Why Do American Homes Suck? [video]

[jar546]

Energy efficiency can be a very controversial topic to discuss. I know it has been here on The Building Code Forum and at ICC hearings, along with some legislative sessions at the state levels. I would like everyone who is willing to watch this video to do so with an open mind. I am very opinionated on this subject and remember when I lived in an older home in the north 20 years ago, and every December through March, I could guarantee my monthly heating bill would exceed $600 and be as low as $70 during the summer. Please watch and let us know what you think.

 

[fatboy]

I watched it, I get it.

Kinda..........

I was at the Minneapolis, MN code hearings when the Energy Code was first voted into the codes. It was very contentious; I think it was after 1:00AM that it finally passed at the hearing. The threat was if the the ICC version wasn't voted in, the feds would create the code, nationwide.

The arguments then were the same as now, is the cost to comply worth it in the long term. And, long term is not what Americans think about, builders want to build cheaper, most folks know they are not going to be in the house the 20-30 years it takes for it to be worth the effort and expense to build an efficient house.
Knowing the science now, yes, I would build a better, tighter house. But I knew when built the house I am in, I would be here 30-40+ years. I have been here for 26 years, it would have made sense.

Getting the American public to understand the science behind it is the problem.

My two cents...........

 

[Beniah Naylor]

Most Americans buying a new home (I heard somewhere north of 80% polled) expect and assume that the home they are buying meets modern codes and standards, including on insulation (they don't know much about air tightness etc., so insulation is the way they think about energy efficiency), regardless of whether they live in a place that has inspections - they expect that any normal contractor would still build to a reasonable approximation of modern standards. In fact, all contractors will confidently assert that they go above and beyond modern standards.

So you are buying a new home. Construction is not your industry. You are forced to trust the contractor to land every detail that is covered drywall, and you really don't know the difference on most of the stuff you can see. You assume that the inspectors (if there were any) did their jobs and the contractor did the right thing. You plop down a major amount of money and put yourself in a lot of debt based on this assumption. You agonize over plumbing fixtures, paint colors, flooring, door hardware, countertops, etc. You think you are buying a brand new house that meets modern standards in performance - in fact you are told and assured by the contractor that is what you are buying.

I don't think it's too strong to say that you have been swindled in a vast majority of cases.

 

[Darren Emery]

Very well done video. I'll admit I pushed through pretty quickly, mostly due to the fact that I realized about 90 seconds in that I am going to agree with most everything he has to say. But also - because I need to get to work.

Speaking of work: in light of the truth shared in the video by Matt, I must ask: what do we do now? How do we move the needle on this issue?

 

[steveray]

I don't spend $6000 in energy.....Maybe he needs a tiny house....

 

[Min&Max]

I don't spend $6000 in energy.....Maybe he needs a tiny house....

yeah I have a total of 6800 sqft. Average electric bill is about $210.00 per month. We wrote our own one page residential energy code and it works out to 15% better than ResCheck and much easier for all to understand and accomplish.

 

[Beniah Naylor]

yeah I have a total of 6800 sqft. Average electric bill is about $210.00 per month. We wrote our own one page residential energy code and it works out to 15% better than ResCheck and much easier for all to understand and accomplish.

If you could post a link to that one page code, I would be very interested.

 

[Inspector Gadget]

Energy efficiency can be a very controversial topic to discuss. I know it has been here on The Building Code Forum and at ICC hearings, along with some legislative sessions at the state levels. I would like everyone who is willing to watch this video to do so with an open mind. I am very opinionated on this subject and remember when I lived in an older home in the north 20 years ago, and every December through March, I could guarantee my monthly heating bill would exceed $600 and be as low as $70 during the summer. Please watch and let us know what you think.

Well. So let me reflect on the video. Several points (like others) I agree with.

First off, from participating in this forum for nigh on four years, I’ve come to realize that the scattered, Balkanized code structure in the United States is a critical issue. The regional fiefdoms unwilling to accept something nationalized is a huge roadblock to reasonable standards.

Not having national-level standards is an impediment to the industry. How can a window manufacturer grow scale when it must meet six different requirements to serve eight different states? Sure, the manufacturer could build to the highest of those six standards, but now that means a less-costly, but less-efficient window will be cost-incentivized.

