"Houses That Work II" Revised February 2005

Started by Daddymem, April 22, 2005, 02:15:41 PM

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Daddymem

"Introduction to Building Systems Performance: Houses That Work II. Revised February 2005"
From the Executive Summary:
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Building America Program is reengineering new and
existing American homes for energy efficiency, energy security, and affordability. Building
America works with the residential building industry to develop and implement innovative
building energy systems—innovations that save builders and homeowners millions of dollars in
construction and energy costs. This industry-led, cost-shared partnership program has the
following goals:
• Reduce whole-house energy use by 40-70% and reduce construction time and waste
• Improve indoor air quality and comfort
• Integrate clean onsite power systems
• Encourage a systems engineering approach for design and construction of new homes
• Accelerate the development and adoption of high performance residential energy
systems.

Basically they have split up the country into zones and provided "model homes" that work well for the climate.  For example, here in the armpit of the Cape, we are considered Cold and therefore an efficient home has a basement, vinyl siding, vented and insulated attic, etc....(they even provide colorful cross sections of the model homes).  There are a bunch of building links in the document but beware it is a large pdf at 176 pages.  It looks like it was issued this March.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37664.pdf
Où sont passées toutes nos nuits de rêve?
Aide-moi à les retrouver.
" I'm an engineer Cap'n, not a miracle worker"

http://littlehouseonthesandpit.wordpress.com/

John Raabe

This is a valuable resource with much thoughtful information about customizing your home design for climate specific situations.

Here is an HTML overview chart: http://www.buildingscience.com/housesthatwork/

I've done seminars with this very colorful fellow who has been studying building science for over 25 years. Here is Joe's Top Ten dumb things to do: http://www.buildingscience.com/topten/default.htm
None of us are as smart as all of us.


DavidLeBlanc

He says that vented crawl spaces are wrong for buildings in the North, but that doesn't seem right...?

Amanda_931

Works fine if it don't get wet under there.

The TVA energy retrofit of the late 70's/early 80's involved that in Tennessee, which really may be too far south.

I've always hated crawl spaces.

Daddymem

Yeah, I've got a partial crawl space basement off of a full basement section and it is pretty damp, most of my tools get rusty.  It is just too damp here in Mass.