Balancing Act: Seeking Equilibrium Between Cost and Performance in Housing Affordability

Sustainable building certification programs and energy modeling have transformed the way design professionals approach the design and construction of high-performance housing. While the impact of these tools has generally been positive, the value of implementation can be more difficult to assess when working in market sectors like affordable single-family1 housing. In this context, where the cost-benefit question is always front and center, design teams need more detailed information to understand which elements of green certification standards have the greatest impacts with the least added construction costs and to advise their clients accordingly. Implementation requires responsible translation of modeled performance data into realistic expectations for actual operating cost, and common sustainability “best practices” must be reconsidered and recalibrated to variations in building scale and site context. The research study profiled here has been designed to provide the perspective needed to find the balance point between front-end construction costs of improved performance and back-end performance consequences by studying the predicted and actual energy usage of homes built to specific beyond-code standards: Passive House Institute US (PHIUS) and Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Homes (ZERH). The study is built on a small, detached, single-family prototype home developed for the context of the mixed humid climate of Alabama. By constructing two identical prototype homes on the same street, with similar orientation, but with differing energy-related assemblies and details, the authors can evaluate the initial cost of construction associated with achieving these two performance standards against the actual energy use in each home. In addition to gaining insights on the costs and benefits of building to beyond-code energy standards, the study also seeks to illustrate the differences between model-predicted energy use and actual energy consumption with the goal of helping housing provider partners understand how to use modelling as a resource when evaluating alternative construction approaches.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.110.3

Volume Editors
Robert Gonzalez, Milton Curry & Monica Ponce de Leon

ISBN
978-1-944214-40-1