opposes AB 275 and will actively lobby against it.

ICC says that the Green Plumbing & Mechanical Code Supplement is not a code, as required under California law, and that the Rainwater Capture Act of 2011 would not survive a court challenge. They say that the Green Supplement has health and safety deficiencies, including algae control, backflow prevention, tank safety, vermin protection and seismic restraint. ICC also points out flaws in the way the author wrote the bill. There’s a section of the bill that mentions disconnecting a downspout from the sewer system even though the California Plumbing Code prohibits connections to a sewer system in the first place.

IAPMO fired back in a letter with the subtitle “The Real Facts.”

“The IAPMO GPMCS rainwater standards address cross-connection, vector control and other plumbing code health, safety and consistency issues that can arise when using rainwater for indoor, non-potable uses,” the Association says. “These standards would be superseded when the California Building Standards Commission adopts the 2012 IAPMO Uniform Plumbing Code (which will contain essentially the same standards).”

I go to most of the IAPMO Green Technical Committee meetings. A member of the GTC is Bob Boulware, P.E., president of Design-Aire Engineering, Indianapolis, and the past president of the American Rainwater Catchment Association. The IAPMO GTC is not without its expertise.

I think it’s personal. I may be wrong. I know I’ll be getting emails and phone calls telling me I’m wrong, that it’s all based on science and engineering. I can hear them now. The thing is, all of these guys who work for the code groups have been in the industry for years and they all know each other. I like and respect all of them. But they’re highly competitive and they all want to be right.

California needs water. Part of the preamble of the bill talks about how California’s aberrant snowfall and rainfall patterns over the last 10 years mean it’s difficult to count on getting a reliable water supply in the same manner that the state has done over the last 50-75 years. Because of that, clean, safe rainwater recovery is one way to do it. It’s possible to write legislation that will actually get this done — disinfected, seismically retrained and vermin-free. Issues in the bill about health and safety can be fixed in the California legislature.

My friends at ICC aren’t going to like this, but California is going to retain the Uniform Plumbing Code. State government agencies, the California Pipe Trades Council and IAPMO are so intertwined that one would be hard pressed to think of a way for IAPMO to screw it up. The UPC is enshrined in California law. I once heard political analyst Charlie Cook say, “Georgia wouldn’t elect a Democrat if the Republicans nominated General Sherman.” Same thing. California is spoken for. It’s not going to adopt the International Plumbing Code or the International Mechanical Code. I know they won’t, but ICC should get over California.

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Getting to the guy who writes the checks

by Robert Mader July 27th, 2011

How do we get to substantial energy and water efficiency? Do we force it with laws and regulations or should we just sell it?

Recently we met with friends of Green Mechanical Contractor and, so as to not be partisan, I’ll just say they are in the pump business. Our friends have a couple different takes on energy efficiency and laws and regulations. Because they sell products in Europe, they are subject to a host of mandatory energy efficiency standards. They are proud to say that their products today not only meet the regulations slated to take effect in 2013, they already meet the standards for 2015.

They see the practicality and, sometimes, the necessity of international standards. As one of our friends pointed out, most people in the United States would not have switched to 1.6-gpf toilets voluntarily. It required a change in the law.

Another example is minimum SEER ratings for residential air conditioning, which served several purposes. The main object was to save energy but, just as important, it created certainty for manufacturers who wouldn’t have to deal with differing state standards. Like 1.6-gpf toilets, a 13.0 SEER efficiency rating for residential air conditioning forced homeowners to buy units that save energy rather than buying the cheapest thing out there.

Minimum standards also creep in through the codes, such as the constant stiffening of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating & Air-conditioning Engineers Standard 90.1, or the International Code Council’s International Green Construction Code or the International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials Green Code Supplement. At some point some jurisdictions will pick up these codes and standards and incorporate them into the local building codes.

We get a certain amount of pushback here that runs along the lines of, “Nobody will ever pay for that.” Minimum standards make them pay for that.

There’s still a lot of resistance out there, much of it coming from a few lawmakers. Plain-speaking homebuilder Ron Jones recently trashed Congress’, “tantrum de jour, H.R. 2417, AKA the infamous ‘Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act,’ a childish, snotty and (frankly) not-so-bright piece of misbehavior which has manifested itself into a proposed congressional act calling for the repeal of light bulb energy standards that are part of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2007.”

