Party Walls

Montgomery County, Maryland recently passed new green building requirements, including adoption of the 2012 International Green Construction Code.  Montgomery County was one of the first jurisdictions in the country to enact a green building law in late 2007. Now, county officials have repealed the original law and replaced it with Executive Regulation 21-15 that will likely reduce requirements for many new buildings.

New Requirements

There are some pretty big changes brought about by the new law, which took effect on December 27, 2017 and includes a six month grace period for projects already under design. New projects permitted after June 27, 2018 will need to comply with the following:

• Projects 5,000 gross square feet and larger must comply, lowered from 10,000 gsf.
• Buildings must meet the 2012 International Green Construction Code (IgCC), replacing the requirement that buildings must meet LEED Certified criteria.
• Residential projects under five stories must use ICC-700/NGBS at the Silver Energy Performance Level.
• R-2 and R-4 portions of Mixed-Use buildings may comply with ICC-700/NGBS and the non-residential portion shall comply with the IgCC or the entire building may comply with IgCC or ASHRAE 189.1
• R-1, non-residential and R-1/Mixed-Use projects may select IgCC, ASHRAE 189.1 or LEED Silver with eight points or more under the Whole Building Energy Simulation path.
• All buildings using the IgCC compliance pathway must achieve a Zero Energy Performance Index (zEPI) score of 50 or lower.

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*click here to read Part 2 of this blog

Project teams pursuing Passive House frequently ask, “Where do we locate the HRV/ERV?” The answer is complex when the Passive House concept is scaled to a multifamily program.  While there are two primary arrangements for HRV/ERV systems, the trade-off is dynamic and needs to be carefully considered as multifamily Passive House projects begin to scale. A low volume HRV/ERV unit ventilating an individual apartment is a unitized HRV/ERV. High volume HRV/ERV units ventilating multiple apartments and often servicing several floors, is referred to as centralized HRV/ERV.

As Passive House consultants we can attempt to address the system arrangement question with building science; however, in New York City rentable floor space is very valuable, so considering the floor area trade-off is of particular interest to project teams. When a unitized HRV/ERV system cannot be located in a drop-ceiling due to low floor-to-floor height, it is placed in a dedicated mechanical closet. This closet is typically no smaller than 10 ft² and includes the necessary ductwork connections to the HRV/ERV unit. The alternative solution is to increase the floor-to-floor height to accommodate the HRV/ERV unit and horizontal duct runs in the ceiling. Centralized HRV/ERV systems, however, allow short horizontal duct runs but require floor space to accommodate vertical shafts. With supply and exhaust ducts coupled together the required floor area is about 8-12 ft². As a result, centralized HRV/ERV systems may actually require more floor area than a unitized system.

Example: In the case of Cornell Tech, vertical supply and exhaust duct work for the centralized HRV/ERV system required 222.5 ft² per floor, or 13 ft² per apartment (see image 1 below). Unitized HRV/ERV mechanical closets would have required an estimated 170 ft² per floor, or 10 ft² per unit (image 2 on right).

Image 1 & 2:  These images compare the amount of floor area required for centralized and unitized HRV/ERV systems. Image 1 on the left, shows the 12ft² floor area required for vertical shafts servicing the centralized ERV at Cornell Tech. Image 2 on the right is hypothetical, showing the typical location and 10ft² floor area required for a unitized HRV/ERV mechanical closet.

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As the Passive House standard continues to make waves across New York City and the U.S., an entirely new design process has evolved to respond to the challenges of higher insulation levels, balanced mechanical ventilation, and perhaps the most difficult hurdle – an air tightness level that most would think is impossible. For the recently certified Cornell Tech building on Roosevelt Island, the tallest Passive House in the world, a several year-long coordinated effort was required to achieve such a feat. So what is the requirement, how is it measured, and what are the strategies and considerations required to achieve it?

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As seen in:

• Spring 2018 edition of BuildingEnergy Magazine (NESEA)
•  August 2017 edition of Green Energy Times

Humans have been trying to harness the power of the sun for millennia. The advent and popularization of photovoltaics in the latter half of the twentieth century made doing so accessible to the masses. Today, solar arrays are commonly seen adorning the roofs of suburban homes and “big-box” retailers, as well as on other landscapes including expansive solar farms and capped landfills. Until recently, the common thread amongst these locations has been the employment of open space. Solar applications have historically been reserved for use in areas of low-to-moderate building density.

By the end of 2050, solar energy is projected to be the world’s largest source of electricity. While utility-scale solar will comprise the majority of this capacity, there will also be significant growth in the commercial and residential sectors – particularly in cities. Industry influencers are increasingly focused on creating opportunities for solar applications in high-density areas, where much of the demand lies.

