What's BPI's RBE-WH-ALCI Certification?

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Dallas Jones: Hi, I'm Dallas Jones with Green Training USA here in Washington, D.C. with Larry Zarker, the Executive Director of the Building Performance Institute.

Larry, there's an acronym that I always, it's difficult for me to get off my tongue and it's the RBE-WHALCI. Can you tell me what?

Larry Zarker: But it just rolls right off you.

Dallas: OK. So tell me what that is and why it's important?

Larry Zarker: That's the Residential Building Envelope Whole House Air Leakage Control Installer. This was obviously designed by a committee. That's how they got the name but really what it is about is there are leaks in the house. How do we seal them?

And then this can be an entry level designation. The first job that you learn is how to seal the gaps and all the typical kind of gaps you're going to have in the house. And this is a great first level certification. It helps you understand how to get the house tight and make it perform well.

And then it can prepare you because you can go out in the job site and get experience. It can prepare you for some of the new weatherization home energy professional designations that are coming out.

Dallas: So tell me about these new certifications that you're referring to?

Larry: Okay. The new certifications are the energy auditor, the installer, the [inaudible 1:33] installer, the crew leader and the quality control inspector. These are new designations. We're working under contract with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and with sponsorship from the Department of Energy.

We are currently piloting these new certifications and we will have them in the marketplace in September of 2012. These are experienced pre-requisite so it's going to be a higher level than where we've been before and the auditor builds are on our building analyst designation and it adds in a stronger scope of work and simulation, so it's more of a kind of forensic type of certification.

The installer adds a component of windows and doors and full insulation of the building to the RBE-WHALCI that we talked about before. So then you have the crew leader which has an even larger experience requirement and then finally the quality control inspector.

There has not been a designation like this in the marketplace. There are over 120 programs throughout the United States, state and utility programs that specify BPI and there hasn't been one certification yet in quality control and I think that that's going one that many of the programs when they pick up right away.

Dallas: So this is a whole career path.

Larry: There are career paths in the vertical that even start out as an installer, move up to full house weatherization installer and then there's the kind of horizontal that you can start out as a building analyst and pick up other designations like envelope or heating or air conditioning heat pump.

So, yes, many people try to get all of the certifications but we're also trying to build them on a vertical career path so that people will stay in the industry and see that it's a real green career path for them.

Dallas: OK. There you have it. If you want to get trained for all of these new opportunities, go to greentrainingusa.com.

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