24 ms·

Zero energy ready homes are coming

297 points by ricardou 4y ago

rafark 4y ago
For people allergic to electricity.
giantg2 4y ago
Interesting. Is there a good consise page detailing the main differences between this and older standards? Stuff like cost and ease of maintenance comparisons?
- itake 4y ago
  I’m also curious if there is a path to upgrade existing homes to this standard or do you have to demolish and rebuild (which is not legal in many cities).
- amateuring 4y ago
  no, it's just a feel good PR campaign
- jabart 4y ago
  Things switched from insulating the wall cavity to insulating the outside of the house. Engineers started to factor in the insulation value of a 2x6 compared to the insulation it was next to and the heat loss in cold climates. Same applies for hot climates. Now these homes are being wrapped in insulation on the outside with all joints sealed, then insulated on the inside and essentially pressure tested for air leaks. The houses can be "tight" enough that you have to have a system to cycle in fresh air in a way that it heats/cools it with the air that is leaving. You also need a makeup air vent for things like a stove hood. There is a new system that before drywall goes up, they pressurize the house and spray a caulk in the air that finds its way to all the pinhole leaks and seals them to further reduce air leaks during the building process.
  - TrueSlacker0 4y ago
    How will I get to experience opening up a wall in the house I have lived in for a decade to find McDonalds trash stuck in the wall instead of insulation?
  - ortusdux 4y ago
    Heat exchangers are a big one, but they are not yet that common in the US. They are used to pre-heat the makeup air. I'm looking into one atm as part of a HVAC upgrade as currently running a bath fan with all the windows closed will draw air down the chimney.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Heat exchangers have been code for more than 20 years. Maybe not common, but only because there are a lot of old houses. Or maybe where you live didn't adopt the new code?
      - giantg2 4y ago
        I have a house that's less than 20 and it doesn't have a heat exchanger. I haven't heard of the new construction around here having any. Perhaps it's only in certain states?
        bluGill 4y ago
        I'm most familiar with Minnesota of 20 years ago, which being a cold area does tend to adopt cold weather codes quicker than others.
  - oh_sigh 4y ago
    I understand you can just check the pressure during a blower test to see if there are leaks, but how do they actually identify where the leaks are? Go around all over the house with a smoke gun?
    - Syonyk 4y ago
- jws 4y ago
  There are tax credits to the builder to offset some of the increased up front cost, $2000 + $500 for some systems, and 22% on PV systems. It looks like the homeowner can get a $5000 tax credit for 10 years. The goal is to transition to housing which can be powered by renewables. To that end there are requirements for the thermal integrity of the envelope and windows, there must be electric run for HVAC heat pumps, hot water heat pumps, and at least one EV parking space. Lighting must be modern high efficiency stuff. Ductwork must be inside the thermal envelope. There are indoor air quality standards to meet.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home-program https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... seems to be the main landing page, and it's a bit handwaving... > A DOE Zero Energy Ready Home is a high-performance home that is so energy efficient that a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use. "Most or all" and "annual energy use" allow for some massive wiggle room. Annual energy use by who? A family with a couple teenage girls is going to likely use a lot more hot water than a family with a three year old boy. I can't find any actual concrete details on it, annoyingly. So I have to agree that it's more of a feel-good listing until proven otherwise.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I was really interested in the insulation part and building design. The only thing I could find was that it has to be energy star, which is only 10% better insulation than code.
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      ACH2.0 in most of the upper part of the country is pretty aggressive. The 2015 ICC isn't a slouch either -- say you're in Chicagoland building a new home, this would mandate R49 in the attic, R20 in the walls (or R13 in the bays + R5 exterior), R15 on basement walls, R30 in the floors. It could of course be much more aggressive, and likely will be eventually, but if you had a ACH2 house with those insulation values, minimum U-0.3 windows, >0.94 efficient gas furnace / high quality heat pumps, it would be a very efficient house. Table R402.1.2 here: https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IECC2015/chapter-4-re-residential-energy-efficiency#IECC2015_Pt02_Ch04_SecR402 https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IECC2015/chapter-4-re-resi...
- smolder 4y ago
  To get really high R value on insulation, often that means a 2x6 or 2x8 framed outer wall to allow for the additional thickness needed by the insulation. Double pane windows are well-surpassed by those with many panes and carefully designed frames with low thermal bridging. Aside from more insulation you need great air sealing, across every joint and in every window and door frame. Older construction had no explicit ventilation, just a lot of leaking such that the house "breathed". On modern, efficient homes, the air seal is very tight for efficiency reasons, so you need an ERV/HRV system to exhange air for you to keep the air healthy, while minimizing energy loss for that airflow. Insulating materials used inside the roof and sheathing are typically closed cell foam or rockwool, or in Europe they sometimes use a wood fiber based insulation. There are lots of caulks and adhesive tapes for getting a good air seal, and there's also a technique where one pumps the house frame full of a vapor that reacts across pressure drops and plugs any holes it flows through. Last, well insulated homes can get cheap heating and cooling from modestly sized heat pumps which are very efficient. One zero energy home I saw has heat exchangers on the roof to capture energy from the sun for warm water as well, supplemented by heat pumps powered by photovoltaics.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Modern houses have gone back to 2x4 walls. Then the put 2 inches of foam under the siding so the thickness is equal to a 2x6. There is already on the market standard doors and windows that fit this. Though 4 inches of foam may make more sense yet, but there are no standard doors or windows for that thickness so costs go up.
eej71 4y ago
Not pictured, the homes that won't be built because the regulatory regime has either outlawed them or priced them out of profitable existence.
milliams 4y ago
"Zero-energy ready homes" or "Zero energy-ready homes"?
dimitrios1 4y ago
There are some good ideas here that I hope take off like ventilating dehumidifiers. So much of what we perceive as discomfort in our homes comes down to the humidity rising and stale air.
dabber21 4y ago
Like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house ?
- ortusdux 4y ago
  Basically, but it looks like this certification is protected and carries benchmarks, similar to the Energy Star program.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  No, because those actually work. But they're also tricky to operate properly. This seems more like "I want you to feel good about your purchase while you're still dependent on external energy inputs." If you can find details on what it actually requires, please, share, because I've spent the past 15 minutes snoofing around and I sure can't find it.
  - ortusdux 4y ago
    https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/DOE%20ZERH%20V1%20Rev08%20-%2010-20-2022.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/DOE%20ZER...
    - Syonyk 4y ago
      Thanks. So gas water heaters are fine. Yay?
- ricardou 4y ago
  I live on campus at Cornell Tech. The student residence hall[0] there is built following Passive House standards and it is actually surprising how good it works. My one complaint is the heating and cooling systems in every apartment unit are very heavily regulated, so at times the inside feel and temperature aren't ideal. It's a minor thing though. [0] https://thehouseatcornelltech.com/sustainability/ https://thehouseatcornelltech.com/sustainability/
