Survey of Production Builders to Support an Evaluation of DOE Building America Program

Request for Approval under Form EIA-882T “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Methodological Testing and Pre-Testing” (OMB Control Number: 1905-0186)

T ITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

Survey of Production Builders to Support an Evaluation of U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America Program.

PURPOSE:

In support for the preparation of an ICR to conduct a survey of production builders to evaluate the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America program activities, the project team plans to conduct a pre-test of the full survey instrument and protocols with respondents. A key focus of the project is to assess DOE’s Building America program, and the program’s influence on the new residential construction market. The purpose of the pre-test is to:

• Confirm that respondents can complete the survey instrument within the level of effort estimated;

• Test the implementation of survey protocols, including recruitment and data collection;

• Understand the respondent’s response process and what barriers exist to understanding and successfully completing the survey instrument; and,

• Examine response rates to solicit participation in this research project to determine if adjustments are needed to our sample size in order to meet precision criteria.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Production builders in the United States – those that build on land owned by the building firm, and use stock plans to construct a large number of buildings each year.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[X ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software) [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: John Mayernik, Building Energy Analyst, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X ] No

2. If Yes, will any information that is collected be included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Y [X] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondents:

[ ] Individuals or Households

[ X ] Private Sector

[ ] State, local, or tribal governments

[ ] Federal Government

No. of Respondents: Up to 10 respondents including one production builder that participated in DOE’s Building America program and other production builders who did not participate in the Building America program.

Participation Time: We estimate 1 hour for the participation time to complete one interview.

Burden: Annual burden hours: 10 hours.

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
U.S. production builders	10	1 hour	10 hours
Totals	10		10 hours

FEDERAL COST: The costs of this pre-test to EIA, including personnel, for development, maintenance, collection, processing, analysis, and publication, are estimated to be $737.00.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [X ] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

The frame used to selected participants to interview will be production builders listed in the U.S. through Builder Online’s annual “Builder 100 List” and “Next 100 list” available on the website for Builder News.¹

For this pre-test, IEc plans to conduct up to ten interviews with randomly selected production builders to cover the different types of builders described above. Specifically, we will select two builders from each of the following five groups:

1. Builders that have participated in the Building America program.

2. Builders that have not participated in the Building America program and have publicly-available data.

3. Builders that have not participated in the Building America program and do not have publicly-available data.

4. Builders that have not participated in the Building America program and produce homes in the state of California.

5. Builders that have not participated in the Building America program and do not produce homes in the state of California.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ X ] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X ] Yes [ ] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

1 “2015 Builder 100” and “Next 100.” Builder Online. http://www.builderonline.com/builder-100/builder-100-list/2015/

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