Library

Report providing builders in marine climates with guidance for building homes that have whole-house energy savings of 40% over the Building America benchmark with no added overall costs for consumers.

Document providing guidance to U.S. home builders who want to accept the challenge.

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 marine climate.

Report summarizing the guidelines for developing and reporting analytical results in a consistent and meaningful manner for all home energy uses.

Report provides a proposed set of guidelines for estimating the energy savings achieved by a package of retrofits or an extensive rehabilitation of an existing home.

Report summarizing research results for the 30% energy savings level and demonstrates that lead builders can successfully provide 30% homes in the Marine Climate Region on a cost-neutral basis.

Report summarizing research results for the 30% energy savings level and demonstrates that lead builders can successfully provide 30% homes in the Hot-Dry / Mixed-Dry Climate Region on a cost-neutral basis.

Research study describing a number of promising foundation and basement insulation strategies that can meet the requirement for better thermal control in colder climates while enhancing moisture control, health, and comfort.

Report providing a summary of key lessons learned from the first ten years of the Building America program and also included a summary of the future challenges that must be met to reach the programs long term performance goals.

Document providing an example procedure for establishing acceptance-range criteria to assess results from software undergoing BESTEST-EX.

Report describing ventilation system design, including a central fan integrated supply (CFIS) system, made up of a 6-inch outdoor air intake duct connected to the return side of the air handler with a fan cycling control to make sure the fan runs a programmed minimum amount of time.

Report describing the monitored long-term performance of two solar domestic water heating systems in northern climates.

Report evaluating the accuracy of the regression technique used in 2006 by using the same least-squares regression analysis on data created from hourly energy simulation software.

Document providing an example procedure for establishing acceptance-range criteria to assess results from software undergoing BESTEST-EX.

Report presenting the process of a residential retrofit project for houses in the states of Florida and Alabama, including findings at the time of reporting and highlights of the first home to meet the target HERS Index of 70.

Report about field testing that characterizes the uniformity of room-to-room ventilation air distribution under various operating conditions by examining multi-zone tracer gas decay curves and calculating local age-of-air.

Fact sheet describing the function of housewrap, its attributes, and common problems associated with its use, including housewrap vs. building paper and housewrap installation; also published in FEMA P-499 “Home Builder’s Guide to Coastal Construction: Technical Fact Sheet Series.”

Document presenting a cost effective method that was used by four builders in the Gainesville, FL area to construct interior ducts in over a dozen site built homes.

Fact sheet describing how typical wall moisture barrier systems work, the moisture barrier system and common problems associated with them; also published in FEMA P-499 “Home Builder’s Guide to Coastal Construction: Technical Fact Sheet Series.”

Document describing a hygrothermal modeling study, including all of the US climate zones, a range of interior humidity levels and numerous arrangements and types of insulation.

Information sheet about mold mitigation.

Report highlighting the evaluation methods used and extent of wind washing found in a study analyzing wind washing in thirty-two two-story homes.

Report presenting the results of a study evaluating retrofit solutions for addressing the effects of wind washing on homes.

Report briefly reviewing past research on the effects of occupant behavior on residential energy use and then covering a two year pilot evaluation of a low cost residential energy feedback system installed in twenty case study homes in Florida.

Document with information about the most practical methods to achieve whole-wall performance of R-30 or above.

Information sheet about how to reduce thermal bridging in walls.

Report describing steps homeowners can take to improve the indoor air quality in their home, including ventilating, preventing pests, and reducing pollutants in the home.

Information sheet designed for the residential construction and remodeling industries, as well as owners and managers working in affordable housing. This sheet presents building guidance for both new construction and rehabilitation, as well as practices that can be used by property maintenance...

Document reviewing ventilation strategies for different climate zones that also includes schematic drawings and photographs of various ventilation installations.

Information sheet describing refrigerant line installation and system startup procedures.

Presentation providing information about correctly installing ductwork in new and existing homes.

Report identifying the steps to take, with the help of a qualified home performance contractor, to seal unwanted air leaks while ensuring healthy levels of ventilation and avoiding sources of indoor air pollution.

Report about a tool developed to enable users to compare a typical 1970s ranch home against an IECC 2009 code-compliant home of the same configuration and against the 70s base case plus retrofits.

Information sheet about insulation retrofits for the hot-dry climate zones.

Information sheet about exterior insulation in the hot-dry climate zones.

Information sheet about HVAC equipment design to maximize energy efficiency in the hot-dry climate zone.

Information sheet describing solar PV upgrade for an existing homes.

Information sheet describing tankless hot water heating systems in existing homes.

Information sheet describing solar hot water systems in existing homes.

Information about a roof retrofit using a metal, cool roof system.

Information sheet describing tankless hot water heating systems in existing homes.

Information sheet about envelope and roof moisture control retrofit for a home.

Information sheet about window retrofit strategies for hot-dry climates.

Report comparing the performance of seven differing types of residential water heating systems in a side-by-side test configuration over a full year period.

Article describing a research study exploring how effective interior insulation systems are at keeping basements dry and warm.

Case study of new home construction in the hot-humid climate.

Report summarizing results from a study in Massachusetts that aimed to upgrade existing homes and incorporate solar thermal systems.

Factsheet describing the importance of system charging, superheat and subcooling.

Research study describing demonstration homes that provided a wealth of information for the building community in terms of the science, effort, and cost of increasing the energy efficiency of our nation's housing stock.