What is a High-Performance Home?
Suppose your neighbor asks you to come check out their “high-performance home.” You see no physical difference between your house and theirs, but you’re intrigued. Once inside, you begin to realize it’s quieter at the neighbor’s than at your house; you don’t feel a draft on your neck when you sit near a window; the surfaces of things like the coffee table and the walls are not cold to the touch, and the tables and countertops are noticeably dust-free. You just feel really comfortable.
“Everything about a high-performance home feels different, in the comfort, the quiet, and, of course, every month when you get a utility bill, it’s really obvious,” says Sam Rashkin, chief architect of the Department of Energy’s building technologies office in the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy and author of Housing 2.0: A Disruption Survival Guide. “A high-performance home lives better, works better, and is going to last better.”
When you think about a high-performance home, says Sara Gutterman, CEO, Green Builder Media, “it’s a home in which all the elements of the house work together in tandem to enhance the home’s performance.”
Whether you purchase a new build or retrofit your existing home, it’s possible to create a home that works and lasts better by paying attention to the following five factors, according to Rashkin.
Factor #1 Building Science
For homeowners, energy use costs money — more and more of it each year — and is of concern in terms of the planet’s health. The bulk of the conversation about high-performance building is about energy efficiency, getting the most out of systems so energy is not wasted.
“You have to look at all six sides of a home with respect to energy efficiency,” Gutterman says. You need a comprehensive approach to make sure the building envelope contributes to high energy efficiency — and a healthful environment.
The “building envelope” is your home’s exterior. It fights off the elements through its structural integrity. It helps control moisture, temperature, air pressure. In addition, “there’s windows, doors, the enclosure, how airtight, how well insulated,” says Rob Howard, a developer and high-performance home builder and president of Howard Building Science[sf2] in North Carolina. “Once those are dialed in, we can make sure the HVAC system is properly sized and running as efficiently as possible for the lowest cost.”
Factor #2 Connected Living
Smart homes help reduce your carbon footprint and save on energy costs since you can manage and monitor appliances and systems remotely from anywhere in the world. These are things that can be “as basic as a ‘smart’ thermostat and as sophisticated as ‘demand-side energy management systems,’ in which you have a two-way conversation with the grid and shift energy use from peak times to off-peak times,” Gutterman says. “And there are even systems available for off-grid homes to help them conserve energy for battery storage.”
The important thing is to have all your systems “talk” to each other to be able to “maximize convenience, operations and everything else [sf3] about the house,” Rashkin says.
Factor #3 Indoor Air Quality
Consider these three statements: the average person takes about 20,000 breaths each day; we spend 90% of our time indoors; Covid has put us on high alert regarding the air we breathe.
To improve indoor air quality (IAQ), you need a comprehensive system for fresh air to enter and circulate throughout your home. As homes have gotten better insulated and more tightly built, this balance has become particularly important. “You have to offset tighter homes with fresh air exchanges and whole home and spot ventilation systems, particularly in kitchens and bathrooms,” Gutterman says.
While IAQ is tied to the HVAC system, it also is affected by the materials used in building products and home furnishings. “You don’t want to drag chemicals into your built environment that you’re going to be breathing in,” Howard says. “Builders have a lot of choices [sf6] to make in regard to materials that have a dramatic impact on IAQ.”
Factor #4 Water Efficiency
Depending on where you live in the nation, water will be more or less of an issue, but at the very least, you want to avoid wasting water.
The dual-flush toilet is a great example. Toilets make up almost 30% of a home’s indoor water use. Gutterman points out that “low-flow toilets and water fixtures and leak detection and monitoring systems have improved over the years.”
A high-efficiency toilet uses only as much water as is needed for the job. Since 1992, high efficiency meant using 1.6 gallons per flush, but the new EPA standard[sf9] is 1.28 gallons per flush, which uses 20% less water. This can save a household about 13,000 gallons and $140 in water costs each year.
Gutterman adds that “there are also smart irrigation systems and gray water systems to help homeowners recycle and reuse water in an efficient and intelligent way.”
Factor #5 Resilience
A high-performance home needs to be climate responsive. Resilience is geographically specific: in the West, you’ve got to be aware of wildfires, extreme temperatures, and drought. In the East, there are superstorms, flooding, hurricanes, and tornadoes. There’s sea level rise on the coasts.
“You want a home that will help you avoid disaster risks and then is ready to be occupied to the degree possible post-event,” Rashkin says. “You can’t call a home located in a hurricane zone high performance if it’s not prepared for that.”
