Reviewing "Toward a Zero Energy Home"

A few months ago in late spring I read Toward a Zero Energy Home - A Complete Guide to Energy Self-Sufficiency at Home by David Johnston and Scott Gibson.  Or shall I say devoured it hungrily.  I read it on a cross-country flight in one sitting.

2010, The Taunton Press

The book begins by making a great case for the zero energy house by framing the view through the energy price bubble of 2008 and the need to shift behaviors moving forward.  Ironically in the spring of 2011 we were experiencing another price bubble seeded by political instability driven by the unprecedented democratic spring of Egypt, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.  Once again prices spiked ever higher over the course of late winter and spring.  Fairly quickly it seemed, world-wide strategic oil reserves were tapped to temper the price spikes and people's fears abated but high prices linger.  Today, the US Energy Information Agency says gas prices are up $0.91 from a year ago.

If you consult the EIA's interactive tables and build predictions out to 2035 you'll find an average yearly growth rate of 3.5% for residential fuel oil costs.  So in about ten years prices may rise 35% over today's already high rates.  With the unpredictability of the global geo-political climate and growing effects of global warming, growing population pressures and scarcity in fossil fuels, radically reducing energy consumption is urgent.  More predictable energy costs and growth in resource conservation is critical to creating a more sustainable future "softening the hard landing to come" as said by Bill McKibben in his recent book, Eaarth.

While residential delivered energy consumption has been going down historically in a gentle slope since 1990 the EIA forecasts four different scenarios showing reductions.  The reference light blue line models this continuing fall while the magenta (high tech usage) and green (best available technology) go even lower.

As energy costs continue to escalate residential users will naturally seek to conserve.  The space between the purple and green line is where Toward A Zero Energy Home plays an important role today in driving best practices  in zero energy home design into the marketplace towards consumer acceptance.

The book is organized into five chapters; The Building Envelope, Passive Solar Design, Renewable Energy, Heating-Cooling-Ventilation, Living a Zero Energy Life.  In each chapter they provide helpful overviews going over the basic components, design strategies and approaches with insightful case studies from around the country relating to the chapter focus.  The case studies provide wisdom from the field about how projects develop and mature between owners, architects, builders and energy consultants.

I recommend this book.  It tackles a very complex subject and breaks it down to basic elements where the complexity supports the big picture of why certain strategies are valuable varying by budget, climate, owner likes and dislikes, project delivery methods scalable for a variety of situations.  Whether seeking to do a custom design and build home, or hybridized process with some level of factory panelization and custom building, or finally, full out factory built and controlled modular home with quick onsite assembly the book has insights valuable for all.

The book also shows how fast moving high performance building science and knowledge truly is.  After this book came out, Alex Wilson's published a groundbreaking article in Environmental Building News on the Global Warming Potential of Foam Insulation.  Their research led to a wholesale re-evaluation of the viability of using closed expanding cell foam and related insulation materials in building envelopes because of the long-term costs of using fossil fuel as blowing agents.  Many of the case studies homes in the Toward a Zero Energy Home used closed cell insulation in some aspects of the building envelope.  The new research indicated the need to look more closely at using open cell insulation or other more benign alternatives such as cellulose insulation instead going forward.  Hindsight is 20/20 though and admittedly best practices will always be evolving to ever-higher standards.

The Promise of Deep Energy Retrofits

As an architect and designer I'm very interested in cultivating my knowledge of choices or strategies I can call upon in projects of various scales and types.  As we are collectively aging in place so are our commercial buildings, our schools, homes and service buildings.  In 2011 we face yet another spiking and upward trending in energy costs which increasingly drive up the operational costs of our buildings.  We look at our building energy bills each month, how much we're spending at the gas pumps and utter gasps of disbelief.

As the cost of gas goes up so to does Milk and on and on.

Those of you who run aging office building, schools, apartment buildings, college campuses, technology parks and manufacturing facilities with high energy costs and a longer view likely wonder how you're going to afford next year's fuel costs. Do you pass on the higher operating costs to customers? Or absorb these costs and seek to balance it elsewhere?

Will you defer yet again routine maintenance, any kind of capital building projects, or cut salaries or defer raises to staff to loosen up funds to pay for future unpredictable energy costs?  Well, you've likely already have been doing that with diminishing returns each time.

Many of you may not have the choice to look for a new building site in your community and build a much better more predictably performing building to insulate your business from escalating energy costs over the long term.  So what really are your options when really you only have one, live with your existing building and make the best of it.  Can that be good enough?  Seems like a sinking ship doesn't it?  

How long can you pass on those costs in the form of higher rents to your tenants until they decide to leave?  Or conversely, how can you attract and retain them when they ask you what your energy bills are, their eyes glaze over and they leave quickly?  What if you could cut your energy use by at least 50% or beyond 75%?  How would this effect your business planning, pricing and overall success of your business?  Now you could actually focus on what you do best, run your business and operations focusing on your business and planning goals not finding ways month to month to stem unpredictably changing energy costs.

Over the last few years the concept of Deep Energy Retrofits (DER) have stirred up media attention and grabbed headlines.  While deep energy retrofits defy definition they represent a promising way of redeveloping existing building infrastructure we can all benefit from learning more about.  

