Over 1 million Energy Star Homes have been built to date in the US. Compare this to just over 6,500 LEED Certified homes and probably less than 20 Passive House Certified homes in the US. While Energy Star is much less stringent than the latter certifications, it is easy to see which standard the bigger production builders are turning to first in an effort to respond to the market’s demand for more environmentally friendly homes.

An Energy Star Home is basically trying to achieve 15% higher energy efficiency overall when compared to the same house built to code minimum standards. Our big two questions when forming Hybrid Construction were, “Is 15% efficiency improvement over code enough?” and “How many of the builders out there are just barely squeaking by with very minimal changes to the design of their old homes?”

There are some builders out there knocking the socks off of Energy Star standards, especially those participating in programs like the US Dept of Energy’s Building America and Builder’s Challenge programs (see chart above). This is swell, but for every builder that is far exceeding the minimum standards, there are probably 5-10 others that are doing the bare minimum to pass. We won’t name names, but we’ve heard a few stories of decent sized local builders completely missing the mark on large developments where Energy Star Certification had been advertised to consumers from the beginning. Insert embarrassing failure sounds here.

On to the point of this post. When we decided to launch our new construction company, Hybrid Construction, we realized that not everyone would have the need or desire to build to LEED or Passive House levels of construction. Therefore, we turned to Energy Star as a suitable target for our base level option in any Hybrid home that we are hired to build. When we sat down to think about it further, we realized that just hitting the minimum Energy Star goal would not be enough to satisfy the Hybrid brand’s base level of homes. Here are some of our main brainstorming points:

1. If we’re going to build an energy efficient home, let’s not stop at 15% better than code, but target 20% – 30% reductions.
2. If we’re guaranteeing Energy Star Certification, we need to target greater than 15% no matter what.
3. Energy Star is missing some key subjective elements that can not be ignored in Hybrid’s base homes. Things like type of windows and the use of really nasty materials like vinyl.

Below is a chart that we ultimately came up for the entry-level Hybrid 1.0 Energy Star house that includes items we felt any budget energy efficient home should be built to in the climate zone surrounding Philadelphia, PA. It is derived from the build levels chart on the Hybrid site, but focuses only on the base (1.0) level. For comparison, Hyrbid Construction just achieved efficiency levels 70%+ below code at it’s 3.0 build level. Below the chart is a bit more detail on the reasoning behind all of the choices.

Insulation Levels and Type

Insulation levels are a core factor in any Energy Efficient home and one that is relatively easy and affordable to increase beyond minimum standards when building a new home. Energy Star already recommends surpassing their minimums for new construction in their insulation chart targeting people performing retrofits to their homes. Why not follow suit and add a bit more in all new construction homes. It could cost as little as a couple hundred dollars extra in most new homes. If you’re filling your 2×6 wall cavities and 2×12 floor and roof cavities with decent quality insulation, you are there.

In the subjective category, we point out that dense-packed cellulose insulation is Hybrid’s preferred type of insulation. This will add some cost compared to standard fiberglass batts, but it is well worth it for a number of reasons. Fiberglass is not an option for Hybrid mainly due to it’s poor performance compared to cellulose and it’s high embodied energy. Customer satisfaction is very high with cellulose and it goes a long way in differentiating a house from all of the other traditional Energy Star homes out there.

Air Sealing & Windows & Ventilation

These categories are lumped together as we’ve learned in our research during Hybrid’s formation of what typical builders are doing. Most production homes in the US have inexpensive, vinyl double-hung windows. These are too leaky for Energy Star, so people are switching to single-hung which are a bit tighter. The single hung, however are still leaky enough that a builder can simply install an energy star bath fan and set it to run continuously to achieve the ventilation standards of the Energy Star guidelines. Stale air is sucked out and fresh air is simply brought in through the leaks in the windows and the rest of the house. That means that if it’s 20 degrees outside, that’s the temperature of the fresh air being transferred into your home 24/7.