- yourapostasy 4y ago
la64710 4y ago
$5000 tax credit for a ZERH home that may cost $400k to build. Just from an incentive pov is it enough to swing the needle? Most probably I am glossing over something.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  Yeah I'm laughing at this too. With land prices being what they are, this just means builders will make only luxury multi-million dollar homes with these codes in mind.
- ortusdux 4y ago
  My take on this is that they are making the equivalent of an Energy Start certification for housing. In theory, having this cert should raise the value of the house. I view the $5k as a way to offset the cost of applying.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  For someone already wanting to build a house, maybe. You're probably already going to insulate because it pays for itself. The tax credit makes it possible to go the extra mile.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
This is a pet issue of mine, having lived in two off grid homes going back to the 80's. The barriers are not materials, technology, or labor, but purely regulatory. I could take my current home off permanently grid with solar today for less than 10k but to do so would be illegal. Permitted grid connected solar costs 5x that and disconnecting from the grid is not permitted.
- boringg 4y ago
  To be fair - technology is lacking for people living in the city to be able to go off grid in a meaningful way. Disconnecting from the grid - that sounds like there's some kind of clause in the area that you live that essentially ties you to the utility. You must live in on the pacific coast or SW. EDIT: To all the responses - I'm talking off grid as in all functionality. Sure you can add solar / solar thermal etc though in many places it isn't cost effective and doesn't make a lot of sense in a city where the alternative is that those costs are defrayed across a large base that provides reliability and service. I don't have much love for utilities but they do provide a valuable service.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    > for people living in the city to be able to go off grid in a meaningful way. Everyone has a use for hot water. You can always have off-grid solar heating an auxiliary tank to take the load off the primary water heater.
    - boringg 4y ago
      Having a hot water heater isn't the equivalent of going off-grid in a meaningful way. You are talking about incremental improvements.
  - orcajerk 4y ago
    Things may be different now but some cities used to the condemn the house if it did not have electricity from a provider. It is a scam, considering most people did not have electricity even 100 years ago.
Waterluvian 4y ago
Aren’t larger, opulent home designs far more difficult to make energy efficient?
- Syonyk 4y ago
  Generally, yes. They tend to have a lot of corners (for their "architectural features" checklist), and those are really hard to insulate well. They also tend to be purchased by people who don't care in the slightest about energy efficiency, because if you can buy a $10M home, the difference between $500/mo or $1500/mo in energy costs doesn't matter to you.
  - wolfram74 4y ago
    Competing element though is they probably have more land to put solar on, so if they don't find it to be aesthetically incompatible, they could probably push through those energy losses.
    - blacksmith_tb 4y ago
      Sure, and they could shrug off the cost of installing a ground-source heat pump[1] too, which would be too expensive for more modest homes. But they'd again have to give a damn, which I am only semi-optimistic about... 1: https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/5-things-you-should-know-about-geothermal-heat-pumps https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/5-things-you-should-kno...
- ahoy 4y ago
  Yeah, this strikes me similarly to the all-electric Hummer SUV. What on earth are we doing here.
  - karaterobot 4y ago
    In theory, taking something people were already buying in a highly polluting form, and giving them the option to buy the same thing in a less polluting form.
kibwen 4y ago
OP links to https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home-program https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... , which explains that its definition of a Zero Energy Ready Home is "a high-performance home that is so energy efficient that a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use".
Syonyk 4y ago
When you've confused "per kWh cost" with "energy to the house delivery costs," this sort of stuff sounds good on paper, but it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that in the winter, homes use a lot more energy than they can generate, and in the spring/fall, they will generate a lot more energy than they need. I've got a large ground mount solar install I put in a few years ago (15.9kW nameplate, though mostly east-west facing panels so a bit less annual production than you'd expect, just more "sunup to sundown" production), and it's been a chilly winter, so with an air source heat pump and keeping the house fairly cool, I'm still net +4MWh from the grid in the last 4 months. Meanwhile, when it warms up a bit more, I'm generating 10x what the house uses during spring/fall mornings (10+ kW production on a sub-1kW house draw for long periods of the day). It's not a big deal with only a few people on the grid, but if every house were doing this, it would be a very big problem for grid stability. I've also got experience with the off-grid lifestyle, as my office is 100% off-grid/standalone, and I don't pretend that system is cheap. Just neat. And even with 5kW of solar hung for a ~100 sq ft shed, I still need propane or a generator in the winter every now and then to keep things sane in here.
- ajross 4y ago
  > it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that [...] Is that the "fundamental" problem being solved, though? Or is it just an externality that needs to be addressed? It seems like the "fundamental" problem here is trying to maximize deployment of renewable generation, and that construction like this is a great step in that direction. (Not the least of which because it pushes the investment required onto consumers willing to bear the costs, and "generates jobs" in the process. Siting a new wind farm is a ton more complicated, and let's not even talk about the difficulty of installing a scratch-built reactor.) I mean, it's true, that at the end of the day home energy generation is just PV solar, and PV solar doesn't behave like gas plants and that needs to be addressed at the grid level. But that's not an argument against PV solar, it's just an engineering problem.
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    > But that's not an argument against PV solar... It can certainly be an argument against residential rooftop solar. In general, "industrial solar" (ground mount, high voltage strings, single axis trackers) is sub-$1/W installed. Residential rooftop solar is still $2.50-$4/W depending on where you are, because it has quite a few additional requirements (per-panel rapid shutdown in NEC 2017, various other requirements on the panel and interconnects that add cost), and, often, poor siting from partial shading reasons (chimneys, vent stacks, trees, other bits of roof, etc). I don't mind making homes more suited to solar (oversize the main busbar with a "solar ready" panel, route conduit up to the roof, require all vent stacks be on the north side of the roof), but it's a rather uncontrolled solution that's of limited "actually solving the problem" use. Low levels of penetration are easy to deal with, higher levels start to get really hard, when you've got whole subdivisions shifting from "lots of production" to "lots of consumption" as clouds go over. Or, we get used to less reliable, more intermittent energy again, and a lot of the problems go away. Just, that generates other problems. The power grid is a lot more fragile than most people assume.
al_be_back 4y ago
zero energy, zero home then.
- al_be_back 4y ago
  why down-vote? was making fun of 'zero energy' being a useless & inaccurate term since energy is required, there's no such thing as zero energy in that context.
