Category Archives: Coures

01Nov/24

BPI Training & Testing at NORA

Carbon Reduction, Coures, Education, Equipment, NORA, technology

NORA is pleased to announce that its Technical Training Center in Plainview, NY has been authorized to conduct Building Performance Institute’s BPI testing for Building Science Principles, Building Analyst Technician and Building Analyst Professional certifications.

BPI is a nationally recognized standards and certification entity for home performance contractors. BPI focuses on a “house as a system approach,” as it emphasizes the interdependence of buildings and their systems and how they relate to energy consumption. As a result, providing pathways for energy conservation measures.

Individuals that have been trained, tested, and certified to BPI’s nationally recognized standards use the house-as-a-system approach to improve the performance of existing homes – an approach proven to reduce homeowner annual utility bills by as much as 20% or more.

According to NORA’s Director of Education, Bob O’Brien, “BPI certifications are widely valued in the building energy space. Qualified examiners are in great demand by homeowners and state and utility efficiency incentive programs as we embrace a holistic whole-building approach to efficiency, reductions in fuel use and carbon reduction.”

To help prepare candidates for the BPI testing, NORA is also offering comprehensive training classes based upon BPI criteria at the Plainview location. 

NORA’s BPI approved testing center is one of only three on Long Island, NY, which covers four counties and a population of more than 8 million. 

NORA BPI training and resting will be offered in several cycles during the year. 

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10May/23

NORA at Eastern Energy Expo

Biofuels, Carbon Reduction, Coures, Education, Equipment, NORA, Projects, Research, technology

NORA will have a strong educational and technical presence at the upcoming Eastern Energy Expo in Atlantic City, NJ.

Three important NORA Business Track sessions begin with In the Loop–New Business & Education Opportunities on Tuesday, May 23 at 8:15am in Room 419 at the Atlantic City Convention Center. This session features NORA’s President, Michael Devine and Director of Education, Bob O’Brien along with the introduction of NORA’s most recent team addition, Dr. Jenny Frank.

Immediately following will be Technical Innovations to Make the Transition to Low-Carbon Fuels Seamless and Effective presented by NORA’s Technical Director, Dr. Thomas Butcher.

On Wednesday, May 24 at 8am (breakfast provided by NORA and Clean Fuels America) in Room 412, NORA is hosting the Featured Session, The Industry’s Response to Carbon Reduction where you will hear a panel offering the most current information on the research, field work, personal experiences and future technologies to show how becoming a low carbon fuel marketer is well within the grasp of a liquid fuel heating retailer. The panel features Michael Devine and Dr. Thomas Butcher, NORA; Kevin Beckett, R.W. Beckett Corp.; Rich Lyons, Carlin Combustion Technologies; Jackie Hart, Hart Home Comfort; Jason Lawrence, Chevron/REG and moderator Don Farrell, Indoor Comfort Marketing.

As one of the 220 exhibitors at the Eastern Energy Expo Trade Show, NORA will be showing live-fire demonstrations of biodiesel and renewable diesel in its outdoor exhibit OD2.

NORA’s recently released podcast series, In the Loop with NORA will be on-hand at the expo to talk with a variety of industry experts about how the liquid fuels heating industry is removing carbon emissions from home heating.

The Eastern Energy Expo is the largest energy and indoor comfort event in the Northeast. You can find more about the NORA sessions, the entire Eastern Energy Expo program, the trade show and registration at the Eastern Energy Expo website.

Technicians Manual Now in Audio & Digital formats

Biofuels, Carbon Reduction, Coures, Education, Equipment

In keeping with the National Oilheat Research Alliance’s (NORA) ongoing commitment to technician education and to enable access to educational materials, it has just released its Technicians Manual for Liquid Heating Fuels in audio format.

Each chapter of the manual is available in a standard .mp3 audio file that can be played on all mobile devices, as well as desktop computers. The audio follows the text of the manual allowing for multi-sensory learning. Additionally, each chapter is available to download in a .pdf format.

According to NORA’s president Michael Devine, “Making high quality learning resources available to liquid fuel heating technicians is one of NORA’s highest priorities. Whether used as a stand-alone resource or in conjunction with NORA’s technician certification program, the manual and its audio component can bring this material to an even wider range of students and technicians.”

The audio version of the manual, along with the pdfs and a link to purchase a hard copy can be found at NORA’s online education and resource center, Learning.NORAweb.org/manual.

28Jul/20

Three New Online Courses

Biofuels, Coures, Education, Equipment, NORA, Online Courses

The National Oilheat Research Alliance (NORA) has added three new online courses to its training center at Learning.NORAweb.org. Two of them, Advanced Heating Fuel Storage Tanks and Advanced Efficiency, are components of NORA’s technician Gold Certification program and offer six continuing education credits (CEU) each. The third, Bioheat® Technical Guidance offers one credit.

Advanced Heating Fuel Storage Tanks and Advanced Efficiency join Advanced Hydronincs as online courses providing three of the requisite four advanced Gold Series courses necessary to upgrade to NORA Gold Certified Technician status.

According to NORA’s President, John Huber, “It is important for technicians to have the ability to upgrade their certifications online. With the addition of these Gold courses, we are very near that goal.” NORA anticipates adding two more Gold courses in the coming months.

“Video courses are an efficient and popular way to put important training material in front of as many technicians and students in the field as possible. They are free to the user and now that travel is restricted and many industry conferences have been cancelled, online courses are a great solution to maintaining certifications and gaining knowledge,” said NORA’s Director of Education, John Levey.

These three courses join the library of courses already on the site. These cover topics from equipment service to oil delivery to tank installation.
To access the courses, a technician or student must have an active user account at Learning.NORAweb.org.