Since poor air sealing can account for over 30% of a typical home’s energy costs (especially if insulated with fiberglass), we we felt that Hyrbid should take this pretty seriously in all levels of its builds. Most Energy Star homes get a $350 air sealing package from their insulation installer that basically includes spray foaming around key penetrations and stud to sheathing connections before installing the insulation spec’ed. Hybrid will do that also, but take it quite a bit further by adding the following:

• Taped exterior ZIP wall and roof sheathing
• Taped OSB subfloor
• Continuous sealant at critical rough framing junctions
• EPDM sill gaskets
• Gasketed interior to exterior penetrations (ie. plumbing stack)
• Foamed, caulked and taped Window & Door installations

Casement windows have much tighter air sealing components that do not loosen up over time when compared to double hung. They also have a more contemporary look while allowing more light and ventilation into the house. Now that the house is so tight, Hybrid will add a Heat Recovery Ventilator for about $500 that bolts directly onto the ductwork for the heating and cooling in the house so that unconditioned air is not being pulled directly into the house. A few minor and inexpensive improvements that have a big impact on the efficiency and quality of the house.

HVAC & Water Heating

We won’t go into a lot of detail here, but we want Hybrid to install components that are slightly higher in efficiency than the base Energy Star requirements without breaking the budget.

When it comes to hot water, using either an electric heat pump unit or a high efficiency gas tankless unit should blow away the Energy Star minimums for a few hundred extra dollars when compared to a minimum efficiency tank unit of the same fuel.

Heating and Air Conditioning is best done with a dual-fuel system in a typical home that has gas. A high-efficiency heat pump will handle the majority of the heating and cooling requirement, while a high efficiency gas furnace will supplement the heating demand on the coldest days of the year. Hopefully the increased efficiency of the home’s envelope will allow the budget to recoup some of the premium for the higher efficiency units by allowing a smaller unit to be spec’ed.

Appliances and Lighting

It’s hard to not buy Energy Star Appliances these days. We’ve found the key to going a bit farther than the competition is by spending a lot of time on the Energy Star site pouring through the appliance spreadsheets for refrigerators, dishwashers and clothes washers.  Often the smaller, no-frills appliances are much more energy efficient (and cheaper) than some of the more popular large appliances that may just not be needed by the end client. Notice it says “needed,” not “desired.”

Lighting for Energy Star is interesting in that you don’t need to install a single CFL to get Energy Star certified if you make up for it in your appliances. With lighting accounting for over 10% of a home’s energy usage (which will only go up as a home becomes more efficient) this is low hanging fruit. Put those CFL’s everywhere. The end home owner can replace any lights that may really annoy them or add their own lighting fixtures after they move in. By the way, CFL’s come in three color spectrums – soft white, bright white and daylight. Choose your favorite.

Subjective Issues Outside of Energy Star

Energy Star does not cover certain aspects, that we felt were important when forming Hyrbid, to any new home trying to position itself as both energy efficient and sustainable. The biggest glaring omission is water efficiency. It does not cost any more to add low flow bathroom fixtures and Water Sense toilets to a new house, yet it can have significant impact on the total water usage. By reducing water usage, specifically in the shower, you are also greatly decreasing the energy used to heat domestic hot water. Two birds, one stone…

Another category that adds no cost to a new home is using Low-VOC paints and finishes in place of toxic, off-gassing finishes that are used in typical homes. The homes will smell fresher and be healthier for your clients from day one, so there is no reason not to include this with any base Energy Star home. See the American Lung Association’s Health House certification for more on the benefits of healthier indoor air quality if you’d like to go to the next level and differentiate yourself further from other base Energy Star builders.

Last, but not least, we try to limit the use of toxic vinyl products in the home as much as possible. This means using fiberglass or aluminum clad wood windows over vinyl which also increase the home’s value. Another big one is vinyl siding, which is not only toxic, but hideously ugly and cheap in appearance. Try a durable fiber cement product that has a better appearance, includes a 50 year warranty and contains over 25% recycled content. Certainteed happens to make our favorite fiber cement siding that’s available in the US residential market at a very affordable price while also locally made.