orcajerk 4y ago
[flagged]
- Syonyk 4y ago
  They don't! They only hate poor families who can't afford a $500k+ home and His-and-Hers Matching Teslas.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  If leadership is affiliated with whoever commissioned the Georgia Guidestones the plan is as follows: 1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature. 2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity. 3. Unite humanity with a living new language. 4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason. 5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts. 6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court. 7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials. 8. Balance personal rights with social duties. 9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite. 10. Be not a cancer on the Earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
- aclatuts 4y ago
  People go broke if their utilities go up $100 a month. It's better if houses were built to not depend on volatile energy prices. Net zero homes basically move the monthly utility cost from an ongoing variable bill and basically prepays it into the mortgage which would have more predicable pricing. All that extra cost should also stay as value to the house.
paiute 4y ago
Those dehumidifiers make these places uninhabitable for me. Constant low humidity is really unhealthy. Without them these ultra insulated homes have major vapor and mold issues. Being highly insulated is good but at a point it's just silly. I'd rather see efforts to insulate old trailers, manufactured homes, etc. Rich people experimenting with zero energy homes don't need a credit.
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago
  We have a highly insulated home with a heat recovery air exchanger.
- swalling 4y ago
  The location of the home (Fairhope, Alabama) is in a humid subtropical climate where the average humidity is above 70% year round. I couldn't find any data but seems possible that the net average interior humidity is not actually that low?
- olau 4y ago
  I agree on low humidity being bad, but your remark on insulation does not seem correct. I'm only familiar with cold climates, so perhaps I'm overlooking something, but mold needs moisture to grow, so it will appear where water condenses out of warm air on a cold surface. You can typically see this in windows. So you need to prevent cold surfaces. The best way to do that is improving the insulation. The reason you can see water drops in the windows is precisely because they are inadequately insulated (e.g. only double paned). Now, it's true that if you make an airtight home, then you need some kind of air exchange. And if it's really cold outside, then even if it's wet, once that air is warmed up, it ends up at a low relative humidity. In that case you need a humidifier. I guess depending on the outside air, you'd probably need both to stay in a comfortable range.
  - paiute 4y ago
    It's not super intuitive at first, but its cold climates were this is actually a big issue. Water vapor "wants" to equalize from a more humid to less humid environment. So when it's cold out - the humidity can drop rather low. Then you take a shower and create water vapor - which flows into the walls, through the insulation, and condenses against the colder exterior. Open a wall in any stick frame house in the rocky mountain region and mildew will be present. I am building a highly insulated house in a cold climate area and have blasted all the wood with copious amount of a silver based coating to inhibit mold growth.
fwlr 4y ago
So it seems in practice the main way you achieve this certification is to dramatically cut heating losses by using a lot of insulation and make the house essentially air-tight. Obviously you can’t have an air-tight house for very long, you need fresh air. So you have explicit vents for incoming and outgoing air, and you run the incoming air (which is fresh, but not the temperature you want) through a heat exchanger with the outgoing air (which is stale, but is at the temperature you want). This recovers most of the heat you put into your inside air, so you need very little heating to maintain the desired temperature. This is actually a really good thing, I think. The minimum airflow rating these houses have to meet is of course going to be suboptimal, but the hard part of airproofing is already done and it’s easy for the homeowner to simply beef up the heat exchanger and air pump to get ideal airflow. The homeowner can also install an air quality filter on the airpump and now their entire house has filtered air. Great way to get that PM2.5 level down to where it should be!
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  Don’t forget moisture. Many many places you can’t just have a sealed up system or you get mold immediately. Insulation and a heat pump is pretty much as good as it gets right now
ovi256 4y ago
What is stopping homeowners from building these better homes today ?
- xyst 4y ago
  Money
  - anonuser123456 4y ago
    Knowledge/Risk is probably a lot more impactful. Builders themselves are slow to adopt new technology vs. do what they’ve always done. Part of that is because it’s hard to learn news things. Part of it is because new things have lots of unknown and builders shoulder that risk.
  - ovi256 4y ago
    Then what is this regulation solving exactly ? Building standards just make building less than standard illegal. They don't increase building buying power.
xyst 4y ago
I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. This is all very expensive to build and maintain, and the cities and municipalities are left to foot the bill. American housing is a Ponzi scheme and this only helps perpetuate it. We need to reverse this trend with significant investments in public transportation and other alternative forms of transportation which can scale to meet the needs of the future. We need to build vertically and re-claim back the resources allocated for car centric design (ie, highways, parking lots, parking garages, roads, street parking) and re-allocate it for more housing, businesses, and public transportation. Entities that can generate new income for the municipality and city. In parallel, can work to preserve our existing natural green spaces and hopefully over time expand those green spaces which give us breathable air, drinkable water, protection from natural elements (ie, floods or long periods of torrential rain), and help keep viruses and other bad elements out of human populations.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Syonyk 4y ago
  > All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. If you're 20 miles outside a town, you almost certainly have electrical service, but are on a well and septic system. City water and sewer doesn't make sense at those sort of densities. You also probably have the land to easily put a nice ground mount PV array in, and grow a good bit of your own food, should you care to.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    I don't think this is the case for suburbs, at least for water. Septic tanks are used I think
notShabu 4y ago
A GPT blurb about what goes into a zero energy ready home: > There are several core technologies and products that go into creating a Zero Energy Ready Home. These include: Advanced insulation materials: These materials are used to reduce heat loss and gain through walls, roofs, and floors. Examples of advanced insulation materials include spray foam insulation, rigid foam insulation, and blown-in cellulose insulation. High-performance windows: These windows are designed to minimize heat loss and gain and to improve comfort and natural lighting. They typically have low-e coatings, multiple panes, and insulated frames. Efficient heating, cooling, and ventilation systems: These systems use advanced technologies to reduce energy consumption and provide a comfortable indoor environment. Examples include geothermal heat pumps, air-source heat pumps, and energy recovery ventilation systems. Solar panels: These panels are used to generate renewable energy and can be installed on the roof or integrated into the building envelope. They can provide enough energy to power the home and even send excess energy back to the grid. Energy-efficient appliances and lighting: These products use less energy than conventional models and can help further reduce energy consumption in the home. Building automation systems: These systems allow homeowners to control and monitor energy use and other home systems remotely, which can help optimize energy efficiency and comfort. Producers of these products include a variety of companies, from large multinational corporations to smaller regional manufacturers. Some examples of companies that produce products for Zero Energy Ready Homes include Owens Corning and Johns Manville for insulation, Andersen and Marvin for windows, Carrier and Lennox for HVAC systems, SunPower and Tesla for solar panels, and Nest and Ecobee for smart thermostats. There are many other companies and products available, and choosing the right ones depends on factors such as climate, building design, and budget. >
