Rescheck Bulletin

Rescheck Bulletin

You may be used to routine updates from places like churches, organizations, or societies that you belong to. Today on the Reschexpert blog we what to provide with with an update on what we are seeing in terms of Rescheck reporting as we enter the peak building months for the year. Take a minute to sit back and enjoy this concise, timely, informational Rescheck Bulletin.

As the peak building season emerges, we are seeing several trends that are having a large impact on the construction market. Higher interest rates, inflation, construction labor shortages, and Rescheck software updates are all having a major impact on Rescheck reporting and the current construction market as a whole. Let’s look at each one of the items more in depth below.

Higher Interest Rates: Most new homes, additions, and home alterations that require a Rescheck are single family homes. A large percentage of the projects require some type of financing. Even if the homeowner is not doing a full out construction loan, many will place certain items on other types of credit like credit cards or home equity lines of credit. As interest rates and the Federal Fund Rates have continued to creep higher over the past year the cost of these loans has added to the final total cost of construction. Anytime that the total cost of construction rises you can start to see a few trends emerge. These are smaller square footages, alternatives in construction materials chosen, and postponing certain non essential portions of a project until a later date. Savers have been rewarded by higher interest rates and people who have the cash to build can avoid this stumbling block all together. We will watch the Federal reserve closely over the rest of the year to see where they stand on further interest rate increases.

Inflation: As the construction market and housing starts set new records over the past few years, so did the cost of materials. Wiring for houses, lumber, insulation, and even labor continued to increase month after month. As far as inflation on construction materials I have seen some easing in prices over the past few months as there is currently less demand many of the items that had become scarce over the past 18 months. This does not mean that prices have returned to where they were 3 years ago, they have simply retreated from the peaks they made when everyone was building, constructing an outdoor living area, or adding an addition on to their home. Also a major initiative to combat inflation called the Inflation Reduction Act, was passed and is directly related to a home’s energy efficiency components in many ways.

Construction labor:  While there are still many shortages in the skilled labor needed to build a home, we are seeing some easing in the construction labor market. Where it had been impossible to find help for many contractors or subcontractors there is now an increasing amount of job seekers for these positions. While there is more labor available, there is still not enough to meet the total demand as the amount of training, apprenticeship, and desire to choose construction trades as a career path is multi decade problem that will not be addressed over the course of just a few months. While it may be easier to find someone to fill your construction positions, you should expect to pay more. Minimum wages and average wages have increased over the past few years for every type of position. Many of the fast food locations in my area have bill boards boasting $15-$25 per hour. This may not be the same type of worker or position that you are trying to fill, but it is also something that you will have to take note of as you try to fill any open construction positions this year.

Software updates:  Software updates to the Rescheck software we use every day always guide us in what we do on a daily basis.  We will break the software update section of the Rescheck Bulletin into two sections. Rescheck Web and Rescheck Desktop will be the two categories.

Rescheck Web is constantly updated and hosted on the web. You create a user name and password, and you can log in and access your Rescheck projects from anywhere with a internet connection. The last major update to Rescheck took place September 14, 2021 and this added Rescheck capabilities for IECC 2021 Rescheck, 2017 Washington DC, Fixed some technical bugs, and removed the slab on grade tradeoffs. The main question is, when is the next Rescheck Web update. We actually suspect very soon. We know that there is a large possibility that IECC 2024 Rescheck ability will be added in September of 2024 so we could expect to see a Rescheck Web update at that time. I would also suspect there will be another minor update between now and then although I do not have any speculations as to what the update will include.

Rescheck Desktop is the download version of Rescheck Software. It is stored on your computer’s hard drive and you can access it anywhere. You store all your files on your hard drive as well. Rescheck Desktop has not been updated to include IECC 2018 or IECC 2021. We would have to suspect that Rescheck Desktop will not include IECC 2024 as well. The next major announcement we expect for Rescheck Desktop is that the software will be made completely obsolete. This means that it will no longer be updated and eventually not accepted for building permits. When a software is “sunset” it is basically abandoned on an announced date.  Then it is no longer supported.  This is what clues we have been given by Rescheck Desktop not being provided with updates to IECC 2018 or IECC 2021 over the past 5 years. I have also noticed some language on the Department of Energy website that gives clues to this as well. The latest version of Rescheck Desktop is 4.7.2, and it is still a very great and powerful home energy auditing software. Will 4.7.2 be the final update to Rescheck Desktop? We suspect there may be at least a few more updates.  I would expect to see a Rescheck Desktop version 4.7.3 and maybe even a Rescheck Desktop version 4.7.4 over the coming years, before the final plug is pulled on Rescheck Desktop.

Overall, many things affect Rescheck reporting from macro items like interest rates, labor markets, and inflation. Also other micro items like the software we rely on each day to create Reschecks are very important to the construction market as a whole. At the Reschexpert blog we do our best to give you well rounded information to keep you up to date on the construction market as whole as you try to make decisions about your projects, people, and ultimately your energy efficiency. If you need a Rescheck created for you, we charge only $79 and the lead time is 4-6 hours. Simply email up PDF plans, jobsite address, and square footage and we will get you taken care of. The email address is service@rescheck.info