Many homebuyers assume that if a new home passes the city’s required building inspections, it must also qualify as a verified high-performance home. That is not correct. While municipal building inspections verify many aspects of code compliance during construction, they are different from the independent inspections, testing, and verification used to certify a home as a verified high-performance home.

Every new home built in Texas is required to comply with the State’s adopted building and energy codes. While local jurisdictions administer building permits and municipal inspections, responsibility for complying with the applicable State energy code ultimately rests with the builder.

Texas’ building codes establish the minimum construction requirements every new home must meet. There are some builders who may voluntarily go beyond those minimum requirements by improving insulation, reducing air leakage, sealing ductwork more effectively, selecting higher-efficiency heating and cooling equipment, installing better-performing windows, or incorporating other building practices that can improve a home’s comfort, indoor air quality, durability, and energy efficiency. Thus, with even just one of these improvements, they may describe a home as energy efficient or high performance.

However, a verified high-performance home is different. It has been independently inspected, tested, and evaluated, not by the builder or city inspector, but by a licensed third-party HomeEnergy Rater under the requirements of a recognized high-performance home certification program to make absolutely sure all the above improvements, not just one or two, have been completed.

Depending on the certification program, the verification process may include inspections during construction, diagnostic testing after the home is completed, and documentation confirming that the home meets the program’s established performance requirements. This may include a Thermal Bypass Inspection, Final Inspection, Blower Door Test, Duct Leakage Test, and an independent energy-performance rating such as a HERS® Score or an Energy Rating Index(ERI).

Programs such as BUILT TO SAVE® recognize homes that have successfully completed independent inspections, testing, and verification to demonstrate compliance with their certification requirements. For homebuyers, this provides something municipal building inspections are not intended to provide: independent documentation that the home’s performance has been evaluated by a licensed third-party professional using established standards.

Not every code-compliant home performs the same, and not every verified high-performancehome is identical. Builders use different construction methods, materials, equipment, and certification programs. What independent verification provides is confidence that a home’sperformance has been evaluated and documented using recognized standards.