- Syonyk 4y ago
  Congratulations, you've found something to describe, in a dull and useless way, the concept of energy efficiency in a home. Blown-in cellulose is "advanced," huh? It doesn't answer any of the specific questions about what's specifically different in a Zero Energy Ready Home from something Energy Star rated, and it's filled with weasel words and vague handwaving statements. I could nitpick the response further against the actual PDF linked elsewhere in the thread, but there's no particular point.
- 4y ago
awb 4y ago
Tough acronym to say, and spell apparently > … Zero Energy Ready Homes (ZERH) their standard offering. To this point, our ZEHR program … Sometimes acronyms get too cute, but there’s value to something that can easily be said in conversation or in one’s head while writing
- Nition 4y ago
  Zero Energy Heady Roams. Maybe a mountain walk.
paganel 4y ago
Crazy how the Americans try to create "zero energy homes" (whatever that means) using basically wood structures. Wood is a very, very bad heat insulator. The best proven heat insulator when it comes to building a home is earth itself, that's why for hundreds to thousands of years dug-out huts have been the norm on several continents, for different cultures/civilisations. Granted, you cannot build a macmansion-like house using only earth+some wood.
- Baeocystin 4y ago
  Almost half of Americans live in an earthquake zone. Wood is a hell of a lot safer than masonry or rammed earth in such conditions.
  - gtop3 4y ago
    It's very reasonable to build a masonry structure that is safe in a large earth quake. They are however more likely to suffer major damage during an earthquake. Wood framed houses are less likely to be damaged, and have much cheaper repairs when they are damaged.
  - paganel 4y ago
    > Almost half of Americans live in an earthquake zone Apart from CA and maybe some other parts further North where is that earthquake zone? Seriously asking.
    - Baeocystin 4y ago
      A lot more of the continent than most people think! Further reading: https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/nearly-half-americans-exposed-potentially-damaging-earthquakes https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/nearly-half-america...
    - farzy 4y ago
      https://www.mtu.edu/geo/community/seismology/learn/earthquakes-midwest-east/ https://www.mtu.edu/geo/community/seismology/learn/earthquak...
ahoy 4y ago
This is good, in the way that filtered cigarretes are better than unfiltered. As long we we keep building & being forced to live in low density, single-family houses, we'll keep consuming the huge physical and energy resources necessary to sustain them. I'm not saying we have to turn every neighborhood into manhattan, far from it. But this is similar to the gas -> electric car change. Yeah, it's a marginal improvement on what we're doing now, but its so far away from the kind of changes we need to make that it's almost dispiriting to see it presented as some kind of remarkable progress.
- mym1990 4y ago
  Who is forcing you to live in a SFH? Do we need to go confront them?
- jonfw 4y ago
  I don’t know where you live, but I had to pay extra for my SFH, a condo or townhome in an equivalent location is significantly cheaper
gregwebs 4y ago
What about the existing housing stock? There's a lot of energy upgrades that pay off well over a couple decades, but not when you move an average of every 7 years and the new homeowners don't know how or care to value your upgrades. I think the government could create regulation to fix the incentives here. Something like allowing enhanced energy efficiency to be paid over time by creating a lien on the house that a new homeowner has to continue to make payments towards.
pard68 4y ago
The world has had "zero energy" homes for like fifty years now in the form of earthships, but government entities have prevented them from reaching a wider audience because of laws which prohibit most non-stickframe homes.
ChuckMcM 4y ago
This would be more effective if California would force its energy suppliers (PG&E, SCE, Etc.) to offset watts for watts on Solar installs. They won't because people like me would then no longer pay for electricity.
DoreenMichele 4y ago
Contrary to what I am seeing in comments on HN, this is not just for single family detached housing. If you go to the ZERH website, under Program Requirements it says: Versions 1 and 2, Single Family, Multifamily, and Manufactured Homes https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home-program https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... Additionally, one of the photos in the featured article has the following caption: Lopez Community Land Trust built this 561-square-foot affordable home on Lopez Island, Washington, to the high-performance criteria of DOE's Zero Energy Ready Home program that delivers a $20-per-month average monthly energy bill. I've said for years we need to go back to more passive solar design as our baseline standard because it is both more energy efficient and more comfortable for humans. It protects the environment while improving quality of life. It's a myth that you can't see gains in both areas. I'm also happy to see the caption because we need to do a better job of supporting high quality of life in small towns, not just big cities. Trends in recent decades mean small towns suck because they lack services and big cities suck if you aren't one of the wealthy. That wasn't always true and programs like this can improve and strengthen both small town and urban environments while mitigating the burden suburbs currently represent.
- beebmam 4y ago
  It seems unbelievably stupid to me to build solar panel based homes where I live: the northwest US. Makes a heck of a bunch of sense in CA or TX though.
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    Passive solar design is about creating a home which needs little energy to stay at a comfortable temperature. It's unrelated to generating electricity via solar power panels.
  - rypskar 4y ago
    Solar is more effective in low temperatures than in high temperatures. Also northwest US is max around 49 degrees north, which is around Paris in Europe and it is normal to have solar much farther north in Europe
fastball 4y ago
Wildly tangential, but can I sign a petition somewhere for energy capacity to stop being measured in Wh? It's such a dumb unit of measurement. We already have a base unit of energy, which is Joules. Dividing J by seconds to get W and then multiplying that by hours to get franken-joules is so unnecessary and makes the math harder for no reason and it makes me mad every time I deal with it.
deleted 4y ago
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lloydatkinson 4y ago
With a dumb name like that it sounds like its homes with no electricity supply or gas supply or running water...
misja111 4y ago
Am I the only one who was still wondering what a 'zero energy ready home' is after reading the entire article? So I followed a link, that led me to this definition: > A DOE Zero Energy Ready Home is a high-performance home that is so energy efficient that a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use And now I still don't know. What is a 'high-performance home'? And what exactly is the criterium to decide if 'a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use'?
LatteLazy 4y ago
It's important to have a plan, to get ready, in case we do something we have no intention of doing.
thesaintlives 4y ago
They sure are! Electricity and gas are so expensive I can not afford to turn them on. Brave new world..

