Effective home performance contractors require many types of skills and expertise. To help individuals develop those skills, programs can target training on the specific topics and skills needed for successful home performance work. Many Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners found that they...
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Many residential energy efficiency programs run into challenges maintaining an appropriately sized, well-trained workforce from program launch through maturity, as well as through the fluctuating demand of the seasons of the year. Some programs found that their contractors preferred a smooth annual...
Some lenders perceive home energy lending to be too risky or not profitable enough for them to get involved. Programs have found that engaging potential lending partners early in the program design process, especially in face-to-face meetings, helped them understand both lender needs and the risks...
Though potentially challenging, establishing relationships for sharing energy consumption data is critical for evaluating program impact on energy and cost savings. Many Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners found success by approaching utilities during the program planning phase, or at...
Homeowners do not benefit from access to financing if they don’t know about or understand options available to them. Contractors are often the primary transaction point for selling upgrades, and many programs have found that ongoing collaboration with contractors through sales training, regular...
Successful programs know that it is not enough to get customers interested in their services. They know that homeowners that receive assessments but don’t undertake upgrades don’t receive the benefits of energy efficiency—and programs don’t get credit for energy savings. Instead of emphasizing...
Paper-based or spreadsheet-based information collection processes can be low cost to develop and easy to roll-out, but more often than not, they become cumbersome to aggregate and store the data from many sources. Many Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners found that investing in...
Given all of the other things that compete for your audience’s attention, it is critical that program participation steps are straightforward and easy to understand. Many programs have found that complexity makes it harder for interested homeowners to complete upgrade projects. These programs have...
Lenders can be a valuable partner for programs in marketing loan products and driving demand for home energy upgrades. They are often a trusted source of information in a community, and they have access to potential customers and partners such as existing customers, loan aggregators, and large...
Programs in many regions of the U.S. find that the concept of home performance is new to homeowners. Homeowners may not know how energy efficiency measures compare (e.g., energy savings benefits of insulation versus new windows) or have not heard about some effective measures, such as air sealing...
Measuring performance at key points in the upgrade process (e.g., assessments, conversion rates, and financing applications) has helped programs understand where their processes are working smoothly and where they are not. This information has helped them continuously improve their program design...
Incentives can be the easiest approach to overcome motivation barriers and attract customers’ and contractors’ attention, as long as the upgrade and reimbursement processes are kept simple and easy to follow. Successful programs have found incentives help entice customers to complete upgrades...
Programs that offered several paths for customers to upgrade their homes—for example through a choice of single or bundled measures, staged upgrades over time, or a comprehensive whole home upgrade—were found to motivate greater homeowner participation and generate higher energy savings, according...
Low-cost financing for home energy upgrades does not increase customer demand for upgrades on its own. A comprehensive evaluation of over 140 programs across the United States found that homeowners must be sold on the benefits of home energy upgrades before financing can become valuable to them...
Many Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners found that setting up their information technology (IT) systems early in the program design stage ensured that data terms and data entry procedures were consistently applied by all system users. Reaching agreement with stakeholders (e.g...
While homeowners may be interested in the benefits of an energy upgrade, many are deterred from completing an upgrade project because of the complex and unknown process. Often, a significant portion of homeowners who receive energy assessments do not continue with the upgrades. As part of the Better...
Early on, many Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners focused on providing customers with a range of contractors to choose from, while providing contractors with access to customers. Customer feedback received by some programs, however, indicated that customers were confused or overwhelmed...
Many programs struggle with communicating the value of financing to homeowners. Financing can be a complicated topic, and ensuring that homeowners understand how their loans work and the benefits they will realize is important for converting interest into action. Many Better Buildings Neighborhood...