2020 Peer PReview: Remote Home Assessment Demo Video

Remote Home Assessment Demo featuring David Nemtzow, Building Technologies Office director, and Madeline Salzman, technology manager.

From Day 1 of the Building Technologies Office 2020 Peer PReview: Monday, November 16.

Read the text version below.

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Hello? Good morning, is this Mr. Nemtzow?
Yes, yes, it is.
Excellent. My name is Madeline. I'll be reviewing your comfort systems today to address your complaint of poor performance.
Madeline, can I call you Maddie?
Yes, that's great and isn't it amazing we can use technology like this to complete our work virtually given the need for social distancing?
Nah, it's great because I really want to get this done and we don't want to have somebody traipsing through the house, and even if they have a mask on it's just too risky so we were putting it off. So I'm really glad you can do it virtually. Very exciting.
Awesome. Yeah. I've been impressed with how easy it has been to adapt. So just to do my job properly, I'll need your help. It shouldn't be too difficult and take no more than a few minutes. Does that sound OK to you?
That's great. I always appreciate your help, Maddie. Always.
Right, so awesome. If you could just turn the camera around and show me your heating and cooling system.
Sure, I'm already down in my utility and storage room.
Fantastic.
For this can you see it?
I can, yeah, so if you could just back up a little bit so I can see the whole system, the ducts up at the top -- great. And are we in unconditioned space right now in your home?
Yeah, we are. It's a utility room and storage room that's unconditioned.
Got it. So if your ducts are in unconditioned space, they should probably be sealed and insulated, which might be contributing to some comfort problems ... um ... the water heater?
Right, yes, it's Bradford White.
Awesome, and can you just zoom in, if you can find where the name plate is. ... Great. OK, we'll take a picture of that. All right, awesome. So it looks like you have a mid-range efficiency heater installed in 2013. It still has life left but ...
Yeah, look at what I found, which is a little bit blocked. Oops, oh yeah, you're right, it's mid-range, a little on the heavy side.
Yeah, so installed in 2013, it still has life left, but you might want to consider more efficient options when it needs to be replaced. You mentioned yourself ...
I turned down the temperature.
Oh, good, it's good.
Yeah, you know, the thing is, Maddie, you know, when we bought this water heater, in fact, the air conditioner too, we weren't living in the house then. And we had 10 minutes to make that tough decision. And which we pay for the -- you know we paid the thousands of dollars for the air conditioner and water heater, but somebody else was paying the bills. So we got an efficient one but not as efficient as if we were paying the bills ourselves, I'm afraid. But we did just get a new washer and dryer, which I know isn't part of your regime today, but we got, of course, Energy Star ones, a horizontal dr on the washer. We've been very pleased with that.
That's great, that's awesome. I'm happy to hear that making the trip for more efficient equipment.
There's my carbon-free transportation mode. Do I get any credit for that on the home energy business?
Unfortunately we don't include bicycles in the Home Energy Store, but you do get some bonus points for me.
OK.
You said you're working from home. What do you do for a living?
I work for the federal government at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Really? What do you do there?
Actually, I'm director of the Building Technologies Office.
And we're live from Washington, D.C.!
It's the 2020 BTO Peer PReview!