Sam Rashkin, former DOE chief architect and Housing 2.0 instructor, shifts from new construction to the roughly 85 million existing single-family homes that need to reach zero. He maps the retrofit minefields, including window flashing, cladding and continuous insulation, and argues that scale requires bundling financing, manufacturing and demand creation.
00:00:03:21 - 00:00:28:13
Mike Collignon: All right. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to our sixth and final virtual seminar in the housing 2.0 series. I'm so glad. On this World Password Day that you're able to use the password and get into this seminar. There wasn't a password today. Seminar is going to cover something that we've never gone in depth before though, however, and that is existing homes.
00:00:28:14 - 00:00:43:23
Mike Collignon: We're going to talk about both the challenges and the opportunities involved when it comes to retrofits. Now my name is Mike Collignon. I'm the housing 2.0 program manager, and if at any point you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me via the chat box over there in the control panel. Or you can also email me.
00:00:43:23 - 00:01:04:28
Mike Collignon: I'm going to put my email address in the chat box just a little bit later. You know who has the password to Innovative Housing? Sam Raskin, he's formerly the chief architect at Does Building Technologies office, but he is now focused on creating and teaching the content for the housing two point program. The content is based largely on Sam's latest book, housing 2.0 Destruction Survival Guide.
00:01:04:29 - 00:01:24:04
Mike Collignon: The full program was established to help empower you, our building professionals, to design and construct higher performance, healthier, more sustainable homes and a fraction of the cost. Now, Sam is going to lead us through today's seminar, and he's also going to address your questions at the end. Now, before we get started, I wanted to let you know that there is no secret that our sponsors are pretty special.
00:01:24:07 - 00:01:46:29
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 provide digital control of energy use throughout a home via from the grid, via their smart electrical panel to their connected wiring devices. Next, we have Genco Solar.
00:01:47:00 - 00:02:22:14
Mike Collignon: They are a leading PV module manufacturer and energy storage system integrator. The company has deployed approximately 110GW of their Eagle modules in 160 countries globally, including more than seven in the United States. Eagle storage brings together the best energy storage technology for turnkey hardware and energy storage services. And finally, Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions is helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and cost effective indoor air quality solutions that provide a safer environment for home buyers.
00:02:22:16 - 00:02:43:11
Mike Collignon: Now, during the course of today's seminar, you can submit questions for Sam. Use that questions box inside the go to Webinar Control panel. And I'm going to review those questions. And I will pose those to Sam after his presentation. Now all I have left to do is say the password and we can get started. And that password is here is Sam Raskin.
00:02:43:14 - 00:03:11:29
Sam Rashkin: And thank you so much, Mike. Welcome everyone. Like Mike. I'm incredibly grateful to our sponsors. This is not your typical program. Housing 2.0 takes a much broader look than just high performance and zero. And how we take housing to the next level. And the vision of our sponsors to bring this to you makes us all grateful. So I want to move on today and actually, for the first time, kind of move away from new homes.
00:03:11:29 - 00:03:48:24
Sam Rashkin: I'm talking about existing homes, about 850,000 single family attached and detached homes built each year. But there are about 85 million existing single family detached, detached housing that badly need to be taken to the next level. So we're going to talk about optimizing zero for existing homes. And the key highlight here is navigating the minefields. I don't think we talk enough about all the challenges in front of us to move to zero, and it's really important to understand them to do it most effectively and eventually scale.
00:03:48:24 - 00:04:10:00
Sam Rashkin: So here's the outline for today. As always, I always have a quick background about housing 2.0. Why, what, how and where jump into optimizing zero for existing homes. First we'll talk about kind of the ground rules. What are the basic building blocks for getting to zero. So we have a common framework for what we're trying to do, whether it's new or existing.
00:04:10:00 - 00:04:32:05
Sam Rashkin: And then as we look at existing, appreciate the minefields ahead of us and talk about how we navigate them so it can eventually scale to zero retrofits. And as always, we leave a discussion at the end for your questions. So let's look at what why how behind housing 2.0 I always start with this data point, which is staggering to me.
00:04:32:06 - 00:05:00:10
Sam Rashkin: And look at where we spend our time each day and survey households all across the country. You come up with this kind of pie chart that shows you spend about 70% of our time in our homes, as opposed to dining outdoors, our car, all the other places we may be. And when you look at basically where we are after Covid, it's probably closer to 75% of each day Americans are in their homes.
00:05:00:12 - 00:05:28:00
Sam Rashkin: Home is where life happens. And that's just what drives me every day about what I try to do with all my programs. And when it gets to housing 2.0, my core purpose for why that program exists are homes for life happens better, and essentially we can't get there without performance and all the other experiences that we talk about in the program that you've been hopefully tracking in prior webinars.
00:05:28:00 - 00:05:54:21
Sam Rashkin: But if we just do one performance and that's the only experience we focus on, it'll be a pretty wobbly stool that probably won't stand up so effectively with housing 2.0. If we're going to make homes where life happens better, we have to address beyond performance, community design, quality and sales, which all work together with performance to create full housing experience that entails 160 best practices.
00:05:54:21 - 00:06:29:07
Sam Rashkin: And that's what we lay out in the House in 2.0 program. Effectively, our roadmap for consistently deliver, delivering, industry leading user experience. How we do that is we shift from a first class business model where we make really small investments and experts and special features to one. We're focus on the user experience and we we take advantage of sure, sure opportunities to delight the consumer by investing experts and special features that take that are transformative in effect.
00:06:29:07 - 00:06:55:10
Sam Rashkin: And so we make those extra investments. But the secret sauce of housing, housing 2.0, is this very rigorous approach to moving away from traditional first class construction to optimize construction and where we we leverage and extract two minutes amount of cost savings from simple, lean quality integrated systems, mass customization systems built all the concepts that we've been laying out in prior webinars.
00:06:55:11 - 00:07:17:16
Sam Rashkin: And we do that. We wind up with a net cost savings and all the added value from those improved user experiences. And what we show module has with 2.0 is that we calculate all that added value in savings. It can be 30 to 70% of the cost of the home. So the third step is to translate that value how we deliver better homes for lower cost.
00:07:17:18 - 00:07:48:23
Sam Rashkin: We don't translate the value than the market doesn't respond in kind with the right price signals. So this is what we do. And then also we collect empirical evidence. Here's one from a multifamily housing project by Walsh Construction where after they built the first building, traditionally they want applied user experience, best practice techniques for optimizing design. And they were they achieved a 24% reduction in the cost and the second building compared to the first.
00:07:48:24 - 00:08:17:17
Sam Rashkin: In other words, 30 to 70% for optimizing all five experiences is based on a lot of empirical evidence. So one last thing is a key resource for housing. Two penalties in the book. Even my grandson's on chapter five. Not I think he barely looks, but he stage a nice picture here. If you want to get the book, this is a URL for photographing to tap into our our our Green Building Media website to order the book.
00:08:17:18 - 00:08:43:22
Sam Rashkin: Former plus pages over 360 citations, the guest expert essays, hundreds and hundreds of graphics. It's really loaded with a lot of information, all curated into this framework so you can consistently get to zero at lower cost. So let's go right into the meat of today's topic, which is getting to zero for existing buildings. And we're going to start with the building blocks.
00:08:43:25 - 00:09:08:23
Sam Rashkin: So what really drives my understanding of the building blocks is first, understanding the key challenges you face when you decide to build a high performance home. And there are three key challenges I like to teach to. One is you have to optimize energy efficiency. Second, you have to manage all these risks that come along for the ride with high performance.
00:09:08:24 - 00:09:44:04
Sam Rashkin: And third, you have to ensure your future ready if you're going to build a home that is more comfortable, healthy, durable, that you want it to last for as long as possible. And the best way for that to happen is to be future ready. So here's challenge number one optimizing energy efficiency. And the best way to look at this is I pulled this diagram from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, work they've done with a software system called DOP to calculate an optimized energy efficiency point for making improvements on the way to zero energy.
00:09:44:04 - 00:10:06:07
Sam Rashkin: And at the beginning, on the vertical axis, you see the energy related cost per year. It's usually utility bills and the mortgage, and only the incremental mortgage to make extra improvements above the reference case, which in this case is a code hall. So you have the code home which is all utility bills. And then you that's 0.1 your reference case.
00:10:06:07 - 00:10:27:17
Sam Rashkin: And then you keep making energy efficiency improvements until you get to this bottom point. Two it's the minimum annual energy cost on a path to zero net energy energy. So you keep making incremental improvements. You get to a point where you're a bottom of a curve, and you've made an additional investment in those measures, which is the blue additional mortgage.
00:10:27:18 - 00:10:51:22
Sam Rashkin: And you see a big reduction utility bills. Now there's lots of opportunities to keep getting benefits from efficiency. You keep making more, but the costs go up a little bit higher on both the mortgage and the utility bills. And until you get to point three, and that's a takeoff point where any incremental investment in efficiency, it would be more effective to invest in solar.
00:10:51:24 - 00:11:22:13
Sam Rashkin: So you can keep investing in solar to get to a point where you have no utility bills, you're zero net energy, but your mortgage may be higher than you were in the reference case point one proportion of the cost of zero keep coming down. And eventually you see we get to zero lower cost than a code home. So this is this is what we try to do in the process for optimizing the cost of the energy measures, the solar cost, the lifetime of measures, replacement costs, electric rates and charges and metering rules.
00:11:22:13 - 00:11:49:15
Sam Rashkin: All that's factored in. The trouble is, is critical true cost factors missing. When you make different choices, it will affect cycle time. The is which systems integrate and effectiveness of the systems. Integration the cost of quality and risk with different choices. And and again, getting back to user experience all the benefits that drive homeowner cost savings and homeowner value have to be factored in.
00:11:49:15 - 00:12:17:16
Sam Rashkin: So we don't get to the right answer. Just with the normal type of analysis. We have to be more moral compass. And in a few modules downstream here, we'll show you how true costs really can be really effective. The next challenge is the greater risk when we have a low performance enclosure on the bottom compared to high performance enclosure on top, we have less insulation in the low performance enclosure and less air tightness.
00:12:17:16 - 00:12:50:04
Sam Rashkin: So we want with a really significant amount of thermal flow and airflow through the assemblies. When we improve the insulation, air tightness substantially reduce the airflow and thermal flow. And what that does in turn is on the inside face of the coal side of the assembly, we have a colder surface, and that's because the insulation and the air control are are blocking heat from flowing from more to lessen the warm side to the cold side.
00:12:50:05 - 00:13:21:02
Sam Rashkin: So we wind up with a colder surface inside the cavity and that creates greater moisture risk. First of all, there's more winning potential if it's colder, greater propensity to cut and sate, and there's less heating through because of more insulation, is less drying potential. And that's a very significant risk that has to be managed on top of that, because you have such a superior enclosure with less thermal and airflow, what we call ultra low load homes with high performance enclosures.
00:13:21:02 - 00:13:51:19
Sam Rashkin: And that means in the duct system you have much less airflow. When the data is. We'll show you later. Is Gradius in terms of the amount of challenges we have doing good duct systems, we have much shorter cycles because the sensible load has achieved so much more quickly. So we have less dehumidifier. I mean, the longer swing seasons a month on the front and back end of the cooling season might might be shorter because normally because of the greater insulation and air tightness.
00:13:51:19 - 00:14:25:10
Sam Rashkin: So with a month of no air conditioning on the front and back end, we have those two months where we don't have accidentally as a byproduct of the air conditioning. So ultra low load homes have need a lot of attention. And they also needed dedicated strategy for demoing. Finally, help with much tighter construction. We're going to accumulate contaminants without the additional infiltration that that occurs with with leak homes.
00:14:25:10 - 00:14:56:10
Sam Rashkin: So we need to manage dilution of contaminants that get into the home. So these are all the risks we manage. And lastly our future ready. We have these hard trains. We know disasters are just going up exponentially in terms of both frequency and magnitude. When oceans are dramatically warmer, air temperatures are so much warmer. We have tremendous amount of physics that just create higher risk in terms of more vapor being.