297 points by ricardou 4y ago

For people allergic to electricity.

Interesting. Is there a good consise page detailing the main differences between this and older standards? Stuff like cost and ease of maintenance comparisons?

itake 4y ago
I’m also curious if there is a path to upgrade existing homes to this standard or do you have to demolish and rebuild (which is not legal in many cities).
amateuring 4y ago
no, it's just a feel good PR campaign
jabart 4y ago
Things switched from insulating the wall cavity to insulating the outside of the house. Engineers started to factor in the insulation value of a 2x6 compared to the insulation it was next to and the heat loss in cold climates. Same applies for hot climates. Now these homes are being wrapped in insulation on the outside with all joints sealed, then insulated on the inside and essentially pressure tested for air leaks. The houses can be "tight" enough that you have to have a system to cycle in fresh air in a way that it heats/cools it with the air that is leaving. You also need a makeup air vent for things like a stove hood. There is a new system that before drywall goes up, they pressurize the house and spray a caulk in the air that finds its way to all the pinhole leaks and seals them to further reduce air leaks during the building process.
- TrueSlacker0 4y ago
  How will I get to experience opening up a wall in the house I have lived in for a decade to find McDonalds trash stuck in the wall instead of insulation?
- ortusdux 4y ago
  Heat exchangers are a big one, but they are not yet that common in the US. They are used to pre-heat the makeup air. I'm looking into one atm as part of a HVAC upgrade as currently running a bath fan with all the windows closed will draw air down the chimney.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Heat exchangers have been code for more than 20 years. Maybe not common, but only because there are a lot of old houses. Or maybe where you live didn't adopt the new code?
    - giantg2 4y ago
      I have a house that's less than 20 and it doesn't have a heat exchanger. I haven't heard of the new construction around here having any. Perhaps it's only in certain states?
      - bluGill 4y ago
        I'm most familiar with Minnesota of 20 years ago, which being a cold area does tend to adopt cold weather codes quicker than others.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  I understand you can just check the pressure during a blower test to see if there are leaks, but how do they actually identify where the leaks are? Go around all over the house with a smoke gun?
  - Syonyk 4y ago
jws 4y ago
There are tax credits to the builder to offset some of the increased up front cost, $2000 + $500 for some systems, and 22% on PV systems. It looks like the homeowner can get a $5000 tax credit for 10 years. The goal is to transition to housing which can be powered by renewables. To that end there are requirements for the thermal integrity of the envelope and windows, there must be electric run for HVAC heat pumps, hot water heat pumps, and at least one EV parking space. Lighting must be modern high efficiency stuff. Ductwork must be inside the thermal envelope. There are indoor air quality standards to meet.
Syonyk 4y ago
https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home-program https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... seems to be the main landing page, and it's a bit handwaving... > A DOE Zero Energy Ready Home is a high-performance home that is so energy efficient that a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use. "Most or all" and "annual energy use" allow for some massive wiggle room. Annual energy use by who? A family with a couple teenage girls is going to likely use a lot more hot water than a family with a three year old boy. I can't find any actual concrete details on it, annoyingly. So I have to agree that it's more of a feel-good listing until proven otherwise.
- giantg2 4y ago
  I was really interested in the insulation part and building design. The only thing I could find was that it has to be energy star, which is only 10% better insulation than code.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    ACH2.0 in most of the upper part of the country is pretty aggressive. The 2015 ICC isn't a slouch either -- say you're in Chicagoland building a new home, this would mandate R49 in the attic, R20 in the walls (or R13 in the bays + R5 exterior), R15 on basement walls, R30 in the floors. It could of course be much more aggressive, and likely will be eventually, but if you had a ACH2 house with those insulation values, minimum U-0.3 windows, >0.94 efficient gas furnace / high quality heat pumps, it would be a very efficient house. Table R402.1.2 here: https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IECC2015/chapter-4-re-residential-energy-efficiency#IECC2015_Pt02_Ch04_SecR402 https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IECC2015/chapter-4-re-resi...
smolder 4y ago
To get really high R value on insulation, often that means a 2x6 or 2x8 framed outer wall to allow for the additional thickness needed by the insulation. Double pane windows are well-surpassed by those with many panes and carefully designed frames with low thermal bridging. Aside from more insulation you need great air sealing, across every joint and in every window and door frame. Older construction had no explicit ventilation, just a lot of leaking such that the house "breathed". On modern, efficient homes, the air seal is very tight for efficiency reasons, so you need an ERV/HRV system to exhange air for you to keep the air healthy, while minimizing energy loss for that airflow. Insulating materials used inside the roof and sheathing are typically closed cell foam or rockwool, or in Europe they sometimes use a wood fiber based insulation. There are lots of caulks and adhesive tapes for getting a good air seal, and there's also a technique where one pumps the house frame full of a vapor that reacts across pressure drops and plugs any holes it flows through. Last, well insulated homes can get cheap heating and cooling from modestly sized heat pumps which are very efficient. One zero energy home I saw has heat exchangers on the roof to capture energy from the sun for warm water as well, supplemented by heat pumps powered by photovoltaics.
- bluGill 4y ago
  Modern houses have gone back to 2x4 walls. Then the put 2 inches of foam under the siding so the thickness is equal to a 2x6. There is already on the market standard doors and windows that fit this. Though 4 inches of foam may make more sense yet, but there are no standard doors or windows for that thickness so costs go up.

eej71 4y ago

Not pictured, the homes that won't be built because the regulatory regime has either outlawed them or priced them out of profitable existence.

milliams 4y ago

"Zero-energy ready homes" or "Zero energy-ready homes"?

dimitrios1 4y ago

There are some good ideas here that I hope take off like ventilating dehumidifiers. So much of what we perceive as discomfort in our homes comes down to the humidity rising and stale air.

dabber21 4y ago

Like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house ?

ortusdux 4y ago
Basically, but it looks like this certification is protected and carries benchmarks, similar to the Energy Star program.
Syonyk 4y ago
No, because those actually work. But they're also tricky to operate properly. This seems more like "I want you to feel good about your purchase while you're still dependent on external energy inputs." If you can find details on what it actually requires, please, share, because I've spent the past 15 minutes snoofing around and I sure can't find it.
- ortusdux 4y ago
  https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/DOE%20ZERH%20V1%20Rev08%20-%2010-20-2022.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/DOE%20ZER...
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    Thanks. So gas water heaters are fine. Yay?
ricardou 4y ago
I live on campus at Cornell Tech. The student residence hall[0] there is built following Passive House standards and it is actually surprising how good it works. My one complaint is the heating and cooling systems in every apartment unit are very heavily regulated, so at times the inside feel and temperature aren't ideal. It's a minor thing though. [0] https://thehouseatcornelltech.com/sustainability/ https://thehouseatcornelltech.com/sustainability/
yourapostasy 4y ago

la64710 4y ago

$5000 tax credit for a ZERH home that may cost $400k to build. Just from an incentive pov is it enough to swing the needle? Most probably I am glossing over something.

