KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Home Certification with Brett Little

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

So Brett, first of all, if you can tell me your background and how you ended up in this space. Yeah, I will tell you the shorter story for the sake of our time here today. But the reality is I did not come from a background that involved, you know, any knowledge or discussion around environmental issues or climate change or sustainability. It didn't come up in school or family. I didn't have a background or any knowledge or any involvement in home repair or construction remodeling. Nothing in the family. You know, my dad was a do-it-yourselfer, but I just wasn't something I was interested in.

You know, I didn't want to do it. And then third, I had no background in the nonprofit community sector. No, I didn't even know what a nonprofit was. You know, I just thought it was an organization who made no money, which is not true. So from the climate side of things, I was working at a coffee shop. And I saw they had, you know, soy milk, you know, that was organic, certified. And it was powered by wind turbines to grow it. And there were fair trade coffee.

And so I'm like, I'm just looking at this stuff. I'm like, why? What is this? Who cares? you know, and I would, Wikipedia had just come out. So all the knowledge was out there, right? I started Wikipedia and learned about climate change through Wikipedia, through just researching because I saw, you know, wind turbines on a box. And I was like, well, this looks like a problem. So I was like, maybe I should do something about this. So I immediately, you know,

started driving very slow, just conserve gas. I started recycling. I started yelling at people for not recycling. I started eating more vegetarian, you know, didn't wear deodorant. And, you know, was just sort of an angry, sort of crazy environmentalist at the time who didn't know what they were doing. And I was like, maybe I need more direction. So I went to, I was going to business school at the time. And I was like, I went to my college. It was like, is there like business in the environment? And they're like, I don't know what you're saying. That's not something. So I found a school that was doing the first ever undergrad sustainable business degree at Aquinas College here. in Grand Rapids. First ever, there were many master's programs, but, and I was like, I don't know

what all that means, but that's what I'm going to do. At the same time, someone told me to volunteer at this current organization I'm at, which at the time, the name was Alliance for Environmental Sustainability. And I volunteered here and, you know, kind of the rest of this history, I just kind of went from there. Wow, that's an actually very fascinating story. It's kind of unexpected, you know. Most of the people I speak to, they have been very much involved in the, you know, environmental issues of building and, you know, family generations of, you know, architects or developers or things like that. So it's really, it's great. I love that story.

It makes me feel like there's hope for people who aren't getting it in any other way, just stumbling upon these things that we're, you know, putting out there. So you just mentioned that the Green Home Institute used to be called differently. So can you tell us about what Green Home Institute does and what your mission is? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Our mission is to empower people to make healthier and more sustainable choices in the renovation and construction of the places we live.

And so we do that in two key ways. certification, which is my colleague, Eliza, she's the program manager. She handles their certification program. So lead for home certification, Green Star, Enterprise, Department of Energy, Home Energy Score. We're applying a certification principle to the way homes are renovated or built and verifying that it is done correctly and sustainably. So that's our number one way we implement our mission.

The number two way is through education, which is that's, me. And so going out and doing weekly Wednesday webinars, as you pointed out, thank you for that. And attending, doing professional trainings, certificate credentialing trainings. And the two work together. You know, you get a certified project. You educate people on why they want to certify a project. And the cycle continues is, you know, kind of how we look at it. So. And how long have you been doing this at Green Home Institute? So yeah. So I started, like I said, as a volunteer. almost 15 years ago, like I just walked in the door and said, you have a cool name, tell me what to do. And I did it for free back then. Back then they didn't pay interns. It's not

like that anymore. And then I became an AmeriCorps volunteer, so I got a little bit payment. I did an internship through school. I became a board member at one point. And then I am part-time. And then eventually our executive director left, and I was the only one showing up. It was very small organization. And they're like, well, we'll just give you the job because you're the only one who keeps showing up. So that was 15 years ago. And, you know, I've learned a lot since that. Yeah, I would imagine. And 15 years must have been quite an evolution. You know, have you seen the change and the receptivity of something, you know, like this, like the idea of green homes or sustainability in the built environment. What is your observation over the years of how people are

