The NAHB Research Center has been chosen as one of 15 national research and deployment partners that will be working with the Department of Energy's Building America program to support efforts by the agency to increase the energy efficiency of new and existing homes.

To participate in this undertaking, the Research Center has created its Industry Partnership for High Performing Homes, which is a team of 76 key stakeholders that includes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Products Laboratory, the Southface Energy Institute in Atlanta, trade associations, non-profits, state energy offices, builders, remodelers and manufacturers. 

The Research Center will be competing for DOE award grants of between $500,000 and $2.5 million for projects over the next four-and-a-half years that are designed to make the nation’s housing stock more energy-efficient through cost-effective new technologies, streamlined building processes and other means.

The Research Center’s Industry Partnership has proposed:

• A study of business models for performing energy-efficient remodeling on a larger scale. The project team will look at quality management control issues and how to successfully replicate certain tasks.
  
  “This takes energy-efficient remodeling beyond air sealing and insulation,” said Amber Wood, the partnership’s program manager for energy efficiency.
  
  One community demonstration project will be Greenbelt Homes, Inc., a housing cooperative in Greenbelt, Md., where 1,600 homes built in the 1930s and remodeled in the 1970s will again be renovated to improve their energy efficiency.
  
  
• A look at the relationship between additional insulation and moisture management. “We want to look at the structural and energy performance of walls with high R-values and address moisture management as well as durability,” which can eventually affect indoor environmental quality, Wood said.
  
  
• An exploration of the benefits of thermal mass. Using a group of homes in the Southwest, the Research Center will examine how to take advantage of the thermal mass of the home to operate heating and air conditioning systems more efficiently.
  
  
• A study of new and existing homes with a variety of builders and remodelers to find climate-specific and cost-effective solutions for energy efficiency.

The NAHB Research Center is working closely with production and custom builders and remodelers, including K Hovnanian, Winchester Homes, CASE Design/Remodeling and Belcher Homes; NAHB National Green Building Award winners Mithūn and Ferrier Custom Homes; and NAHB Remodelers Chair Donna Shirey.

The NAHB Remodelers, Construction, Codes and Standards Energy Subcommittee, Construction Technology Research Subcommittee and Building Systems Councils are also among those who will be working with the Research Center as it moves forward on this project.

Selling Points for Energy Efficiency

At the association’s spring board meeting in April, an NAHB task force reported how retrofitting homes for energy-efficiency could be furthered by training programs for contractors and by incentives for home owners, such as the cash rebates of up to $8,000 proposed in the “cash for caulkers” legislation that has been moving through Congress.

“The opportunities are huge,” said Bill Owens, an Ohio remodeler who served on the task force and is also working with the NAHB Research Center Industry Partnership.

But beyond incentive programs, remodelers need to know how to market their services — and convince home buyers that the return on investment from better air sealing is more important than a new granite countertop. That’s a hard sell, Owens said. “It’s still one client at a time,” he said.

“We’re trying to get people to be cognizant of their monthly utility payments and balance that with the idea that no matter what, we know that energy costs are going to increase,” even if last summer’s $4 per-gallon-gas prices are merely a distant memory, he said. “With the high costs of construction, people are much more interested in aesthetics. They opt out of the performance aspects of a remodeling project because their utility bills are not that high right now.”

Owens said that the comfort of a draft-free home is also a selling point for energy improvements, especially among baby boomers.

“The growing and aging American housing stock of more than 116 million units represents a significant potential for controlling energy consumption,” said NAHB Research Center President Mike Luzier.

He added that 60% of the partnership’s work will be focused on existing buildings.

For more information, e-mail Calli Schmidt at NAHB, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8132.

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