I’m usually pretty tough on homebuilders because they often mistreat my readers, but I love Ron Jones. Ron Jones is the co-founder and president of Green Builder Media and he’s not afraid to go after what he calls the ranchers of sacred cows, including fellow homebuilders and the National Association of Home Builders.

Jones’ brilliant post, “Introducing the BUTT Act,” which stands for Better Use of Time and Talent, can be read at www.greenbuildermag.com or at http://bit.ly/n8l1GB.

It’s an entirely different question, however, to get consumers to pay for the highest efficiency cooling, around 26.0 SEER, or 1.0- or 1.28-gpf high efficiency toilets. Then there’s the expensive stuff, like geothermal heat pumps and solar. That requires some selling skill. We believe that even the most expensive water and energy saving products can be sold through methods such as Pennsylvania contractor Dave Yates’ Energy Conservation Value formula. You can find out how Dave sells high-end equipment by reading his April 2011 column at www.contractormag.com here http://bit.ly/oR1n8s.

But, getting back to our friends the pump manufacturers, they’ve had great success in the commercial/institutional market where they can talk directly to the buyers. “You have to get to the guy writing the check,” they say. If they get to whoever is running the military installation for the Department of Defense or to the university facilities manager or to the guy running the treatment plants for the water utility, they can show that their really expensive pump saves a really colossal amount of electricity.

Energy conservation becomes attractive in a free market because the results can be shown in dollars and cents.

What do you think is the path to increased energy and water efficiency? Is it laws and regulations or an open market where practitioners convince customers that efficiency pays dividends? I want to hear your opinions. Email me at robert.mader@penton.com.

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The murky insider’s world of Washington energy efficiency politics

by Robert Mader June 29th, 2011

This is a story about the strange, interconnected world inside Washington.

On June 24, a coalition of 22 trade associations sent a letter to the Department of Energy, wondering why it seems like they are getting frozen out of residential energy auditing and retrofit work. The issue at hand is the voluminous Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades. These are some big guidelines. The Adobe Acrobat file is 632 pages long. It’s filled with all sorts of stuff about HVAC and plumbing. The problem, according to the 22 organizations signatory to the June 24 letter, is that nobody asked the plumbing and HVACR industries about this stuff.

“We are alarmed at the limited and opaque process by which the Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades and the selection process for the Workforce Guidelines Certifying Body are being carried out,” the coalition says in the letter to Dr. Henry Kelly, acting assistant secretary, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

At the risk of getting off track, it’s worthwhile to pause here to list the organizations involved, because they constitute everybody who’s important in the field. They are:

• Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Safety Coalition
• Air Conditioning Contractors of America
• Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute
• Carbon Monoxide Safety Association
• Educational Standards Corporation Institute
• ESCO Press International
• Heating, Airconditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International
• HVAC Excellence
• Indoor Air Quality Association
• International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials
• International Code Council
• National Association of Home Builders
• National Association of the Remodeling Industry
• National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association
• North American Technician Excellence
• Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors – National Association
• Refrigeration Service Engineers Society
• Residential Energy Services Network
• The ESCO Group
• The Green Mechanical Council
• Window and Door Manufacturers Association

For cryin’ out loud, even the homebuilders are on our side on this one, which is a bit ironic for reasons I’ll get to later.

The 22 were put together through the efforts of Charlie McCrudden, vice president, government relations, for ACCA. “We’re all in the industry,” McCrudden told CONTRACTOR, “and we were talking amongst ourselves and decided that some of these activities created enough of a concern that we talked about what our concerns were and we realized we didn’t have the answers and the answers are to be found at DOE.”

What the associations are worried about is that it seems like the Building Performance Institute, Malta, N.Y., has an inside track to do all of the contractor certification for home energy auditing and energy retrofits. Does the name Building Performance Institute sound familiar? It should. The 22 organizations asked DOE what’s going on with what should be an open process for selecting independent certifying bodies. So far it seems like there’s only one — BPI. Not only that, it seems like the Feds are helping BPI write the standards.

The coalition letter continues, “On May 18, several of the undersigned groups wrote to you as part of a coalition with comments and questions about the development and drafting process for the Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades and the selection of independent, third-party organizations to oversee worker certification under these guidelines. To date we have not received a response,” the coalition letter states.