Conclusion

Compared to the rest of the wealthy countries of the world, we have been building fairly lousy houses on average here in the US. The Energy Star program is a great tool to affordably improve the standard of new homes, but is it enough? Do you want to be another builder or home owner just scraping by minimal standards that most other countries would accuse of being way too lax in terms of energy and durability? Do you want to risk missing a new target because you’re aiming too close to the goal and only a few mistakes will cost you your reputation or a lawsuit? We all need to work together to deliver higher quality housing that beats standards like Energy Star by a healthy margin, while discontinuing the use of cheap and toxic building practices and products.

Do you have a different viewpoint? Don’t be shy. Share it with us in the comments.

You know we love cross-promotion, and we know we love cross-promotion. So, leaving all shame behind, this post is on a wholly different kind of development, one that just happens to be designed by our friends over at ISA. The Modules is an apartment complex built right off of Temple’s Campus, and it is the largest LEED certified prefabricated apartment complex in this whole sweet land of liberty.

The Development:
The Modules at Temple University

How it measures up:
60,000 square feet, 80 containers, 72 apartments, 38 parking spots, 50 spots for bikes, $650 a month, 1 block from Temple, and a late 2010 completion.

“The Deal”:
No, this isn’t dream and if you’ve spent this whole time pinching yourself, please stop. I promise, this is real. There are prefabricated apartments being built in Philadelphia right now. I know, Dwell magazine is always getting your hopes up, making you believe that modern prefab developments actually exist, only to break your heart again and again. Well, modern, green, prefabricated developments no longer belong in the world of imaginary things, like unicorns and Swedish people. They are real, and are conveniently located one block off of Temple’s campus. Seriously, I have pictures to prove it. The Modules are LEED certified and have all the cool green features you’ve come to know and love. They have a green roof, pervious concrete, lots of room for bikes, and a fiber cement rainscreen facade system. Also they’re located in walking distance to, about, everything…

Live here if:
You shop at the container store

Don’t live here if:
You say things like “Hey you kids, get off my lawn!”. With a lush roof garden lounge just blocks off Temple campus the developers shouldn’t be surprised when their building becomes the site of chill sessions, stargazing, and talking about the universe.

The Hater:
All of the units were built in Harrisburg (better than most actually – ed.) and individually driven over. Maybe Prius came out with a line of trucks? Basically, prefab isn’t always green.
Also, building developments named some variation of the word ‘modular’ is like naming your kid John Smith or your band CrystalDeer. Jus sayin!

Additional bragging rights:
Prefabricated apartments make you seem so European

Bonus Footage:
Unfortunately, no one from Postgreen has been out to the site to take footage of The Modules, I know this might disappointing for the diehard fans of “shakeyhands”. However, I am including some shots by Sam Oberter to fill that void left in your heart.

MODULES from Sam Oberter on Vimeo.

Between the rigors imposed by any good press wrangler and the demands of my virulent, terminal (and often contagious) case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), New Orleans was an exhausting trip. It also, as you may have noticed, left little time for the actual reporting that I was supposedly down there to do. I got a couple of posts up, but they just touched the surface. Frankly, I had little energy for anything deeper.

Fortunately, time is on my side, and I can now begin to blend the information and footage I have into something better. I have some great homeowner interviews, some developing philosophical ideas and soon the rehab requirement information for Building Together New Orleans. I should be able to put this together into something engaging over the next few days. Until then we will return to a little bit of our regular programming.

While you wait, here are a couple pictures from the trip . . .

I have had the opportunity to speak with a few of the homeowners at the Fifty for Five event here in New Orleans. Most of the video needs a lot of editing which simply isn’t going to happen until I am back in Philly, but one home owner was brief enough for me to share a rough, unedited cut of her thoughts.

Sheila Hyde lost everything in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Her house was almost completely under water and by the time she returned it was covered in filth, black mold and pieces of her destroyed possessions. She managed to do a significant amount of the repair work, but eventually funds ran out and the work couldn’t finish. Rebuilding Together stepped in and helped her finish the recovery of her home, and this weekend, as part of the 50 home event, they are putting the finishing touches on by building a fence.

