Shaunna Mozingo, president of the Go Code Group, walks through the 2021 IECC residential compliance paths and key changes, then shares findings from a Department of Energy residential field study on where builders and homeowners get the largest energy savings.
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Sara Gutterman: Can I just give it a few more seconds for. Oh, and happy Wednesday everyone. Thank you so much for being here today for our code webinar. For those of you who attend our webinars regularly, you know that our normal moderator, Mike Collignon, who does a fantastic job, he's not here today. He's not available. So you're stuck with me.
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Sara Gutterman: I'm Sarah Gutmann, I am the CEO and co-founder of Green Builder Media. Im really happy to be here today to talk about one of the most critical topics in our industry codes and evolving codes. Today's webinar will focus on the compliance paths, key changes, and implementation of the residential section of the 2021 Iik. After providing an overview of the 2021 IEC for residential buildings, we will review the findings from the Department of Energy's Residential Field Study to address where industry professionals and homeowners should focus for maximum energy savings and energy cost savings.
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Sara Gutterman: And here with us is Shauna masinga, president of the Go code Group. In addition to being a planned analyst and inspector for jurisdictions, Shauna has provided code adoption assistance to many jurisdictions in the US and beyond, as well as research and training services on code energy code topics, and she's also authored multiple books in her spare time. She has won numerous code related awards, including the Department of Energy's prestigious Jeffrey A Johnson Award for excellence in the Advancement of Building Energy Codes and Performance, ICC, and emits standard bearers awards and the Southwest Energy Efficiency Projects Leadership in Energy Codes awards.
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Sara Gutterman: We're really lucky to have her here with us today because she is one of the industry's premium codes experts. But before I pass things over to you, Shauna, I first have to thank our sponsor, Power Shift by NB energy. The Power Shift program helps residential and business customers conserve energy and save money on their power bills. Power shift is a one stop resource to find energy efficient products and services.
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Sara Gutterman: For more information, please visit Backslash Shift. Now, one more thing. During the course of today's presentation, we encourage you to please submit questions and you can do so in the questions box on the right side of your screen. I will review those questions and pose them to Shauna during the Q&A session set aside at the end of her presentation.
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Sara Gutterman: So Shauna, it's good to see you again. Please take it away.
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Shauna Mozingo: All right. Well, thanks. Thanks for the intro. Thanks for allowing me to be here today to talk code. One of the more fun things I get to do in life. All right. I think you have already learned enough about me. I am a code official from at heart, but I also have my own business code group. She said that help people adopt codes, amend codes right there codes, learn their codes and figure out where we can go next.
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Shauna Mozingo: They do a lot of research studies for the Department of Energy or utility companies or states. And so the second half of what we're going to hear today is the findings of the research study that we did in Nevada a couple of years ago, actually. Then Covid hit and kind of things took a standstill. So we're just now finally got the results from now.
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Shauna Mozingo: So we're going to share those with you a little bit. But so never mount me. Let's talk about the codes. So we we said in the beginning that we were going to talk about the pathways of compliance. And and this is one thing that I hope everybody will really, really hear. We're going to go through just a high level overview of what what's coming in the 2021 to be aware of.
00:04:09:24 - 00:04:29:15
Shauna Mozingo: But one thing that hasn't changed in a while are these paths of compliance. One thing that I get a lot of is frustration over what people have to what they think they have to do into the in the code. And so a lot of people open that code book to that original R value table in, in the IEC.
00:04:29:15 - 00:05:01:23
Shauna Mozingo: And we like you want me to do what and start getting really angry. And so I would just encourage everybody to just turn the page. There are a lot of pathways through the code. In fact, in chapter one, the very first thing that the code tells us under the intent is that we have to provide flexibility. It's right in the it's written in there that not we write this book to conserve energy, but in the way that we do that, we have to provide flexibility.
00:05:01:25 - 00:05:15:12
Shauna Mozingo: We have to provide options. We have to not do anything to hinder technology or advancements and those kind of things. So in the.
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Shauna Mozingo: In the process of trying to provide flexibility, we have a lot of different, different ways through the codes, a lot of different paths of compliance. So you have the prescriptive compliance path. That's just like tell me what I have to do, and that's what I'll do. And that's the one that I think most people look at and freak out about, because there's not very many trades built into that, and there's not a lot of things that you can do in that.
00:05:43:20 - 00:06:02:21
Shauna Mozingo: You just have to do what the tables tell you and what the code tells you. And so that's where you're going to find a lot more of your costs because you're not trading things off. And so while a lot of people like that path, because they just want to be told what they have to do, they also don't like it because it does cost more sometimes.
00:06:02:22 - 00:06:25:19
Shauna Mozingo: And so I would encourage you to explore some of these other paths of compliance. So you have an R value method. That's the R value table. Do put in those. Those are values of insulation. And we'll look at those in a minute. There's a you factor method which is the same prescriptive table as that. Our value is just everything is in a you factor.
00:06:25:22 - 00:06:51:29
Shauna Mozingo: And so the difference between the r value method and the you factor method is that the r value method gives you just the rated R value of the insulation, where the you factor method takes into consideration every single layer of the building assembly for a total you factor of the assembly, not just of the insulation. And so a lot of people look at those tables and don't think that they are equal, but they are.
00:06:51:29 - 00:07:21:23
Shauna Mozingo: And we'll look at that in just a second. Then you have the total UA alternative. This is also you factor but it's a you factor for the total. The total you factor for the entire area of your thermal envelope. So it's looking at the you factor of the the roof assembly or ceiling assembly, the walls, anything that's involved in the thermal envelope, the area of that times the you factor that most people associate that with reg check.
00:07:21:26 - 00:07:49:27
Shauna Mozingo: However some other paths can also do a UA calculation. And so the code never uses proprietary names like reg check or check or things like that. So but that's what most people associate the total UA alternative with because that's what is is evaluating. There's total building performance. We'll look at that. That's based on cost. How much how much does a building cost in annual energy use.
00:07:49:27 - 00:08:17:24
Shauna Mozingo: And then energy rating Index. This is eerie which some people associate with like a her score or it's using a score an eerie score for compliance. And so there's a lot of different ways to comply. The the further you go down into performance and eerie, the more trade you can have. The the further the higher you stay at the top prescriptive, the less trade you have.
00:08:18:00 - 00:08:37:09
Shauna Mozingo: But it's easy. Just tell me what I have to do and that's what I'll do. And so depends on who you are and which path you like. So we're going to talk more in detail on those. What I want to give you right now is this high level. Here's what's coming in the 2021 that you really need to pay attention to.
00:08:37:14 - 00:09:09:20
Shauna Mozingo: This is for residential, and it affects every climate zone out there. We'll look at some more of these in more detail like this. There's now options in that R-value table. There are options for a cavity only option, a continuous only option, and a cavity plus continuous. I don't see people doing all of those. Some of those because the numbers get pretty high, but they are options.
00:09:09:21 - 00:09:32:22
Shauna Mozingo: And trying to stick with that intent that we have to provide flexibility and options. That's what this table now does. If you are used to the options, maybe in climate zone five that I can remember right off the top of my head where our 20 or 13 plus five, well, that's an R 20 cavity or a 13 plus five for cavity plus continuous.
00:09:32:22 - 00:09:58:24
Shauna Mozingo: And now you have a cavity a continuous. You also have a continuous only option. So if you wanted to only do continuous insulation which has never been in there so that you factors in the solar heating coefficients, I'll tell you did go up a little bit in some of the climate zones. Now, if you're tuning in from Nevada today, Nevada has a few different climate zones.
