Posted on Fri, May 13, 2011 @ 08:07 AM
Press Release http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/5/prweb8402055.htm
Framingham, MA (PRWEB) May 11, 2011
Hancock Software, leading provider of weatherization management solutions, today announced that its Weatherization Program Management solution has been selected as the core technology for the Weatherization Assistance Programs (WAP) by the states of Delaware and Virginia. Hancock’s software enables real-time WAP monitoring and provides instantaneous access to house, retrofit measure, job, production, and energy savings information. It is a powerful tool that standardizes Department of Energy and ARRA reporting.
For both states, the Hancock Software investment is part of the national DOE weatherization campaign to serve low-income clients and reduce their homes’ energy consumption. Using typical energy auditing techniques and priority audits, a home energy analysis can reduce the typical energy bill of a low-income family by up to thirty-five percent*.
"We chose Hancock because it is the only weatherization program management solution that with a single system streamlines the weatherization process. We know that Hancock will help us manage our program effectively and transparently as well as assist us in tracking, monitoring and reporting on weatherization program accomplishments statewide," said Willie Fobbs, Associate Director of Housing in Virginia. "Hancock gives us visibility into our progress and that of the subgrantee agencies. We can ensure our state is efficient and serves the right clients to reduce energy costs for low-income families."
"We are excited to have Delaware and Virginia in our family, which is now nine states strong," said Lily Li, president and founder of Hancock Software. “Hancock is not just a software provider, we are an enabler of weatherization management best practices , and are working to make all programs more efficient within our community."
In addition to welcoming their new clients, Hancock recently released the HEAT home audit data collection and energy analysis tool for the iPad and iPhone, an online and offline tool for agencies that is fully integrated with their WAP Online weatherization assistance program centralized management system. With HEAT, energy auditors are able to eliminate data entry, and reduce errors transcribing paper audits, and report saving up to 40% of the time it takes to complete a typical audit.
About Hancock: Hancock Software (http://www.HancockSoftware.com) is the leading provider of Weatherization Program Management and Energy Auditing software. Nine states and more than 150,000 clients have been served with the assistance of Hancock Solutions. Hancock customers benefit from streamlined WAP productivity, complete transparency into their program from client intake and approval, energy assessment, measure recommendation, implementation, inspection, inventory management, and State and DOE reporting. Hancock is a privately-held company with headquarters in Framingham, Mass, USA
- Sources: ORNL/TM-2010/66, EIA February 2010 Short Term Energy Outlook
Press Release
http://www.hancocksoftware.com/company/de-va-press-release/
Posted on Tue, Apr 19, 2011 @ 09:33 AM
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Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/565383497
In this 30 minute webinar, learn how Colin Choney, BPI Building Analyst and BPI Envelope Professional, of EcoHouse:
- Approaches each energy audit using DOE recommended methodologies,
- Performs a streamlined, consistent, effective audit in less time than traditional paper-based audits
- Provides measure recommendations during the audit process,
- Performs energy savings calculations on site, and
- Dramatically reduces his time in an office.
All with one simple tool: HEAT by Hancock Software.
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Title:
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Weatherization Best Practice: Perform Energy Audits on the iPad
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Date:
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Tuesday, April 19, 2011
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Time:
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3:00 PM - 3:45 PM EDT
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After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
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Posted on Wed, Apr 06, 2011 @ 08:46 AM
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Founder's Corner
 At Hancock, we do not just build software. With our customers, we are building a country-wide WAP Community where we work together to make Weatherization programs run better across all states. Together we are making a difference; streamlining the programs, using funds efficiently and effectively.
We are excited to announce the eighth and ninth states to use the Hancock Solution to run their Weatherization Assistance Program, and join the WAP Online User Community: Virginia and Delaware.
With both VA and DE, Hancock Software provided them the full program management capabilities they need, and transparency far above and beyond any other solution in the market. We are thrilled to have them as our partners.
We are looking forward to many more states joining our community. If you need help in your state, attend one of our Best Practices or email us.
-Lily Li, Founder and CEO
WAP Online 5.0 Release!
We are continuing to bring the best in technology to our customers with our latest WAP Online release. Release 5.0 dramatically enhances the ease of running a state-wide WAP program through any browser, simplifies WAP workflow through DOE, States, Agencies, Subcontractors, and Vendors.
In 5.0, customers get many new features, including a photo gallery where all images from a job can be viewed in one place. Your Technical Account Manager will contact you in the coming weeks to arrange your upgrade!
Have ideas or requests for improving the product? Send me an email at nicole@hancocksoftware.com
-Nicole Reineke, VP Product Management
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April 2011
WAP Best Practices
Attend a webinar, where our community works together to improve WAP Program success.
 Learn how Agencies can improve the consistency and number of energy audits performed every week. Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3PM EDT
Maryland Best Practices
 Watch the video of the State of Maryland DHCD management team explaining the techniques they use to lead the state to meet their production goals. Thank You!
Hancock Software is the proud provider of solutions to Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania & Virginia
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Copyright © 2011 Hancock Software. All rights reserved.
