The IAQ Specialist Certification is a big part of my life now, thanks to Air Advice. It has been a very special gift for myself and for many of the people I have had the opportunity to meet with on a daily basis.

I decided to do this training for the simple fact that it makes sense – everyone breathes air. Why not have good clean air in your home where we spend so much time? I also looked at this as a chance to give back to people. Many don’t know how different life can be just by changing one thing in their homes to give them that little bit cleaner air to breathe. It really hit home after having my first child last year. It occurred to me that I want his environment to be the best it can be. I now think about the problems a child could have and it makes me feel better knowing the air he is going to breathe is beneficial. I want the same thing for everyone. 

My training also gives me a career that I can be proud of.  This opportunity has changed a clients’ lives already just by me coming into their homes and making recommendations. Now, since my training, anywhere I go I look around and talk to others about indoor air quality, especially with family members who always have questions or problems.

It was a great honor to be the first person to receive the certification, and it makes me proud to tell my clients that.

I am the Training Director for National Property Inspections, Inc., a franchisor of home and commercial property inspection services.  Prior to my current position, I was actually a franchisee of National Property Inspections, which I owned for 6 years, and conducted over 2,400 residential and commercial building inspections.  I think we would perhaps consider ourselves a non-traditional client of AirAdvice.  We found AirAdvice through a mutual trusted partner that we work with in radon measurement. 

The real estate and home inspection industries have enjoyed nearly a decade of unprecedented success.  Until recently, many home inspectors were not able to keep up with the demand for their services.  At the same time, a  number of inspectors were likely not very diversified in their ancillary service offerings.  As a franchisor, we began encouraging our franchisees to explore diversification, particularly ancillary services that weren’t dependent upon a home inspection.  As the Training Director, I settled on a number of  additional service offerings that we could promote, one of which was Indoor Air Quality.  This piqued my interest even further as COVID-19 became a global concern.  In order for me to properly advise our franchisees, it was decided that I should attempt to replicate the process that our franchisees would need to undertake in order to begin offering the service.  Meeting J. West and Jeff Mounts inspired me to fully immerse in Building Science studies, and going through the AirAdvice training for certification as an IAQ Specialist was very beneficial in my own personal growth as an IAQ specialist.  My theory is that I have to fully understand something before I can sell it.  And we are now at that point where I can better consult our franchisees.  We’ve been able to put together a Healthy Homes bundled package (Weatherization, IAQ, Radon, Mold), and one of the benefits of the Healthy Homes package is that it can also be un-bundled depending on the clients needs.  I’ve been running longer term tests on the IAQ and Radon (5-6 days), and feel that this approach has been best received, as a more reliable report can be delivered.  Speaking of reports, the AirAdvice report is quite easy to read and deliver to the clients.  It offers logical causes, and recommendations for corrective action.  Clients have been impressed that the solutions don’t have to cost a lot of money.  Having gone through the AirAdvice training has helped in providing me the skills that I can now bring Building Science to the client and help them understand the principles behind it.

My daughter and my husband both suffer from asthma, which has always concerned me. I feel like I received good information to be able to look after their health a little better. I feel more equipped to help others with their indoor air quality issues and concerns.

I had a very sick relative who was having health problems and didn’t even realize that it was directly related to the air quality in her home. I was able to discover that and find a remedy for her, because of the training that I received in the knowledge that I gained from the certification.

The information that I have now, and the knowledge that I have gained is so valuable and very important, especially to the field that I’m in. I think it’s a great thing for every single person in this industry to be a part of and gain knowledge from. I am just so grateful that you are there to supply these monitors like you do. You provide a service that is just beyond necessary and so very vital. 

I am proud to be a part of it.

I wanted to create a training roadmap, so that I could equip my HVAC technicians to provide the best possible service to our customers.  I wanted to go through the training first to understand if the certification route would be appropriate for achieving this goal.  I enjoyed the certification training and appreciated the requirement to include practical usage of the monitors as part of it.  The training helped open my eyes about the risks and pervasiveness of poor air quality, and it inspired me to educate my team and customers about the topic.

The main thing was that the certification gave me a concrete way to be sure that my technicians were fully equipped and ready to speak intelligently to customers about their air quality and offer solutions that were appropriate to their situation.