“That letter referenced a May 3 notice stating, ‘The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) will open a second round of public comments on the standard work specifications component of the Workforce Guidelines beginning in early June, 2011.’ However, early June has passed and none of the undersigned organizations have received any clear information about this second public review or an updated version of the Workforce Guidelines. When can we expect the release of the Workforce Guidelines standard work specifications for a second public review? Knowing that more than 950 comments were submitted on the standard work specifications, we are anxious to see how those comments were incorporated into the next version.”

So what’s with the delay, the group wants to know. Is this simply a federal agency running behind schedule or is DOE going to fast-track this program? What happened to the 950 comments?

The coalition asks when the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is going to open up the procurement process for certifying bodies. Oops, too late.

“At the Workforce Guidelines Certification Scheme Committee Meeting last month we heard some disturbing news about the selection process,” the letter states. “It was publicly stated by DOE and NREL officials that the process had already concluded and that NREL was in the final stages of negotiating a contract with a single, unnamed entity.”

That single, unnamed entity, whose name rhymes with BPI, is being helped by the Pacific Northwest National Lab, which is hosting an automated online standards notice and comment tool for two standards under review by BPI at: http ://bpi.pnl.gov/forum .php. BPI is certified by ANSI as a standards writing body, but it has never issued a standard.

So why does the name BPI ring a bell? It turns out it was written into the federal Home Star legislation that we wrote about last summer and in a predecessor bill before that.

Plumbing and HVAC contractors were upset about the Home Star legislation because it required any contractor doing work that qualified for all the federal money being proposed to be certified by BPI. At the time, most BPI certified contractors were in two states, New York and New Jersey.

Last summer, ACCA President and CEO Paul T. Stalknecht said, “The association cannot support the accreditation portion of the Gold Star section of the legislation. Gold Star would offer rebates of up to $8,000 per house, but require contractors to be accredited by the Building Performance Institute (BPI), a national standards development and contractor credentialing organization for residential energy efficiency retrofit work. Ninety-two percent of BPI’s accreditations are currently issued in only two states, New York and New Jersey.

“The legislation did include an amendment that would require the Department of Energy to approve or deny proposed alternatives to BPI within 30 days,” Stalknecht said, “but we do not find this to be an acceptable alternative.”

In a letter to the editor published in CONTRACTOR in September 2010, Tom Meyer, director of government & professional relations for the ESCO Group, noted, “At this point, it is fair to say that to qualify for Gold Star a contractor must be a BPI Accredited Contractor with a BPI certified workforce. What does that mean to a contractor?

“Under the bill, an accredited company must demonstrate continued compliance to the BPI requirements to maintain its accredited status, and accredited companies must remain in compliance with BPI’s Quality Assurance Program requirements in order to qualify for renewal consideration.

“To apply for or to renew BPI accreditation all contractors must pay an annual fee consisting of an accreditation fee and the quality assurance fee. The quality assurance fee is determined by the company’s gross income from BPI-standards related work. The table of fees goes from $1,000 to $7,000 and up. To renew accreditation, a contractor must pay BPI $1,500 to $7,500 and up.”

The Home Star legislation died in the Senate. As Meyer told us at the time, Home Star would require another $5 billion and Congress was not going to appropriate $5 billion in the current political climate.

So how did BPI get itself written into the Home Star legislation? Larry Zarker, the CEO of BPI, said he doesn’t know.

“We really have been sticking to our knitting,” Zarker told me. “We work with states and utilities and work on developing standards. We are an ANSI standards developer. We bring programs to market that serve the market’s certification needs. We paid attention to programs being developed around the country and we made ourselves available.”

Zarker has been working with DOE since 1980 when he first worked in Washington. He has worked with HUD and the EPA over the years and he was with the NAHB Research Center for 20 years doing marketing for research programs on behalf of homebuilders and remodelers. That’s why I was mildly amused that NAHB is one of the signatories to the coalition letter complaining about an organization whose leader spent half his career at NAHB. It’s a small world.

Certainly Zarker has a vested interest in making sure that there’s a steady demand for his organization’s graduates. Zarker told Crain’s Cleveland Business on June 14, 2010, that, “… he’s worried that consumer demand for audits might not be keeping pace with the number of people entering the field. For instance, the organization [BPI] in 2009 certified 4,647 home energy auditors and other experts in home energy use, up from 1,353 in 2008. The Home Star legislation could boost demand, though, he added.

