who needs energy-efficient homes?

[CodeWarrior]

St. Louis looking to cave in to builders on energy codes:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/lo...cle_3a599eb7-f906-5975-af10-65c557a88145.html

The article looks at NAHB as a moderate on cost increases. They won't like to hear that!

 

[JCraver]

Good. Maybe some of the sense the StL Council is using will rub off on the idiots over here in the state gov't. in Springfield.

 

[tmurray]

To be fair, the upfront costs of the home are higher. The continued operating costs of the home are lower. Anyone who is in their home for 6 years or more will see a net reduction in cost.

We are discussing adopting the new code here. The local home builders group didn't want to based on the increased requirements in energy efficiency...There weren't any. There were two changes in the section. One did not apply to our climate. The other is administrative in nature. No change to cost of construction.

Let's call a spade, a spade. They don't like this because people can't afford the upfront costs, but if they can't afford the upfront costs, they can't afford the mortgage and the operating costs without the energy codes, because that number is higher. What this does, is stop people from buying houses they can't afford to run.

 

[JCraver]

To be fair, the upfront costs of the home are higher. The continued operating costs of the home are lower. Anyone who is in their home for 6 years or more will see a net reduction in cost.

We are discussing adopting the new code here. The local home builders group didn't want to based on the increased requirements in energy efficiency...There weren't any. There were two changes in the section. One did not apply to our climate. The other is administrative in nature. No change to cost of construction.

Let's call a spade, a spade. They don't like this because people can't afford the upfront costs, but if they can't afford the upfront costs, they can't afford the mortgage and the operating costs without the energy codes, because that number is higher. What this does, is stop people from buying houses they can't afford to run.

How do you know that? 6 years is a long time to spread out and/or absorb a cost. You know many people that pay cash for a new vehicle? Most folks I know finance them - for about 6 years.

Saying "You can build this cheaper now, but in 6 years you'll have saved money if you would've built what you couldn't afford", is not an argument that can be won with many builders or homeowners I've ever met in Smalltown, USA.

 

[tmurray]

How do you know that? 6 years is a long time to spread out and/or absorb a cost. You know many people that pay cash for a new vehicle? Most folks I know finance them - for about 6 years.

Saying "You can build this cheaper now, but in 6 years you'll have saved money if you would've built what you couldn't afford", is not an argument that can be won with many builders or homeowners I've ever met in Smalltown, USA.

Because I'm a federally certified energy advisor. I went to school for this. I've done the calculations.

It costs more money to build a house that is not energy efficient and pay the utility bill than it does to build an energy efficient house to current energy codes. If they can't afford the new house meeting energy codes, they can't afford one that doesn't. Or they think they can because the mortgage company tells them they can. Then they start getting utility bills and realize that they can't anymore. At that time it's too late to back out.

 

[conarb]

What right does the government (you) have to force someone to buy an energy efficient home? A man might rather spend his money on granite countertops, that's his decision. The government is forcing the automakers to build energy efficient cars, yet they still allow them to build so-called "gas hogs", if a man wants to buy a Prius that gets 50MPG that's his right, if he wants to buy a Rolls Royce that gets 8MPG that's his right as well. Looking at government greed or stupidity look no further than the Oroville Dam situation now, for years they made us conserve water, they jacked up prices, they started fining people for watering their lawns, as recently as a week ago Governor Moonbeam was extending the drought restrictions, neighbors were buying big plastic tanks and taking them in pickups down to the local turd farms (burning up energy all the way) to bring home recycled water to keep their landscaping alive, then they got so much water that the emergency spillway failed and as we speak 188,000 people have evacuated their homes, maybe if everybody had used their normal amounts of water the lake behind the dam would have never overflowed. Telling people how much energy or water they can use is tyranny!

 

[JCraver]

Because I'm a federally certified energy advisor. I went to school for this. I've done the calculations.

Cool. Congrats!

It costs more money to build a house that is not energy efficient and pay the utility bill than it does to build an energy efficient house to current energy codes. If they can't afford the new house meeting energy codes, they can't afford one that doesn't. Or they think they can because the mortgage company tells them they can. Then they start getting utility bills and realize that they can't anymore. At that time it's too late to back out.

So it costs a lot more, on the first utility bill - enough so that an average homeowner can't afford the difference right out of the gate? Or it costs a little more on each bill for 6 years, and at that point all your savings (vs. building to the code) run out?

 

[tmurray]

Savings are incremental, hence the six year payback period on the upgrades. What typically happens is two versions of the house are modeled using electronic modeling software. One that meets code and the other with improvements. The improvements house is also modeled for most energy code updates to quantify the improvements. The changes can then be modeled individually to see the impact of each independent upgrade, or together to see how they affect the building as a whole. It's usually best to model each upgrade separately and then model the building as a whole. We can then calculate the return on investment (ROI) for the upgrades. The ROI is the time that it takes for the upgrade to pay for itself in energy savings. It's important to note that certain upgrades have a more calculated impact on building energy usage. For instance, while adding outboard foam to a wall system will decrease the thermal transmittance of the assembly, it also decreases the air infiltration, which results in further energy savings because there is less unconditioned air entering the conditioned space. Typical ROIs for improvement are 2-3 years on attic and roof insulation, 4-6 years on wall insulation, and 6-9 years on windows and mechanicals (average of 6 years).

