The Opportunity of ENERGY STAR Version 3 - Teamwork!
I've been involved with ENERGY STAR homes since 2004, when it was still in Version 1 of the program. It wasn't called that at the time, though. It was just ENERGY STAR. At that time, a home needed only one inspection, which occurred when the house was finished.
Version 2, which started in 2006, introduced the predrywall inspection, during which the HERS rater had to complete the Thermal Bypass Checklist, and included stiffer HVAC requirements. The house had to have a Manual J heating and cooling load calculation, and the cooling system had to be sized to no more than 115% of the cooling load (or the next available size in some cases).
In Versions 1 and 2, builders could get their houses qualified for the ENERGY STAR label without fully buying into the program - and many did just that. They paid a home energy rater and expected that person to do all the work and hand them their certificate at the end.
HVAC contractors reluctantly cranked out Manual J load calculations, which often were not correct, and often tried to oversize beyond the ENERGY STAR limits. Yes, even with inflated load calculations, the air conditioners were still oversized a lot of times.
I believe that's going to change with Version 3. The requirements are stiffer, and the growing trend of 'leedigation' (a combination of LEED, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building program of the US Green Building Council, and litigation) is starting to get the attention of stakeholders in certification programs.
Participants have two real choices now: They can drop out of the program or really buy into it and work as a team to get it done the right way. If a builder, trade contractor, or HERS rater signs off on a checklist that isn’t correct, they open themselves up to liability.
We'll be doing a lot of training for stakeholders in the ENERGY STAR homes program next year to for all those who're ready to embrace the team spirit. We've just set up an ENERGY STAR training page and will be posting our schedule of classes as soon as we have it. You can also download our 16 page white paper for a head start on understanding the new requirements.
Download our free 16 page white paper by clicking the link below:
Photo from jurvetson on flickr.com and used under Creative Commons license