00:09:58:26 - 00:10:23:23
Shauna Mozingo: And so some of them did go up. And if you're in northern Nevada, that is definitely you want to pay attention to that you factor table because there's a new footnote in there that once you get over 4000ft in elevation, your you factor drops in the table. It'll say like 0.30. We'll look at it in a second. It'll it'll say like 0.30.
00:10:23:28 - 00:10:44:29
Shauna Mozingo: But if you read the footnote, it'll allow you to go all the way up to a .32, because once you get over elevation, if you're relying on that gas fill to get those good you factors that gas, you lose that the higher in elevation that you go. So some of those kind of things are now being recognized in the code.
00:10:45:03 - 00:11:15:26
Shauna Mozingo: Air leakage taking testing has some changes in it. It's mostly looking at the changes in in the fact that we used to, we used to have like a set three air changes per hour in most of our climate zones. That is still in there. And you have to really pay attention to how this code is written, because when you first read it, the way they laid it out, it looks like we're allowed to do five air changes per hour.
00:11:15:28 - 00:11:41:14
Shauna Mozingo: But if you read all the way to the bottom of that section, it does say that three air changes is really the the requirement. You can trade off though, so you can trade off up to five air changes per hour. So if you use a performance path like the the, the performance or the era path, you can trade off that air leakage amount, but only up to five air changes per hour.
00:11:41:14 - 00:12:06:26
Shauna Mozingo: But if you go prescriptive that amount is still three air changes per hour. So there's some things in there. So there's also some nice changes brought in to recognize those smaller units for attached housing or smaller homes that couldn't get an air change per hour. Because that relies the more volume you have, the easier it is to get those those air changes.
00:12:07:02 - 00:12:24:12
Shauna Mozingo: So the smaller houses were really having a hard time complying or those apartment units. And so it brought in the allowance for a different mechanism for testing. You can test to the.
00:12:24:14 - 00:12:47:23
Shauna Mozingo: CFM or per square foot so of of area. And so that's a lot easier to meet when you're doing a testing in a smaller home. So just some new things coming in for attached housing, some exemptions in there for attached garages that are conditioned on when you test and when you don't. So some things to be to look at there.
00:12:47:24 - 00:13:09:06
Shauna Mozingo: One thing that I want to bring your attention to is the duct leakage testing for the 2021. The biggest change there is they removed and exception. And so that is a very big exception. It used to say that you don't have to do a duct test if your ducks are in condition space. So I give you all of the requirements for duct testing.
00:13:09:06 - 00:13:38:07
Shauna Mozingo: And then add an exception except ducts inside the envelope that didn't have to be tested. Now they removed that exception. So all ducts have to be tested that are part of the heating and air conditioning system have to be tested even if they're inside the thermal envelope. So that is a big change for the 2021. And it's you don't catch it until you realize that that exception is gone.
00:13:38:07 - 00:14:13:13
Shauna Mozingo: So pay attention to that. There are some more efficient mechanical things in there. They updated the efficiencies of like the the kitchen hoods and those kinds of things that might be a part of a mechanical ventilation system if you use those. So some things like that have been updated. There is an addition to the lighting section. If you've been involved in the energy code for very long, you realize that that that IC lighting section has been one paragraph for a long time.
00:14:13:13 - 00:14:37:00
Shauna Mozingo: It used to be, you know, 50% of the lights have to be high efficacy. And then it went to 75 and then it went to 90. Not only is it now, 100% of the lights are high efficient, but they also brought in lighting controls for residential. So you're going to have some cases not everywhere, but some cases where you're going to need either dimmers or timers or C sensors or something.
00:14:37:00 - 00:15:09:17
Shauna Mozingo: Now for indoor and outdoor lighting requirements for controls. So that's the first time that we've had lighting controls in residential. They brought in the addition of additional energy efficiency packages, Pediment Commercial since 2012. But this is the first time in residential. And so we're going to take a look at that. So I can explain it better. And then there's a new appendix for net zero ready for those jurisdictions that want to have a way to get to zero over time.
00:15:09:19 - 00:15:38:18
Shauna Mozingo: There's an appendix now that allows you to do that. You could adopt it and people can get to zero over time using an eerie score. So those are the big changes. A couple that I'll just I want to highlight when I talk about this cavity only continuous only or cavity plus continuous. When you first look at the code, if you bought the first edition it didn't have them in there.
00:15:38:18 - 00:15:59:09
Shauna Mozingo: So don't forget that they make the code, they write it, we start using it and we find errors. Right. And so there is a rata. You need to go to a central if you just Google errata central air to central you'll get ICS errata. And then when you go in there you click which code you want the Erato for.
00:15:59:10 - 00:16:16:29
Shauna Mozingo: And you can download all of the because you will see that when they first printed it in black is what they printed, which gave us still that 20 plus five or the 13 plus ten, it it only gave us those two options. That is not what is required in the code. What's in red? All of this is what's required in the code.
00:16:16:29 - 00:16:36:04
Shauna Mozingo: So make sure that you really download those. So you have like in climate zone five you have an R 30. If I want to do cavity only it has to be our 30 prescriptive. This is on this page. I would encourage you to turn the page and go a different path if you don't want to do these things.
00:16:36:04 - 00:16:55:25
Shauna Mozingo: So our 30 continuous our 20 plus five, if you want to do a cavity plus continuous in like a in a two by six like cavity or a 13 plus ten or an R 20 if you just want to do only continuous. So you see you have a lot of options in there for those climate zones I think.
00:16:55:28 - 00:17:22:20
Shauna Mozingo: So we have a climate zone three in Nevada and we have five and six. So just make sure that you're paying attention to those climate zones and how to read that. Every one will have a cavity only cavity plus continuous and a continuous only. So pay attention to that and download the Erato. There's so many for the energy code.
00:17:22:22 - 00:17:45:20
Shauna Mozingo: And then so those are your climate zones. That's that R value table. You have to do everything it does give you some you factors in there because we have to talk about windows. You'll see that you're at a .30 across the board. But you see in climate zone five and higher you're going to have this footnote I that if you look at the footnotes that's where it's talking about.
00:17:45:20 - 00:18:16:03
Shauna Mozingo: If you're in wind, wind borne debris regions where there's hurricanes or other things or you're in a high altitude that you factor changes. So pay attention to those. There's a first time ever that solar heat gain came in to climate zone five. So pay attention to that. But you'll notice some changes in here of of the ceiling. Our values went up in almost every climate zone.
00:18:16:05 - 00:18:42:01
Shauna Mozingo: The wall our values went up. So there are some changes to to be had for sure. And if you're in the you factor table, which is this is the you factor of every layer of the assembly, these two tables are you can use simultaneously. So if I say, you know, I'm okay doing all of this, I just don't like any of these options.
00:18:42:03 - 00:19:03:28
Shauna Mozingo: I can do everything in this table and then go to this other table and just do the whatever. That was a wood frame wall. So a .45 or a .0.0.060 or a .04, I just have to meet this you factor. That's mean. I have to add up all the layers of the assembly and still stay under this you factor.
00:19:03:29 - 00:19:34:11
Shauna Mozingo: So you could do that and you might be able to comply. You could do that with a several of them. You could do that with every component and just calculate your own you factors and make sure you stay under them. It's allowed. It is a pathway. I just never see anybody use it. Because if you're going to do all these assemblies, you could just go over to the total UA path and do that and you raise check or one of the performance softwares that does a UA calculation and it'll do it for you.
