In the first of four Housing 2.0 sessions, Sam Rashkin, formerly chief architect at the Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office, zeroes in on enclosure performance, comparing wall assemblies on framing factor, thermal bridging, quality-control risk, disaster resistance and cost. Panasonic's Ken Nelson follows with a segment on indoor air quality and ventilation.
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Mike Collignon: All right.
00:00:10:15 - 00:00:39:08
Mike Collignon: I was just catching up on some reading. It is a classic Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It is, after all, Harry Potter book day. But, you know, I should actually be flipping through this book. Housing 2.0 Disruption Survival Guide. I mean, after all, that's why you're here and we are glad you chose to join us. You know, this is the first of four virtual seminars that will examine how to consistently optimize five key housing user experiences.
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Mike Collignon: This series is going to look and feel a little different than previous iterations. We're going to focus on performance and specifically on enclosures. And as a bonus, we're going to be joined by Ken Nelson of Panasonic for a presentation, discussion and Q&A on Eyak. It's a lot of letters there. You know, my name is Mike Collignon and I'm the housing 2.0 program manager.
00:01:00:24 - 00:01:24:10
Mike Collignon: If at any point you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me via the chat box or by email. And I'm going to put that address in the chat box in just a little while, since it is Harry Potter book day. I guess that would make Sam the Dumbledore of Housing 2.0. He's formerly the chief architect of Does Building Technologies office, but now is focused on creating and teaching the content for the housing 2.0 program.
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Mike Collignon: The content is based largely on Sam's book housing 2.0 A Disruption Survival Guide. The full program was established to help empower you, our building professionals, to design and construct higher performance, healthier, more sustainable homes at a fraction of the cost. Sam's going to lead us through today's seminar and also address your questions at the end. Now, before we get started, we have some magical sponsors I need to mention.
00:01:47:18 - 00:02:09:12
Mike Collignon: The first is Schneider Electric, who is driving the digital transformation of modern homes with smart and sustainable energy solutions for ultimate comfort and energy efficiency. Their connected home ecosystem of smart energy management solutions provides digital control of energy use throughout a home from the grid via their smart electrical panel to their connected wiring devices. Next, we have Jingo Solar.
00:02:09:14 - 00:02:42:23
Mike Collignon: They are a leading PV module manufacturer and energy storage system integrator. The company has deployed more than 100GW of their Eagle modules in 160 countries globally, including more than 17GW right here in the United States. Eagle storage brings together the best energy storage technology for turnkey hardware and energy storage services. We also have Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions because they're helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and indoor air quality solutions that provide a safer environment for home buyers.
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Mike Collignon: As I mentioned before, Ken Nelson from Panasonic is going to be joining us. Finally, we have our newest sponsor, which is LVC. As a leading proponent of the electrification movement. LG is proud to pave the way with arguably the broadest portfolio of home electrification products, from air to air and air to water heat pumps for HVAC, water heaters, clothes dryers and washer dryer combos, two advanced energy storage systems, EV chargers, and super efficient appliances, including the industry's first Energy Star certified induction Cooktop.
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Mike Collignon: LG's innovation and technology will help us promote decarbonization and collectively create a better life for all. Now, during the course of today's presentation, you can submit questions for Sam or Ken. Simply use the questions box inside the Go to Webinar Control panel. I'm going to review those questions and pose those to Sam or Ken after our presentation today.
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Mike Collignon: All right. I don't see a broom, but it looks like Sam is ready to take off on this educational journey.
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Sam Rashkin: Hey, thank you so much, Mike. And like Mike. Incredibly grateful for our great sponsors. The program is incredibly grateful for their support. Again, Panasonic, Schneider Electric, Genco solar LG air conditioning technologies are carefully curated because they align with our mission to deliver better homes for lower cost. So let's jump in. Today's seminar, we're going to talk about today session one performance matters.
00:04:14:17 - 00:04:45:19
Sam Rashkin: This is one of four sessions that I'll lay out for you a little bit into the presentation that comprises series two, the last series for 2024 of housing 2.0 seminars. So the outline for today will start with a brief introduction of the housing 2.0 program. Why? What how? That is the source of the content for today. And then pull from the large content database from housing 2.0.
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Sam Rashkin: We're going to talk about performance and why it matters and why it's so critical. There are key changes that are absolutely just major forces acting on the industry. There's then the change in form performance that we need to address in new housing. And then relative to the overall performance, we're going to zero in on one of the most key parts of performance enclosure and how to get that right, and then finally how to optimize enclosure for lower cost.
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Sam Rashkin: Then we'll go into Ken's discussion about indoor air quality and open up for discussion. So section first module of today why what how for housing 2.0. The big data point. That drives a lot of why I do what I do is a study by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab looking at where people spend their time every day at work, at home, other indoor environments, dining, outdoors, cars.
00:05:46:29 - 00:06:28:15
Sam Rashkin: And what's a stunning realization from the data that was done in 2001, is that almost 70% of our time is in our homes. And when you look at the statistics after Covid, with all the in kind of the embedded work at home transition, probably were 75% in our homes every day. So it leads us to this kind of amazing concept, homes where life happens and any of us in the housing industry, whatever, whatever role we serve, should feel inspired by what we do is create the life for people, kind of spend their time.
00:06:28:17 - 00:06:56:25
Sam Rashkin: And the goal for why I do what I do. I think many of you who are listening to what you do is we're about making homes where life happens better. And the key thing about housing 2.0 is I've expanded the scope of where I spend my attention to go beyond just performance, because I was just virtually just dominated by that.
00:06:56:25 - 00:07:40:06
Sam Rashkin: Trying to get Housing, Energy Star certified home and Zero Energy ready home to market. And I had this realization that that is really just one leg of a five legged stool. It's absolutely must have of the stool. But for consistently delivering to be consistent, delivering a better user experience at lower cost. Therefore other experiences that also have to be addressed the community experience, the design experience, quality sales and service all of those deliver a complete and expected user experience by home buyer and so performance as a must have.
00:07:40:07 - 00:08:22:23
Sam Rashkin: But so are the other four. And there's a process for how I address every one of these five experiences basically is always the same. We have two business models. We have the older first cost driven business model and housing and the housing two point of business model. If we look at cost per home, the amount of money in step one, first investing in the user experience through experts and special features, we want to bump up with housing 2.0, make extra investments where we know we have a sure thing user experience that will, if not transform, completely, enhance how life lives in that home.
00:08:22:23 - 00:08:54:23
Sam Rashkin: And the second step is absolutely critical. The big unique guidance, I think, from housing 2.0 is that we then tie a whole comprehensive set of best practices for optimizing the cost, not just the construction cost, the ownership costs, wellness cost and future value. And will we optimize all those? We have the net cost savings and added value that accrues.
00:08:54:23 - 00:09:26:15
Sam Rashkin: And the last step of housing 2.0 is to translate that value. If the consumer doesn't see it and it's hidden, then it doesn't manifest when we go to market. So what we're finding, through my analysis and observations of really successful builders who apply a lot of these best practices, is there's an opportunity for 30 to 70% added value and cost savings compared to the existing business model, and that's basically the essence of housing 2.0.
00:09:26:17 - 00:09:54:18
Sam Rashkin: What I love is at the end, when we do full day workshops and training programs, we do have a chance to really dive into success stories. Here's one. Walsh Construction in Portland, Oregon. They built the first building and then they said, we can do better. And they just went into a comprehensive optimization approach for design. And just one of the five experiences optimized, reduced the cost of construction, 20 almost 25%.
00:09:54:19 - 00:10:17:05
Sam Rashkin: And that doesn't count for all the added value that also comes from better spaces and better poor plans and better storage, etc.. So this is really compelling to me. We have to do better is where the industry is going. And so the key resource I'm going to suggest to you is book that Mike showed you at the beginning, housing 2.0 Disruption Survival Guide.
00:10:17:06 - 00:10:47:14
Sam Rashkin: You can just run your camera over this. Code and get to our website. But this is where you get so much more detail and we can ever cover in the seminars. So let's move right in with the first topic, key changes impacting performance. And I think if you got 100 housing professionals in a room and ask them to write a definition of high performance homes, you get 100 different definitions.
00:10:47:14 - 00:11:15:18
Sam Rashkin: And so I want to try to create some thoughtful logic about how we think about performance. And the best way to do that is by looking at these key changes. There are four of them. First is that there's housing disruption looming ahead. Many of you know who've seen my presentations, I do an hour to hour and a half just on all the researching and data points around what's happening to the industry that suggests this disruption.
00:11:15:19 - 00:11:36:06
Sam Rashkin: I'll compress that into just a couple of slides. And then the next key change impacting performance is at zero energies and zero carbon have left the station. We'll talk about that. But along for the ride comes with all these better homes comes greater risks and we have to manage those risks. And that's a key change that has to be recognized.
00:11:36:06 - 00:12:01:05
Sam Rashkin: And then there are all these hard trends that are absolutely pivotal in having housing that stands the test of time. So these are four key changes. And we'll look at them one at a time. So let's start with housing disruption looming ahead. Again this is compressing a long presentation just to a couple of slides to give you a sense of how important to know is where the puck is going.
00:12:01:07 - 00:12:25:19
Sam Rashkin: The Oakland Gretzky quote about why it was successful. Kingsgate to where the puck is, he skates to where it's going, and I'll suggest we know where it's going. That first, looking at the problem, there are four crises driving substantial pain to the housing industry. One is user experience readiness. Home buyers are massively more informed that massively greater expectations.
00:12:25:20 - 00:12:56:07
Sam Rashkin: We have peer reviews and all sorts of other ways of differentiating builders. We have to be ready for this new world. Second is affordability. Housing portability is off the charts. I think the current median price to meeting income ratio is 5.6, when three is considered affordable and five is like it's insanely unaffordable. So we are. What we all notice is portability is just just in crushing the industry.
