Design & Build With Metal: RESNET On The Move

The Residential Energy Services Network, or RESNET, recently held its 2009 annual conference in New Orleans. If the attendance is any indication of the growing need for building energy raters, this was it. Last year’s conference drew about 300 people. This year almost 800 attendees came to New Orleans during Mardi Gras for the event. There is obviously a growing interest in the business of energy rating services, software, products and raters to evaluate our nation’s residential and commercial buildings.

Of course the demand for improved energy efficient buildings is often driven by the increasing stringency of codes and standards. RESNET is an advocacy group as well and they are well connected to the activity on Capitol Hill. In fact, at this year’s Conference, Executive Director Steve Baden described the Policy changes that they will be proposing to Congress. The topics give you an idea of the agenda being advanced by RESNET:

• Create a performance-based whole-house retrofit program, with a goal to retrofit all homes by 2030 to make them more energy efficient.

• Develop a program that would require an energy assessment label to be available at the time of sale.

• Create utility energy efficiency portfolio standards which would require utilities to lower their energy production by a certain percentage through energy efficiency programs with their customers.

• Create performance-based tax incentives. (in 2008 3% of homes qualified for tax credits as ENERGY STAR homes. This needs to increase).

• Change the building codes so that they are based on total energy cost over 30 years. (G8 leaders have endorsed this. Pres. Bush signed this initiative. Pres. Obama has not yet implemented it).

• Develop a standard to make all homes net zero energy by 2030.

• Revise the mortgage financing guidelines to factor in the energy performance of homes, and the savings that can be applied to the value of the home.

• Require energy ratings and cost effective energy improvements be made to all foreclosed homes.

The conference was chock full of seminars on energy efficiency programs, NAHB standards, ENERGY STAR Homes programs, DOE initiatives, EPA initiatives, rating commercial and multi-family high rise buildings, energy efficient mortgage initiatives, codes and standards, green real estate incentives, building rating and labeling experiences from Europe and Japan, building envelope improvements, zero energy buildings, cap and trade impacts, HERS ratings, new software and products, etc.

What was disappointing to me, based on the presentations and comments from the speakers, is that this organization gives little consideration to the impact of a roof on the energy performance of buildings. When the word “roofing” was even shown on slides it was usually related to a potential source of water ingress to a building that a rater needs to watch out for. Yes, the RESNET program checklist for energy raters does have provisions for assessing the energy impact of the roof, based on the type of roof material and the solar reflectance of that material. But the real emphasis seems to be on insulation, windows, air infiltration and air flow, furnace or boiler efficiencies, ducts and HVAC equipment efficiencies. Having said this, based on one of the policy changes that RESNET is proposing, related to performance based whole house assessment, the emphasis is clearly changing from the properties of individual components to the performance of entire assemblies and systems. Our industry would be wise to help RESNET communicate the impact of roofing by introducing some education on cool roofing at the next conference.

The keynote speaker, Ed Mazria of Architecture 2030 fame, also alluded to this as a trend affecting architects’ design processes. The choice between prescriptive and performance based approaches to designing a building may be limited in the near future. It seems that the prescriptive code paths may turn out to become “best practice” benchmarks that a performance-based code-compliant building design is compared against rather than designed according to.

This shift is becoming apparent from information being released by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) and the Building Enclosure Technology and Environment Council (BETEC). In fact, NIBS states in their white paper titled Energy Efficiency and Durability of Buildings at the Crossroads, “It is important to place emphasis on the performance of the building and built assemblies instead of merely on the materials used in those assemblies…”

To this end, the Metal Construction Association recently announced their multi-year arrangement with ORNL to begin research and development on next generation dynamic metal roof and wall assemblies. This is a clear indication that the metal construction industry recognizes that they need to stay ahead of the curve as codes become more stringent and as they change their approach to energy efficiency and prescriptive requirements of the individual components used in a building. Clearly more attention will be focused on the whole building performance, or at least the assembly performance as a whole.

Adding to this shift is the growing interest for the cradle-to-grave, or cradle-to-cradle environmental impact that building assemblies can make. This is analyzed using a Life Cycle Assessment, taking into account the environmental impact of the individual ingredients of each component, from extraction from the ground to manufacture of a product, transportation, use on the building, recycling or disposal, etc. An assembly approach is what is used in the ATHENA Eco Calculator LCA tool which is being piloted in the LEED 2009 program.

So the complexity continues to get worse. More stringent codes are coming. Lower limits on greenhouse gas emissions are coming. Legislation on improving energy efficiency is coming. Increased energy prices are coming. And to head this all off, there is plenty of activity in our industry to properly position metal construction products in the midst of this Perfect Storm.

Scott Kriner is the president and founder of Green Metal Consulting Inc. He is a LEED Accredited Professional who began his career in the metal construction industry in 1981. His company is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, the California Association of Building Energy Consultants and the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET). Scott can be reached by email at skriner1@verizon.net, or by phone at (610) 966-2430. You can also visit him on the web at www.greenmetalconsulting.com.

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