To 'green' the world's buildings, think retrofits

BOSTON--The cutting edge of building science these days seems to be more about expanding foam than solar power research.

Last Wednesday, I stopped by the Building Energy Conference put on by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA). If there was one theme that jumped out, it was energy efficiency.

Insulating and air sealing a building, with stuff like expanding foam, has always been a sensible way to lower utility bills. But weatherizing homes is increasingly seen as the first and vital step to perhaps more exciting technologies like solar and wind.

Needed: more green-tech gear like solar hot water tubes to make existing homes energy-efficient.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

At the morning keynote discussion, Mark Rosenbaum of building firm Energysmiths, which specializes in energy-efficiency retrofits, argued that "fixing" the millions of existing homes through efficiency will have a far bigger impact on lowering greenhouse gas emissions than any new constructions.

"The majority of the potential is in retrofits," he said. "If you're increasing the building stock one percent a year, it's not going to get you anywhere. You have to fix the existing building stock."

Installing solar panels on an efficient home will have a bigger impact than on a home that isn't well insulated or doesn't use efficient appliances, he noted.

Rosenbaum pointed to several examples of retrofit homes in the New England area that were able to reduce their energy consumption significantly--some over 50 percent. Many steps are relatively easy, such as reducing the parasitic load from appliances, while others require bigger investments and changes to behavior.

Realistically, a 70 percent improvement--a goal set in an initiative called the Thousand Home Challenge--is challenging but doable in many cases. Some super-insulated homes--well-sealed homes with insulation on the outside of the structure--with renewable energy systems like solar panels have shown that they can be net producers of energy.

At this point, there isn't a standardized way in the U.S. of reporting a building's energy performance. In Germany, the Passivhaus standard for air-tight homes that use efficient energy technologies such as ground-source heat pumps have set the benchmark around the world.

Because of the wide variety of climates, there need to be different techniques for making homes efficient, said Rosenbaum. He sees a very high demand for green technology home products and much more skilled labor in this field.

"Where are we going to find enough people who know what they're doing?" Rosenbaum said. "We need a lot of people to get trained. Otherwise, we're going to create a lot of disasters."

Photo quiz: Gear for green buildings

[a_aylett]

Retrofits are definitely where it is at. The big question though is how do we roll them out at a big scale? Incentives and rebates haven't had all that much effect in getting all the millions of individual homeowners to invite a contractor into the attic.

Cities like Berkely, Portland and Toronto have been experimenting with different ways of managing city-wide building upgrades. In essence, we need to find mays of managing retrofits the same way we manage any other utility or service. I've written more on this here: http://openalex.blogspot.com/2009/03/retrofittingeverything.html

and

http://openalex.blogspot.com/2009/03/berkeley-alternative-solar-financing.html

[Dango517]

"Where are we going to find enough people who know what they're doing?" Rosenbaum said. "We need a lot of people to get trained. Otherwise, we're going to create a lot of disasters."

If it says put in 11 inches of insulation then put in 11 inches of insulation. There! You've been trained. This is basic non skilled labor. They might need a few more inspectors and industrial laborers to work in the insulation mills but this is certainly not a major problem. Wonder how many out of work industrial and construction workers there are?

There are more then enough Federal, State and local building codes concerning insulation and weather stripping already. In short ............. standards! There are standards a plenty.

A botched insulation job might cause dry rot or mold in your attic. Insulation plus a leaking roof equals your ceiling ends up in your lap. Inspect your roof and replace it before this becomes a problem. An insulated attic must be ventilated to prevent mold and dry rot. Simple problems, simple solutions, no crisis here that I can see..

[greenwasher]

An important element of buildings going green is a computer that can moniter consumption and give you an idea where energy is leaking from. My HOA is meeting with this group http://solarcommunities.com
They are integrating panels into our roofing and providing this interesting computer interface. We want to be the most green HOA in SoCal.