In their 2014 Technological Roadmaps for solar PV and solar thermal electricity (STE), the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts Solar PV and STE to represent over 25% of global electricity generation by 2050.

 

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Healthy Building Materials as Contributors to Overall Human Health

What do you think of when you hear the term “healthy living?” A balanced diet? Physical activity? What about healthy building materials? The concept of healthy living can — and should — be extended to include anything that can affect people’s health either directly or indirectly. With this in mind, the impacts of building materials on occupants’ health is a growing concern of building industry professionals because exposure to unhealthy chemicals used in building materials can trigger serious health hazards.

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Distributed Energy Resources

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are a growing part of the energy landscape in the United States, and they are becoming an ever more attractive opportunity for households, companies, and building owners to gain control of their own energy needs. By 2024, it is estimated that solar PV plus energy storage will represent a $14 billion industry [1]. These resources are installed on the customer side of the utility meter and include distributed generation, such as combined heat and power (CHP) and solar photovoltaics (PV); energy storage assets, such as batteries; energy efficiency and demand management; and building energy management software. When deployed correctly, DERs have the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the electric grid, increase grid reliability and resiliency, and defer the need for costly upgrades to grid distribution and transmission infrastructure [3,4,7]. (more…)

About a year ago, I worked along with other HERS raters and the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (NAIMA, a.k.a. Insulation Institute) to conduct a study on the importance of insulation installation quality and grading.

RESNET, the nation’s leading home energy efficiency network and the governing body of the Home Energy Rating System (HERS® Index) established standards for grading insulation installation.

The grading is as follows:

Grade I— the best and nearly perfect install which includes almost no gaps or compression… what some would call “G.O.A.T.”
Grade II—allows for up to 2% of missing insulation (gaps) and up to 10% compression over the insulation surface area… what some would call “mad decent”.
Grade III—insulation gaps exceed 2% and compression exceeds 10%… anything worse and the insulated surface area is considered un-insulated.

Source: RESNET Mortgage Industry National HERS Standards

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Common laundry rooms are typically provided in market rate and affordable multifamily buildings. Because there are no ventless clothes dryers available for commercial use in North America (such as condensing or heat pump dryers), Passive House (PH) projects must make do with standard coin-operated, conventional vented clothes dryers. With a conventional electric or gas vented dryer, ambient air from the laundry room is heated and blown into the dryer’s drum as it tumbles. This air picks up the moisture from the laundry and is exhausted – sending hot moist air and lint particles to the outside. For any dryer that exhausts more than 200 cfm and in common laundries that have several dryers, make-up air must be supplied to the room so the dryers have enough air to operate properly. This make-up air must then be heated or cooled and therefore, increases the building’s energy demand.

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Industry Trends

Over the past decade, the story of solar photovoltaic (PV) power has been one of both accelerating deployment and consistent, significant reductions in cost. This success has been driven by increasingly advantageous economies of scale, and supported by incentives and initiatives at all levels of government.

In late 2015, the federal Investment Tax Credit [3], a primary financial incentive for solar PV systems, was extended at its current rate of 30% through 2019, despite a contentious environment in Washington. It is scheduled to be stepped down through 2022, after which the commercial credit will expire and the residential credit [7] will remain at 10% indefinitely.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s annual solar benchmarking report [4] shows that over the past seven years, PV system costs have dropped 58.5% in the residential sector, 59.3% in the commercial sector, and 68.2% in the utility-scale sector. As a clear sign of the times, utility-scale solar achieved the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative’s goal of $1.00/W early this year, three years ahead of schedule [9]. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) [8], these trends should continue, leading to solar power’s increasing presence as a key component of the national electrical generation mix. The EIA projects solar to be the fastest growing form of renewable energy, increasing by 44% by the end of 2018 for a total deployed capacity of 31 GW and accounting for 1.4% of utility-scale electricity generation.

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At Steven Winter Associates, Inc., we support the whole building approach to design and construction by doing our best to ensure that projects meet sustainability, energy efficiency, and accessibility requirements, among other design strategies and goals. From our perspective, accessibility compliance is a key factor in determining whether a project is truly sustainable and efficient.

As an example, I was recently contacted by a New York City-based housing developer. They received a letter from an attorney stating that three of their recently constructed projects in New York City were “tested” and found to be noncompliant with the accessible design and construction requirements of the Fair Housing Amendments Act and the New York City Building Code. SWA toured the buildings and confirmed that the allegations were in fact true. We identified issues such as excessive cross slopes along the concrete entrance walk, the presence of steps between dwelling units and their associated terraces, the lack of properly sized kitchens and bathrooms, the lack of compliant clear width provided by all user passage doors, etc. It quickly became apparent to us and to the developer that the cost of the remediation required to bring the projects into full compliance would be astronomical.

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