00:12:56:09 - 00:13:18:24
Sam Rashkin: Then third is trades and the lack of trades. Their average construction age is 42.5. For every five workers that retire out of the industry, there are only two in the pipeline to replace them. There are some recent moves to get some little gains from that, but not nearly enough to meet the needs for 723,000 new workers a year.
00:13:18:24 - 00:13:50:03
Sam Rashkin: And finally, is productivity. We are the only industry that's declining in productivity, and that's unacceptable when we have just such millions of home backlog that have to be met to provide housing for Americans. So these are real substantial crisis points. And then we have solutions, though, that relieve the pain. In fact, there are four solutions. One is a user optimization approach, like I said, that extracts all the savings and value to create better homes for lower cost.
00:13:50:05 - 00:14:17:13
Sam Rashkin: Kind of why you're at this workshop. And then there's mass customization. Now, I've been up a lot by builders. Every time I present recommendations in this mass customization space, but essentially we have to start realizing we can't afford to build all these custom tailored homes the way we do. There's just far too much customization and mass customization can deliver the same or better products at lower cost.
00:14:17:15 - 00:14:46:23
Sam Rashkin: And then third, we can't be the only mystery that's not digitized. Every other industry makes a virtual twin of a product before it builds it. We have to be fully digitized to again leverage all these additional cost savings from both avoiding problems and building more efficiently with digital, virtual, twin. And finally, systems built the idea of just building the field the way we can building for hundreds of years is not affordable anymore.
00:14:46:26 - 00:15:12:09
Sam Rashkin: So systems builds critical. So when you put all this together we apply these solutions. We have a description better homes for lower cost. And the way it lays out is here's a problem. These four crises user experience readiness affordability productivity trades. And then we have the disruption for solutions market ready to relieve the pain. Just connect the dots.
00:15:12:12 - 00:15:49:29
Sam Rashkin: User experience optimization will provide homes that will meet and exceed expectations of buyers. And because they leverage and extract all these savings and all this extra value, they're more affordable. Mass customization will take those user experience optimization solutions and create mass customized solutions with various building blocks that can be just easily assembled to create these great experiences at lower cost of virtual twin with digitization will virtually digitize these solutions so they're even more market ready and more affordable and more productive.
00:15:49:29 - 00:16:14:28
Sam Rashkin: And finally, systems built is the only path to really mitigating this kind of cliff looming ahead, where the workforce shortage will kind of crush the industry. So my view of the future is simply logically, logically looking at what has to happen for the industry and anything we do to make high performance solutions has to recognize this future. Okay.
00:16:14:29 - 00:16:41:09
Sam Rashkin: The second change happening is zero is left the station. And let's just look at the numbers just in terms of hers ratings. There are nearly 4 million homes rated in 2023. I suspect we're getting closer to 4,000,000 in 2024. Last year. I mean, the cumulative is 3.6 million. Last year. Over 360,000 homes are rated with an average person decks of 57.
00:16:41:11 - 00:17:09:21
Sam Rashkin: Probably a good zero energy ready home. You're starting you really in the 40 to 50 range. So just the average person decks for over 360,000 homes is already approaching zero ready kind of index. And the code index is 70 to 80. For the latest ICC codes. Then we can look at the national codes themselves and how rapidly they're increasing rigor.
00:17:09:24 - 00:17:45:17
Sam Rashkin: This is just a curve that shows the energy use index with 1995 pegged to 100, and how the rigor has increased with reduced energy use requirements with each next iteration of the energy code. And what you should notice is that we've dropped about 40 to 50% since 2006, and that's a zero rating closure. And a good indication that's the case is the Zero Energy Home program from Doe is pegged to 2021 ICC, I think starting next year currently 2015 ICC.
00:17:45:19 - 00:18:10:21
Sam Rashkin: So these codes are already a great foundational baseline for the enclosure of a zero energy ready home. And then we can look at the states that are adopting these cards. This is a map that shows in in kind of a tan color, all the states that are targeting a zero energy code, specifically in green, the states that are targeting these more advanced codes that represent a zero ready home enclosure.
00:18:10:21 - 00:18:43:10
Sam Rashkin: And in 2021, ICC is required for all hot and USDA loans starting next year, which will further push almost all states to start using the 2021, Iirc, to get the far greater financing mortgage rates with the HUD code and USDA loans. So and HUD is FHA. So again, these are just forces that are just going to keep driving to these latest zero energy rated cards.
00:18:43:13 - 00:19:11:17
Sam Rashkin: And then there's the voluntary certifications. Energy stars march past 2.5 million zero and zero ready certifications are also growing exponentially. I'll mention that the Zero Energy Home program this year certified 8000 homes, which is as many homes that are certified the prior ten years. Just this year, next year, they'll be in the tens of thousands of homes because.
00:19:11:19 - 00:19:42:20
Sam Rashkin: We'll talk about Beazer and Clayton homes are going all in at 100%. Just those two companies are about 50,000 homes, 55,000 homes a year. So zero energy certifications is just off to the races. And then there's a driving force for it for moving there. The 4045 tax credit, which walks in for ten years, very significant. Builder rebates 2500 for Energy Star, 5000 for zero.
00:19:42:20 - 00:20:11:16
Sam Rashkin: Ready for single family homes. Multifamily is 501,000 respectively and manufactured homes are 2500 for Energy Star 5004 zero. Ready and again. This is again what was striving. So much growth so quickly. And so you see a company like Beazer going all in 100% starting next year, zero Energy ready homes. And then I mentioned Clayton's going 100% already starting the process substantially through their plants.
00:20:11:18 - 00:20:35:16
Sam Rashkin: What's really stunning is that they're building is there any ready homes, $148 a square foot compared to numbers we see like 150 a square foot for minimum code homes. So it's just everywhere you look. The data is telling you this is a future zero energy and zero carbon. And what's great is you have all these certification solutions while you get there.
00:20:35:18 - 00:21:07:06
Sam Rashkin: There's a path for how every one of us can get to zero high performance certifications. Energy Star zero, Energy Star Air Plus water sense. Fortified for resilience. Green building standards. Zero ready is with the Zero Energy Ready Home program and passive house programs. Your net energy with passive House and Living Building Challenge has a zero energy certification. All electric zero energy homes are coming on the market and so are carbon certifications.
00:21:07:06 - 00:21:36:04
Sam Rashkin: So lots of ways to kind of figure where you want to be and how you move along the path. But it's a great way to prepare. And then we have the third item, which all the greater risks impose as you build much more high performance enclosures with the zero energy programs and better codes. And the reason risk up is because of the major change in thermal and air flow through the assemblies.
00:21:36:06 - 00:22:08:05
Sam Rashkin: In low performance enclosures, you have much more thermal and airflow, hyper high performance enclosures, much less thermal and airflow. Now, what drives risk is that you have a much colder surface on the cold side of the assembly, inside the sheathing or the drywall, depending if it's a warm or cold climate. And that creates, first of all, moisture risk, because when you have colder surface and less thermal flow to drive it, there's more wedding potential and there's and less drying potential.
00:22:08:05 - 00:22:41:07
Sam Rashkin: And that's kind of a formula for lots of risk. If any moisture can get in the assembly. This is like no room for error. So Worcester risk is greater. And then comfort risk is greater because we have ultra low loads with such improved enclosures. And so we have less air throated airflow through the duct systems. We have short of cycles to remove moisture in cooling season, with longer swing seasons where we still have latent load on the front and back end, but no sensible cooling operating to create the demon.
00:22:41:09 - 00:23:03:23
Sam Rashkin: And we have a market where demon indication is like extra credit and has to start moving to becoming more mandatory in climates that get humidity. And the third risk is healthy and much tighter enclosures. So we have much more accumulation of contaminants that have to be matched. So all these risks are there. And it's not all my God.
00:23:03:24 - 00:23:34:09
Sam Rashkin: The sky is falling. It's that you manage the risk. We can do this. And the last force acting in these industry, these key changes is hard trends that you can't ignore. This is the future with certainty. Disaster risk every day just almost never disappear from the news. The magnitude and frequency of just insanely more devastating disasters is just growing and growing.
00:23:34:12 - 00:24:07:21
Sam Rashkin: Water shortages are a byproduct of a lot of the climate trends, to much hotter temperatures and less rainfall in large regions of the country. We have to be dealing with water conservation. It's no longer extra credit in such a large portion of the country. And then we know we're going to this all electric transition, and we need to build our homes and enclosures and integrate and performance solutions that will be ready for this transition.
00:24:07:26 - 00:24:51:03
Sam Rashkin: So let's look at change inform performance of all these key changes are acting on the industry. What what is the imperative for us in building high performance. And the first set of building blocks is step one optimize energy efficient performance. And we do that first with the enclosure. That is the most important part of the building. We have to get the enclosure right and more and more integrating smart features and enclosures, sensors and cameras so we can better manage, again things that might be happening, like if the enclosure is getting wet at this airflow, or other issues with temperatures that are not where they should be.
00:24:51:04 - 00:25:10:23
Sam Rashkin: So a lot of things will be happening for efficient and smart enclosures in the same with the equipment efficient and smart. So now we have a much greater enclosure. We can size the equipment and put in the equipment that knows what to do with a more efficient enclosure, and then all the rest of the components lighting, the appliances, all those should be efficient and smart as well.
00:25:10:26 - 00:25:37:13
Sam Rashkin: So step one the next building blocks are managing those risks. We just talked about Worcester comfort and accumulating contaminants. So we have moisture protection, ensured comfort solutions for low load homes and comprehensive indoor air quality. And finally we have step three. We get ready for the future if we know where the puck is going, let's get there. And we know disaster resilience is just pounding the industry.