00:14:56:12 - 00:15:17:27
Sam Rashkin: Absorbed into the atmosphere, more gradients between cold and hot fronts, all the conditions you need for droughts, for storms and hurricanes, for high surges of of ocean waves coming across all the things that create flooding, droughts, etc. are just so much more.
00:15:18:00 - 00:15:38:23
Sam Rashkin: Evident today. And so we have to be prepared for disaster risk. Water shortages are part and parcel of the droughts and the ever decrease in water supplies that we have. And the electrification transition is a full on movement to all electric buildings that were already in the middle of. So we have to be ready for those hard trends.
00:15:38:24 - 00:16:04:02
Sam Rashkin: So all this informs the building blocks for high performance. Why are we do it is again, high performance is part of the overall user experience imperative for how homes are better. And what we do is first we step one optimize energy efficiency. And it's no longer enough to be efficient. You have to be efficient and smart, efficient and smart enclosures, equipment and components right down the list.
00:16:04:03 - 00:16:27:19
Sam Rashkin: You do all those, you have high efficiency and now you have to manage a greater risk. So you have to do all the moisture protection required for a much greater wedding potential and much slower drying potential. You need insured comfort for a low load home, and you need a comprehensive indoor air quality system for a buttoned up, extremely tight home.
00:16:27:25 - 00:16:56:23
Sam Rashkin: And finally, step three is you want to be ready for the future disaster ready, water efficient and electric ready. So all those challenges create a form effectively a real robust framework for what is high performance. Now I've gone look at all the definitions of high performance. I can't find one that really works for me. So so I made it my own and I forgot that I didn't put it in here.
00:16:56:25 - 00:17:24:11
Sam Rashkin: Basically, a high performance building is one that has optimizes the assemblies, the enclosure, the components, the equipment, work, health, comfort, durability, safety. And it's just what we have to do in high performance. So moving on less now we want to apply this to existing on. You've really done a great job in new homes. We have much more increased energy codes.
00:17:24:11 - 00:17:55:18
Sam Rashkin: We have tremendous success of various certification programs that all programs are Energy Star, Endura Plus, Water Sense and Zero Energy Ready Home. And then there programs for green for passive House. There are the certifications for Disaster Ready. So we have a whole array of programs out there for new homes. So what do we do with existing homes? And the first thing we have to do is understand their very critical minefields.
00:17:55:18 - 00:18:27:14
Sam Rashkin: And it's not anywhere near simple and easy to do this. It's a myth that that retrofitting energy retrofits are using simple, and there's all sorts of promotions and advertisements that will suggest this is easy. It's anything but. And so there are four key minefields I want to talk about. One is proper sequencing. Two is cost optimization, three is a high friction transaction and four is risk management.
00:18:27:15 - 00:18:54:24
Sam Rashkin: All these things are are critical if we're going to get to scaling zero in existing homes. So in sequencing, if we were to do an existing home the right way, the first thing we would do is make sure it's safe and durable. And we look for real critical issues around Royster, around combustion safety and so forth. Before we start to understand things that can really hurt the health of the family and potentially even kill us.
00:18:54:29 - 00:19:19:02
Sam Rashkin: Step two is then make sure before we do a whole bunch of things, tightening up the home and making it so much more airtight that we ensure we have a fresh air strategy. Step three is make sure we have moisture control. We can't start insulating creating cold surfaces. If we don't have control layers, then step forward. Then we can start Ursuline for draft reconstruction and step five.
00:19:19:03 - 00:19:42:29
Sam Rashkin: Then we can do the thermal insulation. And anywhere along the way it's time to replace any equipment or components. It's great to make them energy efficient and that's what you should do. Energy stores are going to be your friend for so many of your choices, but you always upgrade energy efficient for anything that needs to be replaced. There are some other challenges where you may be over sizing.
00:19:43:01 - 00:20:11:16
Sam Rashkin: Let's say you can replace heating and cooling equipment once you later on would make your house much more insulated an airtight. So we have to manage those related issues as well. But the minefield is that we find that people go so often at a sequence, and they throw an insulation in the walls before they have moisture control layers and creating risk factors so it can lead a wasted expense, wasted work, moisture damage and indoor air quality problems.
00:20:11:16 - 00:20:39:25
Sam Rashkin: You've got to get the sequence right. Minefield number two is cost optimization. Now there's a whole array of challenges with just the energy savings involving the accuracy of the modeling, a lot of the variations in utility rates, and whether the structure with its time of use or not, then the quality of field installation, what it really delivers versus what it promises to deliver, and then their whole host of different purchase fees for renewable power that utilities charge.
00:20:39:25 - 00:21:00:28
Sam Rashkin: And then there's a future value of energy savings, which are very challenging to figure out the utility cost escalation, the discount rates, and finally, to be complete, the value of the energy benefits, particularly those that address affordability, wellness, future value. So we have all this going on and we're supposed to come up with some future, some way to optimize our investment.
00:21:00:28 - 00:21:26:24
Sam Rashkin: And it's a minefield because there's so many unknowns, uncertainties, complexities and a tremendous amount of analysis gaps that we just don't address. Then the third minefield is high friction transactions, normally with very robust, rigorous whole house retrofit programs. There's pre-work and there's an energy checkup. I never used the word audit. Those of you went to my last session about sales and marketing.
00:21:26:28 - 00:21:49:20
Sam Rashkin: We talk about the power words and energy audits. Not a word. You want to match your recommendations to the budget and get that as as aligned as possible. That the contract which you finance and there's a lot of burden on the homeowner. Then during installation there's a lot of preparation, and then there's a lot of effort to ensure that the works being done at high quality.
00:21:49:21 - 00:22:23:18
Sam Rashkin: And finally, commissioning is verification, diagnostics and a lot of education that homeowners need to ensure persistence of the savings that are being added to the house. And the minefield is that these programs typically impose tremendous burden. That's very complicated to manage. And before during African, there's a lot we're asking homeowners to do. So this is really challenging. And the last one I'm going to spend the most time with risk management.
00:22:23:25 - 00:23:13:28
Sam Rashkin: You know, where everywhere you turn with the enclosure, with the heating cooling system and with the indoor air quality, there are so many challenges mentioned. Enclosure, typical construction often if not vast majority don't have the right amount of moisture control layers or even that it might be there installed in quality fashion. And then we have. It's very challenging getting comprehensive airflow control when you have so many of the cracks and penetrations and openings that are hidden by the existing finishes and trim and so forth, and then the quality installation of insulation is really, in the past, open to lots of challenges as well, and risk factors on HVAC systems design, installation on the lacking and
00:23:13:28 - 00:23:44:23
Sam Rashkin: indoor quality. We know there are problems with moisture, pressure balancing, combustion safety, proper filtration, no high capture levels, increase radon levels in homes, and particularly after they get tighter, are risks being created. So the minefield this whole house retrofits expose homeowners to significant risks related to quality or completeness, future problems, wellness, safety and persistence when they are not trained to really manage all this work.
00:23:44:23 - 00:24:10:09
Sam Rashkin: So let's move in to look at all of these risks and closure HVAC and Endura quality. So starting with enclosure a very common control layer missing is a double bond break weather resistant barrier. When you have stucco cladding, some stucco will bond to that first weather resistant barrier. The ability for stucco to drain is mitigated because of the the.
00:24:10:10 - 00:24:31:00
Sam Rashkin: There's no air spacing gap for the for the washer that's collected to drain. And snow goes like a sponge. It absorbs tremendous amounts of moisture. And so here's a house with stucco that's been pulled off. And you can see how much damage has been done because the again, the bond to just a single layer of weather resistant barrier is not good enough.
00:24:31:00 - 00:24:56:23
Sam Rashkin: And it's even worse with stucco stone. That's like a giant sponge absorbing water. And again the double break will often be missing and that could lead to more damage like you see here. Just you can just virtually destroy the entire wall framing and shaking system. So this is what we really need to make sure we have. This is a tremendous minefield in existing construction.
00:24:56:25 - 00:25:18:24
Sam Rashkin: Do we have that double bond break, two layers of building, paper wrap, whatever it may be behind the stucco or the stuff is done. And that's where we have to get to. That's how we manage that risk. Then another big risk is when siding doesn't have an air gap between the cladding itself and and again, the weather resistant barrier.
00:25:18:24 - 00:25:39:07
Sam Rashkin: And so without the air gap, the moisture is trapped and again can migrate through and cause damage to the sheathing and the framing and so forth. And you can see in this case where the sidings being pulled off. So we just didn't install air gap spaces behind cladding and sheathing. And so this this is a real problem when we go back.
00:25:39:07 - 00:26:01:17
Sam Rashkin: And what do we do to fix these existing homes. So the risk management that we want to do it's hard to do is make sure you have a furred out space. So I mean it's about a quarter inch. You can use home strips or want thicker spaces. You can use wood furry. And you need that. You need that place where where it's open at the top and the bottom.
00:26:01:17 - 00:26:26:05
Sam Rashkin: So basically the moisture can drain in case of infiltration and 100% of cladding leak. So this is something that we have to have to manage risk. Now also older buildings in repose at the bottom of the wall with brick and stone cladding need to drain that clog and then moisture is trapped inside. So this is another potential moisture risk.
00:26:26:05 - 00:26:58:25
Sam Rashkin: An existing construction, another big risk with moisture is we leave that simple details that this is a roof adjoining a wall without kickout flashing that can deflect the moisture away so that it doesn't just run behind the cladding. In this case, wood climbing gets rot rotted in moist damage. So ideally this is how we manage the risk. Particularly step flashing is an important detail in the bottom piece of flashing should bend whether special kickout flashing.
00:26:58:28 - 00:27:30:23
Sam Rashkin: You can buy just to add to step flashing. But you needed to flush the water away from the wall to one more sedan. It's a very simple detail, and also I find a more surprised how many roof systems the edges of the sheathing are exposed and weather, so the edge flashing is missing at the sheathing on both the bottom edge and the side edge, which again can lead to the moisture damage like you see here over here in the side and the bottom.
00:27:30:28 - 00:27:55:13
Sam Rashkin: So this again can drip, drip flashing at the bottom. And the side edge is a critical piece before you start putting on the membranes and and the roof underlayment. Not to protect the edges which are very absorptive of water from weather. So on edge flashing are important. Now another piece of flashing is often missing is at the top of the ledger where I get bolts into a band.
00:27:55:13 - 00:28:29:11
Sam Rashkin: Royce construction. Often there's no flashing and that can lead to structural failures like you see here. In fact, 33,000 plus people were hurt by deck of porch failures between 2003 and 2007 from one study. And, you know, that's this is just something that homeowners would never know to watch out for. So this is a detail you need. You need when you have a ledger and you're bolting in the bolting it into the band drives so you can hang the framing for the deck.
00:28:29:12 - 00:28:51:23
Sam Rashkin: You need to have a flash and piece underneath the underlayment, the cladding over the top of the ledger so the water has a letter draining go with construction. So this is just a critical detailing have to have. I'll often inspect columns and find these screws are pretty loose and already writing out. And you know you have a problem.
00:28:51:26 - 00:29:17:20
Sam Rashkin: A next risk is energy loss due to early cage in existing construction that typically has too many cracks, holes, and openings that not sealed. And if you look at air leakage as a percent of the total energy loss in cold climate homes, it's three times the loss of the walls, ceiling and windows and doors. Each of those are about 11%.
00:29:17:21 - 00:29:43:16
Sam Rashkin: Airline pitch is about 33%. So so this is a big risk. Leakage is such a significant impact on energy loss and is very limited access to repairs to reduce it as much as we would do in new construction. The second reason they could just such a critical issue is it's the main source of vapor transport for creating moisture risk.
00:29:43:16 - 00:30:13:25
Sam Rashkin: So in a hot climate on the left over the entire summer cooling season, you have going through a four by eight sheet of drywall. So the water just by diffusion, if we simply add a little bit of air leakage, a one inch hole in that for by a dry wall, we have seven quarts of water ten times more vapor flow to a potentially cold surface where it can cause moisture damage with a leaky construction than without leaky construction.
