Publications

From August 1997 to September 1999, one hundred new Arkansas homes were evaluated in two areas in the state where there was significant building activity in order to determine the energy performance of current building practices. One of the positive findings was that homes are now being built significantly tighter than a few years ago. Homes built in the early to in.id 1990's were experiencing an average of 0.5 natural air changes per hour (NACH), an acceptable level considered normal for new construction Only 24 homes in this evaluation had leakage rates exceeding 0.4 NACH; the majority of homes (58 percent) had leakage rates of 0.35 and under.

The objective of this report is to assess the compliance of newly-constructed single-family homes with the Vermont Residential Building Energy Standards (RBES). This analysis is part of a broader study of the single-family residential new construction market in Vermont.

This guide includes practical plan review and inspection resources, including the U.S. Department of Energy Building Energy Codes Program's REScheck™ and COMcheck™ quick reference guides, case studies, and sample inspection checklists; as well as excerpts from International Code Council's commentaries, workbooks, and code companion materials.

This collection also includes many other helpful items and points to further resources available on the web. Residential and commercial building officials can easily add state and local guidance in order to use this binder as a one-stop resource to support compliance in the field.

This guide provides key information to policy makers on energy codes and standards and offers guidance on how policy makers can support the creation of statewide energy efficiency goals and standards. In addition, this guide instructs policy makers on how they can:

• Encourage the adoption of statewide codes.
• Establish energy code awareness programs.
• Support enforcement of and compliance with energy codes.
• Participate in the development of model codes and standards.
• Determine the viability of the new code.

This report provides the results and methodologies for the 2010-2011 Iowa Energy Code Pilot Study that was conducted by the Iowa Department of Public Safety, division of State Fire Marshal, State Building Code Bureau. This study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy with support from Pacific Northwest National Laboratories – Building Energy Codes Project and the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA). Preliminary work on the study began in May of 2010. A contract with MEEA was signed in October 2010 with work commencing on the study in January 2011. The primary goal of the study was to determine the rate of compliance with the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code throughout the state of Iowa. Secondary goals of the study were to determine average energy code inspection durations, provide training to local code officials and builders participating in the study, and to determine areas of improvement.

The goals of this study were threefold: 1) Provide feedback to the BECP on the implementation of the BECP protocol 2) Develop a preliminary pattern/range of the existing compliance rates of newly constructed residential dwellings and commercial buildings based on jurisdictions in Illinois that have adopted the building energy codes and 3) Identify areas where home performance and codes training and education activities could be improved or refocused. Measurements of a small sample set (10) of commercial buildings were also taken. Due to the insignificance sample size, a commercial compliance rate is not reported here.

This guide provides key information on energy codes tailored for architects and provides guidance on how they can support the adoption of new or updated energy codes and the resources needed to ensure compliance with what is adopted. The guide also includes information on the importance of architects in the development and compliance verification processes; information on the interface between codes and the design process; design and compliance tools; information on building construction and commissioning, and many other resources that are key to helping architects understand the important role energy codes through the design process play in addressing our energy, economic and environmental challenges.

This guide provides an aid that will make it easier to apply the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) control requirements found in building energy codes and addresses requirements defined by 2009 and 2012 editions of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 and ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2010.

This guide is a resource for understanding the air leakage requirements in the 2012 IECC and suggestions on how these measures can be met. It also provides information from Building America’s Air Sealing Guide, best Practices and case studies on homes that are currently meeting the provisions. The 2012 IECC and a few International Residential Code requirements are referenced throughout the guide.

This Executive Summary provides a high level review of the results for the Rhode Island Energy Code Compliance Baseline Study. In this section, we state the study objectives, summarize the evaluation approach, and present key findings, conclusions and recommendations.

This guide provides information for anyone dealing with a lighting energy code or standard. It provides background and development information to help readers understand the basis for requirements and their intent. The guide also provides detailed explanations of the major types of requirements such that users can more effectively design to meet compliance while applying the most flexibility possible.

This technical support document (TSD) is designed to explain the technical basis for the COMcheck software as originally developed based on the ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-1989 (Standard 90.1-1989). Documentation for other national model codes and standards and specific state energy codes supported in COMcheck has been added to this report as appendices. These appendices are intended to provide technical documentation for features specific to the supported codes and for any changes made for state-specific codes that differ from the standard features that support compliance with the national model codes and standards. Beginning with COMcheck version 3.8.0, support for 90.1-1989, 90.1-1999, and the 1998 IECC and version 3.9.0 support for 2000 and 2001 IECC are no longer included, but those sections remain in this document for reference purposes.

This study was conducted to estimate as-built energy use characteristics for homes that were not part of the Energy Efficiency Fund New Construction Program (RNC) as a baseline for the RNC Program. Resulting information will be applied to estimation of the net effects of the RNC Program on efficiency improvements. Additionally, these results are used to establish preliminary estimates of User Defined Reference Home (UDRH) inputs to be used as baseline characteristics against which construction within the RNC Program can be compared. Findings are based on the results of on-site inspections, including Home Energy Rating System (HERS) ratings, of 69 homes that were not part of the RNC program, were completed from November 2009 through July 2011, and whose owners agreed to have their home inspected.

This report presents the results of a Study on the rate of compliance with the New York State (NYS) energy code. The Study tested the protocols developed by the US Department of Energy to determine if NYS’s new and renovated residential and commercial buildings exceed the 90% compliance threshold that states will be will be required to meet by 2017 as part of ARRA legislation. This Study performed detailed plan review and field inspections on 44 newly constructed residential and 26 new commercial buildings. The Study also included interviews with policy makers, contractors, engineers, architects, and code officials; and surveys of architects, homeowners, builders, and code officials who planned, constructed and inspected renovations.

The Nebraska Energy Office (NEO) commissioned Britt/Makela Group, Inc. (BMG) to assess compliance with the commercial provisions of the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The goals of the project were to: 

• Assess compliance rates for projects that represented typical commercial construction in Nebraska 
• Collect information on energy code compliance issues that could be used to establish a framework for future energy code implementation programs in the state.

Presentation slides prepared for Residential Field Study stakeholder participants.  

The U.S. Department of Energy has provided funding for states to conduct residential field studies, with the purpose of identifying opportunities for energy code training & education in new construction. The participation of builders and local building departments is crucial in supporting this important activity.  This Fact Sheet summarizes this field study.

Presentation slides from a 12/7/15 webinar that provided an overview of the U.S. Department of Energy Building Energy Codes residential field study, including methodology, sampling and current status. Data gathered across 10 states were reviewed, followed by a summary of initial findings that can inform future education & training activities. The potential savings associated with these activities were also be presented, which are of interest to government agencies, utilities and other entities.

Residential Energy Code Field Study Contact List; 011516.

A research project in the state of Maryland investigated energy code-related aspects of residential single-family new construction. The study was initiated in January 2015 and continued through July 2015. During this period, research teams visited 207 homes during various stages of construction, resulting in a substantial data set based on observations made directly in the field.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), funded by DOE, conducted an assessment of the prospective impacts of national model building energy codes from 2010 through 2040. A previous PNNL study evaluated the impact of the Building Energy Codes Program; this study looked more broadly at overall code impacts. This report describes the methodology used for the assessment and presents the impacts in terms of energy savings, consumer cost savings, and reduced CO2 emissions at the state level and at aggregated levels.