Craig Malin and his wife came upon their dream vintage farmhouse--but didn't bid on it because of possible lead paint contamination. But when later they saw an almost exact newly built replica, they bought it.
While seeking to avoid obvious health dangers, Malin was not ostensibly looking for an environmentally friendly house. Yet, he would have been hard-pressed to have picked a better place to live for learning about a new systems approach to building that seeks to make homes work more efficiently and reduce energy consumption by half. The subdivision he lives in, Prairie Crossing, built in north suburban Grayslake by Shaw Homes, is the largest participant in the Building America program, just one of several new federal projects to improve the energy efficiency of new homes.
About as far as most of us go in researching the energy efficiency of a new home is to inquire about the furnace. If the government gets its way, all new homes will eventually be built to perform better to reduce energy consumption as well as pollution.
Already, two large developments in the Chicago area have joined the Building America program, while several builders in northwest Indiana are participating in the federal program called Energy Star Homes. While the EPA's Energy Star leaves achieving methods of energy savings up to the builder, Building America sets forth how those savings can be achieved.
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Building America works nationally to promote a systems engineering approach for building homes that are more comfortable and more energy-efficient, said Betsy Pettit, a principal of Building Science Corp. of Westford, Mass., one of four consortia working on the project.
"Design is not just about making houses pretty. It's about making houses that work," Pettit said. The government funds half the research, while the rest of the funding comes from industry members who work with builders to test new ways of building better houses without increasing their cost, she explained. Houses are then tested to ensure performance.
Malin, who bought his house at Prairie Crossing before the development started participating in the Building America program, estimates he saves as much as 30 percent a month on utility bills compared to his smaller, older townhouse. The Building America homes are estimated to be twice of efficient as what Malin is experiencing, said Dave Richmond, vice president of construction for Shaw Homes.
When it came time for Town & Country Homes to propose participating in the Building America program for its new development, Centennial Crossing, in Vernon Hills, there were already believers in the village government. Malin, coincidentally, is assistant village manager, and he acted as an important ally within the village to enable the builder to employ some of the program's prescribed new building techniques, some of which are different from code requirements, said Rick Bush, vice president of purchasing for Town & Country.
"What really interested us about Building Science was, number one, it would help us build a better house," Bush said. Town & Country originally consulted with one of the principals of Building Science, Joseph Lstiburek, prior to the Centennial Crossing project to help solve problems with air flow and settlement, Bush said, noting that the long-term solution was to build to prevent these problems in the first place.
Pettit said a prime warranty problem builders experience is, ironically, the result of building tighter, more energy-efficient houses. The average new house consumes half the energy of homes built before 1980, due to more efficient heating and cooling, better windows, better control of air infiltration and greater use of insulation, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
What can happen is moisture builds up inside the house, resulting in problems that can cause paint and siding failures as well as poor indoor air quality, Pettit said. The remedy is to improve airflow within the house by including a mechanical ventilation system, not by bringing back leaky construction, Pettit said. "When you have uncontrolled air leakage, one-half the energy goes right out the leaks," she explained. "Poor indoor air quality can happen in leaky as well as tight homes . . . We have a system that is under $250 that installs on an existing furnace."
Among the other techniques Building Science recommends are:
- Using 2- by 6-inch studs, 24 inches on center instead of 2- by 4-inch studs, 16 inches on center. This creates more room for insulation and decreases the heat loss through wood, which acts as a thermal bridge. The amount of wood used remains the same.
- Using insulated foam board for sheathing the house instead of plywood or oriented strand board, which is more expensive, and using plywood only at the corners for its strength. This step allows the builder to eliminate the use of house wrap, such as Tyvek.