00:25:37:13 - 00:26:07:22
Sam Rashkin: Insurance costs, property values. There's so many forces that have to be managed to protect homes for the future. Same in regions that are just locked in for ever increasing water availability issues. We have to integrate water efficient solutions. Again, this all electric transition, we need to have solutions that we can quickly transition all electric or even start building all electric solutions today.
00:26:07:26 - 00:26:41:28
Sam Rashkin: And so this leads me to a definition of high performance. When I go and research definitions, I just can't find any of that work for me to the degree I can find any really consistent definition in the industry. So I'm going to volunteer one that builds on this understanding and the set of building blocks. High performance residence constructed with smart enclosure assemblies, systems and components that ensure efficiency, durability, comfort, health, resilience, water conservation and electric readiness.
00:26:42:01 - 00:27:20:22
Sam Rashkin: It's a mouthful, but any one of those left out is a huge impact on the home performance. And I'll give you a little definition just to amplify the definition. It's great to have a beautiful home, but it's just as critical to have a high performance home that lives less and works better. So when I go and move into housing 2.0 and say, here's a framework for how we deliver better homes for lower cost, all these building blocks inform a very carefully curated set of strategies and actions you can take.
00:27:20:22 - 00:27:44:14
Sam Rashkin: And so first things the why? Why do we do high performance? Because protection matters. Protection from high bills, discomfort, inconvenience, poor health, lack of water, high maintenance safety and lack of sustainability. And what we do first is we optimize enclosure. I mentioned that is the biggest, most substantial part of the home we build. We have to get it right.
00:27:44:16 - 00:28:05:08
Sam Rashkin: We do that with building sites and then their whole best practices for doing building science. Right? Then we have to get the operation right. You know, the whole way, the equipment, the comfort, the water heating work, and they have to be efficient and smart. Then we have to optimize health. And we do that with comprehensive indoor air quality.
00:28:05:14 - 00:28:28:18
Sam Rashkin: Then we have to optimize water with water efficient solutions relevant to the location, then optimize resistance with disaster ready solutions relevant to the prevailing risk. And finally, we want to optimize zero. And to do that we have to be electric ready. And what we're doing today is I'm going to focus on the enclosure the rest of the way.
00:28:28:24 - 00:29:00:16
Sam Rashkin: And then I got Ken coming in from Panasonic to help out on the health side, talk about indoor air quality and ventilation, how we start managing contaminants from accumulating in our homes. So this is session one of the better homes for lower cost. Then on October 20th, today's the 17th. On the 24th, we have a better homes for lower cost session two comfort matters.
00:29:00:16 - 00:29:35:07
Sam Rashkin: And then I'm going to extract tens of thousands of cost of vantage by optimizing comfort. And I'm going to bring in experts from LG Air Conditioning to talk about innovation for low load homes and comfort. So we'll do that next week on the 21st. On the 28th, I think we have session three of the better homes for lower cost, future ready matters, and we'll dive into all these opportunities to address being ready for water, disaster, electric and things that really deliver a better user experience.
00:29:35:07 - 00:29:57:28
Sam Rashkin: And now we have a very special sponsor, Stand Electric, which has these amazing solutions for really getting ready for all electric future integrating with solar and electric cars, all the things that are happening. So do that in third week and finally November 7th. I believe the better homes for lower cost session for the last one will focus on how you live matters.
00:29:57:28 - 00:30:25:05
Sam Rashkin: And here that's not enough. Just to have a great performing home. We have to optimize design and community, and we'll talk about a lot of the highlights about ways you can extract hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost of energy and savings and value by applying those best practices. So that's that's how these four modules lay out. And so moving into the optimizing the enclosure, we have these.
00:30:25:07 - 00:30:57:27
Sam Rashkin: The strategy is building science under the set of strategies I showed you for optimizing performance and the best practices. The top tier ones are bulk moisture control, air flow control thermal control and vapor control. And that's kind of priority order. You have to keep water out of these incredibly higher risk assemblies. That's just that's just just mandatory. You have to be really rigorous about keeping bulk master out, then airflow and thermal flow and vapor flow.
00:30:57:28 - 00:31:23:11
Sam Rashkin: And then you have a whole series of more granular best practices for how we do that, how we have a whole set of tools for managing bulk moisture at the roof, walls, openings, foundations, foundation and site. Airflow is a combination of air barriers, a ceiling and flashing details. Thermal controls for components. It's the insulation quantity. It's the quality of the installation, it's thermal bridging and then the windows.
00:31:23:11 - 00:31:52:26
Sam Rashkin: All four of those are critical to getting the enclosure right for thermal flow. And finally vapor flow has two key elements. It's the air transport which is the dominant one, which already address with air flow control above and vapor diffusion control. And so this is the larger set of best practices. And in bulk moisture, we all know the culprits when it comes to keeping our assemblies from getting wet.
00:31:52:27 - 00:32:25:13
Sam Rashkin: It's precipitation. Whether it's rain or snow, it's wind driven rain. It's a gravity or bulk water that falls off our buildings, and then the accumulation of water and the soil, and then below grade the water that's in the ground. All those water sources have to be managed. And in vapor flow, it's air leakage and it's diffusion. And the reason the arrow for air leakage is so much greater is it is the dominant vapor transport mechanism that is your biggest bang for the buck and most critical to control.
00:32:25:13 - 00:32:32:14
Sam Rashkin: More about that in a minute. So when you see these basic.
00:32:32:17 - 00:32:54:06
Sam Rashkin: Diagrams that have been shown for so long, it's all following basic physics. We're just and gravity, we're just draining water from the roof, and we're draining from the walls and opening, and we're draining it from all the components and the openings, and then from the ground, and then from the site and the foundation. We're just getting rid of water in a very thoughtful and complete way.
00:32:54:07 - 00:33:17:01
Sam Rashkin: And we have all these tools. We have water control layers and flashing and membranes and capillary breaks and that foundations, we have damp and waterproofing and we have these fabric filters for drain tile. And then just how we grade the site to keep the water running away from the house. So it's basic tools. And we manage the risk with hardly any difficulty.
00:33:17:02 - 00:33:41:23
Sam Rashkin: And I like to use this little test to see if people can know how to flash and assembly. And the quiz is flashes correctly. And since we're virtual, or show you basically the answer to the quiz, you start at the bottom. At the bottom you have your basic first piece of flashing the water control. And the most critical thing is it's not flat at the bottom.
00:33:41:23 - 00:34:04:20
Sam Rashkin: It has a kind of a kick out because you need a capillary break. If the flashing runs against the surface that you're draining water, capillary action allow water to kind of wrap under and get the assembly wet. So it's why at the end of every assembly that's being water controlled broke more water controlled, that little capillary break bend is so critical.
00:34:04:22 - 00:34:27:14
Sam Rashkin: Then the next piece going up has to be flashed, and then the next piece going up. And on the back side you have to start flashing. And to cap you have a cover with two capillary breaks and a slope in the prevailing direction to drain water from the assembly. So hopefully most of you know, this is how you would have known how to answer this little test question, how to flash.
00:34:27:18 - 00:34:47:24
Sam Rashkin: And when you look at any more detailed diagram or of moisture control, all it's doing is what I just showed you on the left. So you see, in the case of this roof assembly, you had the kick out flashing. I mean, you have the drip edge flashing at the bottom with the kick out bend so it doesn't have capillary action going underneath.
00:34:47:24 - 00:35:16:15
Sam Rashkin: And then you have flashing tape and then you have the next water control layer of the underlayment. And then you have the kick out flashing that shingles up one on top of the other. And then finally the roofing covering the whole water control system. So it's just always doing the same basic process, but within the constraints of the assembly that has to be order controlled and a more detailed kind of run through how this works.
00:35:16:16 - 00:35:37:00
Sam Rashkin: It is the window flashing, which more and more I'm, I'm glad to say when I inspect job sites, I'm saying we're getting better and better understanding this, but used to be routinely I go out and find all sorts of mistakes flashing windows, but the first thing you do is you have the house. Rap goes over the opening. You make this kind of modified.
00:35:37:03 - 00:36:05:17
Sam Rashkin: I cut from the top of the opening down, and then about three quarters down you go, slope cut and a slope cut, and you bend this piece over on the sill, and then you wrap the flaps around the jams, and then you have a cut at each top, so you can have a flap at the top. The next part is you then want to seal along the edges and only the top three the sides and the top, not the bottom.
00:36:05:17 - 00:36:25:19
Sam Rashkin: And the reason. And then you're going to install the window. But the reason you only do those is so that the water that will get behind the assembly has a way to get out, and 100% of windows leak all the miter joints, etc. there's always ways for water to get in assemblies. You have to allow a path out and then you window installed.
00:36:25:20 - 00:36:43:28
Sam Rashkin: You now put the jam flashing on either side, and then you put the top flashing at the top, and then you kind of put the flap down from the house, wrap and tape it. And that's basically just doing the same detail I showed you earlier as a problem in practice. Now in the house, rap runs to the bottom.
00:36:43:28 - 00:36:54:17
Sam Rashkin: It goes over a piece of flashing with a kind of a bent edge for capillary break, and it's always following the same detail I showed you.
00:36:54:19 - 00:37:21:25
Sam Rashkin: Now here's the reality. Probably about 90% of existing homes, 80 or near 90%. I'll have window flashing, window pen flashing. And as I mentioned 100% of windows leak. And so we can go take infrared images of older homes. And this isn't that much of an older home. And the evidence that the window draining will show up a classic kind of spreading of the infrared image of the dark color to suggest water.