00:30:13:27 - 00:30:45:08
Sam Rashkin: It gets worse in cold climates. During heating season, one third of a quart of water goes through by diffusion through that four by eight sheet of drywall. When you add a one inch hole, 30 quarts or a hundred times more vapor transport with air leakage than without. So beyond the energy losses, air leakage is critical to manage more moisture issues and adding insulation, we have to manage the extra risk.
00:30:45:10 - 00:31:08:25
Sam Rashkin: And when it comes to how much insulation to put, in some ways it's pretty hard. Well, how much airlift is to get to assemblies. It's pretty hard to get to the latest levels that are targeted by the certification programs and the latest code. So you see is their energy ready home, energy star, ICC and passive here and their targets.
00:31:08:25 - 00:31:35:00
Sam Rashkin: And then Israeli home is moving to version two this year. So the version one and version two targets energy starts moving from version 3.1 to 3.2. You see those targets. You also see the target for 2012 to 2018. I seek and the new 2021 Iirc. And then you have passive House, which is 0.68 50, which is incredibly or tight.
00:31:35:03 - 00:32:01:08
Sam Rashkin: So you have all these targets, you have all these different numbers where the warmer the climate climate zones, one and two of the warmest, they have the highest amount of air leakage threshold allowed, and you get colder and colder than eight. You have the lowest amount of air leakage allowed. And so you have all this complicated different levels and different ways of constructing construction to your homes.
00:32:01:10 - 00:32:32:14
Sam Rashkin: I'm going to recommend you just do 1.5 ACH 50 everywhere as a target, both for new and existing homes, because beyond energy losses, again air is critical to manage moisture damage. Again, it's the major source of vapor transport. And also you don't want contaminants getting from outside, inside mold, smog, dust, pollen, pests. And for disaster risk, it's much better to have an airtight home when can get in, pressurize a house, and create structural damage.
00:32:32:18 - 00:33:00:28
Sam Rashkin: Wildfire smoke, can't get in the house and create health issues for disasters and for and for health for every reason. In addition to energy losses, you want to be your type, and this is a big challenge in existing homes to get this, it's hard enough in new homes. How do we do this in existing homes? So here's the checklist for air barriers to make insulation work, where every place you have insulation should be a six sided assembly.
00:33:00:29 - 00:33:26:29
Sam Rashkin: Maybe it's fibrous insulation cellulose fiberglass rock wall. So there are lots and lots of air barriers that you need to install in a house. So this is a checklist for new construction. We have to make sure these are also in existing construction. Here's one example that you find so often is missing air barriers that drop ceilings. So here's a drop ceiling.
00:33:26:29 - 00:33:49:19
Sam Rashkin: And you can see there's no air barrier where the insulation goes over the top of the framed out drop ceiling space. And there's no air barrier behind the insulation in the wall adjoining a garage in this case. So it's missing above the sidewall and the top. And the reason it's missing is because fibrous insulation is a thermal barrier, but it's not an air barrier.
00:33:49:20 - 00:34:29:29
Sam Rashkin: And when you have more to less on, you know, up second law or pressure is creating convection and air movement and so forth. The insulation itself won't be able to block it. So ideally we would have well, here's and here's what happens when we do under these situations. If it's let's say 1 or 20 degrees outside and it's 70 degrees inside, what happens is, is hardly any thermal barrier between the drywall, between the the friend out drop zone space with just the drywall and the condition space next to it.
00:34:29:29 - 00:34:55:17
Sam Rashkin: So let's say it assumes that temperature pretty quickly. However, it's 20 degrees in the attic. It's seven degrees in in that space. Now you have a 50 degree gradient and you have no you have no air barrier to block the driving force of more or less heat through the insulation. So you get heat going into the attic, and then convective flow is being created to eventually get a midpoint like 45 degrees.
00:34:55:17 - 00:35:16:19
Sam Rashkin: So when you have dropped ceilings that don't have an air barrier, they look like this in a infrared image, which this is. Our colors are cold, light colors are warm. And you see virtually a complete thermal bypass because of just one detail, the missing Arab areas of the drop ceiling. And this is a home in Phoenix in winter.
00:35:16:19 - 00:35:41:29
Sam Rashkin: So we have to install this air barrier and also recognize when we have this airflow here to the wall, we can have warm air, meaning a cold surface and a moisture risk we don't want to have. So this is air barrier one. And yet they're missing some relocations in the home. That whole checklist I showed you, so many of those are often missing when those details occur.
00:35:41:29 - 00:36:01:22
Sam Rashkin: And that can lead to high bills comfort moisture problems and a very difficult, costly to repair. So to go back and change the house without the air barrier is a real significant challenge. This is what it would be. This is what we see in new construction. You have an air burial on the top. Have an air bury on the side because this is a garage on the other side.
00:36:01:22 - 00:36:30:05
Sam Rashkin: All the joints are very carefully sealed. So you have a effective vapor control between the house and the attic. No, no is the same thing. We have a very detailed checklist of penetrations, cracks and geometry that we have to address and to not address. Then again we have energy losses, moisture flow and so forth. So this is what we need to cover.
00:36:30:06 - 00:36:57:29
Sam Rashkin: Give you an example of just one that's very difficult and one that you can manage actually in your construction where drywall meets a top plate at a wall adjoining and attic, the drywall itself will undulate quite a bit and create air pockets where air can flow again through the fibrous insulation. When there's more to less he or humidity.
00:36:57:29 - 00:37:23:08
Sam Rashkin: And so essentially, this is what it looks like when there's drywall and it's not sealed to the top plate. This again is a house in winter. The dark colors are cold. You see, the cold attic is basically infiltrating into the condition space which leads to significant bill high bills, comfort and worship arms. So again, this is something we want to manage.
00:37:23:15 - 00:37:54:10
Sam Rashkin: New construction can do something about this one. We pull back the insulation and we effectively insulate the entire footprint of the floor plan of the walls below, adjoining the attic and now on both sides of the wall. The drywall gaps have to be sealed. Expensive. But this, this is the way you can do it. And then but throughout the house will find there in existing homes on exterior walls, there's a lot of rough openings that are not being sold effectively, and the trim is covering them.
00:37:54:10 - 00:38:17:29
Sam Rashkin: And so the air ceiling is missing very often, and it can lead to significant high bills, comfort and motion problems. Again. So this is a door opening. This is a window leaking. So all these typical details and existing construction it was also very common in Seoul. Plates will have a gap between the foundation and the wood itself. The wood frame it.
00:38:17:29 - 00:38:40:17
Sam Rashkin: And again that's a serious source of their leakage. So again we can leave a significant bill problems comfort moisture issues. So this is something have to be sealed in finished spaces. It will be covered won't be accessible. So these are the real risk factors in existing construction. And also it's very common as outlets are very leaky. Again you see an outlet is doing two things.
00:38:40:17 - 00:39:05:07
Sam Rashkin: One, it has a lot of holes and places for leakage that aren't sealed commonly. And then it's compressing the insulation, creating gaps and voids and convective flows for thermal bypass as well. So when you see an infrared image of a outlet or switch, now it's not uncommon in existing construction exterior walls to see some real thermal bypass that can lead to high bills, comfort and Worcester issues.
00:39:05:10 - 00:39:41:11
Sam Rashkin: So when you can get to stuff, you can manually. But when you if you're doing a gut rehab or have a way to basically get everything out of the house, another option is to use aerosol Ursuline. But this will do is you basically pressurize a house. The aerosols release in the house will have maybe six acre nozzles all around the house, injecting aerosol and aerosol being house's pressurized will go to the very path of least resistance, which is a hole and crack and penetration.
00:39:41:17 - 00:40:13:05
Sam Rashkin: If it's less than 3/8 of an inch, it will basically lose velocity as it's going through the cracker hole and drop particles until it's completely fills the cracks and holes. It means manually you have to do openings, cracks that are bigger than three inch of an inch and to be happy have access to do that. But aerosol wrestling is a much more effective way of stealing an existing home, because it's going to find its way in, and it's just much easier than manual Ursula.
00:40:13:08 - 00:40:36:09
Sam Rashkin: And then the other risk is just the thermal bypasses that happen. The attic. The attic is the most egregious interface. Attics would be like 130, 150 degrees in summer, well, 70 degrees inside. It's a huge temperature gradient because it's only maybe 90 degrees outside. Winters attics would be as cold. And so again you have a big gradient between inside and outside.
00:40:36:09 - 00:41:07:08
Sam Rashkin: And lastly, attics have so many holes in like a Swiss cheese of duct boots and vent openings and recessed lighting and penetrations and flues and holes for wiring and piping. Like I said, just Swiss cheese of lots and lots of details that have to be sealed. So here's a picture of home in my neighborhood in winter. And you're not supposed to have a roof over conditioned space where the snow is completely melt, completely melted.
00:41:07:11 - 00:41:40:04
Sam Rashkin: Obviously the thermal flow from the house is getting to the space, bypassing whatever insulation is there an air sealing and and mitigating the purpose of whatever insulation is there. So again, that can lead to significant high build problems, comforted moisture problems. So I don't need it for a camera here to see exactly what's going on. For more energy, it's probably getting through where the roof meets the wall at the dormers is lots of places for details not to be done correctly.
00:41:40:05 - 00:42:05:29
Sam Rashkin: Geometry, cracks, penetrations, and so sticking with the Atticus and egregious interface, we wind up with a lot of things happening. We have that part interface, and we also have condition where we insulate the attic on the flat ceiling. I completely missed air barrier on the top side of the insulation. Remember insulation. Fibrous insulation needs a six sided air barrier.
00:42:06:00 - 00:42:30:08
Sam Rashkin: If the insulation is going to work to its full potential. And and so without the top side of the barrier, we just keep making the insulation thicker and thicker to try to overcome the absence of that top side airbag. And then we also stick heating and cooling equipment up there in the western states too often. And that's where you can get additional 4,045% losses from the heating and cooling system.
00:42:30:08 - 00:42:59:00
Sam Rashkin: So vented addicts are really rough. It's very easy for us to to on a retrofit basis, created attic by spray filming the closed cell phone on the slope. And since closed cell phone is an air barrier, you have both the air and the thermal barrier. We're on all six sides now. If it's an attic, you also need an ignition barrier right on the phone or drywall if it's going to be a condition space.
00:42:59:00 - 00:43:31:26
Sam Rashkin: But switching to attic with closed cell phone with the slope will provide additional conditioned space or storage space. Additional energy efficient performance, additional comfort motion control plus a foam will strengthen the whole roof system. So an event of disasters, the roof is tremendously stronger because the close health foam adds a substantial amount of strength. And when you get rid of the events, you don't have air coming in and pressurizing the attic and creating structural stresses that can do damage.
00:43:31:26 - 00:43:52:18
Sam Rashkin: And so you have additional resilience as well. So that's a lot of benefits from switching from a vented to uninterrupted. Now if you switch on vent that you have to condition it. You have to make sure it moisture that will just collect in the attic is being treated. And so you have to still provide a supply and return in that space.
00:43:52:18 - 00:44:17:22
Sam Rashkin: And that's a mistake that's been made a number of times. If we don't get the thermal enclosure right, and if we don't have the done right, as that's I'm staying as a case of so many existing homes now, we know about it and we know about it in an emotional way, because infrared cameras can make us see the defect in a way that you lay person can understand.
00:44:17:23 - 00:44:44:07
Sam Rashkin: And it's very emotional to see your house so defective in what it's supposed to be doing, or stopping heat from getting in, or heat from getting out, and having in some cases, moisture that shouldn't be there. So this is a you know, this is a big reveal in existing construction. So what amount of insulation do we want. Here's the latest requirements for the eight different climate zones.
00:44:44:08 - 00:45:14:15
Sam Rashkin: And I've led them out for the 2015 2018 2021 Icsi. And you can see the major difference among all these is 2021 Iirc on foundations requires slab edge insulation in climate zones three where exists at a higher level in climate zones 4 or 5. It also adds options for continuous insulation in basements, but leaves the existing options also available.