While the experts have differing opinions on definitions, generally they involve the substantial re-use and renovation of an existing building shell with significant investments in high levels of insulation or super-insulation, very efficient heating and cooling systems, higher performing windows and energy efficient lighting with controls.   The energy savings can run from 50% to over 75% over typical bad or baseline comparative buildings, the so-called "base case" code compliant building.  

Deep energy retrofits do something really special and low-impact environmentally.  Instead of building a new building you reuse in place an existing structure substantially reducing the project's global warming potential and cost picture in general.  A large cost center for any construction project is its structure, frame,  prep and final site work and central energy plant.   By not building the hard stuff there is cost avoidance and impacts elsewhere.  Some easy to measure some not so easy.  

Yes it is more complex to renovate often times requiring working with tenants and building occupants who remain in place during construction but ultimately I think it requires less resources and  money and by not building new outside of city centers and neighborhoods it helps keep communities together.

You may have read about the US Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) system and wonder how it relates to Deep Energy Retrofits.  Well it does and it doesn't.  In the case of existing buildings (EB) , it can be very helpful as a tool to help guide the process and get everyone on the team on board sharing common goals along with the accountability which comes with meeting its requirements on down from the owner, design team, contractor and sub-contractor.  Plus, many municipalities, state governments and the federal government require following it to at least some level of certification.  Whether or not you go through with the LEED system, its very helpful to use the LEED checklists in the design process to structure thinking about the integrated design strategies and best practices to follow in your your project.  

But there is a bigger conversation.

It's about the values of your project and how you ensure energy cost predictability for your operations and ultimately the sustainability of your business model or enterprise.  This is where the Deep Energy Retrofit concept comes in handy for your existing building stock.  By spending a bit more now and thinking of your construction costs today as investments in a better more stable tomorrow you can transform the conversation away from first costs trumping everything else, kicking the "ball" down the field for the next generation to deal with.

Imagine telling your board of directors you only have to fund raise today for the building and its systems when its operational costs are slated to be really low in the future.  Fundraising for ongoing operations might become a thing of the past and instead can be refocused on supporting your key organizational missions, salaries and other benefits.  Perhaps this is overly simplistic but I enjoy thinking about this aspect.  Who wants to raise money year after year to pay for escalating fuel costs and mistaken short-sightedness in not going ahead with a high performing building while saving money today?

In the coming weeks, I'll be writing about some exciting Deep Energy Retrofit projects and initiatives I've been learning about putting these concepts into action.  It's critical we expand our thinking and strategies to fight global warming increasingly lack of cohesion in our existing communities.  Building new isn't always the answer.  Renewing and rebuilding certainly can be a vital part of it though.

Interested in learning more? 

You can find us at www.arocordisdesign.com, the website of our Montpelier, Vermont-based residential architecture firm practice Arocordis Design. If you want to contact us there, click on this link. 

#netzero #homedesign #arocordisdesign #vermont #vermontarchitect #architecture #climateaction

Passivhaus to Our Haus?

Why the funny post title?  Well, I went to a conference last week in Burlington and came away wondering if the Passiv Haus movement is really accessible to the mainstream.  It's a play on words because I attended a presentation about a house which was titled "From Bauhaus to Passivhaus".   I commend conference planners for bringing together professionals with their case studies working on opposite ends of the spectrum; designers working for the rather wealthy 'spare no expense group' and those working with Habitat for Humanity,' let's figure out how to do this for everyone group'.  Somewhere in the middle we shall meet.

At last week's Better Building by Design Conference hosted by Efficiency Vermont I saw a handful of presentations showcasing Passiv Haus projects and their innovative design process as well as other super low energy net zero possible homes and projects.  I learned there is a little bit of controversy for some reason going on now in our community between engineers, architects and building scientists about how low is too low or over the top excessive in home design and performance.  And finally, how can Passivhaus and low energy/ net zero home design early adopters help move the residential marketplace toward a more positive energy efficient and resource conserving position?  How can they replicate and expand the learning and experiences upto a community and regional scale?  That's what it's all about.  How we can help soften the hard landing for coming generations Bill McKibben lately of the book Eaarth forecasts in our coming shared future? Well I now have a deeper understanding, albeit brief, of many of the issues at hand and passions uniting them.  And yes, there are some answers and there is hope.

What did I see and hear then...?
One was a renovation of a not so historic early modern Connecticut home designed by Ken Levenson of Ken Levenson Architects, P.C.  Another was a Habitat for Humanity home designed by J.B. Clancy of Albert, Righter & Tittmann Architects, Inc. who designed it in collaboration with Peter Schneider from VEIC (the mother company of Efficiency Vermont) and Preferred Building Systems out of Claremont, NH.  I also attended a spectacular presentation by  Marc Rosenbaum from South Mountain Company, a noted energy design consultant here in the northeast and Building Science Corporation's Kohta Ueno who did a great job standing in for John Straube who was unable to be there last week.  They started out as if they needed boxing gloves (actually not really...they're very kind and balanced engineers) but in the end there was much more agreement than consternation.

Where do I start...