Better Homes, Better Future

R-24 open-cell spray foam. Spray foam has emerged as a highly superior and extremely effective insulator in recent years. This insulation technique creates an air-tight seal to help drastically improve the energy-efficiency and the year-round comfort of your home. LifeStyle Homes uses R-24 open-cell spray foam to create a protective bubble around your home’s living areas. In addition to being a superior insulator, it has the added perks of reducing noise, as well as blocking dust, pollen, and other airborne pollutants for a cleaner, more comfortable environment.

In this webinar, Michael Arblaster will teach attendees about the specifics of pre-drywall inspections and testing. We will discuss the value of third-party pre-drywall inspections and testing for builders and raters, and how they can result in reduced callbacks. We will also examine how this aspect of the rating process has become increasingly important for consistency and defensibility for builders who choose an ERI Path for code compliance.

Take 12 minutes to watch George Casey's presentation about how #homebuilders can thrive during an economic downturn, presented during this week's Builder Benchmark Group retreat hosted by the Mitsubishi Electric Performance Construction Team at Georgia's beautiful Lake Lanier Islands. Go to eeba.org to learn more about how to join. 

Net-zero energy and zero emission homes/buildings are being built ALL across the U.S. and yet so many buyers either don’t know this level of performance, including optimized comfort and minimized maintenance, is within their grasp. Or, if they do know about it, they too often assume it is still “too cutting-edge” and thus too expensive to be in their home. Our panelists on this episode are educating and helping dispel the misunderstanding that this type of performance is only available for the ultra-wealthy. 

Installing Heat Pump Water Heaters (HPWH) in new homes is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to incorporate high-efficiency water heating into buildings. Yet, the vast majority of builders are not familiar with and not using advanced water heating technology.  Join the Advanced Water Heating Initiative (AWHI), EEBA and Electrify Now for a webinar that will profile two American homebuilders who are installing heat pump water heaters in new homes and loving it.

 Our discussion will highlight the experiences these builders have had with this important technology and cover the following topics:   Installing HPWHs in new, all-electric homes. Why builders are installing and love HPWH. What are the benefits and challenges of installing HPWH in new homes?  Are builders modifying their home designs to fit and take advantage of HPWH? What are homeowners saying when they buy homes with HPWHs?  Any lessons that can be applied to installing HPWHs in existing homes? 

 Learning Objectives:  Attendees will learn about general guidelines for how to install heat pump water heaters and how they differ from gas and electric resistance water heaters. Attendees will be informed about how to communicate with customers on the monetary and energy-saving potential of these devices. Attendees will become familiar with how to incorporate heat pump water heaters into new home design and construction. Attendees will understand the role water heaters play in the decarbonization and transformation of the electric grid. 

Panelists:  Juan Fernandez - Owner, CVF Homes in San Antonio Texas Leigha Dickens - Green Building Program Manager, Green Built Alliance  Geoff Wickes - Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance

As momentum continues to build for the adoption/deployment of ENERGY STAR certified heat pump water heaters, one of the most attractive, cost-effective growth vehicles is the new home construction channel. Today's technology offers a multitude of energy-efficient options to meet the ever-changing demands of the home builder. ENERGY STAR Homes and Products Teams and leading manufacturers are empowering a national alliance to ensure the most comprehensive set of resources are available for any residential construction application. This session will define the technology features and product benefits of HPWH, how the product fits into a broader home electrification/decarbonization strategy, and explain strategies to overcome industry objections.  

Once homebuyers purchase new homes often based on infatuation with community and design, bad home performance experiences can negate all the hard work earning customer satisfaction. It is critical to get high-performance right. This course begins that process with lessons-learned from decades of experience as a residential architect and work with thousands of home builders while serving as national director for ENERGY STAR Certified Home and Zero Energy Ready Home. The resulting framework for high performance homes includes five key strategies and over 40 best practices for applying them with substantial cost savings. Most importantly, this framework has been intensively researched, vetted, and refined over five years with hundreds of housing industry executives. The goal is not to dogmatically impose one solution for all, but to engage housing professionals to high-performance as a journey and how to get on their own path. 

Sam Rashkin has earned an international reputation for his work engaging thousands of homebuilders as national director for ENERGY STAR Certified Home and Chief Architect with the U.S. DOE Building Technologies Office directing Zero Energy Ready Home. Over two-and-a-half million high-performance homes have now been certified under these programs. Through this decades of experience, research, and detailed observations, Sam has learned two things. One, high-performance is a critical must-have for success in the housing industry. Two, high-performance is not nearly enough to meet the new user experience imperative. Sam’s latest work and new book, “Housing 2.0 – A Disruption Survival Guide,” provides the guidance needed for high-performance builders to become industry leaders with a comprehensive framework for optimizing the housing user experience.

Download the first two chapters of Housing 2.0 here: https://www.greenbuildermedia.com/housing-2.0#book

Panasonic and Swidget have combined forces to empower your homes to monitor, assess, and optimize the healthy home and a multitude of other home automation possibilities.  

Watch recording here: https://eeba.digitalchalk.com/learn/future-proof-healthy-home-strategies-with-panasonic-and-swidget

Recent studies show that user experience leaders compared to laggards realize 3X greater return to investors and 3X greater resilience during downturns. Housing will not be the exception to this trend. If the “house is a system” in building science, “housing is a system” in user experience. Housing professionals have to be prepared to optimize this total homebuyer experience. High-performance is not enough … not nearly enough. This webinar begins that process with the design experience based on lessons-learned from decades of residential architecture experience and work leading national high-performance home programs. The resulting design optimization framework includes five key strategies and 50 best practices for applying them with substantial cost savings. Most importantly, this framework has been intensively researched, vetted, and refined over five years with hundreds of housing industry executives. The goal is not to dogmatically impose one path, but to engage high-performance housing professionals to understand the opportunities to begin their own critical journey to industry leading user exeriences at lower cost.

Sam Rashkin has earned an international reputation for his work engaging thousands of homebuilders as national director for ENERGY STAR Certified Home and Chief Architect with the U.S. DOE Building Technologies Office directing Zero Energy Ready Home. Over two-and-a-half million high-performance homes have now been certified under these programs. Through this decades of experience, research, and detailed observations, Sam has learned two things. One, high-performance is a critical must-have for success in the housing industry. Two, high-performance is not nearly enough to meet the new user experience imperative. Sam’s latest work and new book, “Housing 2.0 – A Disruption Survival Guide,” provides the guidance needed for high-performance builders to become industry leaders with a comprehensive framework for optimizing the housing user experience.

Download the first two chapters of Housing 2.0 here: https://www.greenbuildermedia.com/housing-2.0#book

Software, specifically software services, has been disrupting industries since the 50's. Marc Andreesen, the founder of Netscape, 10 years ago had a famous article in the WSJ titled "Why Software is Eating the World." Today, that has proven to be true, we experience the phenomenon as online software services that we interact with every day. Sendal software services solve unhealthy living environments by disrupting the current hardware centric approach to high-performance homes. We will be discussing how software services improve the general well-being of the home's occupants and simultaneously reduce the emissions footprint of housing. Sendal services deliver meaningful results; breathable air, energy & water conservation enabling general wellness and well-being of the occupants. We will be discussing how software services recruit both builder built-in tech and consumer tech to deliver highly functional high-performance homes that consumers will be willing to pay for.