EEBA's High Performance Home Newsletter

Todd Usher is the owner of Addison Homes and pursuing his PhD at Clemson University. He serves on the boards of Energy and Environmental Building Alliance (EEBA) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). and Joe Burgett, PhD, is an assistant professor at Clemson University’s Construction Science and Management. Dr. Burgett is on the Board of the American Institute of Constructors and a member of the Exam Writing Committee. INTRODUCTION Innovation is discussed frequently in business as a way of driving continuous improvement and economic growth. The home building industry has been slower than most industries to undergo disruptive innovations. In the study Characteristics of Innovative Production Home Builders by Koebel and Cavell, the authors explain that industries that are not as dependent on science and technology tend to have extended periods between disruptive innovations and focus primarily on refining existing technologies (2006). Home building is clearly one... read more

With codes and market forces continuing to raise the bar for home performance, forward-thinking builders and developers are looking beyond the individual home. Some see the next big thing in sustainable building as the "smart neighborhood." The smart neighborhoods I've looked at all include community-scale energy generation and energy management, while some go further by prioritizing clean air and clean water. The trend is relatively new, however, and developers are still figuring out what works in a business sense. Challenges include how to keep costs down, how to work with the electric utility, and how to determine what features buyers will value. It Starts with the Home The core of the smart neighborhood is the smart home. It combines healthy, energy-efficient construction with electronic features like rooftop solar panels, backup batteries, connected appliances and home automation. Most people think of home automation as a control system for lights, shades, music,... read more

One would expect that months of a pandemic-driven news cycle would cause at least some shifts in home buyer priorities. Indeed it has. Joel Abney, VP of Operations at Woodside Homes, the nation's 28th largest production builder, says that the company's buyer surveys have reflected a measurable rise in concern about health and wellness. "A few months ago, most people just assumed their new home would be healthy," he says. "Then the Coronavirus hit." Now, buyers want proof that it will be healthy, and are asking for systems to ensure that outcome. Their worries aren't limited to viruses, either. "The specific concerns we hear most often are about allergens and mold," says Abney. These concerns aren't new: the virus merely added fuel to an already accelerating demand for healthy homes. An August 2019 Farnsworth Group survey of 40-55 year old homebuyers found that 59 percent placed a high priority on "Health & Well-Being," a priority Woodside had already made a centerpiece of... read more

Each year the Department of Energy honors winners of its annual Housing Innovation Awards at the EEBA Summit. The awards showcase the best of Net Zero Ready Homebuilding. Benefits to winners include a profile on the DOE's Tour of Zero website, third-party recognition they can use in their marketing and the opportunity to meet with and learn from other winners. DOE recently hosted two webinars for builders who are interested in applying. The webinars provided step-by-step instructions for filling out and submitting applications, as well as resources to help them with questions. The webinars are now archived at the program website. Each home is entered in one of five categories: Custom for Buyer, Custom Spec, Production, Multifamily and Affordable. Each judge specializes in one category, and each category has at least three judges. The application is done online and asks for data in a variety of areas, from home performance to land use to sales and marketing. Each of these... read more

As sales trainer for a major HVAC equipment manufacturer, I give presentations on indoor air quality to builders and mechanical contractors around the country. Most of them assume that my sole topics will be ventilation and air filtration. While those are a huge part of what I cover, they're not the whole story.

By now, all builders should understand that good ventilation and filtration equipment is the only way to guarantee clean, fresh indoor air. That's true for any home, but it's especially true for a high-performance home that has been detailed to reduce natural air infiltration. I recommend an air cleaner with a MERV 16 filter, which captures 95% of particulates at .3 microns (hundreds of times smaller than a human hair). That filter will remove 99% of asthma and allergy triggers from the home.

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In the transition to a 21st Century business model, builders have moved at wildly different speeds. Some have embraced digital business processes, while others have adopted them slowly, if at all. Of course, we're in a different world today than we were just a month ago. The COVID-19 crisis has put a fire under the backside of all industry players. Builders nationwide suddenly have no choice but to get good at using virtual platforms for coordinating employees, trade partners and customers, while at the same time protecting workers that have to be on the job. Industry publications have done a great job covering this topic in general terms. For instance, Professional Builder magazine just published the results of a coronavirus business impact survey that garnered more than 1500 responses. It's available here: https://www.probuilder.com/week-2-results-update-our-coronavirus-business-impact-survey For this article we decided to take a different approach. To get some ideas on how ... read more

By Ben Walker With codes and high-performance construction programs requiring airtightness testing, a small but growing cadre of home builders have been purchasing their own blower doors. They are finding that this tool's value goes beyond mere compliance. One of them is Arrow Building in Columbia, Missouri, which owner Jake Bruton says builds "durable, energy-efficient, aesthetically pleasing homes." Most of his projects meet Passive House standards, which specify a maximum air leakage of 0.6 Air Changes per Hour at a test pressure of 50 Pascals (0.6 ACH 50). However, he bought his first unit in 2014, before committing to those standards. He heard murmurs that air tightness testing would eventually be part of the code. No other builders in his market seemed to own one, so he figured that being the first would give him a competitive advantage. (Bruton builds custom homes, but some Zero Energy production builders also own blower doors. One is Thrive Homebuilders in Denver, ... read more

By Steve Klocke Although I'm an architect by training, I've worked for nine years as a sustainability consultant on low-rise multifamily projects. My designers and builders usually seek green building certification for their projects, whether ENERGY STAR or LEED for Homes. They want to be known for delivering high quality, high performance buildings. Good intentions notwithstanding, I see the same mistakes again and again. This article covers the top four, all of which concern envelope detailing. Few projects have all these errors, but every project I see suffers from at least one of them. These mistakes begin during design, which is why most of the live trainings I give on this topic are geared to architects. However, I also know that the most effective preventative measure is for educated architects and builders to help each other do good work. That benefits everyone. The four top design mistakes are as follows: 1. Overcomplicated Geometry Architects love to draw... read more

By Mark LaLiberte High-performance builders have long understood the importance of good air sealing, but the topic is now attracting interest from conventional builders as well. With codes mandating confirmed air leakage numbers of 3 ACH 50 or better, those builders are realizing that they need help. Along with my business partners, Justin Wilson and Gord Cooke, I teach air sealing as part of the Applied Building Science classes at Construction Instruction. Again and again, we've seen builders of all types challenged by this important step. But the truth is that effective air sealing isn't mysterious, even if some builders seem intent on over-complicating it. Some complain that the amount of information on the topic is overwhelming and contradictory. Others point out that they can't know for sure before starting a house where the air leaks will be. While both of these objections may be true, they're really just signs that the builder lacks a defined air sealing... read more

By Steve Byers Attend an EEBA Summit or any other gathering of high-performance builders, and you will learn a lot about how to build healthy homes with great indoor air quality (IAQ). The attendees will all seem committed to building such homes, making it easy to conclude that health has become a priority for the industry. The problem is that it hasn't. I love these conferences because they attract the best builders, but they can also be an echo chamber. My interactions with code-minimum builders—who represent most of the industry—have taught me that for most, IAQ isn't even on their radar. This obviously begs the question of "how do we reach those builders?" Getting Motivated Helping them want to build healthy homes takes a stick and a carrot, with the two ends of the stick being liability and reputation. On the liability end, an asthmatic child developing problems after the family moves into one of your homes is a worst-case, and lawyers will likely be... read more