00:19:34:11 - 00:20:08:02
Shauna Mozingo: But if you just wanted to do 1 or 2 of those, you could interchange the two tables and just do 1 or 2 of them. How do you find the you factor for material? Ashrae Handbook of Fundamentals has it. What I use is Ashrae 90.1 because I have Ashrae 90.1 that I use when I'm reviewing for commercial buildings and in it in appendix A, there is a table in there for every different kind of assembly with insulation or without.
00:20:08:02 - 00:20:32:21
Shauna Mozingo: And it gives the total assembly factor. So I can do that. Or I sometimes if I just have one thing I want to look up, I will go into reg check and just put an assembly in there and get the you factor for it without building the whole building in check. So there's a few different ways to figure the you factor, but if you're going to do it for the whole building, you might as well go over to this total UA path and use it.
00:20:32:23 - 00:20:59:01
Shauna Mozingo: But this is doing it's like a twin house concept. You have two houses side by side, and you're kind of you're trying to decide what the you factor overall you factor is. One house in in the software like reg check or other software. One house is built to that prescriptive you factor table. So based on how much window area and how much wall area you have, you have X amount of you factor.
00:20:59:01 - 00:21:17:20
Shauna Mozingo: It's a budget you have to stay under. So then you design it the way you want to or and as long as you stay equal to or under that budget, you're fine. You can build it that way. And so you could it allows you to trade some things off, but only things that can be converted to a you factor.
00:21:17:20 - 00:21:55:26
Shauna Mozingo: So would insulation glass, those kind of, of, of envelope items can be traded. You can't throw in a high efficient piece of equipment or a better duct leakage and trade that you can only trade envelope. So it is the first steps towards a trade off path, but it's only trading off the envelope. I can put in a better insulation to get a worse window or vice versa, or I can put better insulation in my attic to get less insulation in my wall, or however you want to play with it to work it out.
00:21:55:28 - 00:22:16:16
Shauna Mozingo: I call it my checkbook. The beginning of my checkbook from total UA through all the performance are like checkbooks. I can do things above code that added a positive into my account. I can do things that are below code that take withdraw from my account. I just have to stay in the black, right? I can be at zero, but I can't be less than zero.
00:22:16:18 - 00:22:43:19
Shauna Mozingo: And so that's how these trades are. I can do better than code some places and less than code some places for the total UA. I can only do better or worse in envelope requirements, but in other paths I can trade a lot more. So you just have to decide what path is best for you. And so the way this works is people think, okay, I have all this, I have wood in my building and that's great.
00:22:43:19 - 00:23:07:19
Shauna Mozingo: Structurally, I have to have this, you know, and and so if I have one king that is really good to king, that's got to be better. Right. And so what about the what about this. Am I super great structurally with all of this wood in my building? Well, maybe maybe I mean, it might be a bit overkill, but what you definitely are is worse in your, you factor of your building.
00:23:07:19 - 00:23:31:09
Shauna Mozingo: So what we're trying to get as at less wood. And so if you see wood has about one R value per inch whereas insulation is three and a half to seven depending on the type. So you could see without any continuous insulation. I can see all of the sudden in this house, I can see that I'm going to get some some thermal bridging, I'm going to get some loss there at all of those studs.
00:23:31:09 - 00:23:53:09
Shauna Mozingo: So what this UA path and all of the other trade off paths is trying to get us at is to cut down on some of that. And if I do, I can get out of something else. Right? Not I'm not going to get out of it, but I can lessen the requirement. I probably will never find anything that I could totally do without.
00:23:53:14 - 00:24:19:03
Shauna Mozingo: I won't be able to trade that far, but I could maybe put in a less of a window if I put continuous insulation on this house or something. So what we look at is if I have less wood, so maybe I'm doing some good framing and I'm going to do 24in on center instead of 16in on center, then I have a better framing, I have less wood, which would is so expensive right now anyway.
00:24:19:04 - 00:24:45:16
Shauna Mozingo: So there's one savings, right? I have Wallace Wood, which I have less thermal bridging. So there's energy savings and then I have more insulation. But because I have more quantity of insulation, I probably could drop down on the R value of the insulation and maybe be able to make that trade. So because I traded to less wood, I probably could trade down the R value on my insulation.
00:24:45:19 - 00:25:09:17
Shauna Mozingo: So those that's just kind of how this you factor and the performance paths work is what are you willing to do better than cold. You might be able to do less than code somewhere else. It doesn't mean I'm not putting insulation, I just might be able to. Instead of an R 20, I could put it in R 15 and still, because I'm using less, would have just as good of a performing law.
00:25:09:18 - 00:25:32:10
Shauna Mozingo: Or what if I'm willing to put in continuous insulation. So now I don't have any of that thermal bridging. Right? I don't see any of those studs. I don't have that. If I put continuous insulation that gives a huge credit in the code. And so now I can really maybe put in lesser of a window, or I can maybe trade well in residential in the 2021.
00:25:32:10 - 00:25:51:14
Shauna Mozingo: You can't trade slab edge insulation, but I could trade maybe instead of R 49 or our 60 in my attic, I can get away with the 38 that I used to do or whatever. There's just things that we can do in there to trade. And so that's what these paths are doing, this UA path a lot of people are familiar with.
00:25:51:14 - 00:26:12:21
Shauna Mozingo: It is the simple software that we can use doesn't have to be rich. That's just what people have associated with them. It's a free download at energy gov. You just go in there and build your house and and and tell it how you're going to do. Are you going to use a flat trust or you're going to do a raised hill trust.
00:26:12:21 - 00:26:34:13
Shauna Mozingo: Erase Hill trust to give you a better credit, right. Because you're getting more insulation over the top of that wall. You're getting full height insulation. And so you get a better you would get a better you factor than with this flat or ceiling trust. And then you have, you know, wood frame at 16in on thinner. And then what if I did it at 24in on center?
00:26:34:13 - 00:26:55:28
Shauna Mozingo: You could play around with it, but you can get more trades and maybe do worse somewhere. So that's there's a lot of things in there that are beneficial. But again, it's only the thermal envelope. If you want to trade more, I would challenge you to get like an energy rater, a hers rater, a energy rater and go performance.
00:26:55:28 - 00:27:32:10
Shauna Mozingo: This is where you're going to see the most of your trade and actually be able to see how well your building is performing. It's a computer software. Again, that twin house concept, it's got the the houses that are designed the same square footage and things, but one is configured to the 2021 prescriptive requirements and the other one is whatever the designer is or builder owner wants to build to, and you input them into the software and it's based on cost, cost of annual energy use.
00:27:32:10 - 00:27:53:20
Shauna Mozingo: So as long as you could show that the house you're proposing to build cost less or equal to the house built prescriptive in in annual energy use. So you input the local energy rates into the software. And as long as you can say over the course of a year I'm going to be equal to or less than this house.
00:27:53:20 - 00:28:20:28
Shauna Mozingo: If it was built to code, you could do way you were proposing to do so. It offers a lot more trades. There's a couple softwares out there. Energy gauges, gauges used in Florida. Ram rate was the one for a very long time, but now eco trope seems to be pulling ahead as I do some some research. But they both they they both will look at the performance, they both will look at Erie and they both will look at total UA.
