Recently one of our E-Council board members attended the Affordable Comfort Institute’s annual conference.
ACI is a nonprofit professional association dedicated to making every home healthy, comfortable and resource-efficient and considers itself an unbiased go-to resource for home performance and weatherization.
The attendees were a mixture of utility energy program managers, building science consultants and home-performance and weatherization contractors.
The conference was a great opportunity to get a national perspective on this whole-home energy efficiency movement. One thing that became apparent quickly was that there was little representation from the Southeast, especially Florida.
California, the Midwest, the Northwest and the Northeast dominated the attendees and workshop presenters. California has legislation requiring all new construction to be Net-Zero by the year 2020, and Seattle has a movement to have the city achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2030.
Depending on your perspective, you may be thinking, “Hey, that is pretty cool” or “Those are some crazy energy nuts that don’t understand that real people with real money don’t care about that stuff.” Whatever your opinion, it is clear that in some of largest housing markets in the county serious efforts are being made by homeowners, utility companies and contractors to focus on energy efficiency.
A few workshops really stood out. The Department of Energy’s Building America program presented its new Building America Solution Center website, basc.pnnl.gov, as well as some of its recent research initiatives.
The website includes information on almost every building topic imaginable as it relates to building performance and energy efficiency. Each topic included a basic scope, a detailed description of the technique, common pitfalls, climate-specific considerations, good and bad examples for training purposes, CAD details, code compliance and Energy Star compliance information.
Another topic that received a large amount of attention was ductless mini-split heat pump. These wall-mounted, split-system heat pumps have apparently been gaining popularity.
Several studies have shown their effectiveness during the heating season, which has typically been a knock against most heat pumps. The benefits of the ductless mini-split heat pumps were high efficiency (15-21 SEER), ease of installation and ability to condition spaces previously unreachable by forced air systems.
Many of the applications discussed were for existing homes where a bonus room over a garage was not comfortable or the homeowner was looking to replace a much less efficient heat fuel such as oil, propane, electric resistance. The demand for this technology continues to increase across the country.
All in all it was a great conference, and if these other housing markets are only a preview of what may make its way to Northeast Florida, then NEFBA’s E-Council can be a great resource to help educate and train.