Quality assurance for Home Energy Scores

Standard Quality Assurance

The City of Portland partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy to use its Home Energy Score model as the official scoring tool for this policy. The U.S. DOE requires re-scoring of a minimum of five percent of all homes scored per quarter to ensure consistent scoring practices.

The City has designated local nonprofit, Earth Advantage, as its local implementation partner to perform quality assurance (QA) scoring. QA checks are conducted on randomly selected Assessors, with prioritization for newer Assessors or for Assessor we have recently worked with on a scoring issue. In most cases, this consists of trained QA staff completing an assessment alongside an Assessor to ensure similar results are achieved. In some cases, QA staff perform a QA check during a separate visit by coordinating directly with a real estate professional.

QA staff also review the results of automated validation checks to screen data entry outside of normal expected values.

What if I don’t think my Home Energy Score is accurate?

Start by following up with the Assessor

Contact them directly and let them know that you think there might be a problem with the Score. The Assessor can explain to you why information was entered in a certain way. For example, if an attic space is missing insulation in some places or doesn’t consistently have one type of insulation across the whole space, it’s possible they made adjustments to account for that in their data entry.

It’s also possible that, based on your discussion, they find that there was an actual mistake or error in the data entry. For example, if the efficiency of the furnace was entered as 78% AFUE, but the existing unit in the home is clearly labeled as 96% AFUE. In that case, the Assessor can make a correction and provide you with an updated Report.

Contact the QA team for Dispute Resolution

If the Assessor is not able to resolve the concern, you can ask them to report the dispute to the QA team, or you can report the issue directly to the Home Energy Score Help Desk. The QA team will investigate each dispute by reviewing the data input by the Assessor. This could also include reviewing notes and photos from the assessment and conducting a follow-up on-site assessment of the home, depending on the circumstances. The QA team will follow up with the results of the review and work with the Assessor to adjust the Score, if warranted.

Home Energy Score Methodology

To learn more about how a Home Energy Score is calculated, you can view the U.S. DOE’s Home Energy Score Scoring Methodology. To view a list of the inputs a Home Energy Assessor collects during their on-site visit, you can view the Home Energy Scoring Tool Data Collection Form.

Portland’s Home Energy Reports contain adjustments to reflect local costs and carbon emissions calculations based on your specific utilities. They also include all recommendations for improvements which are categorized according to whether they may offer a 10-year return on investment.