00:45:14:20 - 00:45:40:11
Sam Rashkin: It bumps up the attic insulation to 49 and two and three and 64 and higher. But that seems very high. But if we do a attic and insulate the slope for 49 drops down like 40 or 38, and the 60 drops down to like 49. So the attic will also mitigate the amount of insulation that reduce the amount of insulation we need.
00:45:40:12 - 00:46:04:11
Sam Rashkin: And most of the change of 21, 2021, Iirc, is is adding a little more rigor to the, to the continuous insulation requirement in cold climates to make sure risk of condensation is better than it was in the older codes. So it's a really good code. It's where all the new certification programs are going and stars and at home.
00:46:04:11 - 00:46:11:09
Sam Rashkin: And it's something we need to aspire to in existing homes.
00:46:11:11 - 00:46:38:08
Sam Rashkin: And here's the risk. We have Wolf employees that don't allow the appropriate amount of insulation, because the tooth thin and the insulation is there is often has gaps. Floyd's compressions that are already making it up tremendously less effective than rated R value. And so we really have a lot of challenges meeting the energy codes. And then we have details that we can take care of.
00:46:38:08 - 00:47:08:03
Sam Rashkin: Right now we have attic stairs that usually have no insulation. Or this is a feeble attempt to squish in some fiberglass insulation between the steps. But again the gaps, boards and compressions will undermine maybe 50, 60 or more percent of the value of the insulation. And so if we take infrared images of drop down stairs, it's not uncommon just to see basically in the summer based like a little radiator with the attic heat just coming right through that attic scare piece.
00:47:08:03 - 00:47:35:16
Sam Rashkin: And in the winter it'd be cold. So significant. Hi Bill. Comfort in Worcester challenges. And then there are some ready made products and can use where we can make our own rigid, insulated sheathing box that goes over the top of the attic stair to to manage that risk. Now the same thing with the attic. Now it's often this insulation or it's just flimsy piece of insulation spit on.
00:47:35:17 - 00:48:07:20
Sam Rashkin: It's not really doing that much. If that becomes a cold surface and you have hot, humid conditions, again, you can have mold and Russia cumulate on that attic hatch. And so we can try to do a better job with the fibrous insulation. All submit one on the left will probably get torn and ripped over time. My recommendation the best bulletproof by doing at of catches is getting the right size of the opening and get a small piece of shit panel to be at a catch.
00:48:07:23 - 00:48:29:09
Sam Rashkin: It will stay long term, persistent and its performance work much better. A little additional weight will help its seal to a foam strip to put around the perimeter. It's a great way to manage the risk, and the other risk we have in the attic will also be the eaves themselves. Wouldn't write to the eve of the attic. You can see all the daylight coming through.
00:48:29:11 - 00:48:54:04
Sam Rashkin: There's no baffles which are missing, which is supposed to allow the airflow across the top of the insulation. And then the insulation also gets very compressed at these because the slope is very narrow there until until it gets further up the slope. But the eaves, it's very tight. So it's not uncommon. Again, if we take infrared images we see like a thermal defect.
00:48:54:10 - 00:49:19:07
Sam Rashkin: In this case it's summer and the extreme heat at the edge is because of the effect of the additive insulation is almost nonfunctional. That leads to significant high bill and comfort problems all around the perimeter. In this summer of the hot now the cold in the winter. So this is the attic hatch. The wind baffles missing. Insulation is very narrow at the age, so it's very little.
00:49:19:08 - 00:49:48:20
Sam Rashkin: Often it's squeezed in. So gaps, voids, compressions that virtually are our value killers. So the risk management we want to do is put in the baffle. And what I recommend is doing a close cell spray foam plug around the perimeter just to get more R-value and more persistence and no squishing and compression and gaps and voids. So anyone bath close cell phone will take care of the Eve enough to reduce most of the problem.
00:49:48:20 - 00:50:14:18
Sam Rashkin: And then next thing we want to do is add before the insulation pulling selection back. Put the ceiling details, mention the top plate to the drywall around the entire floor plan shafts, penetrations, duct boots. You know everything that goes into the attic, dropped or raise ceilings. All that needs to be sealed. And then you can go put the attic insulation to the latest codes.
00:50:14:18 - 00:50:43:28
Sam Rashkin: And that is a risk of the attic. What you should notice about this I call this kind of a comprehensive grade. You can do this in an existing home almost as easily as a new home. The attic is your kind of your your sweet spot for what can you do everywhere that would have a meaningful, significant impact? Not cause much disruption, not cause much friction and be very cost effective.
00:50:44:05 - 00:50:56:01
Sam Rashkin: It is any frustration I have watching all these existing home programs around the country. They go after so much hotter.
00:50:56:04 - 00:51:19:22
Sam Rashkin: Scopes of work. If we just did comprehensive attic upgrades everywhere and created a whole infrastructure for doing that, it would work in any climate zone. It would be easy. It would be very low cost and very low friction. So I always been pushing we need a comprehensive, comprehensive attic upgrade initiative, and that could be a bridge to the whole zero energy approach.
00:51:19:24 - 00:51:55:16
Sam Rashkin: We'll talk about this more in a moment. Another big risk is your we talk about all the defects in insulation. Existing homes will occur at the banjoist. They're often left without any insulation. I live in a neighborhood of 500 homes. None of them have attic dangerous, and they're all two story homes for the most part. And so it's commonly missing, and it can lead to high bills, comfort issues, potential moisture problems, even when sometimes people attempts are made to install and just put in some fiberglass blanket pieces in there.
00:51:55:20 - 00:52:20:29
Sam Rashkin: The gaps. The voids of compression and the absence of the air barrier are just creating more risk of high bills and comfort problems, and more moisture issues. This is just a this is just a horrible detail that will not work. And we get these kinds of infrared images. It's the number one reason for coal floors is the absence of the band Joyce insulation.
00:52:21:01 - 00:52:46:28
Sam Rashkin: And so very important detail to get right when you have access to the banjo so it can do work. We cut back the drywall spray foam and the band is probably the only real option. Again, closed cell. So you get both the thermal protection and air barrier I do open cell, no closed cell phone. It's just going to allow the airflow through and potentially get to a cold surface.
00:52:46:29 - 00:53:09:06
Sam Rashkin: And we have those moisture risks we have to do close anywhere where we get cold temperatures. And this is what it looks like looking down at two by four wall assembly from the top. This is what we have is caps and compressions. We have effectively all everything we need for almost a complete conductive flow loop around the insulation.
00:53:09:06 - 00:53:34:01
Sam Rashkin: Because again it's why gaps, voids compressions, misalignment undermine 50, 60, 70% of the R value. And the misalignment again is the insulation is not touching the air barrier. So that's what can enable the convective flow around the insulation. And then we come back. And this is one of the main ways of insulin the walls. And this is just asking for trouble.
00:53:34:03 - 00:53:58:06
Sam Rashkin: There's no control layers. And so we're going to reduce the drawing potential. We're going to create all these cold surfaces at a higher level. And lots of opportunity for places where we didn't have malicious bonds to now create moisture ponds. So this is not a way we can do my mind insulate wall assemblies. And there are a lot of other reasons this doesn't work.
00:53:58:06 - 00:54:20:22
Sam Rashkin: One is this so much wooden wall. Some of this this is one home. I took a picture of its new construction. I mean, it's just almost unbelievable how much wasted wood there is. And this could lead to significantly reduced some protection because wood is one fourth the thermal protection of the insulation. And then we have all the corners to have no insulation.
00:54:20:24 - 00:54:47:14
Sam Rashkin: Traditional construction before advanced training is three stud corners. So the cornerstone insulated. And then at Walter sections where interior wall meets the exterior wall. The three step program was also used. And again we have all those uninsulated intersections with framing. We do a two stud corner. I'll leave the detail out for now. And ladder bridging across the.
00:54:47:16 - 00:55:14:03
Sam Rashkin: The gap between the studs were a wall to set a space in between. A ladder bridging allows us, a male in service to nail the drywall in place, which is why those studs are there. So again, uninsulated corners can lead to significant reduced neuroprotection. As an example, this house has 40.
00:55:14:06 - 00:55:42:05
Sam Rashkin: Inside inside corners and outside corners in the four plan footprint on the first and second floor 8048 corners, 24 corners on each of four. So it's 80ft of insulated wall. That's a lot of little. Then you have all the wood framing itself, which is probably about 20% of the wall. It's just, you know, that's just too little insulation in climates that have synthetic leather.
00:55:42:07 - 00:56:25:08
Sam Rashkin: So now looking at basements there use challenge as well. They also account for one third of the energy losses. Again triple the losses from windows and doors, ceiling and walls which are 11%, and but basements before we finish them and make them more fishing have some more serious related to cold surfaces leaky construction, clogged foundation drains, no under slab poly liner and older construction and capillary breaks missing where the foundation stem wall meets the footing, which allows often Worcester to kind of kind of capillary action flow through inside to the basement.
00:56:25:08 - 00:56:53:11
Sam Rashkin: So this is a huge risk. This is what a foundation drain drain looks like after about 7 or 8 years. Just, you know, the holes that let them come in, let the sediment come in. And then clogging about 7 or 8 years. And so then you have the drainage around the perimeter Foundation new construction. What we do is a rapid fabric filter so the sediment can't get in, but it's too expensive to excavate, get to these drains and and and repair them.
00:56:53:12 - 00:57:20:00
Sam Rashkin: It just cost prohibitive. So we and then we have all the foundation construction methods that are inherently leaky stone foundations of porous concrete block are somewhat better. But, you know, all these older methods can lead to significant moisture problems. And even in new systems of poured concrete, again, the stem wall doesn't have have a capillary break between between itself and the footing.
00:57:20:00 - 00:57:42:07
Sam Rashkin: And there's lots of ways for problems. So the key issue is moisture collects the Gentiles not working. Its collecting and collecting go through the foundation for water problems. So we have to fix these problems first before you even begin to think about finishing and adding thermal insulation. So you secure the walls. You had trench drains around the perimeter sump pump and drain it away.
00:57:42:08 - 00:58:11:06
Sam Rashkin: But these details have to be thought about before you're going to retrofit and add insulation and air tightness to these walls, and they're very cold. You have to watch vapor transport. Getting to that cold surface foundation was quite easy to condense. And the last part of all, that's really a challenge on the windows themselves. We can do a great job with walls, as you see here, which in a cold climate, infrared image of a wall, they're working pretty well.
00:58:11:14 - 00:58:37:10
Sam Rashkin: Not no thermal bridging, very dark and color. So the heat stack coming through, and then you see the windows effectively functioning like a funnel, allowing heat flow at a very concentrated level through them. They really are to mind the whole R-value quite a bit, which really too high builds comfort issues and moisture problems. So I ran some calculations just to give you a sense of how impact the windows are.
00:58:37:13 - 00:59:08:02
Sam Rashkin: I have, I assume, 15% wind of the wall area. That's more common for existing homes. New homes are closely 20 to 25% window the wall area. So all the percentages I'm going to show you get worse when you add more window. But if I have an energy star window which is a U value 0.3, and I have three different wall symbols and routine six inch wall with insulation are 39 13 inch wall insulated or 60 20 inch wall insulated.
00:59:08:02 - 00:59:39:12
Sam Rashkin: And I add that energy .30 value. The total wall R value drops from 18 with the windows to our living, so the windows cause a 40% reduction in the in the walls effective bar value. If I go to a 13 inch wall, more than double the insulation, 60% of the R values lost, and I go to our 60 wall about 20in thick, it's our 17 or 70% loss.
00:59:39:12 - 01:00:05:07
Sam Rashkin: So you made this big investment in a really robust wall and you're losing 6,070% of the value. And what's really stunning, if I put a triple glazed window in a six inch wall, I get about effective R 15 almost, which is the same as a 13 wall with an energy star window. And the 14.5 is not that far from an arch 60 wall with an energy star window as well.
