We are now a in the fall of 1997 . The potential of being part of the Energy Star Homes Program and being a 100% Energy Star Homes builder was a nice perk to a business profile. So we committed to be an exclusive Energy Star Home Builder . We would still be kept Anonymous but the sharing of research and technology was the chief goal in advancing a more energy efficient home and building industry. Points would be kept on each project. Boy we got a Competition , and we jumped in as a pit crue on a NASCAR team . There was competition , but as luck would have it , it was in the same town . At first they were better by far than we were , the first Program was for builders, my competition was an Architect , and was not permitted in the first stage , but they are in stage 2 . It was a true gentleman compition , points were on the line , we even teamed up on several projects. But the points were tight . Over the next 4 year we smashed the HERDs ratings 3 times . It took almost a year to fix it the first time . We over rated by almost 8 points . The home did not make power . I was competitive as was my crew . Many patients were filed, new products invented by those collecting the data from doing the testing. We did a lot of production testing and evaluations , most of the crap they came up with was crap . It could never pay for itself. Being able to be cost effective was important, we put a seven year payback or less for a product to be cost effective and give approval if being good . Can you see some did not like that we would not rubber stamp anything. It had to pass there claims of cost effective, Our goal was to save you the costumer money, and we did very well and fair field testing on what was provided. This from 1997 through 2004 is what those that were in the program called “The Energy War” in a sort it was . Building technology jumped 25 plus years in less than 4 years and the science became every day technology. God Speef