00:37:21:25 - 00:37:52:09
Sam Rashkin: And so this is a high risk for insulating an existing home. Right now, the only way there's no moisture issues is this enough drying to go through the assembly from inside to out, particularly in cold weather to dry the wetness that occurs. However, now I insert insulation in the assembly and reduce the drying potential. Now that winning could create a severe moisture issue mold, dry rot, whatever it may be.
00:37:52:11 - 00:38:23:23
Sam Rashkin: So we have this big, huge issue about how do we retrofit existing homes wall on solution to meet the latest codes. And then we have the simple details when they're missed are just unnecessary and very expensive. On the left you see a roof, meaning a wall assembly with no drip edge flashing, kick out flashing, and of course the water accumulates at the edges and can damage the cladding or get behind it and damage the wall.
00:38:23:23 - 00:38:46:24
Sam Rashkin: And for about a few extra dollars, you can put one more piece of a bent kick out flashing so that you devote the water from collecting up the wall. Very simple details. We mentioned drip edge flashing flashing earlier that covers the underlayment at the bottom and the sides. When it's missing again, you can see all the mold and Worcester issues that can occur.
00:38:46:24 - 00:38:56:12
Sam Rashkin: And here you see that in the detail, which is again you have a straight piece of a bend to avoid capillary action.
00:38:56:15 - 00:39:25:13
Sam Rashkin: And another very critical piece in cladding systems, almost all cladding systems again water can get behind them. Turns out one of the cheapest is a little bit better at draining water vinyl cladding, but you need an air gap to really ensure drainage so water doesn't accumulate behind the cladding where it's pressed against the underlying excuse me, water resistant barrier.
00:39:25:15 - 00:39:49:17
Sam Rashkin: On the left, you see, would use for the air gap to create an air space. Much more low cost approach is these kind of little plastic strips that can do the same job. Much lower cost only needs a quarter inch, three, eight, seven inch in your got plenty of air gap to drain the cladding.
00:39:49:19 - 00:40:04:08
Sam Rashkin: Probably vapor flow. I mentioned that leakage is most critical, and here's why. This is a good study by Joe Seabrook, where Building Science Corporation took a four by eight sheet of drywall.
00:40:04:10 - 00:40:28:17
Sam Rashkin: Without a hole and with a one inch hole and in a hot, humid climate, measured and calculated the vapor flow through an entire cooling season. And it was three quarters, three fourths of a quart of water without a one inch hole, and with the one inch hole that was seven quarts, which was ten times greater vapor flow due to air leakage.
00:40:28:17 - 00:40:52:21
Sam Rashkin: And it gets worse in a cold climate. It was one third of a quart of water versus 30 quarts, this time flowing from inside in the winter out, trying to get out to the cold outside over an entire heating season. So 100 times greater vapor flow due to air leakage.
00:40:52:23 - 00:41:20:26
Sam Rashkin: And I remember very early when I first started leading the Energy Star program, I went out to Minnesota and everywhere I went, I think it was by code. You had to have all this plastic inside on the framing before you install the drywall. And I was kind of freaking out. I was going, how much risk are you putting on the builder asking them to put plastic behind the drywall because plastics impermeable to vapor flow.
00:41:20:26 - 00:41:35:18
Sam Rashkin: So you want to drive both to the inside and the outside, and then you put a dam effectively blocking the vapor flow. It's not like Minnesota doesn't get you and hot for three, sometimes four months.
00:41:35:21 - 00:41:59:28
Sam Rashkin: So you're just creating conditions for problems you don't need. I just I don't know that the data is there to do a good job with the air sealing insulation, that you then also need the plastic. So this is just adding risk when we're trying to solve a problem and really frustrated. So then air flow control now that we manage bulk moisture is pretty much what I said before.
00:42:00:00 - 00:42:34:07
Sam Rashkin: It's complete air barriers, air sealing and flashing, the large openings. And there's a long list of air barriers. This is your first critical, most critical first step. You have to take one of the most important things I did with the Energy Star program version two was I took all the wisdom of all the lessons learned about air barriers from the building science community, and I did it into a way that it would kind of align with the construction, sequencing and organize it so in the field that it could be managed more easily.
00:42:34:07 - 00:42:55:21
Sam Rashkin: That was my biggest effort there. And so we have all these air barriers for walls, shafts, the attic ceiling and floors, and there's a whole bunch not enough time to go through them. But if I take just one drop ceiling, it's a good example of just why air barriers are so important. So here's a drop ceiling with a missing air barrier.
00:42:55:21 - 00:43:22:25
Sam Rashkin: Some other words. Usually the framer comes in and does everything. All the regular structural framing and even if they're soffits, will frame those right away. And that precludes the ability to easily then put an air barrier. Once this framing is in for the suffix, so often you'll see it missing before energy start mandatory in its program. And so when it's missing, basically in the winter condition, as an example, you can have a freezing adequate 20 degrees.
00:43:22:27 - 00:43:48:02
Sam Rashkin: The house at 70 and the outdoors would also be about 20. And so fibrous insulation is great at resisting thermal flow. But if they add some to pressure with almost any amount of wind, you now have pressure that can move the thermal flow through the assembly. So we'll see that the airspace normally would be 70 degrees since there's hardly any R value in the drywall.
00:43:48:02 - 00:44:27:27
Sam Rashkin: But now the pressurized attic will create a convective flow and eventually get a temperature that's a midpoint between the 2070 degrees, in this case 45. And what's also concerned is that the surface temperatures now get much colder anyway, the series drop, as you see any infrared image on the right. And when you lose control of surface temperatures, you're kind of really make it much, much harder to create comfort for surface temperatures of 40% more impact on comfort and ambient air temperature.
00:44:28:00 - 00:44:35:19
Sam Rashkin: Excuse me.
00:44:35:21 - 00:44:58:22
Sam Rashkin: Got a bug in my throat. I can't get rid of it. Okay, so the next issue is now we have you created all this comfort issue. You have a cold surface right here and now. You have the ability for, again, airflow to get there and create moisture on a cold surface. And so all the risks just go up when you leave out one detail, the air barrier.
00:44:58:22 - 00:45:25:02
Sam Rashkin: It's absolutely a comprehensive set of air barriers is a must have. That's very simply put that in before you frame this often. This is what looks like when it's done properly. On the left, the OSB sheathing is used and carefully sealed. On the right I see dry walls used to create the air barrier. And both these examples are like this example where the garage on the right and the soften up against it.
00:45:25:02 - 00:45:50:21
Sam Rashkin: So since the garage is over here, you have to have an air barrier against that wall. It's like an exterior wall and then air linkage. Next, it's 33% of the energy loss in cold climates is attributed to air leakage at three times greater than the air leakage of the windows and doors, the ceiling of the walls. It's a very significant air leakage thermal loss component.
00:45:50:21 - 00:46:18:27
Sam Rashkin: And that's why you see such very ACH 50 targets to manage that energy loss. So you have climate zones one through eight and you have all the program requirements. You're ready energy Star, some of the latest Iirc requirements and passive house. And it ranges from 0.62.1508. And you have all the variations for each climate zone. And you can go mad as an industry.
00:46:18:27 - 00:46:56:13
Sam Rashkin: And I'm insanely obsessed with simple. And I'm convinced that 1.5 ACH 50 is a great target everywhere. And the reason why 1.5 should be everywhere is because managing thermal losses is not enough. Air leakage contributes to waste of problems, and it contributes to air quality issues indoors to the green that smog gets in, dust, gets in pollen, odors, and also durability issues that agree that pests get in, and also air quality issues associated with pests.
00:46:56:16 - 00:47:26:26
Sam Rashkin: Also, their leakage contributes to greater risk from disasters because the wind can get inside and pressurize a house and cause additional structural damage when they're wildfire smoke and get inside the house and really exacerbate health horribly. And also, it's so readily achievable. I just it's just not not that hard to get to 1.5 ACH 50, especially if we use advanced enclosure innovation.
00:47:26:27 - 00:47:49:15
Sam Rashkin: And that's we'll talk more about that a little bit later. And now on Air Saline, we have a whole list of air swing checklists, or about a half mile of cracks around windows and doors. And so plates, they have penetrations and geometries that have to be managed. Take again one example, the drywall at the top plate again to show you the impact air leakage has.
00:47:49:18 - 00:48:25:13
Sam Rashkin: Here. The undulating drywall that's fastened to the top plate on a wall frame adjoining the attic creates pathways because of the undulation for again, going from more or less from more heat in the house wants to move up into the attic and the cold surfaces get created. And again, we mentioned the impact cold surfaces have on comfort. And so their basic ways we do this silsila or construction adhesive a new homes on existing homes where it's missing.
00:48:25:16 - 00:48:47:00
Sam Rashkin: Spray foam may be your only solution. And then when you look at that whole ceiling interface, beyond just the gap between the drywall and the top plate, it's pretty egregious interface by far the worst in the house. It's the biggest temperature difference, because the summer temperatures can get from 125 to 170, depending where you are in the country.
00:48:47:03 - 00:49:11:27
Sam Rashkin: You have a constant stack effect pressure that 15 cfm up against that surface. You have all these air barrier challenges that depending on the design, can occur the walls and drop and raise ceilings and shafts and then the wind baffles, and then you have the air sealing with penetrations and ducts and access panels and the aforementioned drywall, the top plate and HVAC losses.
00:49:11:27 - 00:49:43:18
Sam Rashkin: When systems are in the attic, it's just the interface you have to get right. So the last piece about air selling and then finally on on all this controls thermal, which again is the insulation quantity, the quality of installation thermal bridging windows. And we're greater accountability situation where n is because every cameras are just like routinely available very very affordable costs so used to cost tens of thousands per few hundred dollars.