responding to this idea? Yeah, that's a great question. And part of it is, you know, we are local in West Michigan and we have local programming and we have a passion for West Michigan in our state and then we also do a lot of work in the Midwest. But we also have national and international traction too. So part of your, the answer to your question is, well, where are, where are you asking that question? So, you know, certainly we see, you know, I always joke. I say the Midwest is the second worst place to be for sustainability. I think middle America is probably your worst place. And the coast, you know, it's just easy. You just do it. Now, on the flip side, there's a flip side of that, there's opportunity, right? And so, you know, lots of opportunity in the middle of the country,

nobody's doing it. So if you want to encourage someone to do sustainability, the starting line is so low that it doesn't take much to go a little higher. Right. So to do a lead certified home, you know, in the Midwest under, you know, it's, it's pretty easy, you know, but to do it somewhere else, they have stronger codes and it's already almost there. So, so, but yes, overall, you know, I just checked our data and, you know, as of this year, one thing. One thing. third of the people engaging with us are what we call do it yourself homeowners individuals and before we could only engage professionals in this work because they were getting paid you know by clients or there were tax credits or incentives but now we just have so many just people building a new home

renovating their home i mean i can't even keep up with the you know emails and phone calls just all these questions which is great you know uh and it's like how do you how do you respond to that you know because there's just so much interest out there. So yeah, absolutely seeing a lot of interest. But again, you know, part of it has to do with, you know, certain areas of the country or world. But you are seeing the increase in the interest, obviously. I mean, if one third of the people who are engaging with you are homeowners,

I'm surprised to hear that. Yeah, I mean, just five years ago, it was maybe a 20th, one 20th of our, you know, the people we survey who attend our, sessions out of the different types of professions, you know, they were, they were barely even registered. So yeah. Well, so, like myself, as I said, I have taken a number of workshops from Greenholm Institute and you guys offer so many great information. And are you seeing that the geographically, are you seeing more people from different parts of the country attending? Or do you still have a majority from the Midwest or where you are?

Yeah, we're seeing more geographical diversity of people. Certainly because we're strong and have always been strong in the Midwest, our number one, you know, our major Fowlers come from Chicago, Grand Rapids, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. But then also all of our recorded on-demand sessions have huge attraction from California, the Northeast, Texas, Florida. So it kind of just depends on the medium. Is it alive or recorded session?

And then also we're getting, you know, interest, at least from the professional sector in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia. So yeah, it's picking up. And are you the one coming up with the whole, all the programming? You know, it's, we've been so fortunate. it. You know, nonprofits always leverage volunteers. And so ours are a little bit unique. We're not calling someone up and going somewhere and doing something. Instead, we're finding people with really

great ideas in the residential green building sector space. And we're reaching out to them and saying, hey, why don't you share your idea and we'll add a little more to the conversation. I see. So we have our skills based volunteers. Thankfully, I cannot come up with all this great stuff. We have volunteers calling in, you know, mostly from the United States. But to some extent, we have people from other Canada and other parts of the world who just talk about a topic we find interesting. Sometimes we'll bring two or three of them together. And then once in a while, I will lead our sessions like I did a lead in an electrification session last week. You know, sometimes that's to fill in space or just because I got a maybe one day I do come up with a cool idea.

That's great. Yes, there have been so many different webinars that you've offered that I found very, very helpful. But today I want to talk about your own home because I know that you recently got your home certified at platinum level with Pearl certification. Yeah. And because of where you are and what you do, I know you have other certification, you know, you're familiar with other certifications. So I like to talk to you about the role of certification, but I just kind of curious to know what your process was, what your journey looked like of getting your home to that level of sustainability. Yeah. Well, you know, for me, I'm out there telling people to certify their projects and educating them.

