Rescheck Workshop

Rescheck Workshop

Today on the Reschexpert blog we want to talk to you about Rescheck Workshops. Setting up your personal space to give you the most functional environment for creating Reschecks, Manual J, Manual S, and Manual D is key to all do it yourself home energy audit creators. We have learned some things over the years and we want to share them with you today in our Reschexpert blog Rescheck Workshop.

The setup of your environment for creating DIY energy reports will have a large impact on your final product. Below we put together 7 items that you will want to keep in mind when setting up your workroom for creating your home energy audit reports.

Full Size Blueprint Printer: If you are serious about creating energy reports then you need to be serious about how you look at your construction plans. Smartphones, computer screens, tablets, and laptops just will not cut it. To get the information right on every portion of your home energy reports you need a full size plan plotter. That way you can take plans from a PDF file to a full size page. Then you can mark them up and take the correct data from the full size plans.  Next you will enter the Rescheck data points into Rescheck Web or Rescheck Desktop. If you are building up your practice and cannot afford a full size plan plotter to complete your Reschecks then you have other options.  Find a local office supply store, and have the blueprints printed for you. You can keep the large plans on file for each projects along with their markups in case you need to access the project at a later time.  Then you have historical data and can see the notes that you have taken as you created your Rescheck, Manual J, Manual S, or Manual D.

Lighting: Many new energy reports like IECC 2018 Rescheck, IECC 2021 Rescheck, IECC 2024 Rescheck, IECC 2027 Rescheck, and Comcheck all contain some type of lighting component. Guess what? Your workspace for creating your home energy audits should contain a consideration of the lighting as well. If you are reading blueprints, you are going to need great lighting. Plug in lamps, install overhead LED lights, and make your Rescheck studio as bright as an operating room. Blueprints, plans, and draftsman sketches can be notoriously hard to read. The better your lighting the better your Rescheck Workshop will be.

Computers: While you do not want to read your plans on a computer because of size limitations. Your computer will do many things to aid your Rescheck creation skills. You will accept emails of plans, print blueprints, answer emails, and ultimately enter the construction data you have collected into specialized software like Rescheck Web and Rescheck Desktop. You do not need the top of the line $5000 gaming computer to complete these energy reports.  Most home energy auditing softwares are light on the amount of computing power they demand. I would suggest having a dedicated workstation just for home energy auditing. This allows you to keep intrusions like games, social media, and other time wasters off your home energy auditing work horse.

Beverages: For some reason completing home energy audits can make you extremely thirsty. I typically keep a water and some coffee within arms reach. You might consider installing a refrigerator, water cooler, or coffee machine in your workspace so you can stay hydrated while you work on your home energy audits. Also make sure if you are drinking liquids on a desk that you do not flip your drink over with a large set of plans and spill the beverage on your desk or keyboard. I have done this personally, more times than I can count.

Architect’s scale: This is a triangle shaped ruler device that allows you to create dimensions for plans when the plans you have received are lacking information. Without an Architect’s scale it would be impossible to get through a days work. It is amazing how many construction plans leave off key details like dimensions.  That is the nature of Rescheck reporting.  You are not only a home energy auditing professional, but also a detective and a private investigator that pieces together construction clues as to how your client plans to build their home in the most energy efficient ways possible.  Having an Architect’s scale will allow you to make sense of plans that need additional dimensions.

Smart phone: A good smart phone is a great addition for your Rescheck Workshop. You can use it as an additional screen to obtain project addresses, answer emails, or even play some relaxing music as you complete calculations. With the many different time zones in the United States, odds are that your connection back to your Rescheck Workshop will be with your smart phone. You might answer an email about a Rescheck later in the afternoon.  Then make your way back to your office to complete the Rescheck. The smart phone can act as your Rescheck mobile unit.

Internet connection: You will need some type of internet connection in your workspace. You can use DSL, Cable, Satellite, or even a cell phone hot spot. Just make sure it is reliable. Most energy audit softwares to not require a ton of data.  Seeing a spinning wheel while you should be calculating and completing a Rescheck report is frustrating, to say the least. In the past Rescheck Desktop has been great option for those without reliable internet access to create Rescheck reports. Most recently the Department of Energy has begun sunsetting the software by not updating it with IECC 2018 or IECC 2021 capability. They also plan to stop updating the software completely sometime in the future. This means that Rescheck Web is going to be the Rescheck software of choice.  It absolutely requires an internet connection all the time. Mainly because it is based on the web.  Without internet, you will be without Rescheck creation capabilities in your Rescheck Workshop.

This concludes our Rescheck tutorial on how to setup your Rescheck Workshop. If you need a Rescheck report created for you from our custom Rescheck Workshop, you can email us a PDF of plans, jobsite address, and square footage to service@rescheck.info and we will get you taken care of.