“Regardless, energy efficiency projects are good for the country, Mr. Zarker said: They create jobs, help people save money and reduce pollution.

“ ‘Secretary (Steven) Chu at the Department of Energy said this isn’t low-hanging fruit; this is fruit lying on the ground,’ said Mr. Zarker, playing off the energy administrator’s quote,” Crain’s Cleveland Business reported.

What I’m wondering is how a nice guy who is as straightforward and forthcoming as Larry Zarker can set off my BS detector. He told me that he did not have anything to do with BPI being written into the Home Star legislation and that BPI does not have a lobbyist. I don’t believe that things like that happen by accident. I’m not saying anything untoward is going on, but BPI is deeply, deeply entrenched with the energy conservation community.

If you look at BPI staff and board of directors, it includes people with backgrounds with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the U.S. Green Building Council, the Energy Star program and the Laborers International Union of North America.

The Laborers? Let’s go back to something that Tom Meyer mentioned in his letter to the editor.

A certified workforce under Home Star meant, “certified through an existing certification that covers the appropriate job skills under:
(A) an applicable third-party skill standard established
(i) by BPI;
(ii) by North American Technician Excellence;
(iii) by the Laborers International Union of North America.

NATE is one of the signatories to the coalition letter. In fact, Peter Schwartz, president and CEO of NATE and the former top exec at the plumbing wholesalers’ American Supply Association, is steaming.

“I have not seen many other examples during my professional career of a federal agency developing standards and guidelines of far reaching impact in such secrecy and restriction,” Schwartz said.

The Laborers, however, are still very much in the mix. The union jumped on the green weatherization bandwagon early on.

Last October, at an event in Cincinnati, LIUNA boasted that U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged the role LIUNA “is playing in creating family-supporting weatherization jobs in Cincinnati and praised the union’s breakthrough national weatherization training program.

“At a residential energy efficiency roundtable at Cincinnati State University, Secretary Chu touted current weatherization workforce development efforts in the Cincinnati region,” LIUNA said in a press release. “At a time when some stimulus programs are coming under fire, he noted that Cincinnati provides a national example of how strong local partners can come together to place workers into training programs that lead to quality work opportunities.

“Earlier this year, the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) was awarded a $17 million ‘Retrofit Ramp Up’ grant by the U.S. Department of Energy to weatherize a large percentage of homes in the region and create good paying jobs for local residents. In conjunction with the ‘Ramp Up’ award, LIUNA has been partnering with the GCEA and others to implement the grant program effectively.”

LIUNA is also very well connected politically both with DOE and with the Department of Labor. According to an NPR report, Union Power — More Than Meets the Eye, from Oct. 30, 2008, LIUNA planned to spend $15 million on the election, more than twice as much as it spent in 2004. The lion’s share went to Democrats.

LIUNA also seems to be the only labor organization involved in the development of the Workforce Guidelines. In the acknowledgements section of the Workforce Guidelines, DOE thanks all the people and organizations that contributed, including “labor organizations.” Which ones? My inquiries so far have not unearthed any involvement from the United Association, the Sheet Metal Workers or the IBEW. I’ll update this if I hear otherwise.

All of the relevant players make the rounds to the same events. If you look at the speaker roster for events such as the Residential Energy Services Network 2011 RESNET Building Performance Conference and the Affordable Comfort Inc. ACI Home Energy Summit, it includes Zarker, Benjamin Goldstein, the DOE project lead on the home performance workforce guidelines, a representative of LIUNA, and somebody from the national labs like Pacific Northwest National Labs.

To say the least, it’s all very cozy. It would not be out of the question that Zarker is hanging out in the speakers’ lounge with the guy running the workforce guidelines program for DOE, along with people from NYSERDA, LIUNA, the national labs and USGBC.

In going through the workforce guidelines, I can’t quibble about their intent. Weatherization and energy efficiency are good things. Combustion analysis is a good thing. So are heat load calculations and duct sealing.

Now I’ve been writing about HVAC and plumbing for more than 30 years. I got my first job on Contracting Business when it was still called Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Business. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t want a laborer working on boilers, furnaces or water heaters. As ACCA’s McCrudden says, you have an appliance in your basement that’s on fire. The part that’s not on fire is electrified.

The whole arrangement doesn’t smell right. The coalition letter to DOE asks that the process be done over.