00:49:43:18 - 00:50:06:02
Sam Rashkin: You can put adapter on your smartphone and get a decent image, and they will reveal all sorts of issues. You don't want to have to come back and fix because of defects when they're found out. And so that's basically just one good reason to really care about thermal flow. So the quantity.
00:50:06:04 - 00:50:44:23
Sam Rashkin: Between the 2015 2018 and 21 2021 Iirc codes hasn't changed that much. The biggest changes as we go into 2021 is in climate zones three, four, and five. Either slab edge insulation wasn't required and now some minimum amounts required, or it's additional foundation slab installations required. And that's a good thing. The thermal bridging that happens across that slab is substantial in cold and hot weather.
00:50:44:26 - 00:51:15:13
Sam Rashkin: And then in basement, across bases, there's an encouragement to do continuous insulation. Besides the typical 15 in the walls or 19 draped insulation. And but that's not that's just an additional option. So not really an extra requirement. The biggest increase of note would be in the ceilings. The attic insulation is required to be 49 to 38 and 60 versus 49.
00:51:15:15 - 00:51:41:12
Sam Rashkin: Note in the 2024 ICC is currently written in draft. It would revert back to 3849. I'll mention 49 sent that aggressive because if you do a race hill trust that drops it to like 40. And if you do insulation on the slope which we'll talk about invented attics, that drops it again down to like closer to 30. And same thing with 60 drops to closer to 49.
00:51:41:13 - 00:52:14:11
Sam Rashkin: If you're raised hill trusts. And then if you are on the slope again it might drop it down to 38 to 40. So even prescriptive these requirements when you do normal routine best practices from any high performance program, raised hill trusses and my personal recommendation of attics, you get much more manageable numbers in the 49 and 60. And lastly, on walls, the biggest thing is just bumping up a little bit more continuous insulation in the colder climates four through eight.
00:52:14:13 - 00:52:47:21
Sam Rashkin: So that's so essentially from 2015 to 2021, not very substantial changes. Slab edge attic. And the key thing about installation quality is it kills the R value. So you can have all these prescriptive meaningful our values. But then if the installation is not right you can lose up to 70 or more of that or value. And the key factors we care about are gaps voids compression and misalignment.
00:52:47:21 - 00:53:13:14
Sam Rashkin: Misalignment means installations there without an air barrier. Remember complete air batteries in absence of an air barrier, any year in this ceiling space can migrate through this fibrous insulation, especially through the cracks and spaces, and and get to the outside surface and then look like on the left. So you have in the winter all this heat potentially vapor transport creating wedding.
00:53:13:18 - 00:53:36:15
Sam Rashkin: It's just a risky up need. One common solution is spray foam. We'll talk about another in a moment just by using advanced wall systems, but it's very simple to use better materials. Text this problem. And again you want to use close on that open cell because you want the air barrier open. And open cell insulation is open to vapor flow.
00:53:36:15 - 00:54:06:09
Sam Rashkin: Close cells close to it. I mentioned slab insulation so important because it's this huge thermal transport pathway for heat to get out in the winter and come in in the summer. And there are lots of basic solutions from continuous insulation that's clad with some board or flashing, or there even forms where you kind of leave the insulation in place and you don't have to build a form for the foundation.
00:54:06:09 - 00:54:38:03
Sam Rashkin: So there's some credits and debits to the insulation cost. And then finally on thermal control windows are the R value killer that we can't ignore. In cold climates. You see a really good wall. And then these windows are like a funnel for thermal loss in the winter. Let me show you what it looks like by numbers. This is a calculation chart I've run just to for three Wallace emblems rate wall six inch are 39.
00:54:38:03 - 00:55:10:27
Sam Rashkin: Wall would be roughly 13 inch, and our 60 wall is almost like 20 inch thick wall. And I couple that with energy star point three value window and R7 triple glazed window or yeah triple glass window. And and I think the assumption here is 15% window to wall area. All these numbers would be worse in terms of the impact windows have, reducing the whole R value.
00:55:10:27 - 00:55:42:26
Sam Rashkin: If I use more traditional amounts of window to wall area that builders use like 20% or higher. So look what happens in the 18 wall with an energy star window. The effect of our value for the whole wall drops about 33 plus percent to about 40% or 11. And if I have triple glazed window and only drops 20%, and notice that the 13 inch or 39 wall drops 60%.
00:55:42:26 - 00:56:18:22
Sam Rashkin: So the more insulation I have in the wall, the more impact on the whole wall are our value. And these are 60 wall drops to our 17. Hardly any game from the R 39 wall, so you lose 70% of the rated R value of the insulated assembly very significantly. The triple glazed window delivering our 14 or almost our 15 in a six inch wall is almost the same as a 13 inch wall with an energy star window, and it's reasonably close to our 60 wall.
00:56:18:24 - 00:56:44:26
Sam Rashkin: That's our 17. So windows are used on cold climates if you're going to control thermal control. So it leads me to the last section I want to talk about, which is how do we take all this information and get to a better enclosure at lower cost. And essentially I'm going to suggest moisture control is not perfect enough. This is just this is just the perfect wall and this is the perfect wall.
00:56:44:26 - 00:57:13:18
Sam Rashkin: He's right for one element moisture control from ratio control in mitigating the ability for condensation in the cavity. And you're getting a also substantial control of thermal bridging. It's a great perfect wall for more control and a little bit of thermal control. And problem is, when it manifests as a actual assembly, you have to build again, one of these sketches, you're going, oh my God, I got a lot of issues here.
00:57:13:20 - 00:57:21:29
Sam Rashkin: Productivity is a labor force able to build this. And without significantly increasing.
00:57:22:02 - 00:57:52:01
Sam Rashkin: Cycle time, can they build it effectively with the skills they have? The extra quality control risks I have manageable. Is it as good in disaster resistance as other more advanced assemblies that have more impact resistance and wildfire resistance and earthquake resistance? And is it really affordable compared to these other assemblies? And so I'm going to suggest when you go beyond moisture control, maybe this is not perfect enough.
00:57:52:01 - 00:58:21:04
Sam Rashkin: And so here are all your wall options for traditional frame walls. You have two by four six inches in center, which has almost 30% framing factor, two by six, 24in on framing on center, which is almost 20% framing factor. Yet staggered studs where you have two by four studs with two by six top and bottom plates, has a 12% framing factor and double walls, and still have a 10% framing factor.
00:58:21:04 - 00:58:44:09
Sam Rashkin: It's because all the framing you need at the top of the plate, around windows and doors, you still wind up with significant amount of wood going from inside to outside with thermal bridging. And then you have structural panels, insulated panels that have 5%. I could also make these panels at a concrete. They're precast insulated concrete panels that would have even less thermal bridging.
00:58:44:09 - 00:59:10:14
Sam Rashkin: And then I have rigid insulated sheathing with 2% any factor. So here all the risks. Now I believe you have to manage and also reflect and cost construction costs and ownership cost. Must your thermal bridging resilience, quality assurance productivity and cycle time. And they suggest all these traditional options have way too much risk for me and even the continuous insulation.
00:59:10:15 - 00:59:34:12
Sam Rashkin: Do I want to manage all those quality and steps and different layers and ask the construction workforce with shrinking skill sets to do that Assembly. Right. And even some of the past projects, we've seen some shrinkage of the continuous insulation that still leaves air gaps where I do construction assemblies again, SIPs. And it can also be SIPs that are concrete and sips that you still framing.
00:59:34:15 - 00:59:57:18
Sam Rashkin: There's ways of doing this so much more effectively with less risk, more productivity, more resilience, same amount of thermal bridging and even better moisture control. And that's when you have to do is do true cost accounting. So frame wall or SIPs or continuous insulation wall on the right. And you see the thermal bridging reason why we want to do one of these advanced approaches.
00:59:57:18 - 01:00:24:01
Sam Rashkin: But compared to the left again all those layers I have to manage all those steps versus just assembling these big, huge panels that are absolutely going faster, less trades. They have less moisture risks. There's no vapor flow path possible through these assemblies. We have the sandwich press right against the insulation. And then you have dimensional accuracy. You have advanced hand strength from impact.
01:00:24:02 - 01:00:53:08
Sam Rashkin: You have added volume because we'll talk about it for inch set wall or outperform a six inch frame wall. You have all this additional resilience because wildfire smoke can't get in these air tight assemblies. More impact resistance and less carbon, because using about 50% less wood than you would in the frame. Dissembled. So you have all the reasons it's better and just the savings from cycle time, quality risks and inspections, waste and rework have to be counted for.
01:00:53:08 - 01:01:15:14
Sam Rashkin: And they're substantial. So here's here's your SIP option. Just putting in panels assembling them. And we have these benefits. And let's look how it plays out. Here are all the air barriers I have to manage with typical framing. That's how many go away with six. The only issue would be if I had a whole house fan, I'd have to figure out how to do that.
01:01:15:14 - 01:01:39:09
Sam Rashkin: I'd say less than one tenth of 1% of homes were built with whole house fans, so virtually all the air barriers go away because the SIPs is inherently this massively complete airbag assembly, the sandwich on the outside, the sandwich on the inside. And then you have the splines for attaching the panels. You have foam between the panels and then tape and redundant air sealing.
01:01:39:10 - 01:02:14:23
Sam Rashkin: It's just so much risk reduction. And then you have all these Ursuline requirements for conventional framing. And most of the major ones go away with SIPs. You saw there were about some soul plates and and Ursuline windows and doors. It might be some vents, but the most critical, challenging details almost all go away with air serving. You have to work hard to get a sip home above 1.0 ACH 51.5 is just like a no brainer, and it's a very conservative level that I use.