So it, you know, I had a bit of a shoemaker's shoe syndrome in that, you know, I'm spending so much time helping other. people I can't help my own home. But also, I think I can't be telling people to do this if I don't do it. So this my actually, this is the second home I've certified. I actually purchased a home, a much older home. Nearly it's actually it was, it's coming up on its 100th birthday. Wow. Which I'm sad. I'm going to miss it because I don't own it anymore or live there anymore. But so we got, I got that home a decade ago. And we had a, it came. It came in at a hers rating of like 150. And so we did some energy efficiency work. We dropped it down to

the 60s. So like massive energy efficiency improvement. And we got it green star certified. And eventually got it a home energy score of 10. When we went to go sell the home, we were at in the top of our market. Just in 2016 is when things started going crazy around the country. A lot of people forget that. But this this home value thing has been happening. since 16 in certain markets where you would list your house, you would get three bids within one second all over price. Good problem to have, bad problem when you're trying to sell green because you want that green to show more value. And it's hard to get more value when there is much more value to get. However, with that being said, when we were doing the financing for the home improvement

project, we cycled through four different appraisers. And I just asked the appraiser, would you consider green. No. Okay, next. Would you consider green? No. Okay, next. And we got on the fourth person. I was like, I'm going to give up after this one. And the person just said, let's, let's think about it. And I was like, I'll take it. It's 2012. It's West Michigan. You know, that's the best I can get. So they told me they were able to eke out 2% more value on the home. And this was when I was buying it. So they, and that gave me more borrowing power to borrow more money to do the improvement. So this is important. This was 10 years ago in West Michigan. So we went to go sell the home. We filled out a green seller's disclosure, gave away all the certification. And I was told by my

realtor in passing that the homeowner, you know, didn't understand all that stuff, but really appreciated it. And that just kind of made me feel like I'm doing the right thing, right? Like they just went out of their way to say they appreciated that kind of work. Now, whether they paid more for it, probably not. It just wasn't practical. But, yeah. Best. forward to today when we went to buy our new home, you know, it was a bit of a newer home. So good news is we didn't have to worry about thermal envelope. So it was, it was built, you know, 20 years ago to almost to today's energy code. The builder did a pretty good job building beyond the code in most cases. And then, but they still installed just your traditional,

low efficiency mechanical systems. So I got real, this was a newly built home that 20 years. It was 20 years old. Well, now it's 20 years old, but back then it was 15 years old. So, you know, it's, but it had the mechanical systems of that day, of that times code. So the mechanical systems weren't great. Um, old natural gas combustion unsealed water heater, uh, you know, 80% efficient furnace, thankfully sealed. Uh, it's Sierra 10 air conditioning system that was just chugging along could barely keep up. Um, you know, old baths. fans that weren't Energy Star and, you know, incandescent lighting everywhere. And, you know, that's not the builder's fault. But anyway, so for us, it was like, all right, you know, I don't

have to worry, at least in this house, I don't have to worry about air sealing and insulation. It had a pretty good thing. So I can focus on mechanical. All my mechanical systems are failing. Like, I was happy. Most people are sad when their furnaces are breaking. But I was very excited because now I'm like, I can go heat pump. So the first thing we did when we bought the house is we had, you know, our green home inspector come in and do the home energy score, do the evaluation. I know enough. So I was able to do some of that, my evaluation myself, get the blower door test done.

And then, you know, we got a home energy score of seven. And, and then, you know, started putting a plan together and, you know, started raising, you know, funds, right, to do the work and to try to do the funding and then determine if we wanted to do it all at once or, you know, at another time. And so, you know, I actually spent quite a bit of time talking with contractors, you know, over the years. And also, I just am lucky and I just know people and most people don't know people, right? That's not, it's my day job to know these people. Yeah. You know, I started getting a sense of who I wanted to work with and having conversations.

And, you know, at one point, our water heater died very early. So that was sad. And so we had to move quickly to get a heat pump water heater installed. And so we did that. So, you know, I have had that now for five years and I've been able to test that out and see that, you know, even though our electric rates here in Michigan are expensive and our gas rates are cheap, by going from gas to a heat pump water heater, there was no, it was neutral. as far as energy bills go.

