Energy Codes Have Failed

[conarb]

As I have reported before, homes that I have built prior to energy codes use less energy than the homes built to the newer ever tightening codes, to say nothing of the negative health effects of sealed-up homes built with today's toxic materials. A new Georgetown study confirms what I have been saying.

Abstract:Construction codes that regulate the energy efficiency of new buildings have been a centerpiece of US environmental policy for 40 years. California enacted the nation’s first energy building codes in 1978, and they were projected to reduce residential energy use—and associated pollution—by 80 percent. How effective have the building codes been? I take three approaches to answering that question. First, I compare current electricity use by California homes of different vintages constructed under different standards, controlling for home size, local weather,and tenant characteristics. Second, I examine how electricity in California homes varies with outdoor temperatures for buildings of different vintages. And third, I compare electricity use for buildings of different vintages in California, which has stringent building energy codes, to electricity use for buildings of different vintages in other states. All three approaches yield the same answer: there is no evidence that homes constructed since California instituted its building energy codes use less electricity today than homes built before the codes came into effect.

From the body of the report:

Column (2) reports the costs associated with the building codes. I've added column (3), the difference between the two, demonstrating that the California codes add $8,000 to the construction cost of a new home, about 10 percent of the median 1980 California home price.

As an alternative to engineers' predictions, some have regressed aggregate local energy consumption on energy prices, weather, population demographics, and some proxy for energy-efficiency policies. Haeri and Stewart (2013) use lagged expenditures on utility energy-efficiency programs as the measure of policy and conclude that the $7 billion California utilities spent on energy efficiency reduced electricity consumption by 6.5 percent, at an average cost of $0.03 per kilowatt hour. Horowitz (2007) groups US states into quartiles based on the US Energy Information Administration's reported cumulative energy savings from demand-side management programs and finds that states with the strongest commitments to energy efficiency saw a 9.1 percent increase in residential electricity use relative to states with weaker commitments. These types of studies typically ignore the potential endogeneity of the key policy variables. Utilities expecting faster growth in electricity demand or with conservation-minded constituents may invest more in energy-efficiency programs.

¹

Since 1978 our utilities have squandered $7 billion of rate-payers' money, who's to say how much home buyers have paid at an average or $8,000 per house mandated by this Fascist code. Many billions of dollars have made their way into the pockets of the insulation, chemical, and environmental industries that have profited from this fraud.

¹ http://faculty.georgetown.edu/aml6/pdfs&zips/BuildingCodes.pdf

 

[jar546]

I believe this to be a highly flawed report that was designed for CA but give examples from New Zealand and Florida. Some of the issues that make it difficult to determine the actual difference are:

1) exact square footage of each home

2) ceiling height of each home

3) number of bedrooms (for occupant comparison)

4) number of occupants

6) availability of natural gas, propane, etc.

7) separation of appliances vs HVAC

Unless all of the variables are controlled and accounted for, this is a useless study. I would think that it is going to be difficult to acquire that kind of data on thousands of home in order to do a more realistic study. Homes are being built larger than before (although this trend has slowed) and must be accounted for otherwise you are not comparing apples to apples and using one completely different factor.

I will use my own personal experience on the last few homes that I owned:

I had a all cmu home built in 1960 with no insulation except for R19 in the ceiling, approximately 2,400 square feet with 8' ceilings in a cold climate. My gas bill from heat and hot water was averaged $279 per month with the peak being close to $500 during the winter time.

In the same climate I rented a newer home built under the 2000 IRC, with 9' ceilings, approximately the exact same square feet and in the same climate. My gas bill averaged $165 per month.

I had a home in south Florida built in 2000 with a less stringent energy code than today. It was 2250 square feet and four bedrooms. My electric bill (no gas) was averaging $175 per month.

I have a new home built under the FBC in 2013 which exceeded the energy code and has a ventless attic. It is the same square footage but with 3 bedrooms instead of 4. My electric bill averages $125 per month.

All four homes were very similar in square footage, bedrooms and climate. That is a significant difference.

Basically, I don't buy that argument, I believe like many studies, it is skewed.

 

[ICE]

I agree with Jeff. I have lived in a 760 square foot condo with 21' high ceilings that relied on gas for heating and hot water. The bill ran around $30 per month. The two of us now have 3060 square feet with a 25' high ceiling for half of it and the gas bill is around $45. It's more about how you use it than about hard, physical facts.

