NESEA BuildingEnergy Boston Conference Highlights
NESEA Building Energy Boston Conference Highlights
Last week I had the opportunity to attend NESEA’s Building Energy Boston conference for the first time. I did not know exactly what to expect, but it was definitely worth the time and money.
I attended a variety of speaking sessions that ranged from public policy around energy efficient multi-unit housing to large-scale Passive House housing developments to 7 unit, highly efficient townhomes. I learned a ton of new information in each of these, but my favorite was a session from Maureen Mahle where she chronicled the single family home retrofit that she and her husband had done over a 5 year period.
The home retrofit
It was very encouraging to see that Maureen had transformed an early 1900’s house into a LEED Platinum certified home – all within a budget that did not exceed the fair market value of the resulting house. If you ever get a chance to listen to a presentation from Maureen, I’d highly recommend it. Not only is she an entertaining speaker, she is also very knowledgeable in the area of home remodeling and LEED certification.
How to measure a home’s efficiency
One way to measure the energy efficiency or building performance of a house is with two metrics: a HERS (Home Energy Rating System) rating and an ACH (Air Changes per Hour) measurement.
A ‘highly efficient’ house would have a HERS rating below 100 and an ACH below 5 @ 50 pascals. A HERS rating of 100 is meant to represent a standard new home that meets industry standards for energy efficiency. If a house is 20% more efficient than the standard new house, it would have a HERS rating of 80. If it is 40% more efficient the HERS rating would be 60, 70% more efficient would yield a HERS rating of 30 – you get the idea.
When Maureen and her husband bought their house, the HERS was at a whopping 173 and the ACH was at a 25.6. (Her presentation was great in that she would show how much the HERS rating and the ACH measurements dropped as each major home enhancement that was done.) After the 5 year project was complete, they had been successful in dropping the HERS to 58 and the ACH way down to 3.1 @ 50 pascals. And to do all of that within a budget was truly amazing!
Tough Decisions
Another message that Maureen repeated several times was the fact that tough decisions need to be made along the way, and that it’s not an ‘all or nothing’ type of project. You don’t have to make ‘everything’ green or highly efficient. Especially as we look to retrofit or remodel older houses, sometimes it makes sense to keep things that are original to the house for aesthetics even though it’s not the most efficient. For example, Maureen talked about the fact that they kept their front door, which includes a mail slot, as it’s such a key component to the house’s character. It’s not the most efficient door, but it’s one of those tough decisions that they decided to keep.
As I’ve mentioned in some of my other posts, there are ‘shades of green’.
New products and rebates
Lastly, the trade show floor at the conference was also very interesting as there are new building products that are continually evolving and becoming more accessible to the savvy homeowner. As well as being a great place to catch up on the latest rebates and incentives.
I must say that the conference exceeded my expectations. In addition to the sessions focused on single family homes, it was nice to listen in on some of the multi-unit and larger scale case studies as well to see what products and methodologies are being utilized. Especially since many of these will make their way into single family home construction and remodeling in the future.
Overall this was a great experience and I will definitely be looking forward to next year’s BuildingEnergy Boston conference!
Feel free to visit the NESEA or BuildingEnergy Boston websites for more information