Wow. And a much, you know, much more efficient system that, you know, worked better and kept my water hot. And it worked, you know,

and it, and it's been great. I've had it for five years. And, and no problem. So, you know, heat pump,

water heater. That's an easy one, right? And then, you know, at that point, furnace started to go. And,

you know, we had a contractor come in and, you know, they're like, I'm like, give me a heat pump quote and they said no we won't do it right it won't work in this in your cold climate yeah like we'll do a hybrid approach where you can kind of still use gas and I came so close to it I was like well just repair

the furnace you know it's like a hundred bucks to repair it thankfully and I'm just going to it's just going to limp along until I can get a good heat pump contractor to come in work with me we were looking at geothermal and at the time the tax credit was a expiring but for all your listeners you should know it's back 30% IRA. Yes, we're getting to that. And and but the big problem is, is they wanted to kill all these trees I have in my yard to put in the geothermal or, or they could drill down and charge me another $5,000 and it would be more energy efficient. But it's $5,000 more in the tax credit had just expired. So I at the time said no to geothermal now.

if we were if I could go back in time and we had the inflation reduction act and you know it might be a different story 30% that's not a bad deal so um so that's you know one interesting thing that occurred but anyway um so you know here I am uh I got my bids together the pandemic's raging on it's 2020 interest rates are crashing and prices are going down because, you know, nobody's doing anything quite yet. And so I'm like, now is the time to do it. And it was the worst, you know, kind of a crazy time to have people come into your house and we're all wearing masks or evacuating. But it's like, we got to get this done. And I was able to refinance my house at a much lower interest rate, which gave me the money to pay for this.

project. On top of that, we had our appraiser come in and they said, okay, you have solar, but that alone is not going to give you any more value. They said, what's going to give you the value are two other things. Number one, we see three other people down the road from you had solar and had some kind of refi or they bought the home or whatever. And it showed up in the appraisal. It's called comps, right? Appraisers, they will always use the excuse to not give a green value. They'll use comps as their number one excuse. But in the reverse, it works in your favor. So I got lucky. He's like, you're lucky. That's number one. He said the other thing is you're going to get Pearl Certified. I trust Pearl. Therefore, I'm going to give you this.

So he gave me 3% more value. He didn't care about the heat pumps. He didn't care about the ventilation systems. He didn't care about my home energy score of 10 that went from 7 to 10, even though there's evidence of value jumps for those. He didn't care I was pursuing Green Star certification or that I had water filtration, even though Michigan is going through huge water quality issues. He said none of that stuff matters. He said the number, the three things are solar, Pearl, someone else had solar.

And he's like, I'm going to multiply your value by the times of. the cost of golden oil. Wow. It makes no sense to me. And that was it. And, and so I got three percent and I was able to borrow again, more money to buy the solar and do the project. So, wow. That's, you know, that's kind of my, you know, Pearl, I think where Pearl really stood out to me was, and that was not my goal. I did not expect Pearl to help me there. I didn't expect it not to, But it kind of, you know, I have to give them credit for building that brand. So do you know what got you to the platinum level? Because I have sold as a pearl gold home that had solar, it had storage, everything else that you mentioned.

And it was still at gold. I don't know what would have made it a platinum. This is probably a question for pearl. But do you know what was it? that that you built it though right you didn't do this all in one one shot and you did one thing the water heater first and then you added things were you were you doing the certified certification process along the way you did you know where you were because i i know my house is yeah right now at silver level yeah yeah so did you know did you know that you were getting platinum

That's a great question. So I didn't, I did not do the preliminary assessment, like the, where am I at? Where am I going? I did it with the home energy score. I had a seven. And then when I finished my work, I would say I'm beyond 10. You can't go any further than 10. But I beat the, I beat the metric where 10 comes in.

Like there's an energy metric and I beat it. So 10 plus, right? So I know that. Now, I would probably guess my home was probably pearl, silver, or gold. before I did the work. And then actually I did all the work all at once. And then we went straight into platinum. I see.