00:28:21:01 - 00:28:50:17
Shauna Mozingo: So you could use that software for all of those pathways. And you could see that the reports are similar. You look and it's looking at heating cooling and water heating costs. And as long as here's this is an old report, but you can see it in many different code additions. And here's the cost. If I built it, the house that I'm proposing is only 945 instead of 1008.
00:28:50:17 - 00:29:14:24
Shauna Mozingo: I'm doing better. So then I can build it the way that I'm proposing to do. And that's from plans. It's a proposed design. And then you go through and enter what you actually did in the field. There's some different things. It tells you how much better than code tells you what additions you're doing it to. So when I teach the actual paths of compliance as just one class, I will go through and explain it more.
00:29:14:24 - 00:29:38:10
Shauna Mozingo: But we have we have got a lot to get through. So that's one path. And then the Erie path. The Erie path is the energy rating index. It's using a score for compliance. Same software, same people, same readers, every thing looking at it, it's just instead of using that cost metric or that cost metric also has an option for a BTU metric.
00:29:38:11 - 00:30:06:23
Shauna Mozingo: This is using a score. A score of zero would be a net zero. Energy use home score of 100 is the 2006 Energy Code, basically the 2004 supplement, but 2006 energy. So if I had a score of 85, I'm 15% better than the 2006, right? So I have to I have to go through there and figure out what my score is.
00:30:06:23 - 00:30:26:25
Shauna Mozingo: It gives you do you look at a lot of the same things? There's more trades built into this. You look at a lot of the same things. But over the years it's it came in and and it gave you a set of scores you had to meet. The 2021 has lowered those. So, you know, if I'm in climate zone five I have to get a score of 55.
00:30:26:26 - 00:30:48:23
Shauna Mozingo: If I'm in climate zone three, a 51, I think we're at six maybe in parts of Reno or up there 54. I have to get a certain score or better. So the lower the score, the better. Of course we're trying to get to zero. I have to get a certain score and it tells me what score I have to get, but it allows much more trade, more trade than any other path.
00:30:48:26 - 00:31:09:19
Shauna Mozingo: And it does allow you to use solar and some other things to lower the score. So it allows you to say, Maybe I'm going to put in a high efficiency furnace that will lower my score. That's my deposit into that checking account, or I'm going to use 100%. You know, I don't know. High efficacy lighting is now required at 100%.
00:31:09:19 - 00:31:36:01
Shauna Mozingo: So that trade might not mean as much. I could put all my ducks inside the envelope. That gives a really nice trade. And so I could put in high efficient. Actually, this one will give you a credit for high efficiency dishwasher and washing machine and those kinds of things. So there are different things that I can do to lower my score then so that I could trade off somewhere else.
00:31:36:04 - 00:32:10:00
Shauna Mozingo: It does allow you to use solar to lower your score, but it sets a limit at about 5% of that end energy use being allowed to be offset by solar. Each edition kind of changes that metric, but it is in there. It's buried in a paragraph somewhere in the code that gives you that 5% limit does require you to build a good envelope, because if you're going to use solar, because solar can go away and we don't want to be stuck without a good envelope, but there's a lot of trade built in there.
00:32:10:00 - 00:32:39:19
Shauna Mozingo: So that's how that path works. The 2021 Additional Efficiency Package options is interesting to find how you get there. In our 401, it tells you that you have to comply with 402.4125 and one of your one of those paths. So it says if you go prescriptive, you have to go to 408.2 and pick one of the options to do, on top of everything else that the prescriptive path tells you.
00:32:39:20 - 00:33:08:26
Shauna Mozingo: If you go performance, you either pick one of these options or you do a 5% better than standard reference design, right? So or an if you're going to use a score, you have to get you saw that table, that score that you have to get. You got to do 5% better than that if you choose Erie. So but if you have to choose one of these, there's the options are to do a 5% better thermal envelope total UA.
00:33:08:27 - 00:33:38:09
Shauna Mozingo: So get a raise check that passes by at least 5%. A more efficient heating and cooling equipment, more efficient service water heating equipment, a great duct duct system, and put all your ducks inside the thermal envelope. And it goes into some specifics on what that might be in of Irv or Harvey's and and then or build a tight house and do an ERP or an HIV.
00:33:38:10 - 00:34:04:17
Shauna Mozingo: And so you have to choose one of those options. If you go prescriptive, if you go performance, you either choose one of these or do 5% better than the standard reference design, and then Erie be 5% better than the score that's required. So that's a new requirement in the code in you're used to it in commercial. You only had to do it if you went prescriptive.
00:34:04:20 - 00:34:25:29
Shauna Mozingo: But in residential it doesn't matter which path you do. You're going to have to do whatever the code tells you to for that path. Plus go at least 5% better than that. So that's flexibility built in, believe it or not, that's instead of cranking the code down everywhere by 5%, they're giving you your choice of how to get that extra 5%.
00:34:26:00 - 00:34:56:05
Shauna Mozingo: That's how that works. And then you had the inclusion of the the other significant change was just the inclusion of those additional efficiency package options. So I mean the occlusion of the appendices. So you have a board of appeals that's a new appendix in all the codes. This in 2021, there were a lot of jurisdictions who didn't have a board of appeals, and they didn't even know how to start that.
00:34:56:05 - 00:35:21:14
Shauna Mozingo: So they created this appendix. If you're a jurisdiction that doesn't already have policies and procedures for how a board of appeals would work, you could adopt this. And now you have it. If you want solar ready provisions, you can adopt appendix ARB. And if you want zero energy residential energy provisions, you could adopt RC. None of these are required unless a jurisdiction or state specifically adopts them.
00:35:21:20 - 00:35:46:21
Shauna Mozingo: Then you would have to do them. So those are the big significant changes in 2021. I'm going to jump right quick now into our findings in the study. I think less he helped with this study in Nevada. So lesson I did Nevada. And then Robby Schwartz of Bill tank Inc and I did Colorado. So lesson I did Nevada.
00:35:46:21 - 00:36:09:03
Shauna Mozingo: We went and did this study and looked at the houses. I will tell you, we used a methodology that the Department of Energy has created a methodology so that everybody is doing it the same way, so that when we all turn in our results, they can analyze them and compare apples to apples. So you can find that methodology at energy Gov.
00:36:09:04 - 00:36:32:26
Shauna Mozingo: That's the same website where you download check and com check. You can go there and find the methodology for residential field studies. You can also Google residential field studies and you'll find it there. But so what do we do together. The data that methodology tells us we can never go into a house more than one time. Well, you know, you can.
00:36:32:27 - 00:36:49:04
Shauna Mozingo: You know that we can't see everything in one time, right? So we had to split it up. We had we had to see 63 of every measure. So in order to do that, we had to go to at least double that amount of houses. So we had to do a certain amount of roofs and a certain amount of finals.
00:36:49:04 - 00:37:16:02
Shauna Mozingo: So we did 63 roofs and 63 finals so that we could get 63 houses, 126 houses to get 63 houses. So we couldn't ever go into one more than once. We had a sample plan created from permit data. So we we were able to get permit data from around the state where we're all of the permits being where it was, the construction taking place, so that we could at least choose those jurisdiction.
00:37:16:03 - 00:37:40:23
Shauna Mozingo: The majority of the houses were in places where the majority of the construction was taking place. We did go outside of some of those areas to look at houses, but the majority was where the construction was taking place. The study is anonymous, so you will not know what builder we looked at or what house we looked at. Lesson.