01:02:14:24 - 01:02:43:28
Sam Rashkin: But virtually all my friends who give me feedback about where their homes are coming out with sips 1.0 is just routinely what they achieve are better. And I mentioned a six inch wall outperforms a foreign tool. Oak Ridge National Laboratory ran the analysis, and on the left is a foreign SIP wall with an effective are 14. Here's a two by six world 24in on center with 13.7.
01:02:43:28 - 01:03:10:06
Sam Rashkin: So the four and six outperforms the two by six law. And that's with quality installation. And their analysis when you look at a typical installation is a six inch wall actually performs at Arlen. And so now you're like almost 20% more thermal control. You have two additional inches of volume of space around the entire footprint for all the additional volume in the home.
01:03:10:07 - 01:03:43:20
Sam Rashkin: So look at all the cost savings I have from framing and installing insulation in near ceiling and all the extra costs. The grade one insulation might be 1000 to 1500 dollars of saving all the air ceiling and air barriers, or 1000 2000 savings. I assume a thousand to 1500 for rework, reduce waste and containers that you have to get rid of 1 to 2005 days of times about two and a half to $4,000 of cost savings.
01:03:43:22 - 01:04:13:28
Sam Rashkin: Plus I have 30ft² additional square footage in about a 1500 square foot home, and again $200 a square foot. That's about 10 to $15,000 of savings of additional value. All the resilience impact, wildfire smoke, etc. I'll just estimate it 2 to 4000. And while the quality savings and rework and waste 2 to $4000, this is just real numbers that are not counted and hidden.
01:04:14:00 - 01:04:35:12
Sam Rashkin: When we compare a SIP package to reframing package, and we have to get to lower true cost, then the benefit of Event Attic is substantially significant. Here's a house with the attic, and we're missing the top side air barrier at the attic insulation, which is why the codes require so much more insulation in the attic than the wall.
01:04:35:15 - 01:05:05:24
Sam Rashkin: And so we have all this insulation, about almost 50% air barrier missing at the most egregious interface. We talked about the ceiling and the attic interface. And then we'll put the heating and cooling up there and have all these egregious losses on the performance of that system. So I did add, in contrast, reduces cycle time because there's so many less construction points that have to be done.
01:05:05:26 - 01:05:32:05
Sam Rashkin: It's better. You have more conditioned space, all that extra volume that you're adding that's effectively ready for conditioning. It's more efficient, more comfortable, much greater strength. Without the vents in the attic, you don't have the wind able to enter through those banks, pressurize the attic and cause structural damage, introduce smoke, introduce moisture. It's stronger impact resistance and more fire resistant.
01:05:32:05 - 01:05:53:06
Sam Rashkin: Because Wildfire and Bruce can't get into the assemblies. And the cost savings I mentioned are from all the things you don't have to come along with the six. You don't have to do the insulation, the your ceiling, etc. you don't have to do the vents. You don't have to do the air barriers and ceiling and all the time you say.
01:05:53:08 - 01:06:19:16
Sam Rashkin: And so you can just see the difference between the attic insulation that's just blown in, versus having a complete six sided assembly installed with a vented attic. And then you have all the additional volume and you have spaces for MEP, mechanical, electrical, plumbing. And then you have all this extra resilience. Wildfires impacts wind snow and cycle time is always undervalued.
01:06:19:22 - 01:06:23:28
Sam Rashkin: First are the cost savings from.
01:06:24:00 - 01:06:41:07
Sam Rashkin: Just all the caring costs of owning a business and having a home take 2 or 3 months longer to build, or four weeks longer to build, and you have the extra insurance, or your overhead costs, or your extra.
01:06:41:09 - 01:07:09:00
Sam Rashkin: Mortgage spending for your construction loans. Every time you extend time, you're just use it impacts in your business, and then time also affects profitability. The most significant factor is again velocity. If I'm building with one month or two months shorter cycle time, I might be building another ten, 20, 30 homes a year times 30 $40,000 of margin for each of those homes.
01:07:09:02 - 01:07:33:17
Sam Rashkin: That's quickly another half million dollars of revenue I gained because I have greater velocity and I can price more competitively and better cash flow and much less risk, because I'm not getting maybe into a cycle where interest goes up or the other market factors that constrain my ability to sell the home. So cycle time is just a huge cost.
01:07:33:17 - 01:07:56:20
Sam Rashkin: And the fact that these advanced systems built solutions reduce cycle time is so undervalued and under assessed when people pick a wall assembly. And I finally put it all together by showing what happens when you integrate the entire advanced systems built solution into the design. There are a lot of things you have to do to optimize for six.
01:07:56:20 - 01:08:25:18
Sam Rashkin: If I do that, I can take this frame home, for instance, and convert it into a home without a basement with a shallow frost protected footing, and basically trade off the very expensive to build basement for a much cheaper ability to use the volume created by the sit back. And that's a huge cost savings. So I'm saving it up to $6,000 on the shallow Frost Protected foundation.
01:08:25:19 - 01:08:51:28
Sam Rashkin: I have all the wall framing that's free on the gable ends that's there to be used. I don't have to put egress windows in that are expensive and build those openings and escape hatches. I don't have air sealing and batteries with the attic interface venting, waste time and a second floor space might be worth $100 extra square foot to below grade space, so the trade off may be worth 80 to $100,000 more.
01:08:52:00 - 01:09:19:14
Sam Rashkin: So this is when you start getting into really significant cost of image savings and value, and the whole performance approach for taking with housing 2.0. The big message I want to get across is there all these benefits. We're lowering costs of the construction from the enclosure, from the electrical plumbing, or lowering the cost of ownership for utilities, maintenance, health, water, insurance and all that revenue from solar.
01:09:19:14 - 01:09:43:12
Sam Rashkin: When we add it, we're enhancing illness for healthier living and better protection. And we're adding all this value smart homes and disaster and electric ready. And when you go to market, it's like the answer is zero. And that is the wrong answer. You have to integrate account for all these hidden savings and values, the cost of vantage, of high performance.
01:09:43:12 - 01:10:04:28
Sam Rashkin: And you realize these are serious numbers, tens of thousands of dollars of value. I've shown you just in the enclosure how I get to easily tens of thousands of dollars to same with comfort systems. Talk about next week, then just the utility savings and maintenance savings and just what is health worth and the and all the health expenses you can avoid.
01:10:04:28 - 01:10:30:11
Sam Rashkin: And then all the future value of having a home that will stand a test of time easily 150 to $200,000 of cost of damage for this high performance hub. So my last recommendations before handing off to Ken is get on the path to zero. You have all these certification programs. Everyone should be doing that. Customize your performance optimization framework.
01:10:30:12 - 01:10:57:28
Sam Rashkin: Housing two player lays out about 50 best practices. You don't have to do them all. Figure out what's best for your market, your customers, your tolerance for change, whatever it may be, and figure out a framework for you and commit to moving forward and keep incrementing improvements. And you have to have a home performance expert, either in-house or on retainer, to help advise almost all your product and assembly decisions.
01:10:57:28 - 01:11:17:00
Sam Rashkin: And most importantly, you have to optimize true cost. If you're ignoring all the hidden costs we talk about, you just get to the wrong answer. So I hope some of this makes sense. And now, Mike, I'm going to hand off to Ken.
01:11:17:02 - 01:11:18:00
Mike Collignon: Very good sir.
01:11:18:01 - 01:11:29:12
Mike Collignon: Thank you Ken. And you should have the option to share your screen now.
01:11:29:14 - 01:11:49:27
Ken Nelson: Thank you. So I'm going to be brief, but we do want to talk about but how to ventilate when we. And I'm with you Sam I think 1.5 CFM is spot on. Hold on. Did my screen disappear?
01:11:50:00 - 01:11:55:25
Mike Collignon: Nope. It's looking good. Can I can see it now? I can't see it.
01:11:55:27 - 01:11:56:26
Mike Collignon: I'm coming.
01:11:56:26 - 01:12:02:04
Ken Nelson: Back, I screamed. Here we go. Looking good now.
01:12:02:07 - 01:12:04:29
Mike Collignon: Yep. I see your first slide.
01:12:05:02 - 01:12:37:24
Ken Nelson: About Panasonic. Panasonic. I have a fan for every day of the month. I have exhaust fans in the bathrooms. I have supply fans, dryer fans. I have all sorts of fans. But today I want to talk about it because when we get to that 1.5 air changes per hour, it's super, super critical that you have a mechanical ventilation system that's in place and that it both works, and it should be invisible to the occupants because of the occupants can hear it, they will shut it off.
01:12:37:24 - 01:13:02:07
Ken Nelson: And that's one of the biggest challenges we have with with all ventilation strategies, is the occupants sometimes don't understand the value of having them in the house. So I want to talk about eaves and real quick, because the challenge for most building is that they can't explain necessarily how the IRB works. The IRB, as you all know, moves in Airstream.
01:13:02:07 - 01:13:32:00
Ken Nelson: A supply airstream has an exhaust airstream and it pulls humidity. Excuse me, it pulls moisture and temperature from one airstream and puts that into the other airstream. And it doesn't really matter. What the IRB ultimately wants to do is, is create balance. Right. So I've got this slide and this is probably premature here. But I want to talk about if I have 70 degrees at 50% humidity inside my house, that Airstream contains about 54 grains of water.
01:13:32:03 - 01:14:07:11
Ken Nelson: If it's cold outside at 50 degrees, at 80% humidity, that airstream contains 42 approximately 42 grains of water. But there's a difference in the vapor pressure because of the temperature, right? So as those two air streams pass, the IRB simply wants to help those two vapor pressures become one. So if you look at the vapor pressure, the average vapor pressure is going to be about about, excuse me, the average grain is going to be about 48 grains of water.
