Earlier this month at the EEBA High Performance Home Summit, the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program had the pleasure of honoring 24 of the nation’s leading builders with the 2017 Housing Innovation Awards. These awards not only recognize these builders for their incredible homes, but also their leadership. “...
[Blog] Housing Innovation Awards Wrap-Up
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[Blog] New Home Builders Tackle Zero-Energy Home Building in Connecticut
Connecticut’s 2016 Zero Energy Challenge reinforces the growing interest in the zero-energy home building movement. In addition to increased participation among experienced homebuilders, the 2016 challenge had an influx of inexperienced zero-energy home builders trying their hand at zero-energy homebuilding for the first time, with two winning.
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[Blog] Integrating Building Performance with Design
Now, more than ever, it is important for design professionals to be advocates of environmentally responsible design. Architects should aim to create places that occupants care about and care for, and maintain and enjoy for a long time. Unfortunately, architects may not have adequate training or experience to handle performance ...
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[Blog] Coping with Dust and Smoke From Fires
October will long be remembered in Northern California, where wildfires destroyed over 8,000 structures, killed scores, and forever changed Sonoma and Napa counties. Survivors face new threats and hazards seldom addressed in design-build magazines and chat rooms.
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[Blog] People Who Save Energy
According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), there are millions of workers in the country creating homes that are more energy efficient, and safer and more comfortable to live in. In fact, the Department of Energy puts that number at more than 2-million people working for ...
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[Blog] Building Science Can be Fun
We've come a long way in understanding and providing homeowners with the means to create healthy indoor air. But comfort is a separate matter from good IAQ. Ian Walker and Robert Bean, building scientists from the United States and Candid respectively, and both experts on ventilation, discuss this and much ...
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[Blog] Smarter Homebuilding: How to Best Incorporate Smart Tech Features
The old way of integrating technology into a home could be a major headache. If a client doesn’t know exactly what kind of tech they want early in the building process, they could later face the agony of tearing into drywall or missing out on certain features altogether. ...
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[Blog] Cooland WarmClothing
“Why do you need to cool and heat the whole building? Why don’t you cool and heat individual people?” asked Yi Cui, professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University.
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[Blog] Degree Days Shuffle
A 2015 study, “Impacts of global warming on residential heating and cooling degree-days in the United States,” comparing heating degree-days (HDD), cooling degree-days (CDD), and HDD + CDD across the United States during the historical period 1981–2010 and the future period 2080–2099 predicts that New York City weather will become ...
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[Blog] Rebuilding After a Hurricane, and the Next, and the Next...
This year’s hurricane season is the most expensive on record, with $202.6 billion in damages according to Bloomberg. These storms across the Atlantic had devastating impacts on people’s lives and homes, on communities, and on infrastructure in the hardest-hit areas.
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[Blog] Using God Talkor Notto Help the Planet?
I am always impressed with the work of Susan Shelton and the Shelton Group. So an email message with the subject line from her office, “Age, religion & environmental messaging: what works?” immediately caught my attention.
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[Blog] Common Problems with Cold Weather Ventilation
When I woke up Saturday morning, the temperature outdoors was -40 degrees†. The wind chill was -100 degrees! It was just unbelievably, impossibly, inhumanly cold outside. Fortunately, that was on a mountaintop in New Hampshire and not where I was. I happened to have woken up on a mountaintop ...
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[Blog] Advocacy Matters! Join us for Contractor Lobby Day 2018
Last fall, a group of Maryland contractors hit the Hill to meet with legislators and their staff. Our goal was simple – to educate lawmakers on what we do and why it matters, and explain what types of policies can help our businesses grow. One meeting we had turned out ...
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[Blog] Featuring the Fundamentals Track as Part of the 2018 National Home Performance Conference!
The National Home Performance Conference is where home performance and weatherization professionals gather to hear what’s new in the industry, learning from a diverse group of presenters, discussing cutting edge content and advanced building science techniques for experienced attendees. But at the heart of the conference is providing ...
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[Blog] HPC Files Comments to Four Illinois Utilities' Energy Efficiency Plans
On January 29, 2018, the Home Performance Coalition submitted comments on four Illinois investor owned utilities’ energy efficiency plans. Comments on the Ameren Illinois, ComEd, Nicor Gas and Peoples Gas Plans were submitted through the Illinois Energy Efficiency Stakeholder Advisory Group which reports its evaluations to the Illinois Commerce Commission.
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[Blog] Stick to the Basics in New Home Construction
Thousands of energy models for newly constructed single family homes is a treasure trove of information if you’re like me and have a zealous obsession with cutting kilowatt-hours. As the utility company, we pay monetary incentives to builders that construct homes above an energy baseline, which in 2017 was ...
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[Blog] Home Performance Coalition Calls on Congress to Support Federal Energy Efficiency Programs
February 12, 2018 - Washington DC – Today, President Trump released his budget for fiscal year (FY) 2019, which includes a significant cut in funding for residential energy efficiency programs at the Department of Energy (DOE). The Weatherization Assistance Program, Energy STAR and the State Energy Program are zeroed out completely in the ...
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[Blog] From Philly to DC: Join Us on Capitol Hill
By now you have probably heard – as part of this year’s HPC National Home Performance Conference & Trade Show in Philadelphia, we are hosting a federal lobby day in DC! We will leave the conference a day early, take a bus down to DC, and meet with key ...
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[Blog] How We Turned Our House into a Giant Foam Box, Part I by Wen Lee
Chris Stratton and Wen Lee are a husband-and-wife team living in the Los Angeles area who are DIY converting their suburban house into an all-electric zero net energy home via superinsulation, efficient appliances, onsite solar, and conservation strategies. They chronicle their attempts at a low-carbon, low-cost, and joyful lifestyle on ...
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[Blog] New Study Dispels Myth That Leaks In Interior Ductwork Do Not Contribute to Home Energy Loss
February 26, 2018 – Comfort Institute today released finding from a new study that indicates leaks in ductwork located in conditioned space can have a significant impact on energy savings. The study, conducted by Comfort Institute in combination with the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA), showed that the amount of conditioned air ...
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