Ancalagon 4y ago
Yeah I'm laughing at this too. With land prices being what they are, this just means builders will make only luxury multi-million dollar homes with these codes in mind.
ortusdux 4y ago
My take on this is that they are making the equivalent of an Energy Start certification for housing. In theory, having this cert should raise the value of the house. I view the $5k as a way to offset the cost of applying.
dahfizz 4y ago
For someone already wanting to build a house, maybe. You're probably already going to insulate because it pays for itself. The tax credit makes it possible to go the extra mile.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

This is a pet issue of mine, having lived in two off grid homes going back to the 80's. The barriers are not materials, technology, or labor, but purely regulatory. I could take my current home off permanently grid with solar today for less than 10k but to do so would be illegal. Permitted grid connected solar costs 5x that and disconnecting from the grid is not permitted.

boringg 4y ago
To be fair - technology is lacking for people living in the city to be able to go off grid in a meaningful way. Disconnecting from the grid - that sounds like there's some kind of clause in the area that you live that essentially ties you to the utility. You must live in on the pacific coast or SW. EDIT: To all the responses - I'm talking off grid as in all functionality. Sure you can add solar / solar thermal etc though in many places it isn't cost effective and doesn't make a lot of sense in a city where the alternative is that those costs are defrayed across a large base that provides reliability and service. I don't have much love for utilities but they do provide a valuable service.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  > for people living in the city to be able to go off grid in a meaningful way. Everyone has a use for hot water. You can always have off-grid solar heating an auxiliary tank to take the load off the primary water heater.
  - boringg 4y ago
    Having a hot water heater isn't the equivalent of going off-grid in a meaningful way. You are talking about incremental improvements.
- orcajerk 4y ago
  Things may be different now but some cities used to the condemn the house if it did not have electricity from a provider. It is a scam, considering most people did not have electricity even 100 years ago.

Waterluvian 4y ago

Aren’t larger, opulent home designs far more difficult to make energy efficient?

Syonyk 4y ago
Generally, yes. They tend to have a lot of corners (for their "architectural features" checklist), and those are really hard to insulate well. They also tend to be purchased by people who don't care in the slightest about energy efficiency, because if you can buy a $10M home, the difference between $500/mo or $1500/mo in energy costs doesn't matter to you.
- wolfram74 4y ago
  Competing element though is they probably have more land to put solar on, so if they don't find it to be aesthetically incompatible, they could probably push through those energy losses.
  - blacksmith_tb 4y ago
    Sure, and they could shrug off the cost of installing a ground-source heat pump[1] too, which would be too expensive for more modest homes. But they'd again have to give a damn, which I am only semi-optimistic about... 1: https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/5-things-you-should-know-about-geothermal-heat-pumps https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/5-things-you-should-kno...
ahoy 4y ago
Yeah, this strikes me similarly to the all-electric Hummer SUV. What on earth are we doing here.
- karaterobot 4y ago
  In theory, taking something people were already buying in a highly polluting form, and giving them the option to buy the same thing in a less polluting form.

kibwen 4y ago

OP links to https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home-program https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... , which explains that its definition of a Zero Energy Ready Home is "a high-performance home that is so energy efficient that a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use".

Syonyk 4y ago

When you've confused "per kWh cost" with "energy to the house delivery costs," this sort of stuff sounds good on paper, but it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that in the winter, homes use a lot more energy than they can generate, and in the spring/fall, they will generate a lot more energy than they need. I've got a large ground mount solar install I put in a few years ago (15.9kW nameplate, though mostly east-west facing panels so a bit less annual production than you'd expect, just more "sunup to sundown" production), and it's been a chilly winter, so with an air source heat pump and keeping the house fairly cool, I'm still net +4MWh from the grid in the last 4 months. Meanwhile, when it warms up a bit more, I'm generating 10x what the house uses during spring/fall mornings (10+ kW production on a sub-1kW house draw for long periods of the day). It's not a big deal with only a few people on the grid, but if every house were doing this, it would be a very big problem for grid stability. I've also got experience with the off-grid lifestyle, as my office is 100% off-grid/standalone, and I don't pretend that system is cheap. Just neat. And even with 5kW of solar hung for a ~100 sq ft shed, I still need propane or a generator in the winter every now and then to keep things sane in here.

ajross 4y ago
> it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that [...] Is that the "fundamental" problem being solved, though? Or is it just an externality that needs to be addressed? It seems like the "fundamental" problem here is trying to maximize deployment of renewable generation, and that construction like this is a great step in that direction. (Not the least of which because it pushes the investment required onto consumers willing to bear the costs, and "generates jobs" in the process. Siting a new wind farm is a ton more complicated, and let's not even talk about the difficulty of installing a scratch-built reactor.) I mean, it's true, that at the end of the day home energy generation is just PV solar, and PV solar doesn't behave like gas plants and that needs to be addressed at the grid level. But that's not an argument against PV solar, it's just an engineering problem.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  > But that's not an argument against PV solar... It can certainly be an argument against residential rooftop solar. In general, "industrial solar" (ground mount, high voltage strings, single axis trackers) is sub-$1/W installed. Residential rooftop solar is still $2.50-$4/W depending on where you are, because it has quite a few additional requirements (per-panel rapid shutdown in NEC 2017, various other requirements on the panel and interconnects that add cost), and, often, poor siting from partial shading reasons (chimneys, vent stacks, trees, other bits of roof, etc). I don't mind making homes more suited to solar (oversize the main busbar with a "solar ready" panel, route conduit up to the roof, require all vent stacks be on the north side of the roof), but it's a rather uncontrolled solution that's of limited "actually solving the problem" use. Low levels of penetration are easy to deal with, higher levels start to get really hard, when you've got whole subdivisions shifting from "lots of production" to "lots of consumption" as clouds go over. Or, we get used to less reliable, more intermittent energy again, and a lot of the problems go away. Just, that generates other problems. The power grid is a lot more fragile than most people assume.

al_be_back 4y ago

zero energy, zero home then.

