10.24.2013 | Green Builder Magazine
October has been a good month for energy efficiency. During the International Code Council’s (ICC) final action hearings for the 2015 I-codes, which took place earlier this month in Atlantic City, code officials claimed the high ground for energy efficiency by voting against a proposal that would have enabled builders to tradeoff building envelope performance with mechanical systems. If this proposal had passed, it would have effectively rolled back energy codes and allowed builders in Minnesota to construct the same type of building envelope as their counterparts in Florida, essentially ignoring all of the knowledge that building science experts have worked so hard to disseminate over the past two decades.
Also at the ICC meetings, code officials voted to approve a proposal that will incorporate an Energy Rating Index (ERI), such as RESNET’s HERS score (equivalent to a miles per gallon rating), into 2015 codes so that builders can have the flexibility to utilize a performance path as opposed to prescriptive one…
Read more at Green Builder Magazine.