00:37:40:23 - 00:38:05:02
Shauna Mozingo: I know that right? But nobody else knows that. The state doesn't know that. When we turn in the results, we scrub all of the information. The Department of Energy doesn't know any of that information, only lesson A, and so we scrub all the information. We want to keep it anonymous. That way you get statewide results. And nobody is saying no code official, no contract.
00:38:05:03 - 00:38:28:15
Shauna Mozingo: Nobody can gain bias or say, oh, this contractor had bad, this one did great, or this is what this inspector looks at and this one doesn't or nothing. We just want to go in there and gather data to get a baseline of where are we at so that we can provide training and resources and then go look again in the future and say, oh, look, this has made a difference, or hey, we still need to do things here.
00:38:28:15 - 00:38:50:02
Shauna Mozingo: Or maybe we need to change the code because nobody's understanding it. Like we're just trying to gather data. And if we start making it look like we're judging you, or you guys can judge each other based on our results, nobody will ever let us in their buildings again. And we just never want that. So it's completely anonymous. Nobody knows what's going on.
00:38:50:04 - 00:39:16:19
Shauna Mozingo: And the only reason that I collect the the information is so that I know that I didn't go to the same builder more than once in a subdivision, and that I dispersed things out, you know, that we didn't look at the same all of the construction in one place in a town. We tried not to go to more than one house in any subdivision, no more than one builder in any subdivision.
00:39:16:19 - 00:39:45:19
Shauna Mozingo: We really wanted a broad sample, and that's the only reason that I had that data. And then it scrubbed and taken away. So I couldn't tell you right now, if you asked me how this builder did versus this builder, that information has gone from my brain. So we did have a mix of production and custom builders. Like I said, a mix of locations around every around the entire state, around each city or jurisdiction that we picked.
00:39:45:22 - 00:40:05:04
Shauna Mozingo: Doe has a random sampler that they create. They take all of the jurisdiction construction data, and they put it through a random sampler, and it spits out that, that sample plan where that tells us how many buildings we have to get it in each city and which cities we go to. So a lot of it is anonymous.
00:40:05:07 - 00:40:31:23
Shauna Mozingo: It prioritize what we look at by Doe's top eight items like air leakage, duct leakage, insulation, those kind of things. We did look at a lot more than that, but we look at a lot more than that. But those were our priorities to make sure that we might only have 10 or 15 of this measure here in this measure, but we have 63 of their top eight.
00:40:31:25 - 00:40:53:29
Shauna Mozingo: And so that's how that's done. And we looked at different things like what paths of compliance did people use, what code edition did they look at? Even though you have a state, you know, sometimes their state codes, different jurisdictions are allowing different editions. We're finding and we looked at what kind of equipment was installed. So we'll show you some of those findings.
00:40:54:06 - 00:41:28:28
Shauna Mozingo: One thing I will say though, even though you have amendments, we looked at everything compared to the 2018 Iirc, but we were trying to what Nevada had decided to do was to look at and Colorado did the same thing to look at to the 2018 so that we could see how close are we already to the 18. So if we try to move to the 2021, we know how big of a step we have to take going to that 2021, because here we are compared to the 18, not compared to all of our amendments.
00:41:28:29 - 00:41:53:18
Shauna Mozingo: So just keep that in mind. There is an amazing website that you can go to to find all of this data on every residential study that's been done out there that uses Doe's methodology and uses NNL to look at the results. So it's fun to go. We don't have time right now in our future trainings that we are going to do in Nevada.
00:41:53:19 - 00:42:11:11
Shauna Mozingo: About our findings. We'll tell you what we found. We'll go to this show you how to analyze the data it gives you. You know, here's where you rated according to the 18. If you did this, you would save $1 million over the course of a year. Or you would say, you know, 500,000 over the course of the year.
00:42:11:11 - 00:42:38:14
Shauna Mozingo: It gives you great information in there and how you compare to other states and stuff. So I would encourage you to go play around with that. We will show that in our our regular trainings that will be between 2 and 4 hours, someone will be in person and some will be virtual. So but for now, I don't have time to to go through that with you.
00:42:38:16 - 00:43:03:14
Shauna Mozingo: I'll give you a summary of what we found. So when we look in Nevada. This is northern Nevada and southern Nevada together, we found out of all of the houses that we looked at, we ended up looking at over 128 houses or 129 houses. One of them showed compliance with the own nine code. Even though the 18 was adopted, seven showed compliance with the 12.
00:43:03:16 - 00:43:30:21
Shauna Mozingo: That means when we're looking at them, maybe they turned into 2012 reg checked or they performance was done to the 12 or compliance was based on the documentation that we looked at. We were able to verify that those were the codes that they had showed compliance with. So that was interesting to see. Even though you're on the 18, a couple sneaked through, snuck through on a different code paths of compliance.
00:43:30:23 - 00:44:00:02
Shauna Mozingo: When we looked at them, the majority of the houses did use the building performance. I would say just having analyzed some of this data, that the majority of those performance paths were in southern Nevada because northern Nevada, I found, were doing more prescriptive or check there were some performance in northern Nevada, but the majority of these 71 were in southern Nevada, doesn't mean 26 actually went prescriptive.
00:44:00:02 - 00:44:22:19
Shauna Mozingo: If we could have figured out what path you chose, we had to put you in as prescriptive. So it doesn't necessarily mean that they all want prescriptive, but that's what we evaluate them to. So you had some that went awry also. And then you had there were some that had a Hirsch score and chose that Erie path, but they had a horror score.
00:44:22:20 - 00:44:41:02
Shauna Mozingo: The average score was 66. So that's good to know. If you look at that table and you know that in the 2021, if you went awry, you'd have to have a 50 something. Okay, here's where I have to go right now. This is a Herz score and not an eerie score. They are a little bit different. They're coming more and more in line.
00:44:41:02 - 00:45:04:17
Shauna Mozingo: But again, that's another class. 16 of the houses met energy requirements, so that's cool. So there's just things. Those are things that I tracked outside of. What do we asks us to track. So here's what DOS has to look at. Air leakage. Right. So we looked at all of those homes. The leakage testing results. The average was 3.7.
00:45:04:17 - 00:45:26:27
Shauna Mozingo: So you could see there was some good houses all the way down to 1.5. But there were some outliers that all the way up to seven. So that just tells me if our average is 3.7 and the code requirement is three, if I go prescriptive, I have some areas of training that I needed to do on how to seal up that thermal envelope.
00:45:26:29 - 00:46:09:12
Shauna Mozingo: And so that's that's great. That tells us where to go, how far we have to go, a couple little more things and you're there and you'll never have to worry about it for Nevada. So that makes me feel good. Some things I found prescriptive compliance with struggled more than performance, because maybe there when you go performance and you utilize those energy raters and they are doing a lot more of the on site being there, you know, maybe looking at that air barrier when it's going up or looking at that insulation when it's going up, or looking at things a little more closely because they might be able to be there a little bit more or
00:46:09:15 - 00:46:43:23
Shauna Mozingo: have a little more one on one conversations with the builders and interact with them a little bit more then they can they can make sure that we are in better compliance. Production builders used are more used to testing. Nevada has some amendments in certain places out of the testing requirements for a higher testing allowance. And so we did find that production builders that have to build everywhere, they're so used to testing in other places because it's required that they just are.
00:46:43:25 - 00:47:08:07
Shauna Mozingo: They were more used to testing than custom builders were. And those localized amendments bring the numbers up. So when you see some of these averages, remember there are places that don't require blower door testing because of amendments. And so we we might have tested and they got up to seven but they weren't required anyway. So it just raised your average.
