Our Southface Energy Rated Homes (SERH) Providership has been a quality assurance success story for more than 20 years. Southface Institute made the difficult but strategic decision to close out SERH at the end of 2022 as we look forward to our next chapter.
Changing with the Home Energy Rating Industry
Southface launched SERH to help reduce carbon emissions from housing stock and grow the industry for home energy raters. Through this service, we provided access to software, quality assurance, technical experts, and timely updates. Our team is proud to have worked with hundreds of Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Raters and Rating Field Inspectors over the past two decades, registering more than 30,000 homes.
Since SERH began, the industry has grown considerably, and there are more options for providerships today than ever before. There is even more growth is on the horizon for home energy raters resulting from Inflation Reduction Act incentives. After assessing changes to the industry and our own capacity to deliver the level of service that home energy raters deserve from a providership, Southface is shifting its focus to where we can make the biggest impact on carbon reduction today.
What’s Next for Southface’s Technical Services
In 2023, Southface’s Technical Services team will focus on shaping energy codes, growing EarthCraft and our design consulting lines of business, expanding our education and training offerings (we will continue to offer HERS Rater and ENERGY STAR trainings), and the full launch of our BIT Building sustainable operations and maintenance program for commercial buildings. We invite building industry professionals to continue engaging with Southface through those programs. We also encourage becoming a Southface member! Membership not only gives you discounts on training and events but also gives us critical funding for our nonprofit work to build a healthy environment for all.
Providership Resources We Recommend
Since raters and field inspectors still need a providership, the Southface team researched and interviewed several other Accredited Rating Providers (full list of providerships here) to offer up a recommendation. We concluded that Green Building Consulting (GBC) is a great choice for providership. If you’re interested in their services, please reach out to Karen Barras (kbarras@greenbldgconsulting.com) and copy GBC’s scheduling department (scheduling@greenbldgconsulting.com).
Prior to our announcement, Southface also connected with RESNET and Ekotrope to discuss how to make the transition as smooth as possible on SERH clients. Ekotrope confirmed that a client’s existing account can be easily transferred with all their records to any new provider that offers Ekotrope software. All that is required is an email with a request to transfer sent to support@ekotrope.com.
Thank You
It has been a pleasure to serve so many hard-working, dedicated professionals over the years through SERH. Thank you to everyone who entrusted Southface with their business. We wish you so much success in your future endeavors and hope to help accelerate your career through our many other programs, services, and events in the months and years ahead. If you have any questions, please reach out to Nathan Bessette at nbessette@southface.org.
