How to Incorporate Renewable Energy Sources into Home Building
According to the NAHB, energy efficiency remains one of the most desired components among new and prospective home buyers. In 2020, NAHB surveyed more than 3,000 home buyers, both recent and prospective, on the types of features they prefer to have in their homes, including eco-friendly components and designs, and that still rings true today. Some of the most requested features buyers want to see in home plans are ENERGY STAR-rated windows and appliances, efficient lighting that uses less energy than traditional bulbs, and an ENERGY STAR rating for the whole house.
Benefits of Integrating Renewable Energy in Homes
Integrating renewable energy in homes can have both financial and environmental benefits. Not only do energy-efficient systems decrease the home’s carbon footprint, but materials such as solar panels pay for themselves. So even though they cost more up-front, they can save money over the life of the system.
Steps to Implement Renewable Energy in Home Construction
Any new home construction or home remodel requires a whole-house systems approach, which considers the house as an energy system with interdependent parts, each of which affects the performance of the entire system.
When planning a remodel, first conduct an energy audit to find how the home uses energy in its current state and determine how to cut energy use and cost.
Another important step to implementing renewable energy in home construction is green building certifications. Certifying a project to an above-code, voluntary water efficiency rating system, for example, provides independent confirmation of the water-saving practices that have been installed and validates that the home was built to a higher standard than what code requires.
The National Green Building Standard (NGBS) is an ANSI-approved residential building standard that demonstrates high-performance building in six areas: Lot Design and Development, Resource Efficiency, Water Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Building Operation & Maintenance. Building projects can earn one of four levels — Bronze, Silver, Gold and Emerald — after going though the process overseen by a verifier and certified by the Home Innovation Research Labs.
Utilizing Water-Conserving Technology for Residential Power
A water-driven design approach can help enable continued community development and home building throughout the country. Total hydrology planning is a methodology to identify and utilize all water resources on a project site. It uses strategies best suited to the relationship between the climate and site-specific conditions of a project to achieve a balance between a site’s water supply and demand. Such projects are better positioned to be more resilient to drought and storm events and prevent costly destruction.
Water-conserving fixtures such as toilets, showerheads and faucets are among the top green features. Incorporating these and other water-focused strategies such as ENERGY STAR appliances and structural plumbing can help save time and money on materials and labor and can help home owners save on their utility bills.