“We are concerned that the selection process for the certifying body as carried out by NREL failed to conform to competitive procurement rules,” the letter says. “It appears that NREL invited only pre-selected organizations based on some unknown criteria. We believe the process was not conducted in an open and transparent manner and that NREL should restart the process with invitations to all organizations with ANSI 17024 accreditation or Applicants for ANSI 17024 accreditation.”

That would mean specific invitations to everybody in the industry who has expertise. Mark Riso, director of government relations for PHCC-NA, points out that saying, “You’re always welcome,” is not the same thing as an explicit invitation.

“This process needs to be reviewed — and DOE needs to move forward henceforth in an open and equitable manner, so the influence of all related parties is taken into account,” says NATE’s Peter Schwartz. “ … In addition to creating a potentially adverse climate within our industry in particular, this process sets a seriously flawed precedent for both DOE and other federal agencies to follow in the future.”

I agree 100%. It’s unconscionable that the organizations that have the expertise in plumbing and HVAC have not been asked to participate. But am I surprised? Sadly, no.

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Is Johns Hopkins faucet study much ado about nothing?

by Robert Mader May 5th, 2011

We won’t argue with Johns Hopkins researchers when they say they found more Legionella bacteria in electronic hands-free faucets in their hospital than they did in the innards of manual faucets. Whether that means anything, however, remains to be seen.

On p. 1 of the May issue of CONTRACTOR, we cover the hospital’s announcement of its research results and the plumbing industry’s reaction to it. We can think of many questions: where were the faucets located, was the same amount of Legionella found in each one, were the manual faucets in locations similar or identical to the hands-free faucets, how high were the concentrations of Legionella, was the bacteria being aerosolized, and if they did it all over again today, would the study get the same result?

Jeremy Cressman, vice president and general manager of American Standard’s Commercial Business Unit, noted that there are factors, such as internal rubber components, that can provide a hospitable environment for bacteria inside a faucet. Cressman also pointed out, however, that the faucet is just one component in a plumbing system that is already germy. Legionella is everywhere. The real danger comes from spraying it out of showerheads in patient rooms. Cressman also mentioned that changing over to single-patient rooms cuts the chances of spreading hospital acquired infections in half.

And it’s not just the plumbing industry that’s scratching its collective head. The healthcare pros are too.

In a joint statement, American Society for Healthcare Engineering and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology noted that electronic faucets are allowed in their joint Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities.

In the statement, loaded with footnotes and citations, ASHE and APIC said other studies have found the exact opposite.

“Several studies have found that manual, handle-operated faucets were the source of bacterial infections in patients, including Legionella,” the associations said. “This demonstrates there is no single design feature that can mitigate all risk of cross transmission. In fact, the findings from one of these studies were incorporated into the 2010 Guidelines …

“Another study of electronic faucets did not find these fixtures to be a source of bacteria. In fact, a sample from a manual, handle-operated faucet was the only one that detected bacteria. Electronic faucets do help with water conservation, which is important, as hospitals are an industry noted for high use of water. The hands-free feature of electronic faucets also lessens risk of recontamination of hands after washing as there is no need to manually turn off the water supply after use.”

One potential cause of the problem may be low-flow from the faucets, which is good for water conservation but prevents thorough flushing of the faucet and connected plumbing. The groups pointed out that any faucet that is not in continuous use may hold stagnant water that could allow bacteria to proliferate.

The healthcare engineers and infection control specialists also have questions about the specifics of the Johns Hopkins study.

“This study was presented in an oral session at a scientific meeting,” the associations said. “It has not been published in a peer-reviewed, scientific journal. As such it is an interesting study, but any major changes in policy or actions by others should await publication.”

There is no direct connection between the faucets, bacterial growth and patient illness.

“This was an in vitro investigation, in which cultures of water were obtained and studied,” ASHE and APIC stated. “There were no infections seen in patients with the same bacteria, including Legionella spp., identified at the institution where this study took place. Tap water is not sterile and in most facilities contains low levels of bacteria; these bacteria are a possible source of infection to patients, but actual infections from this source are relatively infrequent in most facilities. Findings similar to those of this study are present in the literature; however, many of these are in vitro investigations that were not associated with infections in patients.”

