The BPI Certifications Guide: Everything You Need To Know

BPI Certifications Explained: What You Need To Know

Have you been wondering how to prevent heat loss in winter and lower your attic temperature in summer? Are you looking for solutions on how to lower your energy bills? The key to all of these is to make your home more energy efficient by reducing energy loss, and if you’ve been looking for a Kansas City insulation company to get this job done, you’ve probably come across the term “BPI certifications.” 

If you’re here, chances are you’re wondering what exactly BPI certification means, whether or not it’s important and how to ensure your service provider is certified. Our team at Koala Insulation of South Kansas City has put together the answers to these and more below! 

What Are BPI Certifications?

“BPI certifications” refers to certifications provided to energy professionals within the building performance industry by a highly reputable and science-driven organization known as the Building Performance Institute (BPI). During the certification process, candidates will take rigorous certification exams through the BPI Test Center. Once certified, these contractors will have the knowledge and expertise to make prescribed energy efficiency upgrades to homes according to the latest and best practices within the industry. 

Who Needs BPI Certifications?

All performance contractors should get a BPI certification to become a BPI building analyst. BPI certified professionals in the United States include:

• Energy auditors
• Air conditioning experts
• Heating experts
• Heat pump installers
• Air leakage and air sealing professionals
• Building analysts
• Envelope professionals
• Retrofit installers, including batt insulation, spray foam insulation and blown-in insulation installers
• Quality control inspectors
• Infiltration and duct leakage experts
• Crew leaders

If you’re getting a blower door test or duct leakage test done on your home, you’ll want to ensure that you hire contractors who have met the BPI certification requirements. Not all contractors are required to be BPI certified, so it’s good practice to ensure that the above types of contractors have BPI certifications before hiring them. 

Why Are BPI Certifications Important?

With energy costs on the rise and the environmental benefits of energy efficiency becoming more clear every day, eliminating energy loss as much as possible in your home is of the utmost importance. There’s no disputing that you need to heat your home to safely and comfortably get through Kansas City winters, but the tighter your building envelope is, the warmer your home will remain without having to bump up the thermostat.  

Reduced energy loss directly translates into energy savings. Sticking to a budget and trying to meet your long term financial goals is challenging enough as it is, but if your home is no longer up to present day building codes and air leakage is occurring at an alarming rate, you may as well be throwing away your money. The solution is to get a comprehensive energy audit done to determine flaws within your building structure and solutions with the highest return on investment. 

When spending money on air sealing, HVAC upgrades and insulation retrofitting, you need to ensure that your money is going where it is needed most. Unless you’re a trained energy auditor, you’ll need to hire a professional building performance contractor to do the assessment for you. This assessment is only as good as the contractor you hire, so how can you determine if they actually know what they’re doing? 

BPI certifications are the gold standard for building performance and energy efficiency. When you hire contractors with BPI certifications for solar attic fan installation, insulation retrofitting or any other energy-related home improvement project, you know that they’ve successfully passed the BPI test and have the most up-to-date knowledge in the industry. Contractors must renew their BPI certifications every three years, so you can rest assured that they’re not operating on outdated standards. 

How Do I Know If A Service Provider Is BPI Certified?

BPI certified professionals have permission to display the green and yellow BPI badge on their website. If their certification expires, they must remove the badge immediately. If BPI becomes aware of an incorrectly or improperly displayed badge, they have the right to suspend or terminate membership. 

There are two terms you may see in reference to BPI certifications:

• BPI Certified Professional: This refers to an individual who has undergone and passed testing.
• BPI GoldStar Contractor: This refers to a company or organization that is fully compliant with the standards and certification requirements set forth by the Building Performance Institute. 

Products may also have BPI certifications. Manufacturers of building products like insulation can request BPI certification, which will be rigorously tested by the product testing team at the Building Performance Institute. Hiring a BPI certified professional who uses BPI certified products is a surefire way to ensure that your investment in your home’s energy efficiency will be worth it. 

Did You Know That Koala Insulation of South Kansas City Is BPI Certified? 

Are you looking for an insulation company with BPI certifications in the Kansas City area? Look no further than Koala Insulation of South Kansas City! Our locally owned and operated franchise remains one of the leading choices for new insulation installations and retrofits in Missouri due to our commitment to quality, fair prices and overall customer satisfaction. We want to help you save money by making your home more energy efficient, and by consistently renewing our BPI certification, we ensure that we’re always up to date with current building performance standards. 

Most of our customers aren’t sure whether they need new insulation, what the best type of insulation is or whether their active and passive ventilation is to blame. In fact, they might not know the definition of these terms at all! If this sounds like you, we encourage you to give us a call at 816-929-8255 to set up a free insulation evaluation. We’ll take a look at your home and identity areas that could be to blame for your increasingly rising energy costs. Whether you need small cracks and gaps in your exterior walls sealed with spray foam insulation or those crevices in your attic could benefit from being topped off with some blown-in cellulose insulation, we’re the team to help you out.