Building America: Resolving Codes and Standards Issues to Energy Innovations

May 20, 2015

Pam Cole, Research Engineer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Todd Taylor, Senior Development Engineer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Linh Truong: Hello everyone! I am Linh Truong with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and I’d like to welcome you to today’s webinar hosted by the Building America program. We are excited to have Pam Cole and Todd Taylor from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to provide an overview of how Building America has impacted codes and standards in the past through technical and market innovations. Pam will describe new content on the Building America Solutions Center that will help builders meet code requirements and code officials apply codes to new and emerging innovations.

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We have an exciting program prepared for you today that will describe Building America technical and market innovations that have impacted codes and standards. You will also learn about new content on the Building America Solution Center that will help builders meet code requirements and code officials apply codes to new and emerging innovations.

Before our speaker begins, I will provide a short overview of the Building America program. Following the presentations, we will have a Question and Answer session, closing remarks, and a brief survey.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America program has been a source of innovations in residential building energy performance, durability, quality, affordability, and comfort for 20 years. This world-class research program partners with industry to bring cutting-edge innovations and resources to market.

Building America is supported by 10 industry research teams and 4 national labs. Each of these teams and labs partner with dozens of industry professionals including builders, remodelers, manufacturers, and utilities. The best and the brightest in the residential buildings industry can be found here.

Building America uses applied research to deliver building science solutions using a 4-step framework. These innovative solutions are tested in homes to develop proven case studies of success the market can point to. Building America provides the tools the building industry needs to ensure the innovations are applied correctly, always keeping an eye on energy performance, durability, quality and affordability. The final step, infrastructure development, is the conduit to getting innovations to the marketplace.

Building America research focuses on how the components of new and existing homes work together through systems integration. As the market changes and evolves, so has the direction of our research in order to add value and drive changes in performance across the residential building industry. In addition to technical challenges we have been addressing for decades, there is now a need to understand market transformation issues, such as valuation of energy efficiency.

In the 20 years of Building America research, we have spearheaded combining ultra-high efficiency with high performance in both new and existing homes. We are consistently achieving this challenging task.

For example, in 1995, a typical home used 3 times more energy per square foot compared to today, and indoor air quality, comfort, and durability problems were common. Today, a home built in DOE Zero Energy Ready Home specifications uses less than half the energy and is more comfortable, healthy, and durable.

By 2030, Building America will demonstrate that new and existing homes can produce more energy than they use.

Do you want to know more about these proven innovations? The Building America Solution Center is your one-stop source for expert information on hundreds of high-performance construction topics, including air sealing and insulation, HVAC components, windows, indoor air quality, and much more. You can find it by the URL on your screen or by searching on ‘Building America Solutions Center.’

Also, the Building America website provides information about the program, the latest Top Innovations and case studies, and there, you can also subscribe to the monthly newsletter.

And now for today’s presentations!

Our webinar today will provide an overview of how Building America has impacted codes and standards in the past through technical and market innovations. You will also learn about new content on the Building America Solution Center that will help builders meet code requirements and code officials apply codes to new and emerging innovations.

If you would like detailed information about this effort, or if you are interested in collaborating, please feel free to contact our speakers.

Our speaker today is Pam Cole, a Research Engineer with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. For the past 15 years, she has supported DOE’s Building Energy Codes Program on adoption and compliance of U.S. building energy codes. Pam oversees the program’s technical assistance office and answers more than 4,500 inquiries a year related to energy efficiency of residential and commercial buildings. She also supports the Building America program as part of its effort to aid both existing and new research that may be facing a code or standard barrier. In this role, she develops processes to evaluate the potential for barriers and creates successful strategies to overcome these barriers.

Today, Pam will present Building America technical and market innovations that have impacted U.S. codes and standards. She will also tell you about new resources on the Building America Solution Center for builders and code officials.

Secondly we have Todd Taylor, a senior development engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. For more than 30 years he has conducted analysis and directed development efforts influencing the International Energy Code...I'm sorry, the International Energy Conservation Code ASHRAE Standard 90.2, the Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards, standards for federal residences, regional codes in the Pacific Northwest, and other residential energy standards and efficiency programs. Specializing in large-scale building simulation, economic analysis, and large-scale metering and analysis of buildings and utility grids, Todd has authored or co-authored several of the most significant IECC code changes to impact residential energy consumption over the last two decades.    

With that, I will welcome Pam to start the presentation today.

Pam Cole: Thank you and I'm going to get this started from the beginning. Welcome everybody for joining today to go over things that have happened with Building America and really getting more involved in the codes and standards, especially as Building America research teams are coming up against more code and standard barriers.

So, as far as what's happened, background and history, the transformation of the housing market has favored high performance homes. They have significant challenges. A lot of them have been education. A lot of education to technology and infrastructure and, of course, cost. Some of the most difficult ones that they are overcoming have been codes and standards that have maybe prevented or impeded the process of getting some of these technologies out into these homes. So, what Building America has done is they have a history of successful market innovations and transformations. They have overcome some of these barriers and I am going to talk about those and how they overcame them.   