00:47:08:07 - 00:47:26:27
Shauna Mozingo: It doesn't mean you weren't meaning code because your code is amended. We're comparing to the 18. And it's just saying here's where you are. If you want to go to blower door testing in the 2021, or go to our testing as a requirement at all. Here's where you're here's where you're at. And so we just have to pay attention to some of those details.
00:47:26:29 - 00:47:48:12
Shauna Mozingo: What we found, the problem areas, the bottom plates, the top plates, the drywall connections. Just basically our thermal envelope connections and penetrations. So we're going to look at that in detail. Looking at that thermal envelope. It has to be defined. It's been required to be defined in the so that we know is that attic. Inside the envelope is a crawl space.
00:47:48:12 - 00:48:16:00
Shauna Mozingo: Inside the envelope or outside where is your envelope. And let's get every detail of that sealed up tight right. So that we save energy. We have a more durable and resilient building. And you know, we witnessed here in Colorado the less spread of smoke when houses were on fire and they had a tight envelope, houses next door didn't get as much smoke damage.
00:48:16:00 - 00:48:38:09
Shauna Mozingo: So there are all kinds of things, reasons that we do that. But why we Erin, is air out. If I have leaks out of the building, my house is always going to keep a neutral pressure, and so it will bring air in from somewhere and it'll bring with it anything that's out there. So we and and plus I have to reheat and recall that air.
00:48:38:10 - 00:49:00:06
Shauna Mozingo: So what I just want to get to real quick because you guys had some you just have a little bit to go on this air tightness to meet that to where you wouldn't have to worry about. Oh. Who cares if the code changes because we're there already right. And you're almost are we do those blower door tests to find the leaks.
00:49:00:06 - 00:49:22:25
Shauna Mozingo: We want to go. We're not saying don't have any leaks. We're just saying don't go from so many. Let's get a little fewer. Right. And so the the requirement is three ACH in all of the Nevada climate zones. You can trade it off, but you can't go over five air changes power. You can use that CFM per square foot of dwelling unit enclosure area now for attached housing and smaller houses.
00:49:22:25 - 00:49:41:05
Shauna Mozingo: So that's a that's great. And then the heated garages there are some exemptions in there on testing for heated garages. As long as you look at the table and do some other things. So some things to be aware of in there. I can't go over them all today. What I really want to go over is this table.
00:49:41:06 - 00:49:58:18
Shauna Mozingo: This is your roadmap to three air changes per hour. And you're so close. The this table is, you know, tells us how to do the air barrier and the insulation and each component and where to seal it and where to make sure you get insulation in there. If you do this, you're going to get to that three air changes per hour.
00:49:58:19 - 00:50:25:23
Shauna Mozingo: No problem. And so you do that and also it says do this plus manufacturer's install instructions that we tried to make a code with all those install instructions we would have to carry it around with a wheelbarrow. I mean like it's the code would be too big. So it just breaks it up. Here's the here's the places where you need to make sure you seal and make sure some stuff that you need to know about insulation.
00:50:25:23 - 00:50:53:10
Shauna Mozingo: So I'm just in general, I have to have a continuous air barrier around the entire envelope and all the, the, the joints, the seams, the penetrations, everything has to be sealed. Right. And so I cannot use air permeable insulation to seal things up. Right. So I can maybe get away with it in the sea for my draft stopping or fire blocking, but I cannot use it if I want to pass a blower to or to seal up a to seal up something.
00:50:53:11 - 00:51:16:14
Shauna Mozingo: It works as a great filter, but it does not work as a great sealant to block the transfer of air. It's permeable, right? Here's how this permeable insulation work. This is what I wear in the middle of the winter in Colorado. I wear this fleece jacket. If I put this fleece jacket on, it traps those pockets of air next to me.
00:51:16:16 - 00:51:41:22
Shauna Mozingo: And it it creates our value, right? I my body heat is staying in and I can feel that until the wind blows. Once the wind blows, then I need my windbreaker on. If I put the windbreaker on over the top of my permeable insulation, then now I'm retaining the heat again. It's trapping those pockets of air and keeping them in there.
00:51:41:22 - 00:52:04:03
Shauna Mozingo: And now it works. This is how insulation works, right? I need my windbreaker over the top of my insulation. Without it, when the wind blows, I feel it, and I get cooler. Right? This is how insulation works. This is what we're trying to get in our thermal envelope assembly is that alignment of the insulation and its air barrier so that the insulation has a chance to work.
00:52:04:05 - 00:52:24:24
Shauna Mozingo: So that's what it's telling us in the ceilings. It's telling us our air barrier. If I have a drop ceiling, it has to be aligned with the insulation. And then any access openings have to be sealed. And I need to also insulate them. So this is saying is, you know, I can't just have a cut out of the drywall.
00:52:24:29 - 00:52:50:04
Shauna Mozingo: And if you looked at how air moves in the building, cold air rises. And as it heats up, it rises and it's trying to get out any of those openings. And so attic access is a big one. If I turn on a blower door, I'm reversing that and I'm sucking the air out. If I have a loose a big opening at my attic, I'm going to suck all that volume of attic air in.
00:52:50:04 - 00:53:11:14
Shauna Mozingo: I'll never pass my blower door. I have to get a tight attic. I can't just cut a piece of drywall and call it good. I need a sealant and I need insulation on that. If I have a dropped ceiling, I can put insulation on a dropped ceiling, but I have to have an air barrier for it to count as my, to count towards my thermal envelope.
00:53:11:15 - 00:53:35:07
Shauna Mozingo: If there's no air barrier, then it's just there for sound. It doesn't get to count. And so I need an air barrier. I can't call the drop ceiling unless it's a drywall lid. I can't call it my air barrier because it's got appointed joints and seems so I would have to put another air barrier on, but this has to pay attention to that.
00:53:35:09 - 00:54:02:16
Shauna Mozingo: When I'm doing drop ceiling walls, the top of the wall has to be sealed. The bottom of the wall has to be sealed near walls need to be sealed. You need to get at least an hour three into those cavities and corners and headers. And then this is where it's really specific to say that that thermal, the insulation and the and the air barrier have to be in contact and continuous alignment with each other in those walls.
00:54:02:16 - 00:54:29:19
Shauna Mozingo: So if I'm sealing the bottom of the wall, I can I there's a lot of different ways to seal it. I have seen people do caulking. I've seen people use the seal. Seal. I don't know, you know, to me, seal seal is a wicking to keep the moisture from the concrete going up into the wall. I don't know that I would count on it or rely on it as an air sealant.
00:54:29:21 - 00:55:00:18
Shauna Mozingo: But I see people use all kinds of different things to seal the bottom of the wall. Could I get away with nothing? Possibly. It depends on where you do, how you do everywhere else in your building. Right. You are going to decide where in the building you're doing. When you do, you put your house together, you know, house gets put together, you do a blower door, you find where the leaks are and which ones you can seal up most cost effectively and and easily so that you pass your blower door.
00:55:00:20 - 00:55:20:29
Shauna Mozingo: Again, we're not trying to say no leaks. We're trying to say very little leaks. And so top of walls, this is one place that's pretty big. People forget about no one way. The code doesn't say how to do it. It says to seal it. Right. It doesn't say you have to use any particular product or any way of doing it.
00:55:20:29 - 00:55:41:18
Shauna Mozingo: But the idea is that I see all of the holes going up into the attic and at the top of the wall, so that the attic air doesn't make it into my wall and make it into my house. When I do a blower door or the air that I've already heated and cooled inside, does it make it into the wall and escaped into that attic?