01:00:05:09 - 01:00:35:24
Sam Rashkin: Windows are really important for climates, getting them right and finding ways to get to triple glazed as a as a. When you replace a window and looking at the value of the incremental cost because it's going to affect the whole wall performance way beyond its individual you value. And there are these new thin, triple low windows on the market that should look out for it and have some really significant cost savings from conventional triple based triple glazed windows.
01:00:35:24 - 01:01:02:19
Sam Rashkin: And since the use of extrusion as a double glazed window because they use like LED glass in the middle rather than a full thickness glass, they're lighter and easier to replace, and they often will fit in the same framing spot as the existing dual window or single glazed window. So. So when we manage risk, when we have windows, this big funnel use Energy Star certified windows in warm and moderate climates.
01:01:02:20 - 01:01:36:06
Sam Rashkin: My recommended cold climates should go beyond. And if you start and use a triple glazed windows, which will also be energy star rated, but they'll be Energy Star Plus. And then comes the next big issue with windows. Typically they leave the sash and frame around the window. They leave the frame around the window, they pull the sash, they pull the window itself out, and they put in the new window in the existing frame, which means you never get to the rough opening, which are usually not sealed or foamed, which are really significant thermal losses around the perimeter.
01:01:36:06 - 01:01:59:14
Sam Rashkin: Rough opening could be a half inch or more permanent, with no insulation or air in older construction, and it's covered by the trim that's hard to get to, and this can lead a comfort in motion just leaving all that construction. And when it's embedded with poor air leakage and no ceiling. And so we also see pictures like this 100% of windows leak.
01:01:59:14 - 01:02:44:29
Sam Rashkin: And if a wall is getting wet, you might be lucky that it's trying because it's not being insulated right now. You can't insulate this wall to figure out how to get the moisture control layers that mitigate the moisture problem. First, remember the sequencing is so important and we need to lead to these kinds of problems. When you have these little windows, dry rot, moisture, musty mold, all these things that happen now, the cost of pulling back vinyl siding or wood siding or brick siding and putting all the flashing details you need, is what you have to do to get it in, but really incredibly costly.
01:02:44:29 - 01:03:07:05
Sam Rashkin: So we'll talk about what we do about this later when we scale how we get to zero. But we're going to do it right. And this is what we do. New construction, our water, our air control layer, which is a house that is modified, I cut, you go down the middle in the bottom. It's kind of a slope cut, fold in the bottom, you fold in the sides.
01:03:07:06 - 01:03:24:21
Sam Rashkin: You pull up the flap at the top. And basically what you do is you install the window and pan fletching. Most importantly, typically you'll put in a chimp so it slopes to the outside. So water that's in there will drain. And then this is going to be a flexible piece where it can be a piece of metal pan flashing.
01:03:24:21 - 01:03:44:11
Sam Rashkin: But you have a way to drain the windows. When 100% of windows drain the corner is where most risk is. You want a lot of attention to the corner detail and then you install the window. But you got to put caulking and sealing only around the top three sides, not the bottom, so moisture can flow out the bottom.
01:03:44:13 - 01:04:18:10
Sam Rashkin: Then you put in the window and fascinate you. Put in the side flashes over the bottom flashing. You put in the top, flashing over the side flashing, and then you fold the top down and take it. It's basic shingle fashion approach matching. We do every flashing detail. So the risk management strategy you have is Rachel's time to replace the cladding, to replace the windows and remove the entire window assembly and install the flashing lights missing, possibly the missing the weather resistant barrier as well.
01:04:18:11 - 01:04:41:07
Sam Rashkin: And get this detail right. We'll talk later. Have a scale solution work cost effectively later. In other issues. Window is sometimes we just didn't think through details. Very often you'll see windows. We don't have adequate clearance for flashing if you even want to do it and invest the cost. Just the space is not really adequate to install it.
01:04:41:09 - 01:05:03:06
Sam Rashkin: Similarly, if you had a window right into a corner, we don't have adequate clearance to install a flashing detail. Remember, the corner is the most critical and it's why you see all this discoloration and problems right here. It's just a horrible architectural detail. You want windows to have much more clearance than this. So today after I'm going to show you later.
01:05:03:07 - 01:05:25:08
Sam Rashkin: The only way is brute force. You can pull the all the cladding you can put in windows, you can put in a new weather barrier to put a new continuous insulation. And you know, this is a big deal and really costly, probably cost prohibitive, incredible subsidies that might come along. I don't think we need the subsidies. I'll talk more about that later.
01:05:25:08 - 01:05:53:19
Sam Rashkin: And here's another way Uber zip cheating is a. It's a sheeting surface that bonded to insulation. So you have a non surface. You have the weather resistant barrier. And you have the thermal protection to put that take out the window, put that over the existing wall and then put in the new window with the flashing. And you have basically your control layers and you have.
01:05:53:21 - 01:06:17:04
Sam Rashkin: The new windows and new cladding. So again this is what you can do. But these are expensive propositions to do these kinds of solutions. And one thing that you don't see this talk about much, but I think it's still pretty important to recognize is that will be windows based when the heat comes on and they expand and they get curvilinear and they tend to almost be like a prism focusing sunlight.
01:06:17:04 - 01:06:43:29
Sam Rashkin: And so if you have an adjoining building, that could be the brunt of that reflected solar energy, you can wind up with these, this kind of damage. So one quick note, you have to check your site conditions and make sure your low windows, if you're going to install them, is new. Double efficient. Dual windows are not going to damage a neighbor's walls and create some litigation for you that you don't want to get into.
01:06:44:05 - 01:07:09:05
Sam Rashkin: It might mean on the on windows adjoining, which will reflect on an adjoining home. You might have to use clear glass or think through these issues. I have one photograph of the of the sun just beating down on a propane or tank valve, and it's not pretty. And then we get to hack. It's only done with the enclosure on HVAC.
01:07:09:07 - 01:07:34:11
Sam Rashkin: This is just get everybody. But it's something we've known for a long time. National Newborns Laboratory went out. Look at a large sample of homes with HVAC systems and found 70 to 80% 7,000% of the field measured systems had at least one performance compromising fault. And some of these numbers are really, really scary. Equipment over sizing the study to 90 plus percent.
01:07:34:17 - 01:08:01:13
Sam Rashkin: Refrigerant charge to low is almost 30 to almost 80%. Leakage in two thirds to 100% of the homes was obsessive, and airflow through the duct system is too low and 50 to 90% of the homes. So now to go to zero and have this kind of infrastructure in the house or work, the HVAC infrastructure has to be really good at mixing and airflow and no leakage.
01:08:01:17 - 01:08:34:16
Sam Rashkin: So all these things have to be figured out, integrated in a comprehensive getting zero energy retrofit project. So this is a this is the HVAC system that's got refrigerant lines, blowers and filters and ductwork. And the risks are they have poor comfort with improper charge, poor comfort, moisture problems, leaky and poorly installed docks, port control with oversize equipment, poor infiltration or airflow with a one inch filter rack, and excessive dust with leaky ducts and leaky filter racks.
01:08:34:16 - 01:08:56:06
Sam Rashkin: So there's a lot going on here. Remember a lot of minefields in existing homes? You know, we really have to figure out what to do. And we'll talk about this again and how we scale it. And so, you know, these pictures are just too common. Poor design, installation of existing equipment index can lead to high bills. Comfort in worship.
01:08:56:09 - 01:09:22:13
Sam Rashkin: This is a compressed duct being squeezed through a trust. Joyce. So your flow is going to be tremendously reduced. Remember this is a this is a Flextech which is very insulated. That's getting compressed very significantly. And so, you know, very poor comfort in the room since it's going to here's some common leakage details you'll see on the I've been to many docs syndrome.
01:09:22:19 - 01:09:43:23
Sam Rashkin: You know you know the cultural edges. These things didn't matter for such a long time. It will lead to again reduce airflow moisture problems where warm air can get out and hit a cold surface there. Often these are inaccessible if they're insights and construction assemblies, which creates other risk factors. Here's just some dev systems that I've inspected on the left.
01:09:43:23 - 01:10:10:16
Sam Rashkin: You can stick the fingers in that stuck on the right. The installer is trying to get away with not only sealing three sides of the metal duct. The top side here is no no mastic was installed. Just, just I'll call it laziness, but this is just the culture of the HVAC installation infrastructure that was really systematic for just decades and decades.
01:10:10:18 - 01:10:35:20
Sam Rashkin: And so if you want to seal existing decks again, there's an aerosol system for selling deck work as well. Does require against the big problems manually first. And then you can really do an incredible job selling your own decks and getting very tight. Otherwise you're stuck just manual ceiling. And then there are kink ducts, which will also just virtually stop airflow and mitigate the purpose of the drop itself.
01:10:35:20 - 01:11:01:07
Sam Rashkin: And often these can be an accessible for easy repair. Also straps we're also missing and ducts plus to keep them from having significant bands that constrain airflow. So straps just completely missing here. And here's a duck going from point A to point B. So this is where the metal duct stops. The flex insulated flex truck is here and has to go here comes in 25ft lengths.
01:11:01:07 - 01:11:35:25
Sam Rashkin: So the installer said I don't want to cut this stuff. And boy that's what takes to get from that point A to point B, and I'll be surprised if there's much of any for the gets there. So I can really compromise comfort and performance. And then the other big issue is, as we have gone primarily to central hallway returns rather than room by room returns, we wind up when the doors are shut, blowing air into bedrooms that say, which doesn't have a path out to the central, return the doorstep.
01:11:35:28 - 01:12:01:14
Sam Rashkin: So why is that? The bedrooms get very pressurized as you see the plus symbols. Meanwhile, the central returns pulling full force doesn't have access to the entire space that it's size four. So you have very significant negative pressure in the remaining space that's left. And so what happens? Two things. One is the positive pressure in these rooms becomes a block for airflow of comfort in these rooms.
01:12:01:19 - 01:12:25:22
Sam Rashkin: And the positive pressure can push airflow into assemblies in winter time conditions where it can reach cold surfaces and creates extra moisture risk. So what do we do? Our problem and sometimes the evidence itself, just where you see the carpets acting like a filter as the air is trying to get under the door and out to the central return, and sometimes visibly, you'll see what's going on.
01:12:25:23 - 01:12:47:03
Sam Rashkin: You can see under the Sultanate air, trying to get out and in the room is really pressurized. So transfer grills and jumped up. So the way we manage that risk, we do these in new construction. And these are not that hard to add in existing construction. So particularly where we have evidence that we got problems. These are kinds of solutions we have at our disposal.
01:12:47:05 - 01:13:13:16
Sam Rashkin: Then comes IQ. And interior quality is always right there in part of any kind of high performance home package in terms of concerns you want to manage. And here's why. We ingest 31 pounds of air every day, compared to 8 pounds of water and 4 pounds of food. In other words, four times more air than water and a times more air than food.
01:13:13:24 - 01:13:47:15
Sam Rashkin: We buy a $50 billion worth of organic food every year to protect ourselves from contaminants, known sector sides and food by $20 billion a year by water protective cells, unknown contaminants in and tap water. We're willing to pay for this. People want healthy homes, but we've got a lot of risk to manage in three 1978 homes. But in this, Festus and leaky homes were exposed to high humidity coming in the summer.
01:13:47:17 - 01:14:13:04
Sam Rashkin: Pest pollen, outdoor smog and smoke, dust and combustion gases. There are a lot of these factors that we have to manage and we breathe a lot of air. So this is the risk management strategy we do in new homes. We do source control, fresh air with whole house and spot and high capture filtration with a five inch filter, high filter racks versus a one inch filter act.
01:14:13:04 - 01:14:45:27
Sam Rashkin: And the ventilation also the ventilation systems allows ventilation will be have a high Merv filter as well in there. So this is a tall order sometimes to do an existing homes. But we have to manage these risks. Chemicals VOCs volatile, organic caught or compounds from aldehyde toxic mold and dust. Biological triggers dust mites pest pollen combustion gases. Right on.
01:14:46:03 - 01:15:03:25
Sam Rashkin: And we have to inspect for letting asbestos in existing homes before we do any work. And so here's a one issue filter app. Majority of HVAC systems, vast majority will look like this often without a cover, which means they're pulling in dust. And also.