01:14:07:11 - 01:14:46:03
Ken Nelson: It's going to try to move everything into that middle area. So what that will do for you is it literally it helps to resolve some of that vapor drive. More importantly, though, it keeps the house at a really consistent humidity level. It keeps the occupants where they really consistent breathing level because it's supply air. Also, it allows us to filter that inbound air so that I can I can manage any of the particulars of the box that come from outside, which would be your PM 2.5, which would be your pollens, which would be, to some degree, your wildfire smoke.
01:14:46:03 - 01:15:09:18
Ken Nelson: And then it also helps to diffuse and and remove some of the VOCs we create on the inside, which again, is that that PM 2.5, the viruses, the bacteria that we as humans out gas and of course the water vapor that we outcast. All of this. The EV uses basic science to manage that that function right. High pressure.
01:15:09:18 - 01:15:27:18
Ken Nelson: We know high pressure moves to low. We just demonstrated that with water vapor moving across wet moves to dry, it wants to go to that dry space. So in hot moves to cold. So it's going to tend to warm up that cold air as it comes in. And what we do with the IRB is we. And this is not just Panasonic.
01:15:27:18 - 01:15:59:14
Ken Nelson: This is all ears. These all ears in particular. It'll allows these natural physics to work to manage our comfort. It also diminishes the cost to our mechanical systems. And the beauty of the IRB is that it really only takes about 50W of energy to bring all that in and out. I will tell you that from an ERP perspective, we have to remind ourselves that the IRB is neither a heater nor is it a cooler in the sense that it's neither a heap or air conditioning source.
01:15:59:14 - 01:16:24:20
Ken Nelson: But it will always take that the edge off of whatever Airstream is coming through. So as you move along, one of the things that I remind everybody, if you need help with your ventilation strategies, there is no reason that the ventilation strategy should add an excessive amount of cost into your build. What it does is, as Sam talked about earlier, it will help with that resiliency over time.
01:16:24:20 - 01:16:46:16
Ken Nelson: It keeps that moisture load from creating that vapor drive from inside to outside, and it'll help balance that pressure from outside the inside. So we don't have a higher vapor drive from outside to inside. So part of managing that that envelope, if you will, that high performing envelope is taking away some of those external and internal pressures that drive water vapor.
01:16:46:16 - 01:17:08:20
Ken Nelson: So if there's ways that we can help you and I have solutions for every application, I promise. But it really does start with the IRB. So so if I can help you or Panasonic can help you in any sort of way, just let us know. Sam, thank you for the time. I really do appreciate it. And I'm going to turn it.
01:17:08:20 - 01:17:13:02
Ken Nelson: Mike. I'm going to turn it back over to Sam and let him close this out.
01:17:13:05 - 01:17:37:00
Mike Collignon: Well, Ken, hold on. Don't don't run away yet because I want to make. Sure that as questions for you is able to ask you because if nobody else does, I know I actually have one. And first of all, I want to make sure to point out your audience that I really do appreciate Ken being able to not just talk about Panasonic and talk about the industry in a very general way.
01:17:37:03 - 01:17:59:20
Mike Collignon: That's really helpful. And I have a general question for you. As we head into cold and flu season, I'm aware of some of the filtration options for bettering indoor air quality, Hepa filters and UV, but what other filtration options are there out there?
01:17:59:22 - 01:18:22:24
Ken Nelson: So. So keep in mind when you do filtration right where where what air we filtering if we're filtering the outside air coming in. I'm not so worried about cold and flu coming from the outside in. I might worry about pollen or something like that. That's going to be a big asthma trigger. My cold and flu issues will always come from the inside.
01:18:22:25 - 01:18:46:19
Ken Nelson: It's cold and flu come from humans, right? So in that case we don't necessarily want to filter that. We want to we want to exhaust that as quickly as possible. So we that's part of what the V and the exhaust fans that you have in your house can do is they take that, that those particular those bacterial or viral particulate and get them out of get them out of the house.
01:18:46:19 - 01:19:09:26
Ken Nelson: So there's two things we look at right. Is this product or is this virus, is it is it ballistic or is it buoyant. And one of the things that can occur with high moisture loads inside the house is it will hold these viruses buoyant if, if, if something is ballistic, it's falling to the floor. It requires now it requires touch contact, hand them out or whatever to get into your body.
01:19:09:27 - 01:19:28:06
Ken Nelson: However, if it's buoyant, if it's floating in the air and I'm breathing it, that's bigger challenge, right? So we want to get it out of the air. We want to dilute it, diffuse it, evacuate it. Does that help? I run into that a lot where people think, oh, I'm going to put a filter in the house and I'm okay with that.
01:19:28:06 - 01:19:45:29
Ken Nelson: By the way, you could put filters in your house and research recirculate that air. Your furnace filter may have a have a recirculation capability and that's great. But the reality is it's you have to run that to make it work. So if it's not running it's not working.
01:19:46:01 - 01:20:11:27
Mike Collignon: Yeah. No, I really do appreciate it, Ken, because and I appreciate the delineation between the two. Right. Buoyant ballistic and influx and research kits. It's just really helpful because I have a feeling a lot of people right now are thinking about, oh gosh, cold and flu. And Panasonic is known for its indoor air quality excellent products. And it's like, okay, I think people look to you for a lot of answers.
01:20:11:27 - 01:20:16:19
Mike Collignon: And so I appreciate the depth of the answer as well. I appreciate it. Really do.
01:20:16:22 - 01:20:42:13
Ken Nelson: Yes. There's I have a ton of media stuff, magazine stuff coming out probably in the next probably six weeks. They're going to see a ton of different articles I've been doing with different writers on on cold and flu season and viruses and bacteria and how to get it out of your house, because and I'm here to tell you that we do want to create a great envelope.
01:20:42:15 - 01:20:52:20
Ken Nelson: But then once that envelopes created, we have to move that air in and out in a, in an intelligent way. And it can be done really inexpensively.
01:20:52:22 - 01:21:09:07
Mike Collignon: Well, let's let's stick with you for just a second, Ken. So our friends are on had a question about EVs. Should they be fully ducted or what does a partially ducted or a hybrid ERV even mean?
01:21:09:09 - 01:21:35:16
Ken Nelson: So partially ducted or hybrid? Oftentimes they'll take that supply air and use the ducting from your furnace system as that pathway to the rooms. So that and I can't speak exactly what he's what he's referring to. But that's one of the hybrid solutions where the other is, we'll run both the exhaust and the supply into that cold air return of the of the heating fan.
01:21:35:17 - 01:22:01:04
Ken Nelson: Oftentimes we all see it where they we only want to run. I don't want to say only we'll see supply air run to the bedrooms. Right. We want to pressurize the bedrooms so that the air moves from that high pressure space in the bedroom out into the hallway, common space. And then it's evacuated out so I can minimize the cost of the installation by having maybe air supply into each of the bedrooms and then having the exhaust from a central location.
01:22:01:04 - 01:22:25:12
Ken Nelson: So all of that becomes, you see, a lot of guys will want to go manufacturers. I will I will say they'll want to go at a supply and an exhaust in that same room. I'm not always I'm not always a big supporter of that, only because, again, I have to get I if I raise the cost of the house so much that the builder can't sell it, I really failed both of us.
01:22:25:12 - 01:22:47:15
Ken Nelson: So the reality is air is going to move from high pressure to low no matter what. So if I pressurize that bedroom, I move it out. And then also I don't worry about air from, say, a great room coming in where you might have pets or whatever. If you're if somebody's allergic to animals, I can keep them out of that room and I can drive there into that room and that there moves out.
01:22:47:15 - 01:22:56:29
Ken Nelson: So it never, never cross basically contaminates from room to room, but it moves to that central space and it's vacuumed away.
01:22:57:01 - 01:22:58:05
Mike Collignon: Okay. And then.
01:22:58:06 - 01:22:58:27
Mike Collignon: And then going back.
01:22:58:28 - 01:23:00:11
Ken Nelson: To the first question.
01:23:00:13 - 01:23:04:08
Mike Collignon: Be fully ducted.
01:23:04:11 - 01:23:08:18
Ken Nelson: Does it have to be fully ducted? I'm sorry, I might have missed a question.
01:23:08:20 - 01:23:15:22
Mike Collignon: It's okay. He was just asking if should they be fully ducted.
01:23:15:25 - 01:23:36:15
Ken Nelson: You know it's not necessary I don't I don't think it's necessary. What is necessary is the area has to run continuous. So if you're going to run it through an air handler, do you want the air handler to run continuously or can it run past the air handler cleanly. And that's a question for your HVAC professional on the setup of your individual location.
01:23:36:17 - 01:24:00:23
Ken Nelson: I the certainly the best, most efficient way for the IRB is to be independently ducted. However, I'm not always I think you have to use some of the the stuff that you have at hand. I don't want to have 14 different ducts running to a room when I can use a central duct, basically from the from the hack system.
01:24:00:26 - 01:24:06:03
Sam Rashkin: It can if I can contribute to this.
01:24:06:05 - 01:24:37:06
Sam Rashkin: What happens as we use better and better enclosures? The subject of the discussion today, the loads get so small that the difference between the size of the duct for ventilation and for heating cooling supply gets closer and closer to the point where the benefit from having separate ducts for ventilation are quite a bit diminished. So the benefit of a high performance enclosure is you can use probably the same ducts with a lot more assurance.
01:24:37:06 - 01:24:43:28
Sam Rashkin: You'll get enough mixing and air movement to all the rooms.
