Adopted Amendment

Quality Assurance Designee Delegation

Proponent: RESNET Quality Assurance and Ethics Committee

Proposed Changes:

Section 102.1.1 Quality Assurance Designee - Amend as follows:

102.1.1.1 A home energy rating system shall designate an officer, employee, or contractor to be responsible for quality assurance within the organization. This definition does not prohibit a rating provider's Quality Assurance Designee from having a qualified certified home energy rater perform the required quality assurance file review and field inspection functions. A Quality Assurance Designee Delegate shall meet the criteria contained in 102.1.2. The Quality Assurance Designee, however, remains responsible for the accuracy and compliance of the provider's quality assurance program, including reviews and inspections completed by a QA Delegate....

102.1.2 Quality Assurance Designee Delegate

102.1.2.1 A Quality Assurance Designee Delegate must be a certified home energy rater and have completed the portion of the inspection or rating process for which the individual is performing Quality Assurance tasks on a minimum of 25 homes. In other words, if the Delegate is repeating on site testing and inspections as part of the Quality Assurance process, that individual must have at least performed these tasks on a minimum of 25 homes.

102.1.2.1.1 In addition, the Quality Assurance Designee shall determine accuracy of the delegated Rater(s) in qualifying to perform quality assurance tasks, and ongoing performance of those tasks, by reviewing the results of the quality assurance process for that Rater (i.e. 1% field verification/10% file verification) with a maximum allowable variance of +/- 5% on annual loads (i.e. heating, cooling and water heater loads as impacted by insulation assessment, blower door tests, duct leakage to outside, sq. ft. of windows, weather station selection, etc.).

102.1.2.2 No step in the quality assurance process may be performed by the same individual that performed any part of the testing, inspection or rating of the home being subject to the quality assurance review. In other words, if an individual performed any part of the inspection or rating process on a home, that individual cannot be the Quality Assurance Designee or Delegate performing any part of the quality assurance process specific to that home.

102.1.2.3 The Quality Assurance Designee shall provide to RESNET a listing of the certified Rater(s) it has delegated to undertake quality assurance reviews on behalf of the Designee and must keep and provide documentation of their qualifications, including evidence of passing the Rater and/or quality assurance exam and ongoing quality assurance results. The potential penalty for non-compliance with these selection or documentation requirements is the individual loosing Quality Assurance Designee status and the Provider losing accreditation.

Renumber the following sections

Justification:

With the growing demand for rating services in many markets, Quality Assurance Designees can not keep up with the number of quality assurance reviews and inspections called for in the national home energy standards. This proposed amendment will allow a Quality Assurance Designee to delegate the quality assurance reviews and/or inspections to a qualified Delegate. The Quality Assurance Designee, however, remains responsible for the accuracy and compliance of the provider's quality assurance program, including reviews and inspections completed by a QA Delegate.