But I didn't pre-evaluate it. And I should have, excuse me, but what I understand to have occurred is number one, you know, Pearl, of course, has a nice little award for anyone who's building a new home. You're automatically going to be high scoring because their tool, and just like the home energy score, same issue. Their tools are designed to move the needle on existing homes. So anytime you're

talking about a nearly, you know, a 15 year old home is, is pretty brand new. And what's the average home in the U.S.? It's like 40 years old or something? Yeah, 40, 50. So I think just right out of the gate, just by buying a new home, I already set the bar higher. Right. I already had good air sealing, good insulation. And then when I added the heat pump mechanicals and the solar, that bumped me up to that, to that platinum level. So I would question, you know, whatever home you did, you know, how old was it? Right. Did it meet the today's building codes? Because that's going to make a huge difference. Right, right. So let's talk about the certification since we've been talking about Pearl. You have, you have other certification for your home, right? Well, we have the home energy score.

Yeah. Home energy score. We looked into doing lead and the problem with lead, is that two things, my duct work is panned into the joist. And that is a lead no-no. Even on renovations, it's one. So lead does give a renovation pathway, which makes it easier for existing homes, but with exception. And so one of them is the duct work. I would have had to tire out a bunch of drywall and put in brand new duct work.

And I want to do that. It's still on my to-do list, but it just wasn't my priority. It wasn't in the budget. The second issue is, you know, my bathroom's in pretty good shape, but I don't know if there's a non-paper face backer behind the drywall, which could be a, you know, could be a molder moisture issue. It's probably something I should know. And there may be nothing back there. I just, I have to punch a hole in it. And if I'm going to punch a hole in, well, then I got to fix it. So, you know, says you have to have that non-paper face backer in there. So, so those two things, I think, otherwise I was kind of in, in, you know, says you know, you know, says you have to have that non-paper face backer in there. So, um, so those two things. So, I think, I think, I was kind of in. line for lead silver. I am, you know, I did look at, I was meeting certification under a green star standard under the old version, but I want to make sure I use the newest version. So our newest version has some additional requirements for durability. So one thing I found in my home is that I have an unsealed crock pot right now that just has condensate lines dumping into it. And it

nowhere. And the crock pot doesn't have a, um, a, a stump in it because I'm in a well-draining sandy soil area. So there's not a risk of flooding. But it is dumping all of this condensate in there, which is a moisture problem. So to, to do a temporary solution, I have a whole home dehumidifier down there. And if you want to get confused for a second, imagine a whole home humidification system, which I have running in the dead of winter, pumping humidity into my house. Yeah. Simultaneously, a whole home dehumidifier is running to drive humidity out of my house. Like, last winter, I'm like, my head is hurting.

Wow. And the reason is because the whole home is dry, but the crawl basement space area, because it's got some air sealing issues and because it doesn't have a crock pot, something, it's dumping condensate, it has humidity trouble. So that whole home dehumidifier is used. a lot of power, it's fixing it. But I would still call that a durability risk. And so Green Star requires that you have to mitigate all durability risks before you can

certify as a bare minimum. So I'm calling that a durability risk and I'm, you know, saying I got to get that fixed and then I can certify. Yeah. So, so, you know, you already answered my question earlier about how Pearl helped you with appraisal. Yeah. What is your thought on the roles that all these different certifications?

applications play in terms of evaluating or, you know, just simply the evaluation of different properties and homes. Like bringing up their value? There's been plenty of studies over the years, you know, ranging anywhere from, you know, half of a half of a percent up to 15 percent in value for certifications. And part of it has to do with the area. So obviously when we when we got into like parts of Texas and California and Florida, Virginia, we saw large. We saw value increases partially because I think you have a more educated and interested population who cares. And so they bring that value. The Pearl just did a study in Virginia.