As she showed you this slide a little bit earlier and I just want to talk a little bit more about it. Some of the key things on here are that how we came across the research over time and transforming what we want to call going to Zero Energy Ready Homes. As you see on the top bar, it depicts a gradual reduction of thermal loads. It really focused on thermal loads from 1970 and 1980 and so forth and we still are and the primary focus was on thermal loads. As we continue down that path of the thermal enclosure, we started including a couple more things. In 1990 to 2000 we started adding ventilation, efficient HVAC, and then when we get to the 2000/2010 we're adding even more additional things as we're focusing more...a little bit less on the thermal load, but a little bit more on other measures. Then, as we got down to where we are today, we're focusing really on the next five years - Building America will be, on three main things. It will be the high performance thermal enclosures, smart ventilation and indoor air quality, and low-load efficiency HVAC. That's really where they want to focus the three top things for the next five years and there'll be other things as well but that's where they'll probably be focusing most of their time.

As I circle it, this is where the target areas will be and where we're going to have most of the challenges. There will be some challenges with codes and standards as we travel down this path and the Building America research teams get more involved and start doing the research. We're going to work more closely with them as well and see how we can integrate all of the DOE's programs together to make every one of these research technologies that they are going to put forth successful. 

Here's another way that Building America has enabled advanced codes. Typically at Building America we give these slides as intros to Building America because they have had a big impact, a really big impact, on where codes have gone. This kind of just gives a little history of where the codes are, versus where Building America is. So if you look at the bar, the gray bar, it's showing you the IECC Code. Off to the left it shows you the '06, the '09, the 2012, and the '06 is really where the big impact started happening with energy savings. From there it was kind of a straight bar. The builder codes from the 2000 and even the '95 energy code up to the 2006 it was kind of not a lot of incremental savings or energy savings that happened. When the '06 hit, then we started seeing some significant increases in energy savings and now we're actually seeing not just energy savings but cost savings, as the codes program evaluates not just energy savings and cost at this point.   

As you look at the green bar you'll see where Building America is. They're actually a little above where the codes are. The point to make here is that what Building America does impacts the codes. The codes don't typically look at what the future may hold, but Building America looks at what's coming for the future. Those are future technologies so working with the codes program is critical because Building America can help as far as giving those things over to the codes program or to the codes to help them know what's coming and better align them and set them up for putting these code requirements in so there not up against an unforeseen barrier when they go to market.

The residential building integration program, which is basically under Building America, we have some new goals. The new home goal is to demonstrate at scale market relevant strategies for homes and we are looking at offering savings of 50% or more by 2025 so we have a lot of work ahead of us. Not only are we doing new homes, we don't want to forget about the existing homes either. So in existing homes, we also want to demonstrate at a scale of market-relevant strategies on existing home savings of 20% or more by 2020 and 25% or more by 2025 and then 30% by 2030. These are big challenges but, you know, we can get there and I know we can get there. Again, these are goals that Building America and RBI are working towards. 

Within that this is the ecosystem, it's the Building Technology Office Ecosystem, and where does Building America kind of fit in? Building America compliments these other programs and, as you'll see in the circle here, we have the standards and codes off to the left. We have research and development, high impact technologies, and then your market stimulation down at the bottom and how this is all circling and it's a family. I mean, we have to work together to make all of this work and be able to get these technologies out in the field.

To simplify it down, this is where Building America kind of fits into this ecosystem. You have the codes again and I've put the '09 and 2012 and now 2015 off to the left, but now we have Building America up here on the top and we have HVAC and we have windows and we have building envelope, water heating, building energy modeling that comes into play, but we also have our other programs. We have Energy Star and then the program that is probably the biggest and the best one that is out there right now that we're pushing for is those Zero Energy Ready Homes.

I talked about Building America has been around since the 90s, the early 90s, and when they were doing research way back they were already looking at barriers that were in the codes. I'll talk about what barriers are and how to identify them. They've also identified barriers that affected codes and standards. Each year Building America will look at what the research teams have done and they will put up innovation awards and post them on their website. Here's a screen shot of the website that is showing the Building America top innovations and then they categorize them down and you'll see advanced technologies, house-as-a-system business case, and so forth and over to the very far right and the very bottom is informing the codes and standards. I've listed out the top four innovations that directly were related to overcoming a code and standard barrier. The first one was the thermal bypass air-barrier requirements and unvented crawlspaces were then allowed because they were not in code before. I'll get into some of these. Vapor retarder classification. Then a climate zone map. It's not the climate zone map that's in the IECC, but this climate map actually was to help inform on best practices that Building America creates so there's the best practice guides that are out there on Building America's website. It was a way to look at this climate zone map and correlate it to those best practice guides.  

