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> As someone who has recently built an entire electrified high-performance house How much did it cost? If you don't mind me asking.
by dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
> As someone who has recently built an entire electrified high-performance house
How much did it cost? If you don't mind me asking.
- danans 4y agoI paid a premium of about $60/sqft (about $90K in my house) for the high-performance stuff (heat pumps, HRV, airtight weather barrier, dense pack blown-in insulation, etc). The remaining $/sqft is just like any other build in the Bay Area, so quite expensive, but a lot depends on structural changes, finish levels, premium features (or lack thereof), and other things that have little to do with energy performance of the building envelope. As with all things, the bigger the house, usually the lower the cost per square foot for an individual system like a heat pump that have high fixed costs but scale up more cheaply. But the costs for things like a high performance external weather/air barrier and high performance insulation scale with the external surface area. I'm not including things like electric stoves/ovens and heat pump dryer in that because those price differences are easy to find online. In a new build, I think the premium for high performance could be brought down much lower, but only if performance is considered from the design stage.