notes-daily/20251122005450-Based_HPA_Report_Video_Script.md

Based HPA Report Video Script

In this video I'm going to walk through my based home performance assessment report generation workflow.

Introduction

In today's world of big-tech companies scraping the internet to train their AI models, I've developed a workflow that runs entirely on services that are self hosted on my own internal servers. It is a keyboard centric and terminal / text based workflow using tools like neovim as a text editor and markdown as the document format.

Markdown is a light weight text based file that is able to easily be converted to other formats, such as pdf's or html. It allows me to separate the actual text / writing from the formatting of the document and allows me to store the files in a git repository.

So let's jump in...

Generate a new project

To generate a new project, I run the following command:

cd $(hpa-create Testy.McTestface)

This creates a new home performance assessment project from my template and moves into the generated directory. It also generates a git repository that I use to store the template files in.

tns

Review the generated directory structure

This is how I like to structure the project / organize my files.

1. The Airflow directory is where I store TrueFlow reports for the project.
2. The img directory is where images are stored.
   1. These get inserted into the final report.
3. There are several photos that get copied from the template, company logo, goals, and signature.
4. The ManJ folder is where I store Manual-J files.
5. The justfile holds common scripts / commands that I use during the process while working on the template.
6. The Questions.md file gets filled out during my site visit.
   1. It is where I gather information from the homeowner about the project, their goals, and how their current comfort is in the home, my notes from while on site, etc.
7. The Report.md is the primary file that I edit after the site visit and gets converted into the final pdf document that is sent to the customer.
8. The README.md is used as a checklist of items that need completed.
9. The vars.yml file stores project specific variables that are used in the final report.
10. The vault.yml file is an encrypted file that is used to store sensitive customer information, name, address, etc.

Edit the variables

The variables are used for project specific values that get inserted into the final report. Here I need to update the square footage of the home, the CFM50 for the house, and the LAIR.

Edit the vault.yml

Next, I have to setup the sensitive customer information in the vault.yml file, by running.

just edit-vault

This temporarily decrypts the file for me to edit it, then once saved it get's automatically encrypted again.

Explore the Report template

This is the template that is generated, the top section here is just for generating the header page

Table of Contents

That is followed by a table of contents, these turn into section links in the final pdf, just makes it seem more professional and makes it easier to navigate within the file.

Introduction

The introduction section is just some boiler plate text that doesn't need to change.

Goals

Next is the goals section where I will list out the goals and their rankings that were discovered while on site and are in the Questions.md file.

Air Leakage

After the goals, I have some boiler plate language about air leakage and why it matters, this section uses some of the project specific variables that will get inserted into the final report. I also link to image of the CFM50 here.

Zonal Pressures

I also generate a table of the zonal pressures that were taken while on site and which zonal pressures are the highest. With a disclaimer that we use a simplified calculation for connection to outside, which is to hopefully help the customer realize the relationship with air leakage and comfort.

Observations

The observations section is where I list out observations I had while on my site visit. I break these out into HVAC observations and House observations. These are derived from the questions that were asked as well as the plethora of photos that I take while on site.

Load Calculations

In the load calculations sections I generate a table of the different loads that I performed after the site visit. Once I model the house in the load calculation software, I always like to see what happens to the loads at several different air leakage rates. Often one that I call improved which is a target that I think is easy to achieve without a huge upfront budget, then one that I think is going to be harder to achieve without a larger upfront budget.

This allows the homeowner and myself to have an idea of if the equipment sizing may be different if the were to choose to do shell upgrades to the house, which I will also briefly explain in this section.

I also think this table is little bit easier to digest than the full Manual-J reports. I think that most homeowners may not have a great understanding or may get confused looking through the full reports (although they get access to the full reports if they do want to dive into them).

Airflow / TrueFlow

In the airflow assessment section, I start off with some boiler plate talking about static pressure and why it's important. Along with some general ranges of what is considered low, acceptable, and high.

I then link to screenshot of the TrueFlow report that was taken while on site and summarize it's results.

I will also have at least one TrueFlow Forecast report that also get's a screenshot inserted and summary. Depending on the project, I may add more than one forecast report here.

Summary

The summary section is where I need to put most of my effort in. This is where I'm able to tie all the sections together, give my opinions about what may be the best paths to proceed down, as well as give rough estimates that could be expected for those paths.

This allows me to not spend my time generating a bunch of quotes for items that they are not interested in exploring in the end. We can then have a follow up conversation to hone in on what if anything they would like to get firm prices for.

Explore the checklist

Since this video is about my workflow post site visit, I am going to copy some files into the project.

cp ~/tmp/Airflow/* Airflow/
cp ~/tmp/Questions.md .
cp ~/tmp/img/* img/
cp ~/tmp/ManJ/* ManJ/
cp ~/tmp/Report.md .

Now I'll work on checking things off the project checklist.

1. We've done the site visit items
2. Performed the manual-j
3. Generated TrueFlow forecast and taken screenshots

Explore Completed Report.md

I'll quickly run through some of the completed sections of the report that I copied into the project.

1. Goals that were discovered and ranked during the site visit.
2. Zonal pressures that were taken during the site visit.
3. Observations
4. Loads
5. Static summaries / forecasts
6. Summary

Generate a pdf and review

At this point I will generate a pdf, so that I can begin to review what the final report will look like that gets sent to the client.

just pdf

Cloud Storage

Once I'm happy with the report, I will copy the appropriate files to "cloud" storage, which is actually just a Network Attached Storage (NAS) that runs here at my office.

just cloud-storage

Short Links

At this point, I'm happy with the report. I've generated cloud storage. The final thing that I do to complete the report is generate short links.

NOTE: I have self hosted version of something like bit.ly that also runs here on my servers. This allows me to generate links and have a little bit of insight into how many times they were clicked / visited.

Back in the NAS interface, I have several links that I need to generate that allows temporary access for the customer to access their files on my server. For security reasons, I will only allow access for a period of time (typically 30 days). This gives the customer time to download the files and store them on their own devices.

At the bottom of the report is where I have references to the links that get used throughout the document. I'm going to paste the link that we just created to the document folder here. Next, I can generate a short link using some keybinds that I setup in neovim. This prompts me for a few inputs that are needed.

1. Tags
2. Expiration
3. Short code (not needed)

As you can see, that generated a short link and replaces it here on the line that I'm in.

Finalize the Report

Once I've completed the short links, then I need to regenerate the pdf one last time and just confirm that the links work.

Once I've confirmed that, then I run just cloud-storage for the final time to make sure that the final report is copied into the clients folder. I would then email the final report to the client and I can complete the rest of the checklist.

Commit changes to git

Once all that is done, I will commit the changes to all my template files.

git add .
git commit -m "Finalizes report"
git push

Summary

That is my workflow for generating home performance assessment reports. I know that this workflow may seem a bit complex, but once it is used for it becomes muscle memory. It removes my reliance on big-tech companies and their clunky software tools. I do not need to fumble around formatting the document by using a mouse (gross)! This allows me to focus on the tasks that I need to spend the majority of my time on efficiently and offers consistent reports for my clients.

I hope you've enjoyed this video, let me know what you think in the comments below and don't forget to like and subscribe! Thank you for watching, I appreciate your time!