Sheila is an amazingly kind and extremely grateful woman. In addition to this interview we went through pictures of her destroyed home and toured the repaired one. She was very proud of her place and was excited about the prospects for her neighborhood and New Orleans as a whole. She even invited me to stay with her next time I was in New Orleans, and I could tell she actually meant it.

I want to thank Sheila for speaking with me and for her offer of hospitality which I will likely be too self-conscious to accept. There are some issues I have with these homes and the method in which they are delivered, but I don’t have it in me to bring it up after that video. It is difficult to be critical in the face of her happiness and hope, but don’t worry . . . I will manage some critique in the next post.

If you have something to say, do it in the comments.

This post is part of my coverage of the Fifty for Five event by Rebuilding Together. Sears, the events main sponsor, paid my way down here but they have no say in what I write. Disclaimer over.

I stumbled into New Orleans yesterday on two hours of sleep, an inevitable condition of the early morning flight and my inability to sleep on planes. After a short break, during which I ate and made myself slightly less offensive to be around (showered), I met with the other bloggers brought down to cover this event. We had a short orientation, and then we were herded into a bus and taken out to the neighborhood where the work was taking place.

The Gentilly neighborhood has the look of a sprawling single story suburb which, of course, is what it was until the city annexed it in the 60s or 70s. It is, much of the time, an innocuous scene of small, tidy homes and green yards that could exist virtually anywhere. Then, as you suddenly roll past the mournful husks of houses with the now recognizable X tattoos of the rescue effort (see below), you are reminded that this is not anywhere. This is New Orleans and not long ago all of this was under water.

We saw a dozen or so job sites spread throughout the neighborhood. Volunteers were painting, hanging drywall, building fences, running electric and generally patching up what the hurricane had taken apart. The homes were in various states of repair. At some sites the houses looked nearly complete and at others there was little to suggest exactly how the place might have once looked. Their neighbors were similarly varied in appearance. Bright, clean homes next to drowned remains or blank slabs marking the last resting place of someones house.

The weeks work is intended as a surge of sorts. It is a frenzy of activity in the midst of Building Together’s ongoing commitment to rehab 1,000 homes in New Orleans. This Fifty for Five blitz will move them from 750 to 800 homes over the five days of work. The homes won’t all be finished. Owners won’t be back in by Sunday, but every home getting attention during this event will be much, much closer to livable.

Some will call this event a publicity stunt and in the end it is. It is an exaggeration of what this organization actually does every day, all year round. And, that is fine with me. I have a fondness for publicity stunts, particularly when they actually manage to do some good, and there is no question that this one is doing good. I have met some of the homeowners, talked to volunteers and heard comments from neighbors. There is a universally positive feeling about this event and about the organization as a whole. This work is literally transforming neighborhoods and lives.

This event has it’s faults, and we will talk a little about that as the weekend continues. On the whole though, the positives outweigh the negatives. The impact on each individual homeowner is so powerful that I find much of my natural cynicism fades to the background.

That’s right, I’m headed down to New Orleans bright and (too) early tomorrow morning to cover Rebuilding Together’s big event in the Big Easy. Fifty for Five is an effort to rehab 50 homes in the Gentilly neighborhood in 5 days and is a sort of celebratory construction binge to mark the more extensive work that the organization has done throughout the region. Volunteers from all over the country are headed down to help repair homes in this Katrina-devastated neighborhood, and I have been asked along to share the effort with whoever happens to wander into this humble blog over the next few days.

First, let’s get the disclaimer out of the way. Sears Holdings (in the guise of the Sears Blue Appliance Crew), the key sponsor for this event, is paying my way down to New Orleans and is even hooking me up with a Flip Cam to document the action. They are not, however, dictating anything that I write (or don’t write) while I’m there. In fact, they have been very clear that there is no requirement on my part to mention them or even the organization running this whole deal if I don’t want to . . . except of course in this disclaimer. The only thing they ask is that I at least write something about the event while I’m there and that I use Twitter to document my doings, a request that definitely needn’t be made. Okay . . . great, that disclaimer stuff is out of the way. If you still have questions about my integrity please use the comments to tear me asunder.