I think they were looking at a 4% value or so. and they stand behind that nationally, even though they only did the study in Virginia, which is another higher educated area for this. DOE did a study, and I just learned about it recently, so I have to dig into it. But it was something around like on average, you know, a 2% increase in value on homes that were, you know, scored above their average of five, I think, and that there's a lot of context. It's a huge study. So I've got to do a webinar on it.

So, yeah, there's a lot. of uncertainty, what we're finding right now is that none of the appraisers are certified to do the proper evaluation. And the Appraisal Institute basically says if you're not certified, you shouldn't be doing it. I think the biggest area of opportunity right now is solar just because I've personally experienced it and because there's real tangible value to be had there. Outside of that, the appraisers just are struggling. And then if you find an appraiser who gets it, they then punt it off to the underwriter. And they point the finger at the underwriter and say, well, I can give it all the value I want all day long, give you 10% because you're green certified. But I'm going to send this to

my underwriter and they're going to reject the whole thing. And if you talk to the underwriter, they point the finger at the appraiser and they say, well, if he doesn't send it to me that way, I don't get it. And so it's when we have this and we might do a session called the green building finger pointing game where we notice people are like, well, it's their fault for this. And it's, and I'm just like, oh my gosh. So that's where we're at. That's, you know, we're in a world where appraisers and underwriters have been overwhelmed with the mortgage industry and things are slowing down. Yeah, it's true because we had this interaction on LinkedIn. I had, I had the listing that's certified. And but as a realtor, we can't, we can't name the appraiser.

You know, we just... Right, nobody can pick the appraiser. Lender has to order the appraiser. So whoever appraisers we get, we can ask them, you know, can you please find an appraiser who are familiar with some green, you know, features and whatnot? But it's hard to find. So in those cases, I had to hover around the appraiser and, you know, point out and show,

them the data and and and you know make sure that they understand so it's still a long way and and that's that's why I asked the question about the certification if it can play a role to to back up the claim that okay this is value right now we you mentioned inflation reduction act earlier and and we already have the tax incentive part but the reason rebates part, just, you know, rolling out, hopefully rolling out soon. And that's where I believe that the third party certification would probably play a good role in making those rebates available. Can you tell me a little bit about what you know? Yeah, I know, I know a lot less. I don't know, you know, a lot more than what I do know. And the problem with is because the DOE is, is still making up rules. And the IRS is still making up rules.

And all of the states are still looking at some of those rules and then making up their own rules. And certainly I know a lot more about Michigan than I know anywhere else. And I would suspect Michigan's going to be in your top states of more interest to make this easier for people and move quicker. Versus other states where there are states who are flat out rejecting this money. Yes. And then all the way in between. So part of it is, you know, who is your state, who is your energy office, lobby them, ask them what their plans are and hold them accountable and say this is money. And we, and you as a state need to accept this money from the federal government and use it. And that's a responsibility you have. So, so thankfully some people are luckier than others. You know, other people, some of you got a lot of work to do. Yeah. Now, outside of that, another problem is what we are understanding is that, yes, there probably will be some kind of third-party verification mechanism to ensure that the money is well spent

and that the products are installed correctly and commissioned correctly and that ratings are being done. However, there's a lot of talk about that being optional being highly suggested, but not required. by the DOE. So in in those events, you'll have, you know, people coming to the table in every state, lobbying the state to say, hey, and again, I want to be in fairness to these people, they're going to say, hey, if you spend money on third party oversight and certification and commissioning, that's less money that can go to help people by actually fixing their home. So I do, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I want to just be empathetic to the people who say that. I don't agree with it, though, and I'm also biased because I'm a third-party verification organization.

I see that what happens out there when we do projects, when there's no oversight, there's no verification, there's no certification. I see things are installed incorrectly all the time. And I would hate to see the Inflation Reduction Act money be spent on people who aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. maybe not out of because they're bad people. It may just be they're busy and they're negligent and they're uneducated. And I just made a mistake. And so that third party oversight would ensure that it's done correctly. So we think, you know, the Department of Energy's Home Energy Score assessment.

