EEBA's High Performance Home Newsletter

by Alex Glenn and Tommy Blair Roughly 15% to 20% of homes built in the U.S. each year have crawl space foundations. They're cheaper to build than full basements and more functional than a slab, offering a convenient place for plumbing, wiring, ductwork and heating or cooling equipment, as well as some bulk water resiliency. Twenty years ago, nearly all crawl spaces were ventilated with outside air in an effort to control moisture. Most building codes required such venting. The problem is that atmospheric venting is ineffective, to put it mildly. It can actually cause moisture problems, especially in humid climates when warm, moist air enters the crawl space and condenses on the framing. Many builders and remodelers tried to address these problems by bringing in even more outside air, either passively by building more openings into the foundation, or actively by installing fans in the crawl space. This usually made the problems even worse. Documented Benefits Things... read more

While Building Information Modeling (BIM) is standard operating procedure on large commercial projects, relatively few residential builders have gotten on board. However, the technology has great potential for innovating homebuilding in general and green, high-performance building, in particular. The few homebuilders who are using it call it a game changer. One of these is Jay Epstein, a Virginia builder/developer who started down the high-performance path more than 30 years ago. He was an early participant in the Building America program, and his company won three recent Housing Innovation Awards from the Department of Energy—in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Now he has teamed up with Skokie, Ill.-based DIGIBILT to use its BIM system for designing and managing construction of the state's first net zero ready community, Walnut Farm, which will consist of 75 single-family homes in Williamsburg, Virginia. Epstein hopes the project will serve as an exemplar for the industry. "I want this... read more