I haven’t been to New Orleans since about a month before Hurricane Katrina. I was on a cross country road trip that was, much as this is meant to be, supposedly focused on writing. In fact, to give a little context, I dug this excerpt from the trip out of the vault . . .

the moon hung turgid
and lurid green over the still spectral
idea of new orleans as we burned
the black miles beneath us.

this is the moment where unsleep
begins to undermine the ground,
where the surface shifts, cracks, divides.

and so on . . .

I’m not sure that actually gives much context. At least we can hope it doesn’t. I’m certainly not planning on turning this trip into some kind of Gonzo take over of the blog, but I’ll admit, we might become a bit of a one trick pony for a couple of days. If you don’t want to hear about New Orleans and the Fifty for Five event, I suggest shifting your focus from now until Monday over to the Postgreen Homes Blog or Hybrid Construction where there will be some good old fashioned building talk. If you do want to hear about New Orleans then hang around and help me out.

I’m not yet entirely sure how I am going to cover this event, but I hope I can make it interesting to all of you who stick it out. I plan to take plenty of video, talk to whoever doesn’t run away from me and, of course, follow my normal digressions to their inevitably confusing conclusion. I also hope to find an insight or two on the repopulation of a city, something that has been occurring in a much slower way here in Philly. Most importantly, I plan on taking whatever useful suggestions I can get from our readers. So, use the comments and use them well. I’m gonna need all the help I can get.

It has a kind of cheesy name, but that doesn’t make the concept any less cool. Postgreen Home’s has introduced a new model built around an existing zoning plan that called for garages. Working with ISA, we came up with some concepts for a model that incorporates the garage and creates an exciting split level effect through the home itself. There is also a roof deck proposed, and we think that this will be a pretty exciting design when it is completely fleshed out. Of course, now is the time for your comments.

Head on over to the Avant Garage post on the Postgreen Homes Blog and tell us what you think of our conceptual floor plans. There are even a few little renderings for you visual folk.

If you aren’t already over there checking it out, here is a teaser image you just can’t resist . . .

Remember, don’t waste your feedback here. Join the conversation over at the PGH Blog.

Some of you have probably noticed the new handy bar of links on the top of our sites (if not, check them out . . . they’re cool) and have clicked on the Hybrid Construction link. Having done so, you came upon a mostly finished web site for a construction company with an odd logo. That company is our newest entity and will be providing new construction, rehab and design/build services. For those that haven’t checked out the site, now is your official invitation to do so. It is now also “mostly finished”.

Hybrid has already been hard at work building the Skinny Project and doing pre-construction work on multiple other Postgreen Homes ventures including the imminent Two Point Five. In addition, the company has it’s first work outside Postgreen (and the city) on a single home in Ardmore. This project is just about to get underway and you can keep track of it on the Hybrid website.

I won’t go into too much detail on the company here as plenty of it is available on the Hybrid site, but I will add this short intro video to prove that a construction company still gets our same treatment . . .

So, tell us what you think of the addition of a construction company. Comment upon our logo. Question our sanity. But whatever you do . . . do it in the comments.

Suburbia. Lets be honest, it’s kind of a dirty word. We use the word ‘development’ because we live in fear of the word ‘suburbia’.But, Im going to say what everyone is thinking: most developments are suburban. And that’s okay. So, come out of the closet, be proud of the suburban dweller you are. You no longer have to hide because this isn’t your moms suburbia. Remember getting lost in suburban developments because every single house was the same and every single street was named after a different kind of apple? Well, no more.

The development I’m featuring today is called Sol Austin, and although they’ll do anything to avoid the S word, they are a suburban community. They boast that they are ‘apart from the usual cookie cutter suburb look’ and that ‘Sol doesn’t consider itself a suburb at all’. Hmmm, but do they protest too much? Consider this a bit of a suburbia manifesto. Places like Sol Austin are redefining what it means to live in a suburban development, willingly or not.