01:24:44:01 - 01:25:07:14
Ken Nelson: No, that's exactly right. It's you know, once you get the high performance enclosure, you can do so much more with the ventilation. You have better results with the ventilation. And you can, you know, depending on the cubic space of the area that you're trying to ventilate, you can speed fans up without even knowing it. You can slow it down without without having it negatively affect the dilution component.
01:25:07:17 - 01:25:36:28
Ken Nelson: If it's in a smaller space, it's it really starts with the envelope, as you talked about today, Sam. But I'll tell you that, you know, every bit of ventilation you can get. And I do like a balanced ventilation strategy because I both dilute and evacuate at the same time. It's for us as humans. It really is a changing of the health structure of the people, of the occupants in the house.
01:25:37:00 - 01:25:37:19
Mike Collignon: Yeah.
01:25:37:22 - 01:25:55:07
Mike Collignon: Well, Ken, thank you so much for all this. And I'm leaving your contact information up there for a couple more seconds so that people can get that Ken, as a wealth of knowledge. And we really thank him for for joining us today. And I'm going to kick it back over to Sam here.
01:25:55:09 - 01:26:02:09
Mike Collignon: Because we do have some other questions that aren't specific to Ken, but can you certainly welcome to hang here with us because.
01:26:02:09 - 01:26:02:13
Mike Collignon: You.
01:26:02:13 - 01:26:04:09
Mike Collignon: May have.
01:26:04:11 - 01:26:06:14
Ken Nelson: Yeah I'm here for the duration.
01:26:06:16 - 01:26:22:23
Mike Collignon: Fantastic. Awesome. So we we had a question from Bill on the SIP roofs you were talking about earlier in sabbatical and that sort of thing. Do you need to reinforce the roof trusses due to any additional weight?
01:26:22:25 - 01:26:52:18
Sam Rashkin: What a great question and a very important question. If you if you do it right, it shouldn't be any trusses. And the reason why SIP costs are sometimes just creates so much sticker shock is because you have these redundant systems, the panels of structural, but you still have the trusses as well. So ideally, if you design for the panels in the stands of the panels, you can locate columns and ridge beams so that you have no need for the trusses.
01:26:52:18 - 01:27:12:17
Sam Rashkin: So the concept is no trusses. If you're doing trusses as well as sips you're incurring a lot of extra cost, and the benefit may or may not still be cost effective. But when you get rid of the extra trusses, it almost surely is.
01:27:12:19 - 01:27:34:11
Mike Collignon: All right. Got a question from Tiffany. She was wanting to know if you could speak to the value of sustainable materials in choices. Her comment was foam in any form is still primarily a petroleum based product with no circular option and great waste in installation.
01:27:34:13 - 01:27:39:06
Sam Rashkin: You know, everyone has to.
01:27:39:09 - 01:28:15:05
Sam Rashkin: Figure out a balance between embodied energy and operational energy and and find something that works for them. They think that they want to set a path for how you do virtually no embodied energy and petroleum products and so forth, that that's great if you can sell it. What I find is that in the right applications and very limited applications, I'm not worried if my homes gonna last 200 years.
01:28:15:05 - 01:28:46:21
Sam Rashkin: And I got foam between two sandwich panels in that assembly. You know, there's so many other factors contributing to climate issues, a 200 year use of that product, or 150 year use of the product is palatable to me. So but everyone has their will draw the line where they want to. And I think same thing with foam in the band, Joyce.
01:28:46:22 - 01:29:11:07
Sam Rashkin: It's just such the perfect material for the for the project. Let's see, even sometimes using SIPs, the framing will go on top of the sip wall rather than be hung on hangers off the wall. And so you do have to still manage the band. Joyce, to know, I would say use the phone. But again, I'm not saying you're wrong not to.
01:29:11:08 - 01:29:36:18
Sam Rashkin: You just have to be able to sell all the extra costs it takes to do it. And I don't want perfection to be the enemy of the good. You know, if I'm getting a house down to zero energy, if I reduce the wood 50% or 60% because I use this advanced wall system, if I've used a precast concrete foundation that uses 70% less concrete, I'm good.
01:29:36:25 - 01:29:55:19
Sam Rashkin: You know, those are the greatest materials and factors, and I think we effectively manage them. But I don't want anyone to feel bad because they're committed to a much higher level. Just make sure you're able to sell it, translate the value, and I root for your success.
01:29:55:21 - 01:30:16:29
Mike Collignon: Final call for questions from our group. I do have another one here from our friend Zoran. He was curious how the Herz program, how does that relate or interact or influence either the zero Energy Home or the Zero Energy Ready Home programs?
01:30:17:01 - 01:30:27:12
Sam Rashkin: The Herz program is just so important. It serves as the metric for consistent.
01:30:27:14 - 01:31:00:01
Sam Rashkin: Enforcement of a set of program requirements. So that's where I see it has tremendous value. And most importantly, it creates an infrastructure of verification professionals who can provide all this value to the industry. You know, the building departments really can do drive by inspections. And you have this Herz rating verification infrastructure. It goes. And it's all this extra quality control that once it's there, becomes.
01:31:00:04 - 01:31:38:12
Sam Rashkin: Systematically integrated into the builder or trades best practices because they have they know they're being the oversights there. So the Hurst metrics invaluable. But I what I caution people to make sure they understand is not using the savings numbers as their reported, because the Herz energy savings utility bill savings are benchmarked to the 2006, Iirc. And again, there's a 3,040% improvement from 2000 Iirc in all the latest codes, sometimes 50%.
01:31:38:12 - 01:32:07:27
Sam Rashkin: And so those savings would be way overstated. And I get concerned about promising a certain amount of energy savings. The benefit of these homes is health. It is. The energy savings are enough to warrant the investment in better performance. It's the you know, it's just the everything about the durability, the quality, construction. There's so many reasons people want high performance homes.
01:32:07:27 - 01:32:36:12
Sam Rashkin: So you don't need to overstate the energy savings. So and that's because the Hurst metric it's tough because you they you can't keep changing the benchmark. And then the old scores become on to the new scores. It's not their fault. But you have to know not to use those numbers. So that'd be my only caution. But Hurst is critical for ensuring you can do these programs out in the field.
01:32:36:14 - 01:32:43:21
Sam Rashkin: There's a measurement system that gets you the results that are specified.
01:32:43:23 - 01:33:02:28
Mike Collignon: And let's let's expand on that for just a second. Sam. You're right. You can't really change the benchmark. So the question is then you just keep lowering the number that you're asked to hit or required to hit for an incentive or a code, then.
01:33:03:00 - 01:33:33:15
Sam Rashkin: That's right. So we're where the Herz index benchmark for Energy Star used to be 75 and it dropped to 70. Now it's it might be 65. It just keeps dropping. And the rigor of the program ramps up. Is their energy ready. The benchmark used to be 55 and it's now high 40s. And you know it's just all these programs have a consistent benchmark.
01:33:33:16 - 01:33:44:02
Sam Rashkin: And like I said that would change instantly if you if you peg the Herz score to a higher code than 2006.
01:33:44:05 - 01:33:56:18
Mike Collignon: So then here's the fun question that came in from Zoran as a follow up. Does a zero energy home through the Zero Energy Home program get a Herz of zero?
01:33:56:20 - 01:34:34:19
Sam Rashkin: Yes. Well, the Herz index is able to incorporate the solar energy system that it's there and hers. I think the Herz index considers anything with a score of ten or lower zero or negative numbers as zero energy. So yes, you can get to a zero because the Herz index is inclusive of the solar system. Note that the Herz index requirement for the Energy Star and zero ready program are without the solar system.
01:34:34:19 - 01:35:01:22
Sam Rashkin: So you have it's raining. Without the solar system, you can't use solar to offset other high performance home improvements targeted by the program.
01:35:01:24 - 01:35:06:10
Mike Collignon: I lost my connection for a second. Now I'm back.
01:35:06:12 - 01:35:08:24
Sam Rashkin: You're back?
01:35:10:24 - 01:35:18:16
Mike Collignon: So then, on the zero Energy ready Homes, what kind of range do those typically fall in?
01:35:18:19 - 01:35:22:02
Sam Rashkin: They're going to generally be.
01:35:22:04 - 01:35:33:21
Sam Rashkin: I'll estimate roughly in the 40 to 40 40 to 48 range, maybe 50. And the Herz index okay.
01:35:33:25 - 01:35:34:29
Mike Collignon: All right.
01:35:35:01 - 01:35:48:29
Sam Rashkin: The colder you get the lower the index in terms of the words. The higher the climate zone number, the lower the the Herz index threshold becomes. Sort of the the rigor of it gets higher.
01:35:49:01 - 01:35:51:19
Mike Collignon: Okay.
01:35:51:21 - 01:36:16:07
Mike Collignon: All right. Well that concludes our first seminar. But we're only 25% of the way done. Our next seminar is going to take place next Thursday, October 24th at the same start time of 12 p.m. eastern. As Sam mentioned earlier, we are going to be discussing comfort and Sam will get a kick out of this. It will fit with the observation of the day, but you'll want to tune in to find out what that is.
01:36:16:15 - 01:36:16:28
Mike Collignon: Thank you.
01:36:19:29 - 01:36:44:08
Mike Collignon: Nope. Not Halloween. That's two weeks from now. That's two weeks from now. Thank you so much for attending today. Thank you to Ken Nelson very much for his wonderful insight and for Panasonic's sponsorship, as well as Schneider Electric, Gingko Solar and LG vac. We very much appreciate our sponsors. And till next time, stay safe, stay healthy and take care everyone.
01:36:44:08 - 01:36:45:17
Mike Collignon: So long.
01:36:45:20 - 01:36:46:19
Sam Rashkin: Hey. Thank you.