00:55:41:18 - 00:56:11:24
Shauna Mozingo: And now I have to reheat and air all the time. Or the moisture that's in this room doesn't make it in that wall and mess up the wall. Like, there's a lot of reasons that we do air sealing. So those are some of the things that seal up those attic walls. Maybe if you put your air barrier where you're supposed to do the insulation would stay where it's supposed to, but there's a lot of times where you have conditioned space and unconditioned space, and that wall has to get an air barrier and insulation.
00:56:11:27 - 00:56:38:12
Shauna Mozingo: It's your vertical envelope wall. Right. And so making sure there's some way to get at least an hour three into those corners, redoing how we do those corners. Now that the IRC in in 2021, the IRS made significant changes in the amount of headers that we need. And so it's reduced, which adds to why it's it's cheaper to build.
00:56:38:16 - 00:57:02:11
Shauna Mozingo: Actually in 2018 it made that change. So now we have room to get some insulation up in those headers. So making sure we get insulation in there. Don't use permeable insulation to seal around doors and windows. It works as a great filter, but it will not stop the transfer of air. So using some caulking or some backer rod or something to seal up around those windows, making sure you get the rim.
00:57:02:11 - 00:57:27:05
Shauna Mozingo: Joyce for insulation and air sealing. There's a lot of different ways to do it. I see people now just spray foam there. They're, rim Joyce because it's easier than cutting insulation. Making sure you get the floors are getting insulated and the ends of the floor. So especially if I have a garage on one side, I definitely want all of those in sealed up.
00:57:27:08 - 00:57:52:21
Shauna Mozingo: I either have to have my insulation in permanent contact with my subfloor, or with the new exceptions that are in the code, I can drop my insulation down as long as I have some continuous insulation and drywall on the bottom, I seal up my cavities and stuff. So again, I'm barreling through this. The classes that we're going to bring to you in Nevada will go into detail about how to do all of these things.
00:57:52:25 - 00:58:14:19
Shauna Mozingo: I'm just telling you, these are the places that we've identified where people are not doing it correctly. So I'm highlighting that. Don't forget, kennel levers are floors. There's a couple places that you can get air leakage in a floor and a can of lever. So making sure you get those tight sealed up correctly, we're finding all kinds of ways that they don't get done correctly.
00:58:14:22 - 00:58:44:10
Shauna Mozingo: And so getting those sealed up and then your crawl spaces have to be done correctly with insulation and and vapor barriers if they are conditioned crawls. So penetrations those are things that we found. Your narrow cavities either fill them with insulation or cut it to fit. Don't shove them in there. And then making sure you get that real good separation between the house of the garage.
00:58:44:10 - 00:59:07:01
Shauna Mozingo: Even if the garages condition the code says you have to put the thermal air sealing between the house and the garage. We do not want garage air in our house, right? We just don't want that. And so you have to air seal completely recess candlelight. That's another place because that the air is getting warm and it's going up and it's going to try to get out.
00:59:07:03 - 00:59:30:03
Shauna Mozingo: And so you want to make sure that you have sealed can lights. It's another penetration in the envelope. This is in the table about making sure that you get your insulation. If you use permeable insulation, you have to split it around the insulation around the plumbing. Because again, remember, it says your air barrier has to be in contact with your insulation.
00:59:30:03 - 00:59:46:17
Shauna Mozingo: And unless you use like a zip system or something on the outside that can be considered an air barrier, your sheathing is in an air barrier because you're not seeing all the joints and seeing. So you would have to put your air barriers, probably the drywall on the inside. How do you have your insulation in contact with the drywall?
00:59:46:18 - 01:00:06:13
Shauna Mozingo: You have to split those bats and put them around both sides. If you're using that kind of a situation, air barrier at tubs and showers, making sure that you're getting back there before the tub gets installed, and get that air barrier in there, you can come in later and insulate behind it. So you got to get that air barrier in there.
01:00:06:14 - 01:00:28:02
Shauna Mozingo: That's one place that I see missed a lot or behind fireplaces. Make sure in those electric boxes are filled that way. If I do get air in that wall from the attic or from the house, it's not going. It can't get. I can't get the air into the house because I'm getting sealed. I'm sealing up all the little holes that would allow that to come in.
01:00:28:03 - 01:00:55:13
Shauna Mozingo: So there's all kinds of different ways every electrical inspector has their way that they want to see it done. So make sure that you are talking to your electrical inspector. This is another place that's kind of crazy to do, but think about it. If I have a register and I have a big floor cavity or a wall cavity or a ceiling cavity, and I don't seal around those, when I turn on a blower door, I can pull the air from that cavity and it will add to my volume of air.
01:00:55:13 - 01:01:17:03
Shauna Mozingo: And I'm not going to pass my blower door test. So making sure I get those sealed up. And then I always say, pay attention to all those other places because it's really hard. If you are required to put fire sprinklers, it's hard to get good air sealing on those sometimes. So because it's not like you can just, you know, seal those plates.
01:01:17:06 - 01:01:40:16
Shauna Mozingo: And so I pay attention really close to all the other details because I'm going to have some leakage around this. But it's mostly do it according to manufacturers, install instructions and then don't forget your ventilation. That's the biggest thing. You're building a tight house. Make sure you ventilate it. So here's the other things that we found in Nevada was on the whole house mechanical ventilation.
01:01:40:16 - 01:02:10:08
Shauna Mozingo: Only 50% of the houses had it, and only half of those you had the right controls. So I know you have a mended out blower doors, but that doesn't mean you're not building tight. Just because you don't test doesn't mean you're not building tight. And so you have got to address mechanical ventilation. You have to bring in fresh air for to keep condensation down, to allow people to breathe and to make sure that we are, you know, dealing with off gassing of furniture and everything else.
01:02:10:08 - 01:02:34:07
Shauna Mozingo: We need to have fresh air in these at a controlled rate. So working on that and getting the proper controls so that they're running intermittently or continuously or whatever you choose. Duct leakage. We found the average duck leakage was at 3.46. So that's great. We did find a leaky one at 16 CFM. Not so great. Low at zero.
01:02:34:08 - 01:02:54:09
Shauna Mozingo: You believe? I don't even know how you find a zero leaky duct. But what we found a lot of the times is that the problem with the test results is you would have been a lot better, but it wasn't sealed at the air handler. The air handlers aren't being sealed correctly, so we're going to look at that in a second.
01:02:54:11 - 01:03:17:08
Shauna Mozingo: Some other stuff that we found in in the South almost exclusively 80% furnaces were being installed, which is okay because the majority of you are not heating anyway. You're cooling. We'd rather see more efficient cooling, but in the north you had 92% or better because you are heating more. Right. And so that's good that that was great. It was good to track that.
01:03:17:08 - 01:03:51:01
Shauna Mozingo: That's something Doe doesn't require us to track that we did. In the South you had 14 year air conditioners in the north 13th year. So that's great. Mostly tankless water heaters in the south and a mix between tankless and tank in the north. Just something we tracked as good information to have, but there's some good information out there if you Google this not air ceiling of the cabinet, there's some great, great places to make sure that you catch on.
01:03:51:01 - 01:04:19:04
Shauna Mozingo: How to get better air ceiling at that cabinet. That's where we found the biggest air leakage in the system. The other thing we tracked was insulation. Insulation in ceilings. Overall pretty good installation. The average was only our 19. We had did find some with no insulation and the high was R 49. So, you know, if you guys moved to the 21 R 49 is required.