I’d also argue that politics is a major factor. Let’s be blunt: Big Oil controls a lot of the U.S. political landscape, and the proliferation of for-profit, private energy companies creates capitalistic pressure *against* energy efficiency measures. (Witness the blowback when some states subject to wildfires wanted to ban vinyl siding ... siding your house with vinyl is equal to wrapping your house with barbeque lighter.... )

There’s another hidden observation: the North American zeal for oversized single-family homes. I’ve seen several mansions built whose total footprint was so large that the building almost landed in the high-end commercial codes (ie: flirting with more than 6,000 ft2, for a single-family dwelling). By comparison, I live in a 500-square-foot cabin. The new house is 1,100 square feet.

Additionally, there is perilously little understanding of building science in the design community and building community. I had a conversation with a client this week – the client has been building homes for 40 years. The client did not understand that if they didn’t place foamed insulation between a slab-on-grade floor and a load-bearing frost wall, or on the outside of said frost wall that they would be creating an R-somewhere-near-1 thermal break. Our inspectors fight building envelope requirements on a regular basis.

We also have this unholy fascination with staggeringly large volumes of windows. The PassiveHouse standard is to have a ratio of window to floor area of 1:10, that is, 10 per cent. I meet that in the new house I’m building – it has all of its windows on non-north faces save for a teeny bathroom window on a northwest face. It meets the 10 per cent threshold. It is not dark: two 7x4 goth-arch windows allow for plenty of light. The soffit overhangs 3’, which limits solar gain in summer.

I didn’t truly realize how over-windowed designs were until NBC 2015 introduced seismic bracing requirements for about 30 per cent of our region. Those bracing requirements limit openings to 75 per cent of a wall (in general). I had several plans in the queue when the new rules came to play that wouldn’t have met those requirements, and several builds since that didn’t …. Think about that for a second. If you have, say, a house with southeast and southwest walls, overlooking the ocean and want to have half of those walls be windows, you're going to lose a crapton of heat - or gain it. Our area requires R17 walls.

Windows are pathetic insulators. The Code requirement for houses sets the thermal transmittance at what amounts to R3.5…. how the heck are you heating/cooling a 4,000 square foot home when half of the walls have an average R-value of about 10? That’s about the same as one of those cheap-ass, blow-away-in-a-storm mobile homes with the pencil-thin walls…

 

[tmurray]

Well. So let me reflect on the video. Several points (like others) I agree with.

First off, from participating in this forum for nigh on four years, I’ve come to realize that the scattered, Balkanized code structure in the United States is a critical issue. The regional fiefdoms unwilling to accept something nationalized is a huge roadblock to reasonable standards.

Not having national-level standards is an impediment to the industry. How can a window manufacturer grow scale when it must meet six different requirements to serve eight different states? Sure, the manufacturer could build to the highest of those six standards, but now that means a less-costly, but less-efficient window will be cost-incentivized.

I’d also argue that politics is a major factor. Let’s be blunt: Big Oil controls a lot of the U.S. political landscape, and the proliferation of for-profit, private energy companies creates capitalistic pressure *against* energy efficiency measures. (Witness the blowback when some states subject to wildfires wanted to ban vinyl siding ... siding your house with vinyl is equal to wrapping your house with barbeque lighter.... )

There’s another hidden observation: the North American zeal for oversized single-family homes. I’ve seen several mansions built whose total footprint was so large that the building almost landed in the high-end commercial codes (ie: flirting with more than 6,000 ft2, for a single-family dwelling). By comparison, I live in a 500-square-foot cabin. The new house is 1,100 square feet.

Additionally, there is perilously little understanding of building science in the design community and building community. I had a conversation with a client this week – the client has been building homes for 40 years. The client did not understand that if they didn’t place foamed insulation between a slab-on-grade floor and a load-bearing frost wall, or on the outside of said frost wall that they would be creating an R-somewhere-near-1 thermal break. Our inspectors fight building envelope requirements on a regular basis.

We also have this unholy fascination with staggeringly large volumes of windows. The PassiveHouse standard is to have a ratio of window to floor area of 1:10, that is, 10 per cent. I meet that in the new house I’m building – it has all of its windows on non-north faces save for a teeny bathroom window on a northwest face. It meets the 10 per cent threshold. It is not dark: two 7x4 goth-arch windows allow for plenty of light. The soffit overhangs 3’, which limits solar gain in summer.

