Career Path for a Home Energy Auditor
A home energy auditor has a unique job: measure and weigh where and how a home may be losing energy. A homeowner can do basic home energy auditing on their own, but when it comes to really saving energy and time, hiring a home energy auditor is important. This is the reason why becoming a home energy auditor can be such a smart career choice. When it comes down to it, a home owner probably wouldn’t know the intricacies of an HVAC unit and its effect on energy efficiency. For instance, would you be able to list all of the copper and aluminum evaportaor coil differences? – Probably not. Here is what the general career path for a home energy auditor looks like.
When you first decide that you want to become a home energy auditor, you will want to take courses in both home energy auditing and in the various sciences. If you have a background in science and physics, you will have a huge leg up in the industry. However, in the beginning of your career, you will be doing a lot of in class training in order to learn about how and why a home’s energy is so important. You will also learn how to use certain machines and technologies to measure a home’s energy usage.
After you have gone to school, you will be working, or apprenticing, with an experienced home energy auditor. When it comes down to it, you may be required by your state to work with an experienced home energy auditor so that you can fulfill your certification requirements. In most cases, your apprenticeship will be measured by the hour. Not only will apprenticing, or shadowing, an experienced auditor allow you to fulfill your certification requirements, you will also learn invaluable knowledge in the field.
Next, you want to apply to take your home energy auditor’s certification exam. It is important to study long in advance to increase your chances of passing the exam. When it comes down to it, you will receive a pass or fail score, so it is important that you know your stuff. The exam will mostly cover things you learned in vocational school, but it may also go over things you have learned during your apprenticeship. Not only that, but the exam will go over all the rules and regulations that home energy auditors must follow. As a home energy auditor, it is important to make sure a home is more energy efficient and with the rise global warming, it is increasingly becoming more important that energy auditors know exactly what they are doing.
Lastly, when you finally have your certification, you can branch off on your own. It won’t be new to you, because you’ve already been working in the field for a long time, but this will be the first time that you don’t have a supervisor. Right now, there are many agencies looking for home energy auditor. At the end of the day, if you work with one person, there is a good chance that they will refer you to someone else and soon enough you’ll be working full time.