In June, the American Society of Plumbing Engineers will gather all of the relevant plumbing industry stakeholders — manufacturers, engineers, contractors, standards developers, health professionals and code officials — at its suburban Chicago headquarters to see how the industry can respond to this study. We wish them luck and we’ll be following their work closely.

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ISH Frankfurt continues to be a can’t-miss event

by Robert Mader March 30th, 2011

Publisher Dan Ashenden and I were fortunate to attend the ISH Frankfurt show in Frankfurt, Germany, in mid-March. I’ll cover the show itself extensively in the April issue of CONTRACTOR magazine and on www.contractormag.com, but I have some general impressions and reflections here.

Gas runs about €1.60 per liter. That’s approximately $2.22 per liter or about $9.38 per gallon. That’ll get you onto the train, won’t it? The trains are great, clean and on time. Dan and I rode the train to Rudesheim, about an hour west of Frankfurt. The trains (at least the ones I saw first-hand) are electric, using overhead wires. Even the freight trains.

When we checked in to the Frankfurt Intercontinental, we didn’t think the escalator was working. Turns out it’s activated by a motion detector. If nobody is on the escalator, why run the electric motors? Motion detectors similarly activate lights in the hallways. Both of those seem like no brainers.

Walk into the room and there’s a slot for your key card — you have to put your key card in there to turn on the lights. I was aggravated by the paucity of electrical outlets. I don’t know if that was an intentional ploy to limit their plug loads, but it was an inconvenience.

The Villeroy & Boch toilet was rear discharge and activated by a push button on the top of the bathroom countertop. Europeans like to put the toilet tank either in the wall or, as in the case of my hotel room, in the bathroom cabinetry. The damn thing had a 4-in. water spot. It definitely needed the bowl brush that was in the bathroom.

The bathroom sink was Italian, Flaminia, and the lav faucet and shower fittings were both by Hansgrohe. The hotel delivered water that was way, way too hot to the fixtures. Evidently they aren’t hip to the idea that you should segregate water for the kitchen and laundry from the hot water delivered to the guest rooms.

The shower was brisk. Europeans may use less water than Americans, but the showerhead passes a lot more than 2.5-GPM. We saw plenty of giant rain-can showerheads at the show. One American plumbing exec said that Europeans take shorter showers than Americans or, he joked, “No showers.”

Most of the taxis in Germany are Mercedes. Mercedes has a much broader product line in Germany, including some that are suitable for taxi duty. They send the $100,000 cars to us.

The show itself is bigger than you can imagine — 11 buildings, many of them multi-story. The show runs shuttle buses between buildings and, believe me, they’re necessary. If you see a booth number that says it’s in 10.2, zero is the ground floor so the two means it’s on the third floor of Hall 10. The biggest show in the U.S., AHR Expo, could fit into Messe Frankfurt four times. I don’t know if AHR Expo could fill even one of the bigger buildings on the fairgrounds. The booths at ISH are enormous. One hall, known as Festhalle, had only two exhibitors in it, Villeroy & Boch on one side and Hansgrohe on the other. Those big booths all contain lots of meeting rooms. I was once told that the German boiler companies get 40% of their business for the next two years at the show. People sign contracts at the show, a completely different business model than what goes on at an American show. And because exhibitors want to keep people in their booths, they all offer food and beverages, be it espresso or beer.

And then there are the products, which are incredible. I’ll get into them in the magazine. The next ISH is in mid-March of 2013. I’ll be there. You should be too.

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Green is not going away

by Robert Mader February 10th, 2011

In my February 2011 editorial in CONTRACTOR magazine, I recapped some of the anti-green sentiment that was dredged up by a November 2010 letter to the editor by contractor Michael Gray. A number of correspondents said that green was bunk. I acknowledged that and then told my readers that I disagree with them.

When I first started receiving letters along the line of “Michael Gray for President,” I was stunned. How could I be so wrong? Then I thought about for a while and realized that if I were wrong, so were tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people devoted to green and sustainable construction and service.

One of the groups I mentioned was the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating & Air-conditioning Engineers, authors of Standard 189.1, Standard for the Design of High Performance, Green Buildings. Standard 189.1 has been adopted as the building standard by that radical leftist group, the United States Army, which also has the goal of building Net Zero buildings by 2030.

