How to Start Your Registered Apprenticeship Program – Self Study Solar companies are scrambling to comply with new prevailing wage and apprenticeship labor requirements. The laws and rules are confusing, even for smart people. In this free course, we’ll break it down into simple, actionable steps that a normal person can understand. In this course we’ll…

Boosting Contractor Capacity to Meet Home Performance Demand This is a live webinar that will happen on Wednesday August 14th @ 1pm eastern (USA). The edited presentation will then be available here as a free course. We are going to present a new model for building contractor capacity: a Home Performance Contractor Incubation Program. The primary target…

Finally Fossil-Fuel-Free: Air-to-Water Heat Pump & Ventilation Retrofit – Self Study This course was originally presented at BuildingEnergy Boston 2020, a conference presented by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) Air-to-water heat pumps have generated a lot of excitement for their enormous retrofit potential. This case study details one home’s retrofit to an AWHP system, which was…

Electrical Loads in High Performance Buildings – Self Study When you’re designing a zero-net energy home or a battery-based solar PV system, electrical loads are the biggest headache. They’re very hard to predict! This presentation covers the subject of plug load energy efficiency — the choices occupants make with regard to lighting, appliances, and consumer electronics…

What is an Energy Model? – Self Study In this free course, Chris Schaffner describes a variety of methods for modeling building energy consumption. He starts with simple energy estimating tools of increasing complexity, finally arriving at detailed energy simulations. A few simple methods are described, and spreadsheets (listed below) built to use these methods…

The Ins and Outs of Selecting Cold Climate Minisplit Heat Pumps – Self Study Minisplit heat pumps are a great space conditioning choice for low-energy buildings. However, getting the appropriate information to be sure that a unit will heat your building at the design heating temperature can be confusing. In this presentation, you’ll learn the…

Become a Building Enclosure Control Freak and Do Residential Ventilation Right – Self Study Learn from industry expert Allison Bailes PhD in this free course on building enclosures and controls, as well as residential ventilation considerations. This lecture is designed for engineers, architects, builders, trade contractors, and energy raters. Allison will review: –The basics: buildings as systems, enclosures,…

Introduction to Solar PV Design, Installation and Code – Self Study This course will teach you the basics of solar PV. This course was last updated in October 2023. The course is intended for newcomers to the solar industry and can be taken at any time. Participants can expect to learn: Instructor Sean White. View profile…

Zone Pressure Diagnostics: Precise Leak Detection and Measurement in Buildings – Self Study Zone Pressure Diagnostics (ZPD) is one of the most powerful tools available for building analysis. The free calculation aid from Residential Energy Dynamics (RED) is the most accurate and easy to use ZPD tool available. This course addresses the ZPD basics to…

Heat Pumps 101 – Self Study Heat pumps are a foundational technology in the plan to meet decarbonization targets. The market for heat pumps will double in the next five years. You should know how a heat pump works because they are going to impact your career. Learning how they work is a great start. “Heat…