01:15:03:28 - 01:15:36:12
Sam Rashkin: Less efficient. So we want four and five inch filter rocks, which are hard to retrofit, pretty expensive to replicate. And so when you put in a new system, that's the time to think about can you switch to a 4 or 5 inch filter? The other thing that happens is we will have a atmospherically vented gas water heater and furnace, and then we'll switch furnace to high efficient double ducted direct vent.
01:15:36:19 - 01:16:08:03
Sam Rashkin: And so you have direct vent furnace that you switch from the atmospheric vented furnace. And the two PD C pipes are added. And we close the flow which was for both the furnace and the water heater. And now the flues oversize for just the water heater. And so you might not be drafting the gases as much. So we found that can be problems backtracking after we have an often atmospherically vented gas water heater.
01:16:08:04 - 01:16:33:12
Sam Rashkin: And so that can be a health safety issue. So risk management is the loss of the switch to a direct power vented water heater. This is a direct that air coming for combustion. And then the combustion air going out. And here you use the room air for combustion. And the combustion airs as a fan to power vented out through a BBC pipe.
01:16:33:15 - 01:16:55:19
Sam Rashkin: So you know these are expensive to do and add on to the scope of work. If you only need to furnish enough water heater, it's another $2,000, $2,500, whatever it may be. And so again, it's a risk factor in new homes. And the other thing is cooking itself. A lot of people like and prefer cooking with gas as you start tightening up the home.
01:16:55:19 - 01:17:24:07
Sam Rashkin: And we have a lot of gas, cooking gas ovens, maybe gas, clothes dryer, all those appliances are just putting their emissions to cling to the house. No flu, no exhaust vent for them. So and the concentrations can increase where the upgrades are improving. Antinous. So more and more switch to electric appliances as you're tightening up your homes. No induction cooking, heat pump, clothes dryers or conventional electric clothes dryers.
01:17:24:08 - 01:17:46:25
Sam Rashkin: We just have to be thoughtful about all the risk factors once we tighten up homes. And of course, if we're tied up the home we want to have whole house ventilation is as a strategy. The cheapest way is to use the bathroom exhaust fan, but it's least effective and all sorts of pulling the makeup air, it's the air back into the construction assemblies.
01:17:46:25 - 01:18:19:05
Sam Rashkin: And so maybe in the summer you're pulling hot, humid air into your cold surface. So, so balanced methylation systems are so highly recommended over just exhaust only. And again with with the whole hospital systems, we had the same problems we have with HVAC, Upwork kinks and excessive lens and a lot of the same issues and just a whole array of problems.
01:18:19:05 - 01:18:45:16
Sam Rashkin: And then what also happens is we're imposing a lot of expectations on homeowners who are not really adept at managing extra expectations. It's hard enough just to change the filter in a furnace to change the filters from the whole house ventilation system. What a know to inspect the intake vents. Make sure that you don't have things like in this case that's been built up.
01:18:45:19 - 01:19:17:15
Sam Rashkin: Homers have been found to have systems that are really robust balance, you know, ERP or HIV ventilator or enthalpy, enthalpy recovery ventilator, ventilator ventilation systems completely not working or a substantial networking for years because I just don't know to check. So persistence is a real challenge with whole house ventilation and persistence is important. If the air tightening has really been effective.
01:19:17:18 - 01:19:38:28
Sam Rashkin: The last thing I'll mention about indoor air quality is a lot of people put in the super exhaust range, Hurd's bigger is better, and those rain showers can pull in all sorts of contaminants in the house. Or they can pull in backdraft and combustion appliances. They can pull in moisture in the house. So you really need to make up there with the systems that are 400 cfm or greater.
01:19:38:28 - 01:20:18:17
Sam Rashkin: And you also want to switch to high capture filtration that is more effective, removing pricking emissions at much, much lower airflow. One more thing is right on the concentration rate on gases might be acceptable, but then when you tighten the house up at. You're tightening might be something where you have to watch out for the radon. So the risk management strategy and regions with high radon risk ensure real test is performed after significant energy upgrades should be done in high risk regions anyway, but just simply on.
01:20:18:18 - 01:20:45:19
Sam Rashkin: So this is the minefield for risk management. Laid out enclosure will affect fort ability health, comfort, durability as will HVAC and indoor air quality. In addition, they will look at safety, usually from combustion safety issues. So these are this is a lot of risk factors that have to be managed. So how do we navigate those minefields. That's a lot of risk a lot going on.
01:20:45:23 - 01:21:05:20
Sam Rashkin: And how do we do it in a way that we can scale to zero retrofits across the country now in the short time have left. I'm just going to give you a very quick overlay, some quick strategy pointers. But this is a much larger conversation. I just want to give you a sense that this is not insurmountable as a way to do this.
01:21:05:25 - 01:21:33:05
Sam Rashkin: It just takes good strategic planning to get to zero retrofits across the country. And the key principles are, again, you have to have proper sequencing. You can't afford all the lace and reduce and risk factors. You have to get to optimize costs because cost factors are just to significant. You got to minimize friction. Homeowners can't manage a lot of friction, and you have to manage all the risks that we just showed you.
01:21:33:08 - 01:21:58:19
Sam Rashkin: It's asking a lot. I'll show you how I think we can do it. Okay, so it's step one, two and three. First thing you do is put some points on the board. Let's get people who are doing their existing home improvement projects today getting more of what they pay for with quality installation checklists that are already on the shelf, ready to be used, show you those.
01:21:58:21 - 01:22:30:00
Sam Rashkin: Step two by some time, while you develop a more comprehensive whole house strategy doing partial retrofits. Remember I said the comprehensive attack upgrade applies in all a climate zones, something everyone should be doing, and it can leverage the existing insulation installation infrastructure and get it done right. This, coupled with the checklist step one, is something we can scale very quickly and then give us some time to get to the whole house retrofit.
01:22:30:00 - 01:22:52:05
Sam Rashkin: Step three, where we finally get to the advanced wall systems and manage the risk factors and the health factors that come along for the ride. So here's the number of home upgrades done. This is the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. This is one recent study. And essentially there are 14 plus million energy related projects that are being done annually.
01:22:52:05 - 01:23:21:23
Sam Rashkin: And the cost of those upgrades annual basis is about $62 billion. So Americans are doing a lot of energy related projects. Can we help them get more bang for the buck? Yes we can. Lessing before I left, I'd really finish this before I left. Or is home improvement expert? We assembled checklist for energy enclosure upgrades, heating and cooling, hot water heating and the fresh air system that look familiar.
01:23:21:25 - 01:23:50:23
Sam Rashkin: There's three challenges we just talked about. So be doing any upgrades on any of these projects. Attic. You're assuming a basement wall insulation frame is the checklist for you. This is a sample for attic insulation because again I'm big fan of this is something we could do everywhere. And the way the checklist work is on the front page, you have the basic benefit of doing attic you're selling and insulation and other related measures that need to be taken into account when you do the attic.
01:23:50:25 - 01:24:04:13
Sam Rashkin: So then comes the generic information for whatever project you may do enclosure heating, hot water pressure. Why a home improvement expert checklist.
01:24:04:15 - 01:24:31:26
Sam Rashkin: What you can do when you're ready to do more, and tips for hiring a contractor. Just basic information for every homeowner. Then comes the important message about sequencing making sure we educate homeowners. There's a critical strategy for how we manage improving our house. So some things we do first, second, third and fourth. It looks just like what I showed you safe and durable, fresh air, what you control, draft free thermal comfort and any time do the efficient upgrades.
01:24:31:26 - 01:24:53:18
Sam Rashkin: So this is basically sequencing people if they want to read this expert guidance how to manage your house. And then you turn the page over and you had the checklist. This is the attic you're selling checklist. So this is general conditions for contractors that they have to apply to all the codes and standards and so forth. We want that on any checklist of contractor uses.
01:24:53:19 - 01:25:18:18
Sam Rashkin: Then what they do to prepare for attic insulation, what they do to install it with quality installation best practices and the commissioning before they hand it off to you, things that need to be done, and then the sign off at the bottom so they're accountable to the checklist. The whole concept of this is good guy. Contractors have a basis for getting higher price points because they using the certified checklist from the US.
01:25:18:18 - 01:25:44:28
Sam Rashkin: EPA for us for how you get quality work. And we're going to do the checklist if the other guys are not, you don't know what you're getting. So empowers all the contractors to get what they deserve and to invest in doing quality work. And it gives a homeowner a tool to access quality contractor contractor work. Because I had this checklist as an advocate for them to get work done properly.
01:25:44:28 - 01:26:17:28
Sam Rashkin: So it's really so simple, so easy, and there's so many concomitant interests that would help promote this. You can create a whole movement throughout getting these checklist on. But please recognize recall these together. But they need to be more and more vetted to with all the industry groups because you want them to buy into this. So the Ashrae and the and the American Air Association and all the all the appliance groups, we want all of them to be part of this and to make sure we don't have poison pills.
01:26:17:28 - 01:26:41:08
Sam Rashkin: So make sure that we don't have any excessive requirements for any gaps. And what we require is this is just the first foray into giving really good guidance. These are a really great first step, but it's a work in progress. When I left, I know it needed many more steps and needs a almost a collective impact process leadership to get these out to market.
01:26:41:08 - 01:27:03:26
Sam Rashkin: I'm very frustrated just sitting there at daily. This is something we could do right now, and if we got to 7% of the 14 million upgrades, got them using the checklist, we get 1 million homes with quality installation, and you see the data on the horror story, on the lack of quality installation. And by 2030, that can be tens of millions of homes.
01:27:03:29 - 01:27:29:09
Sam Rashkin: The pros of doing this simple points of the board approaches ultra low cost and ultra low friction. And it's a individual measure risk by ensuring it's being sold quality standards and more likely to get the full savings. Energy savings makes quality traits more competitive, empowers consumers at transaction to be their own advocates, and it's appropriate in all climates.
01:27:29:11 - 01:27:55:28
Sam Rashkin: The consorts only incremental energy savings, not whole house. There's no comprehensive risk reduction, and proper sequence is not insured. So it's just points in the board. Here's what we could do right now to help American homeowners almost overnight, get quality work that will have less risk. Okay. The attic upgrade is part two okay. Partial retrofit everywhere in the country.
01:27:55:28 - 01:28:22:11
Sam Rashkin: Attic upgrades make tremendous sense, and the greatest temperature differential between the attic and the home than you do between outside and inside. Because of the high summer temperatures, you have a constant stack that pushing pressure up against the attic. You're missing air bars. You're constantly you're missing air selling there in a regular basis. You missing Eve insulation and baffles, attic HVAC losses and like I said, applies to all climates.
01:28:22:11 - 01:28:47:16
Sam Rashkin: So two options. One stay with the attic and put in the pull back the insulation or get rid of it. Put in air barriers even baffles all the air sealing and put the insulation at Iirc 2021 option to convert to a unbent attic with close up spray. From now. You don't to worry about the air barriers, the baffles here, and additional scope of work.
01:28:47:16 - 01:29:11:12
Sam Rashkin: I would if they're attic ducts up there, I would add selling the docks and it was a really hot climate. Maybe it's a good time to throw in some shade screens in south and west windows, but we can bundle this package and put it out to market. Leveraging the existing insulation contractor infrastructure that's out there and training them as partners, and additional revenue for them to make American households better.
01:29:11:12 - 01:29:37:23
Sam Rashkin: It's a good partial solution, and I'll show you how it can work seamlessly with the final solution. But first, the pros low cost and friction, some risk reduction, significant meaningful energy savings, but not all synergy savings and leverages existing insulation infrastructure. Very simple transaction to do all this if it's bundled versus pieces or trying to quality control the contractor to do all that on your own, it's appropriate.
01:29:37:23 - 01:30:01:19
Sam Rashkin: All climates, the kinds of partial energy savings and some risk remain, some significant risk made in some situations. So that brings us to what we do for whole house rich beginning to zero. I would do a cost effectively. And this is going to be based on energy strong program that's been watching through Europe and a little bit of start in the US.