I didn’t truly realize how over-windowed designs were until NBC 2015 introduced seismic bracing requirements for about 30 per cent of our region. Those bracing requirements limit openings to 75 per cent of a wall (in general). I had several plans in the queue when the new rules came to play that wouldn’t have met those requirements, and several builds since that didn’t …. Think about that for a second. If you have, say, a house with southeast and southwest walls, overlooking the ocean and want to have half of those walls be windows, you're going to lose a crapton of heat - or gain it. Our area requires R17 walls.

Windows are pathetic insulators. The Code requirement for houses sets the thermal transmittance at what amounts to R3.5…. how the heck are you heating/cooling a 4,000 square foot home when half of the walls have an average R-value of about 10? That’s about the same as one of those cheap-ass, blow-away-in-a-storm mobile homes with the pencil-thin walls…

There were two things that were missing from the energy codes that told me they weren't really serious about energy conservation when they came out.
1. Maximum fenestration and door to wall ratio.
2. Mandatory blower door testing.

Both of those issues are going to be addressed either directly or indirectly through the tiered codes.

In college, I had an instructor who, while teaching heat loss/gain calculations, said that a good rule of thumb is if a wall has 10% windows, then it will account for 50% of the heat loss through that area of the building.

 

[Inspector Gadget]

There were two things that were missing from the energy codes that told me they weren't really serious about energy conservation when they came out.
1. Maximum fenestration and door to wall ratio.
2. Mandatory blower door testing.

Both of those issues are going to be addressed either directly or indirectly through the tiered codes.

In college, I had an instructor who, while teaching heat loss/gain calculations, said that a good rule of thumb is if a wall has 10% windows, then it will account for 50% of the heat loss through that area of the building.

I have one problem with blower tests: homes with solid-fuel heating appliances.

 

[Paul Sweet]

I usually found that residential heat losses were about 1/3 (of the total loss) through windows & doors, 1/3 through the rest of the envelope, and 1/3 through air infiltration. Window areas over 15% will bump that percentage up, especially on cooling if large windows face west or southwest.

 

[tmurray]

I have one problem with blower tests: homes with solid-fuel heating appliances.

Not as much of an issue in new houses. Existing, there are two options; do it right after the flue and firebox has been cleaned out (fall) or seal the opening.

When I did blower door tests, I only had a little soot around the appliance a few times.

 

[bill1952]

There were two things that were missing from the energy codes that told me they weren't really serious about energy conservation when they came out.
1. Maximum fenestration and door to wall ratio.
2. Mandatory blower door testing.

Hard to believe the homebuilders would ever allow that I the codes.

 

[steveray]

Hard to believe the homebuilders would ever allow that I the codes.

Blower door is there....Max fenestration sort of was, but have not looked at that lately...

 

[Energystar]

I live in one of those states that has no state-wide code. It is a logistical disaster. One side of the street may have strict energy requirements while the other has almost none. Most major municipalities have adopted I-codes up to at least 2012 or 2018 IRC, but most have neutered the energy code to the point that their homes would be no different to those built in the 1990’s, given you could still get the crappy components we used back then. No doubt the buyers of these homes think they are getting a modern, technologically advanced and efficient home.

While I am not a proponent of passive house, I still think there is a lot of low-hanging fruit that is being overlooked by many municipalities and states. I am not talking 30 to 40-year paybacks. How about 5-10. One needs to remember that the homes we build will last a long time.

Should “government” be able to outlaw technologies and techniques that are inefficient like incandescent light bulbs. This seemed obvious and logical to most but still caused a huge uproar. The libertarian “don’t tell me what to do” attitude runs deep. The EPA has recently proposed the elimination of electric resistance water heaters in place of heat pump water heaters that are 4-times more efficient. No doubt, lawsuits will be upcoming.

Now that the codes begin to turn their attention to carbon emissions (electrification), the fur is going to fly.

 

[steveray]

able to outlaw technologies and techniques that are inefficient like incandescent light bulbs.

So we went to CFL's...how's all that mercury with little recycling doing?...And then we went with LED's with cheap drivers and threw all of those away too when they failed....They may have gotten most of that figured out now....Stuff that lasts a long time is better than the latest whiz bang disposable thing when it comes to "green".....

 

[Paul Sweet]

After we cut lighting energy 90% by changing from incandescent bulbs to LED we have to put dimmers on lights to save an additional 1%!