By: Phil Crone
HBA of Greater Dallas Director of Government Affairs and Green Building Programs
What if the codes required your home to achieve a HERS Index of 50 or below? If you are not building to this level now, could you be in five or six years? You may not have a choice.
A couple weeks ago I was listening to Sam Rashkin, the EPA’s National Director of ENERGY STAR for Homes, speak at the NAHB National Green Building Conference in Raleigh, NC. As Mr. Rashkin ran through a litany of changes that the program would soon undergo such as Grade 1 insulations ratings (no batts), extremely stringent HVAC design layouts and testing, a new water management checklist, and an overall goal to increase a home’s performance by another 15 percent, I began to wonder how many builders would continue with ENERGY STAR once these measures became effective next year. Even some of the more advanced green builders would have trouble getting to this level given the current state of the economy and the rampant disregard for the value of efficiency and sustainability in the appraisal process.
It’s all about to be code. The 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and Chapter 11 of the 2009 International Residential Code (IRC) are about 15 percent more energy efficient than the codes we currently use. This is also about the same performance level currently required by ENERGY STAR, which is another reason why the EPA is moving ahead. But, that is only the beginning.
Much of Mr. Rashkin’s presentation about the next version of ENERGY STAR could be recycled into a presentation about the 2012 IECC. Its current draft form at the International Code Council (ICC) seeks to achieve 30 percent more energy efficiency than current code. That would be roughly what is today a HERS Index of 70.
Furthermore, an early draft of the 2015 IECC calls for a 50 percent energy efficiency improvement. That would be about the equivalent of a HERS 50! I only know about a dozen builders who reach this level of energy efficiency on a consistent basis; however, this could be our code in five or six years.
In a more immediate effort to address all other aspects of green construction including energy efficiency, the ICC is working on the International Green Construction Code (IGCC). The ICC’s description of this document explains its purpose as follows, “because it was written in mandatory language, the IGCC is poised to produce environmental benefits on a massive scale: a scale impossible to attain with purely voluntary green building programs.” At first, the IGCC was only aimed at commercial construction, but it has since come to incorporate, by reference, the NAHB’s ICC-700 program (also known as The National Green Building Standard).
“The reference to the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) essentially means that any community that adopts the new green construction code for commercial building would also be adopting the NGBS for home construction. It is our hope that the reference to the NGBS will be removed when the final draft version is approved” says Paul Cauduro, Director of Codes and Standards for the Texas Association of Builders (TAB). Paul has a very insightful article that provides additional perspective in this month’s Texas Builder Magazine.
A mandate seems to be the ICC’s intended goal. Recently, their CEO Richard P. Weiland said, “We talked to communities who indicate that their voluntary green building programs reach only, but an important, 30 percent of the built environment. This means that there is a clear need for a regulatory tool to establish a baseline to help jurisdictions meet their sustainability goals.”
Given the paradigm shifts that will come every three years in the energy code development process, additional green building mandates are clearly not the answer. Many aspects of water efficiency are currently regulated by federal mandates that will only become more stringent. Also, indoor air quality will already be addressed by the IRC and IECC in order to mitigate any health and safety concerns that result from requiring a tighter, more efficient, building envelope.
The International Green Construction Code as it would be applied to residential construction via the NGBS is not really a code at all, it is just another rating system where you scan through various categories trying to achieve enough points to reach a threshold that the makers of the program deem worthy for your home to receive recognition. Codes have neither the flexibility nor the arithmetic of green rating systems. Instead they simply tell you what you have to do and reference standards that tell you how to do it.
The NGBS is also beginning to become antiquated. It was last open for public comment in early 2008 and, as such, it references 2006 code provisions. Therefore, it will not be a workable solution as a green building program or, let alone, a code by the time the IGCC is introduced in 2012. In the IGCC’s most recent public comment period, the HBA and TAB citied this as one of many reasons why the code’s reference to the NGBS needed to be removed.
This viewpoint was echoed by the U.S. Green Building Council who also joined the associations in citing the fact that many local and regional residential green building programs are already serving their market-driven purpose. NAHB has yet to weigh in on this issue. The certification processes, scoring tool, and supporting materials for the NGBS are promulgated exclusively by the NAHB’s Research Center, which is a “for-profit” organization.
With all of these changes becoming part of our codes, one may ask if this the beginning of the end for green building programs? My opinion is that it is not. However, I do believe that their role will change significantly and will become even more important in the near future.
Green building programs will have to undergo an update process just like ENERGY STAR to stay ahead of the code changes every three years. More importantly, they will serve as a primary educator for builders wanting to stay ahead of the regulatory push by showing them how to comply with tomorrow’s code requirements.
Hopefully, policy makers will see that high performance (green) building is now firmly entrenched in the evolution of our building codes and will realize that green building programs are no longer needed as mandates. We will drive that point home at the state and local level as part of your association’s ongoing commitment to creating and maintaining a competitive business environment for its members. As always, the success of this effort will depend on the active involvement and insights of our members.