High-performance home builders will consider climate-appropriate product selections for exteriors and resilient materials such as metal roofing and fire-resistant siding.
Must you have all these factors buttoned up to have a high-performance home? Not necessarily, and there are varying levels of performance that you can strive to meet to fulfill your goals (see box). Keep in mind, though, that the residential building industry is on a journey to put in place more rigorous high-performance home standards for new construction and retrofits, just as commercial building already has done.
Bottom Line
Will it cost more to build a high-performance home? “Yes and no,” Rashkin says. “There are credits and debits. What's frustrating is that people are making decisions without looking at future value cost savings that are embedded.”
For example, Rashkin says with a high-performance home, you will have substantial savings on water, on avoiding the cost of needing a generator in case of disaster, on health issues, on maintenance issues. “The energy savings alone over 30 years can be $20,000 to $40,000.”
It’s less costly to build in these high-performance systems at the start than to do so later. “With a better-built enclosure, you need a much smaller HVAC system and a much smaller duct system and much smaller equipment. If I make an unvented attic that's much more efficient, I don't need all that air sealing and air barriers between the attic and the house. I don't need to put in wind baffles. I can put in my duct systems without having to be insulated. These are all cost savings. And then, I have all that additional volume that might be worth $60,000, $70,000 as a work-at-home space or an additional office,” Rashkin says.
Now, because of tax credits, if your builder is “value engineering your solution, the additional cost for high performance can be the same or less than for just code minimum,” Rashkin says. Both homeowners and builders can avail themselves of these credits.
For homeowners, tax credits, available through 2032, will provide up to $3,200 annually to lower the cost of energy-efficient home upgrades by up to 30 percent. According to EnergyStar.gov, these improvements include installing heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, insulation, doors and windows, as well as electrical panel upgrades, home energy audits and more. And “homeowners can also take advantage of the modified and extended Residential Clean Energy credit, which provides a 30% income tax credit for clean energy equipment, such as rooftop solar, wind energy, geothermal heat pumps and battery storage through 2032, stepping down to 22% for 2033 and 2034.”
For builders, the new credits, known as Section 45L Tax Credit for Energy Efficient New Homes, go into effect January 1, 2023, and last through 2032. There are two tiers for new single-family and manufactured homes: $2,500 for those certified to ENERGY STAR® level and $5,000 for those certified Zero Energy Ready Home. The hope is that these savings can be passed along to homebuyers.
As building codes and standards tighten, Gutterman says, “a high-performance home is going to be more of the norm.”
Certification establishes a threshold of performance, and then an independent third party — someone other than the builder — verifies that threshold is achieved. “There’s almost a natural staircase of rigor with these verification processes,” Rashkin says.
Home Energy Rating System
A HERS rater will do an energy analysis of your home’s design, if it’s to be constructed, or of your existing home. Once the home is built, the rater works with a builder to make sure the house, at the very least, meets RESNET’s standards. Your home gets a score; the closer to 0, the more energy efficient. HERS scores are the new construction industry’s standard method to model a home’s energy usage. They are the most common method to meet modern energy codes that offer performance pathways, as well as meeting core aspects of the ENERGY STAR and Zero Energy Ready home labels.
Home Energy Score
The Department of Energy’s Better Buildings program has a program that estimates energy use and costs and offers energy recommendations and solutions to help improve an existing home’s energy efficiency. The score is represented on a scale of 1 to 10. The higher the score, the more efficient the home.)
ENERGY STAR
This federal government-backed program helps you save money by identifying and labeling energy-efficient products and practices.
Indoor airPLUS
An EPA labeling program that helps new home builders improve IAQ.
Zero Energy Ready Home
A Department of Energy program to verify that a home is so energy efficient that it offsets most of the home’s energy use and that the home is comfortable, healthy and durable.
Passive House
A building method that employs the most rigorous guidelines for ensuring an airtight enclosure and managing heating, cooling, and moisture for maximum livability.
Living Building Challenge
This program has the highest tier of rigor. It covers not only the building but considers the embodied energy of the building products and materials as well as other environmental and social justice factors.
Pearl Certification Services
Pearl documents a home’s high-performing features and communicates the value of those features to homeowners, homebuyers, real estate agents, appraisers, and lenders. Pearl certifies the “facts” of a home, such as the home’s insulation levels and appliances, as well as whether the home has earned a score (e.g., HERS, HES, other) or a label (e.g., ENERGY STAR, Zero Energy Ready).
As you consider either retrofitting your home to a higher performance level or purchasing a newly built high-performance home, look for industry professionals who are certified and have the knowledge to get you to the level you want to achieve.