I’ve been excited and privileged to be part of the building science community through my tenure leading ENERGY STAR Certified Home and DOE Zero Energy Ready Home. For many years prior, I coveted getting involved with this outstanding and passionate group of professionals but was limited to in-state travel while leading energy efficiency and renewable energy programs at the California Energy Commission.
Once I became part of this community, I learned to embrace one of the oft-cited key building science principles, “the house is a system.” With any change to one key component, there are ripple effects throughout the home that can impact risks and performance related to air, thermal, and moisture flow. I couldn’t be prouder of the results collaborating with this community: over 2.5 million voluntarily certified high-performance homes that completely transformed the national energy codes. After all, objections to the cost-effectiveness of more rigorous new codes could no longer be raised with the massive participation in voluntary above-code certifications.
That said, much more work needs to be done as we march to zero carbon. This is a daunting challenge. And this brings me to a personal epiphany I had observing of 10,000’s of homes being constructed across the country. High-performance is not enough … it is not nearly enough. Just the way the home is a system, so is housing. It entails a taxonomy of interrelated user experiences (UX’s) that have to be fully integrated to truly build “houses that work.” Getting just one UX wrong can undermine any builder’s reputation and ability to get referrals.
What does this all mean? As passionate as my building science community friends are about getting to zero carbon, the persistence of this vital movement cannot succeed if we fail to also deliver a complete housing UX.
Too many of us are familiar with the challenge getting builders to embrace high-performance when overwhelmed with endless other business challenges (e.g., code changes, regulations, supply chain issues, escalating material costs, skilled workforce shortage, rising interest rates, changing design trends, unqualified buyers, and the list goes on). Similarly, while all of us promoting sustainability are consumed trying to do our incremental part, I’m suggesting we all need to expand our focus and embrace a new principle: “housing is a system” that includes five key housing UX’s:
Time to Take Action:
With one of the most extreme global heat waves on record this summer, I believe all of us in the sustainable home community can agree failure is not an option. The zero energy movement has to succeed. That’s why I hope one action you all take is to read my latest book, “Housing 2.0: A Disruption Survival Guide.” It provides a detailed framework for consistently optimizing UX at lower cost including the five key UX’s, 19 strategies, and over 160 best practices (see figure below). Most importantly, it has been vetted over eight years with hundreds of housing professionals and is extensively referenced with over 420 citations.
In addition to the book, I’m going to bring a full-day Housing 2.0 workshop to my favorite building science event, the EEBA High Performance Builder Summit 2023 in Salt Lake City on October 9. I’d love to have you join us.
We spend 70 percent of our lives in our homes. Home is where life happens. Let’s build on our amazing progress transforming the housing industry to high performance.
This Housing 2.0 presentation is sponsored by: Jinko Solar, LP Building Solutions, Mitsubishi Electric , Panasonic, Schneider Electric and Sunnova.