al_be_back 4y ago
why down-vote? was making fun of 'zero energy' being a useless & inaccurate term since energy is required, there's no such thing as zero energy in that context.

orcajerk 4y ago

[flagged]

Syonyk 4y ago
They don't! They only hate poor families who can't afford a $500k+ home and His-and-Hers Matching Teslas.
orangepurple 4y ago
If leadership is affiliated with whoever commissioned the Georgia Guidestones the plan is as follows: 1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature. 2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity. 3. Unite humanity with a living new language. 4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason. 5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts. 6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court. 7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials. 8. Balance personal rights with social duties. 9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite. 10. Be not a cancer on the Earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
aclatuts 4y ago
People go broke if their utilities go up $100 a month. It's better if houses were built to not depend on volatile energy prices. Net zero homes basically move the monthly utility cost from an ongoing variable bill and basically prepays it into the mortgage which would have more predicable pricing. All that extra cost should also stay as value to the house.

paiute 4y ago

Those dehumidifiers make these places uninhabitable for me. Constant low humidity is really unhealthy. Without them these ultra insulated homes have major vapor and mold issues. Being highly insulated is good but at a point it's just silly. I'd rather see efforts to insulate old trailers, manufactured homes, etc. Rich people experimenting with zero energy homes don't need a credit.

BenjiWiebe 4y ago
We have a highly insulated home with a heat recovery air exchanger.
swalling 4y ago
The location of the home (Fairhope, Alabama) is in a humid subtropical climate where the average humidity is above 70% year round. I couldn't find any data but seems possible that the net average interior humidity is not actually that low?
olau 4y ago
I agree on low humidity being bad, but your remark on insulation does not seem correct. I'm only familiar with cold climates, so perhaps I'm overlooking something, but mold needs moisture to grow, so it will appear where water condenses out of warm air on a cold surface. You can typically see this in windows. So you need to prevent cold surfaces. The best way to do that is improving the insulation. The reason you can see water drops in the windows is precisely because they are inadequately insulated (e.g. only double paned). Now, it's true that if you make an airtight home, then you need some kind of air exchange. And if it's really cold outside, then even if it's wet, once that air is warmed up, it ends up at a low relative humidity. In that case you need a humidifier. I guess depending on the outside air, you'd probably need both to stay in a comfortable range.
- paiute 4y ago
  It's not super intuitive at first, but its cold climates were this is actually a big issue. Water vapor "wants" to equalize from a more humid to less humid environment. So when it's cold out - the humidity can drop rather low. Then you take a shower and create water vapor - which flows into the walls, through the insulation, and condenses against the colder exterior. Open a wall in any stick frame house in the rocky mountain region and mildew will be present. I am building a highly insulated house in a cold climate area and have blasted all the wood with copious amount of a silver based coating to inhibit mold growth.

fwlr 4y ago

So it seems in practice the main way you achieve this certification is to dramatically cut heating losses by using a lot of insulation and make the house essentially air-tight. Obviously you can’t have an air-tight house for very long, you need fresh air. So you have explicit vents for incoming and outgoing air, and you run the incoming air (which is fresh, but not the temperature you want) through a heat exchanger with the outgoing air (which is stale, but is at the temperature you want). This recovers most of the heat you put into your inside air, so you need very little heating to maintain the desired temperature. This is actually a really good thing, I think. The minimum airflow rating these houses have to meet is of course going to be suboptimal, but the hard part of airproofing is already done and it’s easy for the homeowner to simply beef up the heat exchanger and air pump to get ideal airflow. The homeowner can also install an air quality filter on the airpump and now their entire house has filtered air. Great way to get that PM2.5 level down to where it should be!

coffeebeqn 4y ago
Don’t forget moisture. Many many places you can’t just have a sealed up system or you get mold immediately. Insulation and a heat pump is pretty much as good as it gets right now

ovi256 4y ago

What is stopping homeowners from building these better homes today ?

xyst 4y ago
Money
- anonuser123456 4y ago
  Knowledge/Risk is probably a lot more impactful. Builders themselves are slow to adopt new technology vs. do what they’ve always done. Part of that is because it’s hard to learn news things. Part of it is because new things have lots of unknown and builders shoulder that risk.
- ovi256 4y ago
  Then what is this regulation solving exactly ? Building standards just make building less than standard illegal. They don't increase building buying power.

xyst 4y ago

I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. This is all very expensive to build and maintain, and the cities and municipalities are left to foot the bill. American housing is a Ponzi scheme and this only helps perpetuate it. We need to reverse this trend with significant investments in public transportation and other alternative forms of transportation which can scale to meet the needs of the future. We need to build vertically and re-claim back the resources allocated for car centric design (ie, highways, parking lots, parking garages, roads, street parking) and re-allocate it for more housing, businesses, and public transportation. Entities that can generate new income for the municipality and city. In parallel, can work to preserve our existing natural green spaces and hopefully over time expand those green spaces which give us breathable air, drinkable water, protection from natural elements (ie, floods or long periods of torrential rain), and help keep viruses and other bad elements out of human populations.

deleted 4y ago
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Syonyk 4y ago
> All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. If you're 20 miles outside a town, you almost certainly have electrical service, but are on a well and septic system. City water and sewer doesn't make sense at those sort of densities. You also probably have the land to easily put a nice ground mount PV array in, and grow a good bit of your own food, should you care to.
- themitigating 4y ago
  I don't think this is the case for suburbs, at least for water. Septic tanks are used I think

notShabu 4y ago

A GPT blurb about what goes into a zero energy ready home: > There are several core technologies and products that go into creating a Zero Energy Ready Home. These include: Advanced insulation materials: These materials are used to reduce heat loss and gain through walls, roofs, and floors. Examples of advanced insulation materials include spray foam insulation, rigid foam insulation, and blown-in cellulose insulation. High-performance windows: These windows are designed to minimize heat loss and gain and to improve comfort and natural lighting. They typically have low-e coatings, multiple panes, and insulated frames. Efficient heating, cooling, and ventilation systems: These systems use advanced technologies to reduce energy consumption and provide a comfortable indoor environment. Examples include geothermal heat pumps, air-source heat pumps, and energy recovery ventilation systems. Solar panels: These panels are used to generate renewable energy and can be installed on the roof or integrated into the building envelope. They can provide enough energy to power the home and even send excess energy back to the grid. Energy-efficient appliances and lighting: These products use less energy than conventional models and can help further reduce energy consumption in the home. Building automation systems: These systems allow homeowners to control and monitor energy use and other home systems remotely, which can help optimize energy efficiency and comfort. Producers of these products include a variety of companies, from large multinational corporations to smaller regional manufacturers. Some examples of companies that produce products for Zero Energy Ready Homes include Owens Corning and Johns Manville for insulation, Andersen and Marvin for windows, Carrier and Lennox for HVAC systems, SunPower and Tesla for solar panels, and Nest and Ecobee for smart thermostats. There are many other companies and products available, and choosing the right ones depends on factors such as climate, building design, and budget. >