01:04:19:04 - 01:04:37:25
Shauna Mozingo: Even in climate zone three are 60 in climate zone up in the north. So some of you pay attention to what are we meeting. The average are 19. That just means that 70. Remember 71 of those homes used a performance path, or more of them used a performance path. So that just means they traded off. It doesn't mean you're not meeting code.
01:04:37:25 - 01:05:02:06
Shauna Mozingo: It's just probably it was traded off to a lower amount, meaning you did something better. But it was just saying, I found this a good thing that says, you know, if we did the average R 49 that was required, then we could save $1 million a year in in energy costs by just going to R 49. That was an interesting amount of money.
01:05:02:07 - 01:05:32:10
Shauna Mozingo: Above grade was installed correctly, pretty much average R 15. Just meaning it's traded off again. The low was R 13 and you had some that came in at a 25. If we met just the basic code requirement prescriptive, we would save 600,000 in energy per year. In Nevada, Foundation's done pretty well. We didn't find a lot of, you know, a lot of problems on foundation insulation.
01:05:32:10 - 01:05:59:15
Shauna Mozingo: And then you have a crawl space installation, only 50% done correctly. But, overall, still only 9000 between both of them in savings. Not say only. That's still an amount of savings that we could see. But where we're going to put our focus. Right. And then windows. Right. You're doing great on windows. The factor requirement is 0.32 in the south and 0.30 in the north.
01:05:59:15 - 01:06:19:00
Shauna Mozingo: Here are averages that we saw. They were all better than code or mostly better than code. You're low and your average were the same. So that's great. We just saw a couple non-compliant. But you're doing great on windows. It's your solar heat gain in the in the south. That's big. The north is throwing you off because there was no requirement.
01:06:19:01 - 01:06:50:06
Shauna Mozingo: And so it added to that average. But you're still doing pretty good in in this. It's probably a higher savings. If we just looked at the South by itself this number would be more but so we're looking good. Nevada get its attention to detail, performance and production builders performance. People using the performance test and production builders are struggling less than prescriptive or custom builders.
01:06:50:08 - 01:07:12:13
Shauna Mozingo: Pay attention to those details in the thermal envelope, all those assembly layers. How to get them all. Pay attention to your mechanical ventilation and the strategies. Identify the thermal envelope and feel that air handler. And that is that's what we found in Nevada. I'm a little bit over. So I'm going to go to questions.
01:07:12:15 - 01:07:17:02
Sara Gutterman: Cooper. Thank you so much Shauna. We really appreciate just the info.
01:07:17:02 - 01:07:18:13
Shauna Mozingo: Sorry.
01:07:18:15 - 01:07:46:01
Sara Gutterman: No, that was great because we are so short on time. I have two questions that I'm going to ask to you before we wrap it up. Okay. The first one is from one of the audience members who asks. It is my understanding that the 2021 IEC requires duct testing in all compliance paths, regardless of duct location, except for the total building performance path.
01:07:46:02 - 01:07:48:00
Sara Gutterman: Is that correct?
01:07:48:02 - 01:08:11:21
Shauna Mozingo: So duct testing has always been mandatory. You always have to test no matter which path. That's 100% true that it's always been that way. No matter which path. You have to test your ducts. The. And then there was always an exception. You don't have to test as long as you are inside the thermal envelope. The only change in the 2021 is that you.
01:08:11:22 - 01:08:30:08
Shauna Mozingo: Now you have to test all ducts, whether they're inside or outside the envelope. So duct testing has been one of those mandatory items. It's not something you could trade off. You can trade off the amount of leakage. So if you were required for CFM prescriptive, you can trade off to three CFM and use that as a deposit because you did better than code.
01:08:30:08 - 01:08:39:02
Shauna Mozingo: Or you could trade off worse and use that as a withdrawal because you didn't. Worse than code, you can trade off the amount, but you have to test.
01:08:39:04 - 01:08:50:05
Sara Gutterman: Great. Thank you. Is there any inclusion for indoor air quality either in the prescriptive or acquired pathways?
01:08:50:08 - 01:09:17:25
Shauna Mozingo: Yeah, indoor air quality is is one of the main reasons that one of the reasons that we are doing that building air tightness. Right. We build a tight envelope so that we don't get in all of those allergens and all any smoke or dirt or whatever from outside. And then we bring in a very controlled amount of fresh air to deal with condensation and, and, and fresh air to breathe and things.
01:09:17:25 - 01:09:38:12
Shauna Mozingo: But and so one of those, you know, yes. That's so that we don't have to reheat and recoup new air all the time with that leakage. But it's also to reduce the amount of, of things that come in, the amount of fresh air. We bring in deals with the off gassing of our furniture and stuff so that we have fresh air to breathe, but it's at a controlled amount.
01:09:38:12 - 01:09:47:27
Shauna Mozingo: So just about everything in the thermal envelope requirements for air sealing, go to indoor air quality.
01:09:48:00 - 01:09:57:27
Sara Gutterman: Super. Thank you. And I'm actually going to slip in one more question. And that is is there a yearly comparison in total energy usage from code additions to code edition?
01:09:58:03 - 01:10:23:18
Shauna Mozingo: Yes, absolutely. So the Department of Energy at that same website, energy Kozlov is an amazing website. That's where you download Res Check or Comtech. Or you can use check online. It has a great resource center. It's but it's also got on there the Department of Energy. Every time a code gets printed, they go in and do an analysis and so does the National Association of Homebuilders.
01:10:23:18 - 01:10:46:15
Shauna Mozingo: I like to kind of compare them side by side to see how they do their analysis. But they both will analysis do an analysis on the cost and the savings from each addition to the next. And so that's done for they do it at the national level for the overall code. And then they will go in and analyze it for each state based on what climate zones.
01:10:46:15 - 01:10:58:16
Shauna Mozingo: So you can see the cost jump or the savings increase from code additions to code additions for your climate zone or for national super.
01:10:58:16 - 01:11:22:09
Sara Gutterman: Thank you so much. And we did receive a few questions about the recording of this webinar. So just to confirm, we will have the recording of this webinar available. For anyone that has registered for the webinar, you will receive an auto email with that link to the recording. So look for that in the next few days. So Shauna I don't see any other questions.
01:11:22:09 - 01:11:48:27
Sara Gutterman: So thank you so much for sharing your time and your knowledge with us today. Thank you to our audience for attending and asking a few great questions. And thank you so much to Powershift by and the energy for their generous sponsorship of this webinar. Please join us for our next webinar on June 14th at 2:00 Eastern Time with Leslie Adkins, Vice President of Marketing and ESG Development at Trex Company.
01:11:49:05 - 01:12:28:13
Sara Gutterman: And that webinar will focus on the impact of outdoor spaces on on well-being and sustainable living, and it'll focus on outdoor settings and how they impact human beings in terms of mental health, physical health. And it'll also highlight tips for creating an eco friendly outdoor living space that brings harmony between home and nature. And then after that, our next webinar will be on Wednesday, June 28th at 2:00 eastern, presented by Josh Christianson, the CEO of Home Technology Association, on how builders can meet their clients technology expectations.
01:12:28:13 - 01:12:43:13
Sara Gutterman: And Josh will share best practices on getting smart home technology. Right. So again, thank you all to everyone. Thank you Shauna, and thank you to Envy Energy. And that's their app today okay. Bye bye.