Building America Case Study: Zero Energy Ready Home and the Challenge of Hot Water on Demand, Denver, Colorado

A. Herk, T. Beggs

Research output: NRELFact Sheet

Abstract

This report outlines the steps a developer can use when looking to create and implement higher performance standards such as the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH) standards in a community. The report also describes the specific examples of how this process was followed by a developer, Forest City, in the Stapleton community in Denver, Colorado. IBACOS described the steps used to begin to bring the DOE ZERH standard to the Forest City Stapleton community based on 15 years of community-scale development work done by IBACOS. As a result of this prior IBACOS work, the team gained an understanding of the various components that a master developer needs to consider and created strategies for incorporating those components in the initial phases of development to achieve higher performance buildings in the community. An automated scoring system can be used to perform an internal audit that provides a detailed and consistent evaluation of how several homes under construction or builders' floor plans compare with the requirements of the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program. This audit can be performed multiple times at specific milestones during construction to allow the builder to make changes as needed throughout construction for the project to meet Zero Energy Ready Home standards. This scoring system also can be used to analyze a builder's current construction practices and design.
Original languageAmerican English
Number of pages2
StatePublished - 2016

Bibliographical note

Work performed by IBACOS, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/FS-5500-64821

Other Report Number

  • DOE/GO-102016-4745

Keywords

  • Building America
  • community development
  • heating
  • HVAC
  • IBACOS
  • occupant control
  • residential
  • residential buildings
  • ventilation and air conditioning
  • ZERH
  • zero energy ready home

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