Syonyk 4y ago
Congratulations, you've found something to describe, in a dull and useless way, the concept of energy efficiency in a home. Blown-in cellulose is "advanced," huh? It doesn't answer any of the specific questions about what's specifically different in a Zero Energy Ready Home from something Energy Star rated, and it's filled with weasel words and vague handwaving statements. I could nitpick the response further against the actual PDF linked elsewhere in the thread, but there's no particular point.
4y ago

awb 4y ago

Tough acronym to say, and spell apparently > … Zero Energy Ready Homes (ZERH) their standard offering. To this point, our ZEHR program … Sometimes acronyms get too cute, but there’s value to something that can easily be said in conversation or in one’s head while writing

Nition 4y ago
Zero Energy Heady Roams. Maybe a mountain walk.

paganel 4y ago

Crazy how the Americans try to create "zero energy homes" (whatever that means) using basically wood structures. Wood is a very, very bad heat insulator. The best proven heat insulator when it comes to building a home is earth itself, that's why for hundreds to thousands of years dug-out huts have been the norm on several continents, for different cultures/civilisations. Granted, you cannot build a macmansion-like house using only earth+some wood.

Baeocystin 4y ago
Almost half of Americans live in an earthquake zone. Wood is a hell of a lot safer than masonry or rammed earth in such conditions.
- gtop3 4y ago
  It's very reasonable to build a masonry structure that is safe in a large earth quake. They are however more likely to suffer major damage during an earthquake. Wood framed houses are less likely to be damaged, and have much cheaper repairs when they are damaged.
- paganel 4y ago
  > Almost half of Americans live in an earthquake zone Apart from CA and maybe some other parts further North where is that earthquake zone? Seriously asking.
  - Baeocystin 4y ago
    A lot more of the continent than most people think! Further reading: https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/nearly-half-americans-exposed-potentially-damaging-earthquakes https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/nearly-half-america...
  - farzy 4y ago
    https://www.mtu.edu/geo/community/seismology/learn/earthquakes-midwest-east/ https://www.mtu.edu/geo/community/seismology/learn/earthquak...

ahoy 4y ago

This is good, in the way that filtered cigarretes are better than unfiltered. As long we we keep building & being forced to live in low density, single-family houses, we'll keep consuming the huge physical and energy resources necessary to sustain them. I'm not saying we have to turn every neighborhood into manhattan, far from it. But this is similar to the gas -> electric car change. Yeah, it's a marginal improvement on what we're doing now, but its so far away from the kind of changes we need to make that it's almost dispiriting to see it presented as some kind of remarkable progress.

mym1990 4y ago
Who is forcing you to live in a SFH? Do we need to go confront them?
jonfw 4y ago
I don’t know where you live, but I had to pay extra for my SFH, a condo or townhome in an equivalent location is significantly cheaper

gregwebs 4y ago

What about the existing housing stock? There's a lot of energy upgrades that pay off well over a couple decades, but not when you move an average of every 7 years and the new homeowners don't know how or care to value your upgrades. I think the government could create regulation to fix the incentives here. Something like allowing enhanced energy efficiency to be paid over time by creating a lien on the house that a new homeowner has to continue to make payments towards.

pard68 4y ago

The world has had "zero energy" homes for like fifty years now in the form of earthships, but government entities have prevented them from reaching a wider audience because of laws which prohibit most non-stickframe homes.

ChuckMcM 4y ago

This would be more effective if California would force its energy suppliers (PG&E, SCE, Etc.) to offset watts for watts on Solar installs. They won't because people like me would then no longer pay for electricity.

DoreenMichele 4y ago

Contrary to what I am seeing in comments on HN, this is not just for single family detached housing. If you go to the ZERH website, under Program Requirements it says: Versions 1 and 2, Single Family, Multifamily, and Manufactured Homes https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home-program https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... Additionally, one of the photos in the featured article has the following caption: Lopez Community Land Trust built this 561-square-foot affordable home on Lopez Island, Washington, to the high-performance criteria of DOE's Zero Energy Ready Home program that delivers a $20-per-month average monthly energy bill. I've said for years we need to go back to more passive solar design as our baseline standard because it is both more energy efficient and more comfortable for humans. It protects the environment while improving quality of life. It's a myth that you can't see gains in both areas. I'm also happy to see the caption because we need to do a better job of supporting high quality of life in small towns, not just big cities. Trends in recent decades mean small towns suck because they lack services and big cities suck if you aren't one of the wealthy. That wasn't always true and programs like this can improve and strengthen both small town and urban environments while mitigating the burden suburbs currently represent.

beebmam 4y ago
It seems unbelievably stupid to me to build solar panel based homes where I live: the northwest US. Makes a heck of a bunch of sense in CA or TX though.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Passive solar design is about creating a home which needs little energy to stay at a comfortable temperature. It's unrelated to generating electricity via solar power panels.
- rypskar 4y ago
  Solar is more effective in low temperatures than in high temperatures. Also northwest US is max around 49 degrees north, which is around Paris in Europe and it is normal to have solar much farther north in Europe

fastball 4y ago

Wildly tangential, but can I sign a petition somewhere for energy capacity to stop being measured in Wh? It's such a dumb unit of measurement. We already have a base unit of energy, which is Joules. Dividing J by seconds to get W and then multiplying that by hours to get franken-joules is so unnecessary and makes the math harder for no reason and it makes me mad every time I deal with it.

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lloydatkinson 4y ago

With a dumb name like that it sounds like its homes with no electricity supply or gas supply or running water...

misja111 4y ago

Am I the only one who was still wondering what a 'zero energy ready home' is after reading the entire article? So I followed a link, that led me to this definition: > A DOE Zero Energy Ready Home is a high-performance home that is so energy efficient that a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use And now I still don't know. What is a 'high-performance home'? And what exactly is the criterium to decide if 'a renewable energy system could offset most or all the home's annual energy use'?

LatteLazy 4y ago

It's important to have a plan, to get ready, in case we do something we have no intention of doing.

thesaintlives 4y ago

They sure are! Electricity and gas are so expensive I can not afford to turn them on. Brave new world..