I took my concerns to a meeting of chief editors here at the company and asked them if any of them had ever told their readers that they were wrong. Yes, said my bud (and fellow White Sox fan) Glenn Bischoff, who is the editor of a telecomm magazine. Glenn had predicted that the future of telecommunications was Voice Over Internet Protocol. He was pilloried, a “human piñata,” which created a strange mental image of the rather robust Mr. Bischoff dangling in mid-air. He was called a moron. Today, VOIP is the de facto standard. The phone next to me on my desk is VOIP. If you buy phone service from your cable company, it’s VOIP. Sending phone calls through wire is a thing of the past. Glenn urged me to stand my ground and I will.

In my February editorial, I said that high prices and short supplies of water and energy can’t be wished away. Oil prices this month (February 2011) have risen above $100 per barrel for the first time in two years and last week rose above $103 per barrel because of the escalating political protests in Egypt.

I’d like to call your attention to a couple of news items that I came across recently.

The first is from The Economist, Democracy in America blog, February 7, 2011, written by M.S. (articles in The Economist are typically written anonymously and collectively under the belief that what is said is more important than who is saying it.) And take note that The Economist is not written by Democrats or liberals or progressives or whatever; it’s written by Englishmen who have no stake in the American political system.

The blog addressed the issue of rising global commodity prices as a permanent trend and ended with this observation.

“To me, the main point here is just how crucial it is for Western economies, and particularly the United States, to reduce their use of commodities, and particularly oil. The capacities of human ingenuity are limitless; the amount of crude oil on planet Earth is not. If you build an economy that’s entirely dependent on a non-renewable resource, you are guaranteeing yourself a nasty encounter with stagflation sooner or later when the stuff starts to run out. The idea that sustainable-resource use and renewable energy is some kind of socialist hippy hobby is incredibly naive and frivolous, and extremely damaging to the American economy.”

At the bottom of the article, one commenter noted that the illegal drug trade is the number two source of funding for terrorism. What’s number one? Large private donations from individuals who often obtained their wealth from Mideast oil.

The second news item is an Associated Press story that ran in the Chicago Sun-Times, February 8, 2011. It reads:

“Feds: Great Lakes could face water shortage over time

“Scientists are sending a warning that the Great Lakes region could experience water shortages because of climate shifts and surging demand, despite being the world’s largest freshwater system.

“The report by the U.S. Geological Survey, released Monday, says the Great Lakes have so much surface and groundwater that heavy use and development haven’t greatly affected the overall supply so far.

“Yet groundwater levels have plummeted about 1,000 feet in the Chicago-Milwaukee region because of pumping for municipal supplies and could drop an additional 100 feet over the next three decades if withdrawal rates jump as expected, according to the five-year study by the federal agency.

“The 2.1 billion gallons that Chicago diverts from Lake Michigan daily has lowered Lakes Michigan and Huron by about 2.5 inches, according to the report.

“The total amount of water in the Great Lakes? Six quadrillion gallons — enough to spread a foot-deep layer across North America, South America and Africa — and the volume of groundwater surpasses that of Lake Huron.”

You’ll note that was from the U.S. Geological Survey, not exactly a bunch of nutballs. That brings to mind a recent quote from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, that science is always true whether you want to believe it or not.

In her Tea Party response to the State of the Union address, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) took a swipe at compact fluorescent light bulbs. Apparently some people like incandescent bulbs and view the changeover to CFLs as some sort of assault on their individual liberty.

Some people see their personal choices as unconnected to society as a whole. I say everybody is connected whether we want to be or not. So let’s consider the light bulb example.

According to the March/April 2011 AARP Magazine, page 30 (yes, I’m old), a 60W incandescent bulb costs $22.32 a year to operate, based on first cost, national average electric rates and eight hours of use per day. A CFL costs $5.29 a year. That’s a big difference in electric use.

According to an estimate by the Census Bureau, there are nearly 115 million households in the U.S. Let’s say each household uses 10 light bulbs. That’s 1.15 billion light bulbs using around four times the electricity as CFLs. How are we generating all that electricity and at what cost? What about the air pollution from burning coal in power plants? And from a purely selfish standpoint, why would anybody want to pay his electric utility more money? Commonwealth Edison in Chicago already makes plenty of dough and they don’t need additional help from me.

We can’t click our heels together three times and make this all go away. The plumbing, heating and cooling industry has the products available now to save our customers water and energy. Think utility prices are not high enough to justify these products? They will be.

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