Southface Continues to Prepare Green Workforce with Building Analyst Technician Training
Bruce crouches next to a blower door fan, watching the manometer needle climb as he depressurizes the space to 50 pascals. It’s midweek in Southface’s training cabin, and he’s practicing tracking down the kind of air leakage that quietly runs up a homeowner’s energy bill month after month.
Bruce is one of several building science professionals who spent a week at Southface’s Atlanta facility this past July training for the Building Performance Institute’s Building Analyst Technician (BA-T) certification, a credential that’s become close to a baseline requirement for anyone getting into home performance work.
Most of the week happens in Southface’s Training Cabin, a space built for exactly this kind of practice. Students run through tests like blower door, combustion safety, and duct leakage tests until they are comfortable doing testing on their own out in the field.
“I really enjoyed the training and guidance from Mike and Amelia as I prepared to take BPI’s BAT exam,” Bruce at berelievedhvac said. “It was extremely helpful to practice my new building science knowledge in the training cabin.”
Getting BA-T certified takes two steps. Students first pass BPI’s Building Science Principles (BSP) online exam, then challenge the proctored BA-T field exam. Southface’s course, held Monday through Friday at our Atlanta facility, prepares students for both and includes 8 BPI Continuing Education Units for professionals keeping up existing credentials.
For technicians like Bruce, that certification means more job opportunities, more credibility with employers and clients, and a stronger grasp of how to diagnose problems in a home that most people would miss.
As demand increases for energy-efficient, comfortable, and safe housing, the industry needs more technicians who know how to find what’s actually wrong in a home and fix it. Southface’s BA-T training is part of building that workforce, one week at a time.
Interested in the next BA-T training cohort? Reach out to courses@southface.org.