Library

A guidebook helping builders in hot-humid climates design and construct homes for energy efficiency, durability, health, safety, and comfort.

Report describing measures that builders in mixed-humid climates can use to build homes that have whole-house energy savings of 40% over the Building America benchmark with no added overall costs for consumers.

Document providing guideance and considerations for duct design in an energy efficient house.

Report describing methodology to assess and improve the accuracy of whole building energy analysis for residential buildings.

Brochure intended to provide readers with a working knowledge of residential heating and cooling duct systems.

Article describing selecting insulation for minimizing condensation risks.

Report describing the recommended best practices to achieve energy savings without compromising health or safety.

Document providing a resource to help builders large and small build high-quality, energy-efficient homes that achieve 30% energy savings in space conditioning and water heating in the hot and humid climate.

Guide describing measures that builders in the cold and very cold climates can take to build homes that have whole-house energy savings of 40% over the Building America benchmark with no added overall costs for consumers.

Document illustrating some analysis concepts that are proven to be effective and reliable in analyzing the transient energy usage of advanced energy systems as well as of entire houses.

This report will review, and summarize the current state of understanding and research into enclosures with higher thermal resistance, so-called “High-R Enclosures.” Recommendations are provided for further research.

Document about testing software predictions of retrofit energy savings in existing homes.

Report summarizing the key opportunities, gaps, and barriers identified by the national laboratory white papers discussing long-term 50% energy reduction goals.

Report investigating the nature, strength, and durability of connections between high performance dwellings and developments.

Report about a hybrid condensing water heater (thermal efficiency = 0.973, energy factor = 0.95) installed in an occupied home in Sacramento, California, and monitored for one year to determine the actual in situ efficiency.

Study describing efforts and outcomes in developing color-pigmented roofing products with coatings to increase solar reflectance.

Document providing a resource to help contractors renovate historic houses, while addressing issues such as building durability, indoor air quality, and occupant health, safety, and comfort.

Document presenting a simple starting point to determine the most cost-effective Energy Savings Measure Packages (ESMP) for existing homes to achieve 15% and 30% savings in 37 locations across the United States.

Research study that utilizes EnergyPlus equipped with the moisture capacitance model to analyze the indoor relative humidity in three home types.

Expert meeting held to discuss simplified space conditioning systems in low load homes, including the relationship between advanced thermal enclosures, space conditioning systems and comfort.

Information sheet with an analysis of mini split heat pump systems.

Report describing a simple and general way to generate House Simulation Protocol (HSP)-consistent internal sensible and latent loads in unoccupied homes.

Document providing supplemental information for code enforcement professionals about header hangers in bearing walls.

Report providing information about energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) equipment options to help homeowners cut their energy use, reduce their carbon footprint, and increase their homes comfort, health, and safety.

Report presenting system design packages for cold and mixed-humid climates.

Report that describes BSC's Houses That Work II (HTWII) climate-specific technical resource, beginning with an overall HTWII introduction and four sections explaining the four most important hygro-thermal climate regions: Hot-Humid, Mixed-Humid, Cold, and Hot-Dry/Mixed-Dry.

Report presenting lab evaluation of five heat pump water heaters available in the US market today.

Report proposing mini-split heat pumps as a new retrofit option to replace resistance heating in the Pacific Northwest.

Report documenting the measured performance of six residential ENERGY STAR vapor compression dehumidifiers.

Report describing the sealing and insulating of HVAC duct systems in existing homes.

Document illustrating guidelines for efficient installation of interior duct systems in new housing.

Report covering the fundamental waterproofing strategies for tub and shower assemblies.

Report describing an analysis method for determining optimal residential energy efficiency retrofit packages and applies the analysis method to a 1960s-era home in eight U.S. cities.

Document providing supplemental information for code enforcement professionals about headers in nonbearing walls.

Report providing information about improving the energy efficiency and long-term durability of the buildings that are being reconstructed post Katrina in New Orleans.

Research study about two test homes that are examined with the goal of providing case studies that could be applied to other similar New England homes.

Report providing information based on research and case studies, to remodelers and consumers about opportunities to increase home energy performance.

Report about the impact on the loads when common safety factors are applied to the load calculation process using two houses that meet the 2009 IECC prescriptive path modeled as the accurate baseline.

Document identifying differences between the requirements for construction documents for high performance housing and the documents that are typically produced for conventional housing.

Research study providing a comparison of selected retrofit activity typically done, versus that same retrofit activity approached from an integrated high performance remodeling and quality management perspective.

Report outlining a case study about a building project in the hot-humid climate zone.

Report developed for Habitat for Humanity about lessons learned from demonstration retrofit projects undertaken by Habitat for Humanity affiliates in New York, Maryland, and Pennsylvania; with building systems consulting and technical assistance provided by Steven Winter Associates.

Research study investigating the thermal efficiency of fasteners, namely drywall screws and siding nails, in high-performance wood-framed walls.

Research study describing a detailed 3D computational fluid dynamics model that evaluates the thermal performance of uninsulated wall assemblies.

Document presenting analysis results, focusing on relative humidity (RH) excursions, which are defined as unique events of indoor RH above a threshold.

Report about a project with successful integration of numerous energy-conservation and renewable-energy features into a beautiful, comfortable, and very energy-efficient off-grid home.