The Development:
SOL Austin, designed by KRDB

How it measures up:
38 lots on 5.5 acres, house sizes range from 1,200 to 1,800 square feet, prices fall between $217K-$345K, located 3 miles from of Downtown Austin, 1 block from the nearest bus stop, and monthly savings of around $160 due to sustainable technologies.

Who lives there:
People who like graphic design and own abstract coffee table books.

Don’t live here if:
You beat up people who like graphic design and own abstract coffee-table books. (wimps)

“The Deal”:
Sol Austin has everything we like, literally everything. Open floor plans, high ceilings, natural lighting, oh my! SIP panels, solar panels, CES panels, awesome panels, oh my! Not only that but they have concrete and bamboo floors, metal roofs, a geothermal HVAC, energy star appliances, FSC certified wood, and low VOC paints, adhesives, and caulks. Homes are 100% electric and can achieve Net Zero Energy. And I’m just getting started on how great this place is.

They are also one of the first developments to have have a sub-grade bio-filtration system. Basically, run-off flows through a sedimentation pond and into various chambers located under the community park, eventually percolating through sand and gravel until finally entering an aquifer. Sol Austin does a great job of reducing impervious surfaces with joint access drives and limiting water usage with drought tolerant plants. Also, all the homes are equipped with rainwater collection systems.

Sol Austin also has a unique balance between public and private spaces. Houses come equipped with small private outdoor spaces, but the community also places an emphasis on large public outdoor spaces. The homes are all located uncomfortably close together, but the windows are spread apart to discourage peeping toms. Homeowners not only share a close proximity, but also in most cases share driveways. When construction is complete the developers also plan to build large community gardens that will work on the honor system.

And the list of good stuff goes on and on. Not only are the homes surprisingly affordable for the average homebuyer, but are also affordable for the not so average homebuyer. 16 homes are reserved for low income families earning 40 to 60% below the cities median income. Sol Austin holds themselves to three standards — fairness, sustainability, and affordability. cough, cough. sounds familiar.

Additional bragging rights:
Possibly owning your own courtyard

The last word:
Dear Sol Austin, You know longer have to be scared of the ire and prejudice associated with being suburban. We at Postgreen accept you just as you are. You are beautiful, no matter what they say. Love, Postgreen

Bonus Footage:
We are fortunate enough to have footage of this project from Mark’s travels. This was taken during construction, so forgive the slightly unfinished look (and Mark’s unsteady hand).

also if any of you have suggestions for a development i cover next week, I would love to hear them!

In my last post about super-insulated wall assemblies, I referenced a future post about the superiority of Dense-pack Blown-in Cellulose insulation over other insulating products. Well, this is that post. We’ve talked about insulation in the past, but after extensive research and pitches from other insulation fanatics we’d like to put Cellulose in the spotlight as what we consider to be the best insulation product on the market today.

Why is Blown-In Cellulose so awesome in bullet point format:

• Inexpensive – It’s not as cheap as Fiberglass, but it’s much more reasonable than rigid and spray foam options.
• Lowest Embodied Energy – Of all the types of insulation, cellulose takes the least energy to produce. It is recycled newspaper after all and often it is locally sourced and manufactured.
• Fills all gaps – While batts will leave many gaps around electrical wires and boxes and will not always hug the studs, blown-in cellulose fills every available gap when installed properly.
• Air Retarder - Air leaks in your homes walls and roof can cause significant losses in efficiency. Cellulose significantly resists the flow of air through your walls and maintains it’s rated R-value even in heavy gusts. This feature also makes cellulose a great fire retardant compared to batts.
• Maintains R value – We hinted at this in the last point, but cellulose is exceptional at maintaining its advertised R value. Fiberglass wilts in the face of wind and extreme temperature difference between inside and outside.
• High thermal mass – It’s not called dense-pack for no reason. Cellulose adds thermal mass to your walls that has been proven to help a home maintain its temperature (pdf) for days longer than a similar home insulated to the same R-values with fiberglass.

These are the reasons we have come to love cellulose. It’s not just us though. Search around. More and more super-insulated and Passive Houses are switching to cellulose all over the world.

For a more detailed comparison of insulation products, check out this table at cellulose.org. Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.