As for my previous comments; The cost of simply including the energy upgrades and paying the utility bills is less than the pre-energy code and utility bills. So if they can't afford it now, they couldn't afford it before either...

 

[Paul Sweet]

From the article the original post refers to:

"Critics, though, countered that homebuilder arguments about prohibitive costs were exaggerated and misleading. Citing a report from the National Home Builders Association, for instance, they said construction costs were projected to rise by just $7,091 under similar standards in the 2012 IECC code.

And the efficiency measures at stake would save homeowners money over time — a point that was not acknowledged by those representing builders’ interests on Wednesday. The Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club says models estimate that new homes built under the proposed codes would be 6 percent less energy efficient than current ones, costing homeowners $152 per year in additional energy expenses."

According to an on-line calculator, an additional $7091 for 30 years at 4% would cost about $406 per year, which is far more than the $152 per year the Sierra Club says homeowners will save.

 

[linnrg]

some argue against energy codes because there is a perception that they could not have log homes or people with excessive glass curtain walls could not get that approved.
I am with CONARB on this I do not think we should be forcing exact energy requirements.

 

[rogerpa]

Typical ROIs for improvement are 2-3 years on attic and roof insulation, 4-6 years on wall insulation, and 6-9 years on windows and mechanicals (average of 6 years).

I'm calling BS here. I'm not where I can access my references right now but when we were forced to increase wall and ceiling insulation going from the 2006 to 2009 some of these items had 50 to 100 year paybacks. There was also a study that showed that it took 10 years to recover the increased energy usage to produce some of the insulation.

 

[conarb]

I'm calling BS here. I'm not where I can access my references right now but when we were forced to increase wall and ceiling insulation going from the 2006 to 2009 some of these items had 50 to 100 year paybacks. There was also a study that showed that it took 10 years to recover the increased energy usage to produce some of the insulation.

Just to address the walls, all walls have big holes in them that we call windows, the best you can get with a dual pane window is R-3.5 (about the same as an uninsulated 2x4 wall), so as much as you increase the R-Value of the wall you still have a R-3.5 hole in it, that is pretty useless here in California where style dictates large windows. In the past window manufacturers rated their windows as R-Value, but because it would be pretty ridiculous to increase the insulation from R-11 to R-13 or more with a R-3.5 window, the government created a NGO called the NFRC, and by an absurd slight-of-hand the NFRC created a different rating system for windows called the "U-Factor" so people wouldn't know, the U-Factor is merely the reciprocal of the R-Value, but few people even know what a reciprocal is much less have the ability to calculate it.

The last home I built I used $330,000 worth of German triple pane windows, and with engineering using two LBL programs I was able to achieve an average of R-5.6 in my windows

 

[mtlogcabin]

ROI energy cost is a floating number over a 6 year period. I have paid as little as $1.45 per gallon and as much as $3.64 per gallon for propane during the last ten years. Right now it is about $2.25 per gallon.

It is not just the cost of the insulation on the outside it is the additional cost of trimming windows, doors and siding that the energy folks may not have factored in.

 

[tmurray]

From the article the original post refers to:

"Critics, though, countered that homebuilder arguments about prohibitive costs were exaggerated and misleading. Citing a report from the National Home Builders Association, for instance, they said construction costs were projected to rise by just $7,091 under similar standards in the 2012 IECC code.

And the efficiency measures at stake would save homeowners money over time — a point that was not acknowledged by those representing builders’ interests on Wednesday. The Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club says models estimate that new homes built under the proposed codes would be 6 percent less energy efficient than current ones, costing homeowners $152 per year in additional energy expenses."

According to an on-line calculator, an additional $7091 for 30 years at 4% would cost about $406 per year, which is far more than the $152 per year the Sierra Club says homeowners will save.

Paul, I think you're mixing the NHBA cost assessment for the 2012 IECC with what the Sierra club is proposing for savings of the 2015. The only statement made in the article to cost increase was by a builder saying it would increase costs 20,000 to 24,000, which I believe would be an exaggeration.

I couldn't agree with Conarb more. Windows, as he stated is usually the weakest point when it comes to the building envelope. Increasing the performance of these elements has a much bigger impact on the overall energy efficiency of the building than increasing insulation in the opaque assemblies.

As for my ROI rates, these are driven from houses that the firm I worked for calculated at the conceptual phase, estimates of construction costs, actual build costs and the actual energy billing provided by the client after to confirm our estimates. These are "real world" tested rates, not hypothetical.

Pay me enough, I can make the ROI of hypothetical improvements whatever you want them to be.