ENERGY EFFICIENCY
TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT ENERGY EFFICIENT, HIGHPERFORMANCE HOMES?— WELL, MAYBE YOU NEED TO READ THIS!
For years, homebuyers have been told about the advantages of building an energy efficient home to save money, and about “green building” to save the earth’s natural resources. Yet while a growing number of people (and builders) have taken the leap and made energy efficiency and renewable energy a priority in their home buying/home building endeavors, a vast majority have not.
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e use the word “leap” because at some point, one has to have faith in the advantages of a highperformance home and believe in its benefits, without actually experiencing what sounds like marketing fluff. If we compare the homebuyer benefits of a home certified in the BUILT TO SAVE™ high-performance program, for example, it would seem like a no-brainer to make this certification a priority and not just settle for minimum standards. Therefore, the big questions are: a) why doesn’t every builder build energy efficient, high-performance homes? and b) why doesn’t every homebuyer demand one? The answers are quite simple. First, let’s look at the builder’s perspective. Building high-performance homes are not required by law. The State of Texas only requires cities to adopt and enforce its minimum building code laws. The key word here is “minimum,” especially when it comes to energy efficiency. The good news is that the State of Texas raised the bar on those minimum requirements with the adoption of the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and mandated
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RGVNewHomesGuide.com
that every new home sold after August 1, 2016, comply with its new requirements. One major component of the new law requires homes to receive a Blower Door test and Duct Leakage test after completion to make sure that the minimum standards have been met (see page 6 for description of tests). The bad news is that not all municipalities enforce the new law. Some are still on 2012 or 2009 versions of the building code. Most unfortunate is that many builders think that their new homes are in compliance with state law simply because their home passed their city’s inspections. What the builders fail to recognize is that it is their responsibility to follow the 2015 IECC requirements—not the code officials’. Next, the number one reason given by builders as to why they don’t certify their homes as high performance is that “people don’t ask for it.” Sadly, that’s a good reason—especially if builders’ eyes are more on their bottom line than on energy efficiency and compliance. Yet blaming it on the buyer is not a good answer. Instead, those builders that actually do go above and beyond the minimum standards required by law without buyers requesting it should be recognized for their genuine effort to build the best high-performance home they can for their homebuyers and not just one to meet bare minimum legal standards. BUILT TO SAVE™ builders, for example, invest more time for less profit to build a better home for their customer even if their customer is not asking for it. Even more applaudable should be the fact that BUILT TO SAVE™ builders are not afraid to have their work inspected and tested by an independent third-party inspector for verification of work that complies with Texas laws. NOT building a high-performance home may seem to make sense financially—for the builder—but not so much for the homebuyer’s ultimate long-term investment.
