1. Save time
2. Newer interface/technology
3. Easier to navigate
4. Superior customer service
5. No "ownership" or transfers required
The old adage "time is money". Not only is ECS' time important, our client's time is important as well. ECS can create a project on the CHEERS registry 5X faster than on the other registry. Our clients' can sign off on CF1Rs faster on CHEERS as well.
I'm not an expert in websites, far from it to be exact, but the look and feel of the CHEERS website is modern. The website is responsive. An example of this is that project names are saved as soon as you finish typing.
CHEERS is easy to navigate. The website doesn't take you on a twisted maze of pages. CHEERS' main project page has everything you need to see on one page. Again, everything on one page. The other registry will require you to go to nearly 10 webpages to see the CF1R, CF2R and CF3Rs. Not only is the other website confusing to navigate, the pages take a long time to load.
No matter if you are a large company or small company, CHEERS will respond quickly to your emails and more times than not, will answer your calls when needed. Nothing is more frustrating than when you need help and you can't get a hold of anyone and they you have to create login for a 'customer support' website for what most often is a simple question.
Project ownership. Enough said. while the other guys require the 'project owner' to add consultants, installers, raters to projects, CHEERS allows anyone that has access to the project to add anyone else. Not only can anyone add other company to a job, they can see what other companies have access to it as well. With the other registry, only the project owner can see this information.
Occasionally we receive calls from HERS raters that ask if we can upload a project to the other registry. Not only is it rude that request we waste 15-30 minutes of our time because they have a special discount with the other registry it violates the procedure as the California Energy Commission intended. When created, CF1Rs get a registration number. The registration number is then recorded at the building department. The CF-2R and subsequent CF-3R will have registration numbers that incorporate the CF-1R in them. If a new CF1R is created in a different registry, the CF1R needs to be resubmitted to the building department for review even if nothing has changed. If the building department were to verify the CF2R & CF3R registration numbers against the CF1R registration number, the numbers would not match. In this instance, the CEC was spot on when designing the procedure. By verifying the registration number against previous documents in the change of documents, you can know with confidence that the final documents apply to the CF1R that was approved when the project was permitted.
Rant complete.