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Posted on Mon, Apr 04, 2011 @ 07:27 AM
If you are an independent contractor looking to grow your business, you may want to support the national Weatherization movement. Here are three ways to increase the money in your pocket, and do some good:
1) Performing weatherization audits is good business.
There are more than 38.6 million households are eligible for Weatherization services*. These are homes that need to be assessed and then retrofitted to improve their energy efficiency.
Did you know that the average energy audit can save the typical low-income home 35% in energy costs per year?* That’s a big incentive for families to get an audit completed!
Using a specialized Energy Auditing tool, like HEAT can make an energy assessment a straight-forward, repeatable service for you to perform on all types of homes. The HEAT tool walks auditors through all of the stages of the expert energy audit, and enables them identify the best measures for weatherizing the home. Auditors can also select the appropriate weatherization measures to implement for the homeowner during the audit from an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, or through a browser connected to our hosted service!
Auditors can immediately show the consumers what measures will save them the most money, how much it will cost to implement, and what their payback will be.
2) Implementing the recommended weatherization measures is an even better business.
Once an audit has identified the measures (aka lights retrofitting, insulation, shell repairs, etc) that will best weatherize a home, you can provide a quote to the homeowner to implement those measures. That’s right. Someone has to implement the changes to the home, and it could be you!
Performing energy audits, and then performing the weatherization measures can be a great way to grow your contracting business.
Hancock has a tool to walk you through the entire weatherization process, including implementing and inspecting the implemented weatherization measures. By using WAP Online with HEAT, you can preselect and order the materials needed for each weatherization job, and manage the job from installation through inspection. The solution is seamless, and used by 9 states and 200 agencies, refined to perfect the weatherization management process.
3) Weatherizing homes will reduce the amount you pay in taxes to heat homes.
Performing weatherization services for low-income homes will not only will you grow your business through an increase in clients and services, you will reduce your tax-payer burden on heating low-income homes.
For every $1 invested in the program, Weatherization returns $2.51 to the household and society.*
- $1.80 is returned in reduced energy bills*
- $ 0.71 is returned to ratepayers, households, and communities.*
If those three reasons are not enough to entice you, then think about this:
You will breathe easier. When done correctly, simple weatherization retrofits on a single home reduces residential and power plant emissions of carbon dioxide by 2.65 metric ton/year –PER HOME. Over the life of the measures, saves 53 metric tons of CO2 emissions per house.*
Weatherization is good business, and Hancock is here to help. Take the HEAT software for a test drive, and expand your business today.
* Sources: ORNL/TM-2010/66, EIA February 2010 Short Term Energy Outlook
Posted on Mon, Mar 28, 2011 @ 08:28 AM
Today kicks off the 2011 ACI National Home Performance conference in San Francisco. From March 28 - April 1, industry experts and participants will gather to talk and teach energy efficiency, weatherization best practices, exchange techniques, and discover what's new in the industry.
One new must-have tool is our Energy Audit App HEAT for the iPad, iPhone or iTouch. This is one of the first energy audit modeling apps of it's kind to hit the app store.
In the spirit of ACI 2011 we are giving away 5 free 90-day trials of HEAT.
To enter, tweet: "I want the @HancockEnergy Professional iPad Energy Auditing Software #aci11"
Posted on Sun, Mar 27, 2011 @ 07:00 AM
In a month of amazing milestones, including welcoming our new customers Virginia and Delaware, Hancock is pleased to anno
unce that HEAT Hancock Energy Auditing Tool is available for download from the Apple AppStore! (We have been in use in the field for quite a while, but this milestone enables more professsional auditors access to our top-of-the line tool.)
HEAT is the residential energy audit App used by independent Energy Auditors, Energy Service Companies, States, and Agencies to quickly and accurately model home energy usage and project potential savings from weatherization improvements while at the client site. Specializing in Low-Income Program audits, HEAT accurately calculates single family homes, multi-family buildings, and mobile homes.
HEAT can be used independently on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, or integrated with Hancock Energy Software’s WAP Online System - the #1 online Weatherization Program Management tool in use by more than 200 agencies. When used together as a hosted service, HEAT and WAP Online enable you to manage jobs from site assessment, through work order creation, measure installation, inspection, and invoicing. Making it the most comprehensive, yet most affordable Energy Auditing and Weatherization Program Management solution.
Congratulations to the Hancock Team! And welcome to our many new Users!
Posted on Wed, Mar 09, 2011 @ 07:44 PM
During a meeting today, a Weatherization Project Leader asked us: “How can I tell if my energy auditors are performing their audits correctly?”
It’s a great question. Energy auditors are a critical part of your program - they identify the existing state of a dwelling through a detailed analysis, identify the measures that should be taken to reduce the energy consumption of a home, and record their findings for use by agencies and subcontractors. Auditors are a pivotal part of the process.
With so much riding on the auditors’ work being consistent and accurate, it is important to help the auditing team achieve high caliber results.
But, how can you ensure audits are consistently implemented?
1) Give Auditors a tool which enables thorough, consistent examination of homes.
The first key to success is to provide auditors with a tool that enables consistent, easy entry of all critical home analysis components for all home types they will be analyzing.
