Multifamily & Light Commercial Energy Assessments

ASHRAE Level 1 & 2 Assessment Basics

Small commercial and multifamily properties are typically evaluated under the ASHRAE energy audit framework, which defines assessment depth in tiers. A Level 1 assessment is a walk-through survey — building systems are visually inspected, utility bills are reviewed, and low-cost or no-cost opportunities are identified along with a rough estimate of what larger capital upgrades might cost and save.

A Level 2 assessment is where instrumentation enters the picture. Rather than estimating envelope and system performance from a walk-through, we run diagnostic testing across a representative sample of the building and pair those measurements with detailed financial modeling — payback period, projected savings, and a specific capital upgrade scope an ownership group can act on with confidence rather than a general recommendation list.

HERS Multifamily & ENERGY STAR MFNC Scoring

Multifamily buildings have shared walls, shared mechanical systems, and common-area loads that a single-family HERS protocol was never built to account for. HERS Multifamily and ENERGY STAR Multifamily New Construction (MFNC) scoring extend the same underlying rating methodology to handle those conditions correctly, whether that means crediting the thermal benefit of a shared wall or accounting for a central boiler serving dozens of units at once.

These scores serve two different purposes depending on the project. On new construction, MFNC certification is often a required compliance path tied directly to permitting or financing conditions. On existing properties, a HERS Multifamily score functions as a benchmark — a way for ownership to see how a property performs against comparable buildings and track improvement over time as capital upgrades are completed.

Getting a HERS Multifamily or MFNC score right requires the same diagnostic inputs as a Level 2 assessment — measured envelope leakage, ventilation rates, and mechanical system performance rather than assumed values pulled from a spec sheet. We coordinate the two processes together so a single round of on-site testing can support both the capital planning report and the formal scoring submission, rather than paying for two separate site visits that measure the same systems twice.

One ROI-Ranked Capital Improvement Report

Rather than handing back a stack of per-unit test sheets for someone else to interpret, we bundle every unit's diagnostic data into a single building-level report, prioritized by return on investment rather than by which system happens to be the oldest. That gives an ownership group or capital planning committee one document to work from when deciding which envelope or mechanical upgrades to fund first.

Each recommendation in the report is tied back to the specific measurement that generated it — an envelope leakage reading, a duct loss percentage, a boiler efficiency figure — so decision makers can see exactly why an upgrade is ranked where it is, not just that it made the list.

That format matters most at budget season. A capital plan built on ROI-ranked, measured data holds up under scrutiny from a board, a lender, or a co-op finance committee in a way a generic reserve-study line item doesn't — every dollar in the plan traces back to a diagnostic reading anyone can review.

Multifamily & Commercial FAQs

Related Diagnostics

Multifamily and commercial assessments draw on the same core diagnostic testing.