01:30:01:20 - 01:30:38:04
Sam Rashkin: And what you do here is you have a whole solution for how consultants come to your house that can contract in both finance and deep retrofit in one meeting, have the leasing empowerment to enforce have the ability to do all the house assessment, all the one meeting. It's very quick. And then what they do, if they sign you on, they they use a drone to laser image to house and get effective CAD drawings that go to a factory to produce new wall panels.
01:30:38:04 - 01:31:04:02
Sam Rashkin: And the way energy sprung does it also roof panels, more about roof panels in a second and then offsite. They manufacture the wall panels and the roof panels and also the large pieces of court, the whole house ventilation, the high performance heat pumps, all the things that are new today, that you're being existing homes are all put in single core and all that can be done in ten days.
01:31:04:07 - 01:31:30:02
Sam Rashkin: Really little friction. Where I go nuts is when you put a whole new roof on top of the existing roof. Now I'm creating all sorts of challenges for my lens. You're increasing the existing roof load bearing capacity. Maybe the structure is not going to be enough. I mean, just adding a solar system require the structural engineer to bear verify the 6 pound per square foot live load can be handled replacing the existing weapon.
01:31:30:03 - 01:31:57:10
Sam Rashkin: You may not need to replace it. All the plumbing vents, arrogance, Lou loose all have to be redone that go through the roof. All the exterior trim and gutters all have to be redone. It's a tremendous amount of work to replace the roof. I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me, but I would do the research, I would do the analysis, but I want to test a second option, which is only do the walls and either end.
01:31:57:10 - 01:32:27:23
Sam Rashkin: If you've done the step two, you've done the whole comprehensive upgrade. You're already done. If not, do the comprehensive attic upgrade with the walls in one step, or do the attic either way, I'm a big fan of that, so I push for that. And then you save all these costs for increasing the roof load, capacity for replacing a roof, reconfiguring plumbing, air vents, flue heights, trim, gutters, all that goes away.
01:32:27:25 - 01:32:54:05
Sam Rashkin: So that's my recommendation. Is this option looks awfully strong. I need to pull members together, verify this. But this is what I'm recommending. Let's talk about the core. Basically, they're putting in a high efficiency, deep pump, high efficiency, instantaneous pump, water heating, whole house ventilation and renewable energy balance system all go in this one core package that you see made in a plant like this.
01:32:54:05 - 01:33:14:28
Sam Rashkin: So they make these and attaches to the house. So all the panels of course just get appended to the house, like adding a new skin. So you pull off the existing cladding and pull off the existing windows and then detach all these new panels to the house and you get 50 to 80% reduction. If you include solar, you get you up to 80.
01:33:15:01 - 01:33:41:08
Sam Rashkin: And they're the panels being attached to the house. And there's what the house is like before looks like after the dozens of projects that are in the portfolio of energy sprung, here's your core, here's your new cladding system compared to the old one. And this will also includes a solar roof system as well. So 10,000 retrofits have been completed in seven countries, predominantly Europe.
01:33:41:08 - 01:34:11:15
Sam Rashkin: And a little bit North America has just been working on multifamily housing. Or am I recommend Institute has some contracts with DOA, but there is more planned. It's moving fast. Costs have come down 50% since they've been perfecting this whole automated system and systems built solutions and and dance digital technology to scan in the field. So 50 plus percent cost reduction and 50% energy savings doing this.
01:34:11:15 - 01:34:38:12
Sam Rashkin: Netherlands that and trying to bring this learning curve benefit to Europe and other us. So all these steps go away and one step you get insurable and safety go all electric. You get the ventilation system, you get the control layers. You get the airtight construction, you get passive house level thermal comfort. And you, you and you already have the HVAC system being replaced as part of this one.
01:34:38:12 - 01:35:20:11
Sam Rashkin: Stop all the five steps done in one time. And the core principles is you have an energy performance guarantee, ten day timetable, or think seven days without the roof is what I would. I would guesstimate affordability is of the investments financed by the guaranteed energy savings for the monthly impact on cash flow for the homeowner is minimal, and the attractiveness is that the packages must be attractive to the occupants, and also mentioned what they've learned in this process is people really want new kitchens and new bathrooms more than they want a new high performance skin.
01:35:20:11 - 01:35:50:18
Sam Rashkin: So well, they also have done is package new kitchens and bathrooms at the same time. With all this financing and really elegant, simple transactions and really creating a lot of interest to me do that. So the pros of this advanced systems built walls plus core. It's a comprehensive risk management. And you saw the minefields are completely scary when you go through and look at all the pictures I show, you're locking in proper sequencing.
01:35:50:23 - 01:36:17:23
Sam Rashkin: It's really cost effective. You're paying for it with the incredible energy savings. You have zero ready performance event systems building being leveraged for tremendous quality and and risk management. All climates, well, mostly cold climates is where I start. And hot really hot climates and but it's higher cost and friction. So need steps one and two to give us a bridge to be ready to scale to this whole house approach.
01:36:17:25 - 01:36:27:18
Sam Rashkin: So there you go. I'm exhausted. Do we do we? Scary one on the call or not? We'll find out that. I'll hand it back to you, Mike.
01:36:27:20 - 01:36:55:22
Mike Collignon: All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate the content. For those who aren't aware, I mean, this was the first time we've ever done an existing home seminar through hazard 2.0. So this was kind of cool to see all this fresh new content. And believe me, Sam, there were questions coming in during and we're going to get to those. I want to make sure to put into the chat that people can still send in questions, and we're going to get to those as well.
01:36:55:22 - 01:37:11:25
Mike Collignon: So let's start with something that was mentioned kind of early in the in the seminar. Mohammad wanted to know, please tell us the reason for quote, never audit. What audits should we stay away from? And why.
01:37:11:27 - 01:37:40:22
Sam Rashkin: Not stay away from audits? Stay away from the word audit. In last webinar on translating value, I went through the the power of words and I also mentioned that words are incredible. Deal. They're free. If a good word will change behavior versus a bad word and doesn't cost you anything. Why are we not using the good words?
01:37:40:23 - 01:38:04:03
Sam Rashkin: I gave an example last week or last webinar of Patagonian toothfish. Was this amazing seafood found in South America. Had great texture, great flavor, a great taste. It was an amazing seafood, but it brought it on the shelves. People didn't want to buy Patagonian toothfish, so the sea merchants went back to the table and they huddled up together.
01:38:04:03 - 01:38:31:18
Sam Rashkin: And they did one change with words. They changed the name to Chilean CBS, and the fish was so exciting to the American seafood eating public that almost one extinct, but from some draconian measures that were taken to protect the species that would have just no longer be in existence. Just by changing the work. Words matter. And I always do a survey in my audience.
01:38:31:18 - 01:38:56:00
Sam Rashkin: As I say, my audience is how many of you want to be audited? Not a single hand goes up. Go figure. No one wants to be like, it's a negative word. It doesn't inject any emotion or interest. So if words are free, one energy assessment or energy checkup, we bring our cards and our bodies in for checkups because they're so important to us.
01:38:56:05 - 01:39:19:06
Sam Rashkin: We want to make sure that we catch any problems early. And that's all we're doing with an energy audit. We're doing it energy checkup. We're protecting the greatest value. The greatest asset of most households is their home. And isn't it important to make sure it's working right and working with less potential moisture damage and comfort issues and health issues and wellness issues?
01:39:19:07 - 01:39:34:10
Sam Rashkin: This is an easy sell, but we try to sell an audit because we're stuck on that technical term. We've got to be thinking more about how do we translate value to the end user. So that's why I say never use audit.
01:39:34:12 - 01:39:56:10
Mike Collignon: All right. And quick plug for that previous seminar that was on April the 4th. You can find the recording of that on the Green Builder Media YouTube channel. Had a question come in from Ryan. And it's an interesting question too, because it's one that I talked a little bit about in the blog that I wrote in advance of this seminar.
01:39:56:13 - 01:40:10:06
Mike Collignon: He wanted to know, given the complexities of projects just in general and difficulties working with homeowners, how is it going to be possible to scale high performance home retrofits?
01:40:10:09 - 01:40:33:03
Sam Rashkin: The way you scale is you remove choice. No. Housing is so difficult because we overcome it and give way too many choices to the homeowner. We frustrate them, we overwhelm them. They're almost in tears at the sales center, trying to make all the decisions about counters and fabrics and paints and trim and lights and hardware. You're out of their minds.
01:40:33:03 - 01:40:58:18
Sam Rashkin: And so you come in with a package. The package will do this whole new skin, a whole new ventilation system and a comfort system and all this new protection and many times is done in Europe, includes a whole solar energy system to get you to zero. And it just comes. It will be this package. You'll have 2 or 3 different choices for the cladding that will go on the house as part of that skin, and neither you do it or you don't.
01:40:58:19 - 01:41:20:13
Sam Rashkin: If you do, it has a lease payment, and payment should be less than the energy savings that you'll have every month. And so and it's tied to certain houses in certain geometry. And you do this first. There are millions of houses in this country that have fairly simple geometry and boxes that are easy to be, easy to be retrofitted with this approach.
01:41:20:13 - 01:41:41:20
Sam Rashkin: But if you want something more customized, you want more choices you want to be, then you go with the other approach that might cost you five x more cost. So you have a choice to say 5XA cost, have less choices, mass customization, and get your house virtually as good or better than new homes in ten days. It's just an amazing trust.
01:41:41:22 - 01:42:02:19
Sam Rashkin: So the way we do it is no, it's friction and cost. That's the way you penetrate the market. You look at any technology app or any new innovation going to market. That's the only way we can get there. Going from an early adopter to a mainstream user, you're not going to cross the chasm if you don't address those two factors.
01:42:02:19 - 01:42:21:24
Sam Rashkin: So that's the best answer I can give to that question, which is a great question, because most people try to sell insulation windows and try to sell heating and cooling. They're out of their minds. So they go to the individual house where they come in. We've got this package, we do it, this we do it. This price. It's bundled.
01:42:21:29 - 01:42:31:15
Sam Rashkin: Come in. We're out. His Alisha agreement. That's the way it all happens. That's how they've gotten to millions of homes.
01:42:31:18 - 01:42:43:09
Mike Collignon: So we have other great questions to get to as well, such as this one from Sandy. I want you to know, don't you open yourself up to potential pest infiltration with drainage openings.
01:42:43:11 - 01:42:46:08
Sam Rashkin: With drainage opening?
01:42:46:10 - 01:42:58:01
Mike Collignon: Yes. And I wish I had more to go off of than this, that now I know Sandy is still in attendance, so she may be able to send me some context to the question, but she's talking about drainage openings.
01:42:58:04 - 01:43:04:12
Sam Rashkin: Maybe I was talking about the trench strain in the basement was the only thing I could be thinking about.
01:43:04:14 - 01:43:11:00
Mike Collignon: It could be. Hold on, hold on. She may have said something to me related to siding. Related to siding. She says.
01:43:11:06 - 01:43:35:03
Sam Rashkin: Oh no, no no, no. Yeah. Basically they're at the bottom of the air gap. That's a great question. You were right. Predicted it. So thank you, Sandy. And it's good to know it's behind the cladding. There is a let's say you have a half inch or a three quarter inch or one inch, 1.5in gap between the cladding and the weather resistant barrier at the very bottom.
01:43:35:06 - 01:43:43:25
Sam Rashkin: You put in a it's a plug that lets air through Banat insects. So it's an insect.
01:43:43:28 - 01:44:12:09
Sam Rashkin: Control plug at the very bottom so the air can go through. You get the you have the have air balance that allows for gravity and water to drain. But insects can't get through it. So that's what they do. And there's no everything that any anything there that with insects can go is, is they probably can get there anyway with the existing cladding systems without their space.
01:44:12:11 - 01:44:30:21
Mike Collignon: Question from our friend Zoran Canada. It's a great kind of general question too, that I think is is something that maybe people don't really think about, but is is something I think everybody will be interested in. He wants to know what is commonly measured in regards to Iirc.