Make sure you provide them with a tool that walks through all critical home components including: Lighting, Windows and Doors, Walls, Attic, Basement, DHW, Air Infiltration, Combustion, Zonal distribution, and Heating and Cooling.
The tool must be easy-to-use, and flexible enough to ensure that homes in different climates with different variations on condition, make, and type are able to be input without a hassle.
One tool that enables a complete, field-tested and state approved data collection system is HEAT for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Check out this video to see how easy it is to use, your auditors will love it.
2) Have Auditors Take & Upload pictures during the Audit.
The DOE found that consistency is better achieved when images of the findings are recorded at each stage of the weatherization program – from audit and implementation to inspection. Provide your auditors with a solution, like HEAT , where digital images can be taken of all of the areas of an audit, and stored with the electronic audit results – during every stage of the program.
This enables the images of areas to be compared before and after measures have been implemented. Storing the images with the digital audit results ensures that the audit can be revisited at any time, and analyzed accurately.
3) Make Auditors Enter data only once: on site
Handwriting has long been the bane of prescription translators, and weatherization prescriptions are no exception. A major way inconsistency and failure are introduced into the weatherization process is through data entry errors.
If your process requires someone to type audit results or measures into the work order system, or if you are handing paper, you significantly increase error and interpretation failures.
Ensure you have a system that brings you through the entire process without ever requiring repeat data entry – from client intake to reporting output. One system is WAP Online (which includes the HEAT energy Auditor solution), proven to be the soup-to-nuts solutions for audits and weatherization by eight states and more than 200 agencies.
4) Bring the data back to a centralized system that You can review. Live.
It is not enough to record the information digitally. You have to bring it all back to a centralized system which enables your auditors, inspectors, and monitors access the data through an internet connection for consistent handling of the job.
Once in a centralized location, you can perform spot checking on the data entry, compare it to the pictures, and run the entire process transparently.
See how the State of Maryland completed this across all of their agencies using the Hancock System and in the process increased their energy audit efficiency and quality throughout the state. With the centralized system, they are also able to determine which auditors and sub-contractors were performing at par vs ones who failed measures and spot-checks consistently.
5) Spot check from your chair
With all of your audit data centralized and access to the pictures of the area instantly, your internal team can perform checks on the audit quality without ever having to bother a home owner.
Take a few minutes to look at the audit data. Are there SIRs that are clearly out of line with other audits on similarly aged and modeled homes? Measures recommended that are inconsistent with photos? A lack of photographic evidence in general?
Performing these cursory checks can help you identify employees who need additional training, and eliminate failures before they ever reach a subcontractor.
The auditors I have met have been highly skilled technicians with a passion for energy consumption reduction. Giving auditors the integrated Energy Audit tool they need to perform their job eliminates the need to spend their time in the office performing data entry. It enables the auditors to concentrate on their passion – achieving a higher level of audits and consistency throughout the program - and gives you complete transparency into audits.
A full weatherization management solution added to a centralized auditing system will enable you to gain complete transparency and consistency on your full weatherization process.
A win-win.
See a demo of Hancock’s affordable Weatherization solutions today. http://www.hancocksoftware.com/demo/
Posted on Sat, Mar 05, 2011 @ 03:01 PM
If you haven’t had a chance to read about the Recovery Through Retrofit strategy to move home efficiency ratings and guidelines forward, you should take a look.
Here at Hancock Software, we have been aligning ourselves with the DOE and future of energy auditing and measure installations for the last seven years. We are thrilled that this is being taken so seriously by our top officials.
Our latest HEAT release, coming out this month, enables the auditors to take the measurements needed for future home rating, and we will continue to move the platform forward to ensure complete compliance with the Home Rating standards being proposed by the DOE.
For those running the retrofit workforce, our WAP Online measures are just what you need for transparency into your organization’s compliance with the guidelines and protocols being set by the DOE.
Get ahead of the curve, and request a Hancock Software demo, or attend a webinar to see how we can transform your program.
Posted on Wed, Dec 01, 2010 @ 03:29 PM
ANCHORAGE, AL December 1 2010 - The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation has selected Hancock Software, Inc., an energy solutions software company, for the state of Alaska's weatherization software solution. The state will be implementing Hancock's WAP Online software to manage its weatherization programs. The Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) enables low-income families to permanently reduce their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient.
Hancock's WAP Online is a single system that streamlines the weatherization process. It enables real-time production monitoring and provides instantaneous access to house, retrofit measure, job, production, and energy savings information. It is a powerful tool that standardizes Department of Energy and ARRA reporting.
The Weatherization Assistance Program has grown dramatically and brings along the need for high production and transparency. The software developed by Hancock will equip Alaska with a critical tool to successfully oversee their state's expansive weatherization program.
Posted on Mon, Sep 27, 2010 @ 11:45 AM
New Jersey has been the driving force behind enhancing our multi-family module.
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Model large multifamily buildings
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Perform energy audits on the common area
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Determine eligibility of building without knowing all of occupants income and demographics.
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Link and add clients to mutlifamily projects.
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Easy Invoicing of units and common area.