Jeff hit on seven variables that skew the results and there are more. Ethnic makeup, eating habits, the average age of the occupants, the average education level, the average income, who the gas and electricity purveyors are, all of these play a role in determining how much energy will be used and at what cost.

Consider where the study came from. It's from a university. Those folks have to think up some astounding stuff now and then to justify their paycheck.

 

[Francis Vineyard]

I take from the article the promotion that the energy conservation code would reduced energy consumption AND pollution by 80% is too good to be true.

A savings of 20% to 30% is more realistic. The pollution is a wash. Here's a short term comparson;

http://www.mathisconsulting.com/storage/SC%20Cost%20Study%20-%202012%20vs%202006%20IECC.pdf

 

[mark handler]

Because of energy conservation, We are building fewer new nuclear power plants as well as less fossil fuel power plants, yet our population and energy use continues to grow. This is saving Billions.

They are decommissioning nuclear power plant built ON earthquake faults

This is saving/preventing a nuclear disaster that could have rendered thousands of miles of California from a Chernobyl type wasteland

As Jeff stated the us average house is in 2013---2,491 square feet Over the last 40 years, the average home has increased in size by more than 1,000 square feet, from an average size of 1,660 square feet in 1973. in the sixties it was 1,200 SF.

We are heating empty rooms and rooms storing "stuff". Heating rooms storing "stuff" is costing Billions....

 

[mtlogcabin]

It is not the cost per month it is the kilowatts used and the therms for propane or natural gas that should be compared against

http://www.duke-energy.com/pdfs/pe-rates-pefresidentialrateinsert.pdf

http://www.electricrate.com/residential-rates/pennsylvania/

http://www.flatheadelectric.com/rates/rates.html

 

[conarb]

My customers don't really care how much the energy they use costs, I did some comparisons once in my own case, my utility bill was 1/3 of my water bill and 1/100 of my monthly tax withholding, and that doesn't count the taxes I pay on my profits and investment income. What business is it of the codes to mandate the amount of energy a man uses?

BTW, I have retired as of the first of the year to avoid taxes I have been putting away in an ERISA plan of up to $204,000 a year (depending upon income) to pay taxes on the monies after retirement when presumably you are at a lower rate, I turn 80 this year and am forced to start distribution so if I continue to build I'll be paying the over 55% California combined tax rate, I would have been better off taking the monies in prior years and paying the taxes back then. All of my friends have either died off or are leaving the state to domicile in states with low or no state taxes, taxes are the problem not energy costs, and California's carbon taxes are doubling our utility bills. My utility bills averaged about $65 a month for some years, a few months ago I got a bill for $30, looking at it I saw a $30 "Climate Credit", I suspected a set up knowing PG&E was being hit with carbon taxes that they had to pass on to the consumer, sure enough the next month I got a $136 bill, looking at it my usage hadn't changed, but the bill now is broken into apparently time of day usage, so apparently they want to force us to wash clothes and dishes in the middle of night? Talk about controlling the population! This is all political, the codes are being used for political purposes, following the money it's all ending up with higher taxes.

 

[jdfruit]

It's PG&E's "smart meter" program that sets the time of day usage surcharge. If you want to use it as much as you want, you pay for it. You want to save some money, be aware of the "game" and use it when lower rates in effect.

 

[Paul Sweet]

Why should we be coerced into staying up half the night to do laundry, just so shopping centers and car lots can keep their lights burning longer?

 

[mark handler]

.... shopping centers and car lots can keep their lights burning longer?

Been addressed in new CA codes...

 

[conarb]

Why should we be coerced into staying up half the night to do laundry, just so shopping centers and car lots can keep their lights burning longer?

I built a home for myself in Piedmont in 1971, Piedmont sits in the Oakland Hills overlooking Oakland, the bridges, and San Francisco. Sometime in the 70s they decided to string lights across the Bay Bridge and the City of Oakland decided to ring Lake Merritt with a necklace of lights, it was great for us since it made our view much nicer. Somehow now that the common people are being forced to replace light bulbs with first, the ugly CFLs, now the more expensive LEDs, the lights have remained on on the government owned bridge and lake. They are now changing the bulbs on the bridge to LEDs, but when the new span opened they actually have a light show going on to make the bridge more attractive to tourists. If questioned they say that when they get all LEDs the lighting will be much more efficient, the fact is they didn't need the lights before so they don't even need them now. Government doesn't play by the same rules we are forced to play by.