And in fairness, we're a home energy score partner. So we're biased here too. You know, a tool like that and then people having a background of building performance BPI training or hers index training. or hers index training or some other type of training. We think those people will be involved heavily in these projects pre and post. And we would encourage any state office listening to make sure that's done right. Yeah, it's going to be very complicated. I've been anxious to see how California is going to be doing it.

So what is your vision as Greenholm Institute? as you, you know, being an educational manager and as a homeowner of certified home, what is your vision? What do you think we're moving into in the coming years? Yeah. So that's a great question. So obviously, the coming years, you know, just as we were talking about, administration, well, turning inward on our existing housing. focusing in on our existing housing. I mean, I look at lead, lead V5. The first thing they're launching for lead V5 is the operation and maintenance program, which is to transform our existing building infrastructure. So we need to transform existing buildings and green them up because there's

so much more opportunity. It's getting harder to build new. A lot of that's going to be done through the Inflation Reduction Act funds. So administering those funds equitably and quickly, but still effectively is, I think, inherently what we, you know, that wasn't our vision two years ago, because it didn't exist, but now it is. So, right? And then also, how do we work with policymakers to keep the program going when the federal dollars run out because it's just not enough? So the vision is to sort of get policymakers locally and in cities and in states to enact opportunities to keep this going. So we're involved at policy conversations. And then also in the new construction world, it's going to be a lot about embodied carbon. So we can't, you know, when we go to build, we need to build with materials

that reduce the carbon within, you know, upfront carbon within the structure itself, not just the operational carbon. That I think is coming. It's going to be huge. I think California has already started codifying that at the larger scale level. So we're encouraged to see that conversation be elevated where we're having discussions around, you know, how much carbon went into this material and what am I using? And then I also think, you know, air quality metrics. I think we're going to move from a world where we're arguing about bath fans that run or don't run to, hey, what's your average particulate matter in your house over the course of the month? Oh, it's, you know, point. But that's where I'm not. I'm excited to have those conversations, like not about bath fans running and hood range running or fighting over gas versus electric stoves. But you'll see the data.

You know, if you've got a gas stove, you will see high particulate matter and you'll see that that is a risk for asthma. And is anyone want that? I don't think anyone wants that. So I think we need to have, just like we monitor our energy use and our water use, we will be monitoring our air quality and our homes. and I'm excited about that. So now that you've achieved the Platinum certification for your home,

is there anything you can do to improve even further? Well, like I said, you know, I still want to achieve our Green Star certification program. I see. That, you know, it's boring, right? I have to fix some air sealing spots. Right. I got to stop moisture from coming in. I got to put in a stump pump and pump water out.

I mean, it's just boring stuff, but sometimes building science is boring, right? You know, we go, people call us, they want to do all that's cool stuff, heat pumps and solar. And we're like, well, wait a minute, you've got a water issue, right? You got water entry. I'm sorry, this isn't fun. It's not going to reduce carbon emissions, but what good is it if you've got a durability problem in your home? Right. And there's nobody wants to pay for that either, right?

They all want to pay for the carbon reduction. So, you know, that's one thing, some durability issues. And then I'm looking at, I got to replace my roof soon. So I'm looking at solar shingles. I actually want to, you know, take my house down to true net zero. I've got a zero carbon goal where I'm looking at buying like offsets. But that's not as fun as getting really there. So maybe putting on some solar shingles, maybe doing some rigid insulation when we go to repair the siding.

I see. adding in a vehicle to grid car charging system when it comes out next year would be fun where I could charge my house from my car. Yeah. You know, that's fun stuff. Yeah. So yeah, you know, I think I would argue even if you had a platinum certified home, whatever it might be, you know, Pearl, Lead, Green Star.

So, Brett, thank you for all this information. And like I said, I really enjoy taking your webinars. Thank you so much, Brett. I'm really grateful that you spare them time with me and I look forward to being on your class. Yeah, thank you so much for having me out. I really appreciate it. Thank you and this was Izumi Tanaka with Home Green Homes podcast. Thank you so much.