01:44:30:24 - 01:45:07:05
Sam Rashkin: Not much. You know, there's a lot of devices you can buy, and I think that the sensors are the weak link, the biggest value of a lot of the sensors and controls of food bots and all the other systems that are out there are that they'll be able to detect when something's very different from a baseline in a significant level, CO2 or particulates or Co or VCs, a bunch of things that they can measure.
01:45:07:07 - 01:45:36:09
Sam Rashkin: The precision of that measure is less important than the fact that they can detect a jump or a level that's way excessive beyond a reference point. And you don't know precisely what the numbers are, but they're more and more, you see there's more they're more controls and, and, and ways to measure indoor air quality. Your house and they'll indicate green for healthy yellow precaution, red for stop.
01:45:36:10 - 01:45:58:21
Sam Rashkin: Take care of the problem and the flag problem. So it's less the metric than it is the ability to indicate a an excessive condition that needs to be looked at. But the measurements of the air quality sensors are still a work in progress to get them where they need to be to precisely measure, but to but to at least signal a problem.
01:45:58:21 - 01:46:11:24
Sam Rashkin: I think they're good enough right now. So that's what I would look for, you know, so the actual units are not important as much as just saying you're in a safe zone versus unsafe when it comes to health.
01:46:11:27 - 01:46:24:18
Mike Collignon: Well, I interpret his question, Sam, as to what is it measuring. So you started to list things off CO2, Co, VOCs. So what would be in that.
01:46:24:20 - 01:46:57:01
Sam Rashkin: Just yeah, they're measuring dust particles the size of the dust particles and measuring concentration of CO2, concentration of Co of VOCs from auto hides. You know they're just measuring those contaminants. And they have they have the technologies able to sense their presence and the amount of their presence and concentrations. And that's what it does. And you know, the metrics to me are less important than whether it's successive or not.
01:46:57:04 - 01:47:30:10
Mike Collignon: Gotcha. Okay. Where did you get to a question from Judy. She want to know if you have any suggestions. And by the way, Judy's question reminds me of something we used to run into with the action groups. Any suggestions for exterior walls that are exposed when shower surrounds are removed in northern climates, in older homes, and there's likely no air sealing there at all.
01:47:30:12 - 01:47:33:13
Sam Rashkin: Wow.
01:47:33:16 - 01:48:01:19
Sam Rashkin: Well, again, if you're going to if the if if there's no insulation behind the shower, it must be a pretty cold shower in a cold climate. But if you're going to insulate it, my suggestion is spray foam. Close cell spray foam again. That way you basically are mitigating the vapor flow path because it's an air barrier. It's a it fills the space.
01:48:01:19 - 01:48:26:19
Sam Rashkin: So it's more less risk of quality installation. It will completely fill whatever odd spaces are there. And the key thing to recognize is that it's a manufacturing process in the field. Mix on two parts and then supposed to mix at the right amounts, at the right weather conditions, the right temperature. And you have a guy in a moon suit trying to do this precisely.
01:48:26:26 - 01:48:50:06
Sam Rashkin: So you have to make sure you have a good quality contractor do the work because sometimes it mixtures off it will it will shrink over a short amount of time, and you'll have there gaps that can lead to vapor flow pathways to a cold surface. So so it just means it's not bulletproof. It still requires a very experienced contractor or good quality control.
01:48:50:14 - 01:48:58:10
Sam Rashkin: But the only thing I can think to do in that case is put in spray foam in the assembly behind the shower.
01:48:58:12 - 01:49:02:08
Sam Rashkin: Pipes. And yeah, it's a mess.
01:49:02:11 - 01:49:17:13
Mike Collignon: Yeah, I want to give kudos to whoever is taking these showers off of the exterior walls in northern climates and finding somewhere else to put them. That's really helpful.
01:49:17:15 - 01:49:24:09
Sam Rashkin: Yeah, the design principle we teach in the design classes, we don't put plumbing on the outside walls, so.
01:49:24:11 - 01:49:50:08
Mike Collignon: Right, right. How many times do we cover that one in action? Oh. Good times. Hey, we got another question from Alan, and I can I can feel the passion of his question as he as he sent this in. So I'm going to modify it a little bit. The he said of dealing with homeowners can be a challenge because they typically will value.
01:49:50:12 - 01:50:17:00
Mike Collignon: They'll look at price rather than value as a metric. And so that results in just a race to the bottom. And we really need, in his opinion, he says, we really need buy in from the renovation industry to to really pull this off. But his question is, how can an unregulated industry be held accountable?
01:50:17:03 - 01:50:46:08
Sam Rashkin: Well, I'm not sure it's unregulated. I mean, the the building departments are going to be involved. And obviously the, you know, they're responsible to see any kind of major work like this. And so and then you're, you're going to do things to lecture code to common code to mechanical codes. So it's not like there's no regulations. So I'm not not sure that that applies.
01:50:46:08 - 01:51:26:28
Sam Rashkin: But I will tell you, you know, it's a huge benefit when you build something in a plant with manufacturing quality assurance methods and lean construction methods and automated equipment and lots of optimization to get the details right and mitigate a lot of the field conditions, whether workers who may be less trained or less likely not feeling good that day, if it's just a really a systems built situation model oversight from the building with the field assembly versus construction, I think we're in pretty good shape.
01:51:26:29 - 01:51:50:05
Sam Rashkin: You know what big advantage of the system is, is that it is your assembling the panels in the field and all the hard work and really, really high quality control layers and finishes and details are all done in the plant. So it's going to you know, I think the risks are so dramatically lower. And like I said, you still have the oversight of the building departments.
01:51:50:05 - 01:51:58:06
Sam Rashkin: So I'm pretty comfortable that it's been done. So many homes in Europe, I doubt they have any more oversight than we have here.
01:51:58:08 - 01:52:07:24
Mike Collignon: Now, that also assumes for a second, Sam, that the renovation and retrofit is extensive enough to require a permit of some sort. Right.
01:52:07:27 - 01:52:14:28
Sam Rashkin: Well, the one I'm talking about, the whole house would definitely require instruction. Yeah, yeah.
01:52:15:00 - 01:52:39:01
Mike Collignon: Okay, so another question from Zoran. Now, he wanted to remind us that the requirement for net zero homes in Canada is one and a half ACH 50. So based off of that context, his question is, can existing homes reach one and a half? ACH, 50.
01:52:39:03 - 01:53:17:07
Sam Rashkin: Yes. If if we do the wall assemblies where we showed today with an energy sprung similar system, if we completely Ursula attic the only places left of the basement basements and generally pretty tight if they're concrete block or poured concrete, if it's a stone basement, it's going to require other upgrades anyway to make it more so. And then once you're below grade, you know, the you know, it's mostly the diffusion coming through the slab that's a culprit with moisture transfer once you've filled any cracks and holes.
01:53:17:07 - 01:53:42:25
Sam Rashkin: So yes, we can we can get existing homes. And the key is that extra skin on the walls. And I think the vented attic is a sweet spot for, for getting them air tight. So the tight walls are tight, just, you know, manually the basements. I think we can manage to get at that target. But it's good to know that housing 2.01, 1.5 is right aligned with the Canadians.
01:53:42:25 - 01:53:46:01
Sam Rashkin: So there we go.
01:53:46:04 - 01:54:09:02
Mike Collignon: Final call for question. By the way. We have one here from Andrew. He says how would you address a stone clad enclosure. Now this home was built in the 80s. And it's not cut stone. It's not stone. This is a stone clad inclusion.
01:54:09:04 - 01:54:35:25
Sam Rashkin: Great question. And I'm glad that one came up because it's an important discussion. There are some historic buildings where, you know this stuff doesn't apply, right. We're not going to put plotting in these new low windows over in start building and there and so they're buildings where you can't really get it to zero. You know like any the perfection is the enemy the good.
01:54:35:27 - 01:55:01:06
Sam Rashkin: So what we do is we have solutions for the masses, for the an 80% solution or 80% housing that's out there. But for housing has some very special stone cladding or historic housing or has some other special really they've already they put in some new Hardie plank siding, whatever it may be, there going to be cases where you just can't do that system.
01:55:01:08 - 01:55:24:08
Sam Rashkin: What you have to know is that there's no way you can do the walls unless you do pull the siding. So you're limiting because you have to have control layers before you insulin. It's just a prerequisite. You cannot take the risk of having the problems. So you need a way to get control layers. If you can't do the control layer, you can't do the upgrade.
01:55:24:09 - 01:55:43:28
Sam Rashkin: If you can't get control layers of the walls, you can upgrade the walls. The great news is you can always do the attic upgrade. You can always. You can put in the new windows. If if it's not a historic building, you can put in much more efficient equipment and you can put it in much more efficient components, and there's enough other things you can do.
01:55:43:28 - 01:56:07:28
Sam Rashkin: So instead of getting 100% to zero ready or something close, is there already you're 40% or 50%, and that might be what you have to live with now. It shouldn't be. We have to do an incredibly costly things now and and keep pushing that. We need the 80% solutions over we should go after. But there'll be people own homes.
01:56:07:28 - 01:56:31:20
Sam Rashkin: They'll say, no, I'll take off the plaster walls on the exterior and I'll retrofit from the inside. And then you can do it. It's it's a you know, it's like I say, it is a huge undertaking that we're never paid back in terms of the energy benefit, but the comfort and health and the other aspects have enough value for that particular homeowner.
01:56:31:23 - 01:56:43:21
Sam Rashkin: Then you do it. But the short answer is many cases, you just do as much as you can. But you I. Step two. The attic upgrade is something you can do almost everywhere.
01:56:43:23 - 01:57:11:02
Mike Collignon: All right. We do have another question that came in from Tiffany. Any recommendations for getting started with a manufacturing systems built wall plus core in the US? You've talked a lot about the examples in Europe and the sort of thing how do we get this going in the US, and how would you recommend attaching these whole wall systems to an existing structure?
01:57:11:05 - 01:57:36:13
Sam Rashkin: That's a whole the attachment is just a detail solution. Basically they're getting them bolted to the to the framing that's already there. And so I'm not sure the actual detail itself where they clips and how they bolt it in and so forth. But you can see basically they drop them in place and they have it have brackets for catching them.
01:57:36:13 - 01:58:04:26
Sam Rashkin: But in terms of how you would start such a system here in the US is it takes a big investment. What they did in Netherlands to start was local governments got together with this visionary group that wanted to do this. They got the funding from the local government to do the plant and commit to a certain number of projects, which would make the plant viable the day it was ready to open.
01:58:04:26 - 01:58:35:01
Sam Rashkin: So it requires a number of moving parts you need you need programs that will lock in demand, need financial partners who will do the leasing packages. It's just a lot of work. You got to assemble all the pieces and know it's. There's some detail reports on integer spring and how they did it. I will I will refer people to get those details from there, just to get a sense of what worked in Europe.
01:58:35:06 - 01:59:06:14
Sam Rashkin: What can be done here might be a better way or a more simple way, but they got it done so we know it can be done. But the simple answer is somehow you have to, you have to create a complete solution where you have the financing, manufacturing and the demand creation all bundled together. So it's just set up for success.
01:59:06:17 - 01:59:31:17
Mike Collignon: All right, good one to end on there, Stan. That does conclude our seminar series. But if you missed any of them and we referenced some previous ones throughout, I have good news. You can view them without a password on Green Builder Media's YouTube channel. Now, our next housing 2.0 related webinar is going to take place in about four weeks.
01:59:31:18 - 01:59:54:06
Mike Collignon: The specific date is Wednesday, May 29th. It's going to happen at 2 p.m. eastern. We're going to hear from Brandon Weiss of Devel as he discusses zero energy modular homes. Thank you so much for attending today. Thank you once again to Schneider Electric to Genco Solar and Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions for their generous sponsorship of the housing 2.0 program.
01:59:54:08 - 02:00:11:05
Mike Collignon: Next time, I hope that you have a wonderful Cinco de Mayo Mother's Day, Memorial Day summer is just around the corner. All those things and more. Thank you so much for tuning today. We'll see you again about four weeks. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy and take care of everyone. So long.