We talk about codes and standards and we talk about barriers but it was also, a couple years ago was, well how can we better help not just the research teams but, you know, builders, code officials, let's get some more resources out there. There's a lot of good stuff. You could spend hours and days going through websites trying to find information on maybe just one technology or if you’re up against any type of barrier that maybe the code officials deny and your building, you can't go any further, and you’re out on the site because there's one impeding thing that won't allow you to keep constructing on that building. Where do you go look or how do you know how to identify one? This document was created called guidance to identifying code, standard, or rating method barriers. Really it's just giving some approaches on how to identify codes and standards and then some methods to overcome those and then a whole bunch of resources. It's a resource really to maybe a starting point for someone who doesn't know where to go look and needs to start looking at how they can go down this path of overcoming a code or standard barrier. Building America has really defined a barrier as really four things. Maybe in that code, standard or rating method it requires the wrong thing. So, you're looking at it in the code and it's requiring something that you're technology would not allow or that your technology, or whatever it might be, is prohibited. It prohibits that Building America innovation or discourages it or it's not encouraged at all. When I say that, the not encouraging it, which would lead to a better, more efficient home. We'll look at these in more detail but that's really how we're defining when we first know when a barrier exists. If you can go through those top four things then that's kind of the starting point of understanding. To put this in a little bit more simpler terms, or look at solutions, so if we have over on the left, we've got barrier type, short-term solution, and a long-term solution and code and standard requires the wrong thing. What would a solution be? Basically the first one would be maybe establish an argument, you know, that what you have some basis for common sense maybe that this provision is okay to be accepted. If it's requiring the wrong thing and it's explicitly in the code that it's requiring something specific, how do you get around that? The long term solution is that code change, of course, and this provision is okay to be accepted. If it's requiring the wrong thing and it's explicitly in the code then it's requiring something specific. How do you get around that? The long-term solution is that is a code change of course. You'll see on the right hand side that whole column is developing a code change. That's a long-term solution because the code process is every three years and maybe you’re up against a code or standard barrier that maybe the code just got published and you have three years before the next code is published. So that's a long-term solution to get something changed in the code but you need resolution right now. There are some other options out there to overcome code standard barriers besides getting a code change and we'll look at some of those. The next one here is if the code or standard prohibits the innovation. If you can establish some equivalency of performance, better performance, on a technology and argue - maybe not so much argue - but argue against that there is an alternative materials, method clause, that there are in the codes. Maybe that code official will approve it. There's a lot of technical evaluation and technical reports that are out there. Building America has them. International Code Council has them. There are a lot of ways to get to them and I'll show you some of those resources but if you have something that's a barrier in the code, ways to get something approved through a code official it can be difficult but it's doable. It is doable. That's why Building America is creating some resources, additional resources, to help builders and code officials make it easier for both the code official to understand a certain technology or maybe to understand the intent of the code and then also for the builder to understand what's required in the code and what they can do to make whatever innovation or technology get into those buildings to make those buildings as efficient as they can.

Methods to identifying barriers - this is in this guidance document. So the URL was posted on the page that I showed you. It was a pretty long URL. The first thing is that when you're trying to identify - do I have a barrier? Maybe you have this innovation that has come to you and you and you're a builder and you think, you know what, that looks pretty cool. I'm going to put, I'm going to start building double walls. That's just an example. Well, where do I go to make sure that my code officials are going to allow me to do this? So the first path...maybe the first path you want to take is - where is some existing information on this? Existing knowledge, when I talk about existing knowledge, that might be that maybe you want to go out and contact one of the Building America research teams. The research teams out there are really knowledgeable in a lot of these market new innovations out there and they are the experts of leading technologies. They really are. It might be that you could go to the codes program. Again, they are the experts of codes, as she introduced Taylor. He's been around for 30 years and he knows codes inside and out. He's helped produce some of the biggest code changes there have been in the IECC. The first step, the first method here, is leverage. Leverage those people that are out there that can help you if you're needing to know if you are up against a barrier. So the second method and it might be and again these methods can be you might need knowledge on how the actual codes and standards world or help getting through some of these paths. The method is looking too at a structured review of existing codes. I'll show you a screen shot of that. So it's really look at...because one example would be you might have one provision or one item and it could actually reference several different codes. You might think that you might have a code barrier for one code, for example, I have a code barrier in the International Energy Conservation Code but I don't have a barrier in the International Residential Code and you think you might be okay, but that one thing that you have, that one item, still might have a barrier because that one thing that you have, that one item, still might have a barrier because it's referenced in that other code.

Maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense so I'll show you here what I'm talking about. The other, the last, method is going through a series of questions. In the guidance document I've kind of laid these all out in an appendix where you can go through a structured review of existing codes and I'll show those to you.

Going through and identifying through codes - this takes you through a series of questions. Has my innovation impacted...hold on one second here. Has my innovation been tested or determined to impact the building feature addressed by code? That's the first question. So, really it's going through these series and answering yes or no to the series of codes. You have, up at the top, you have the structural integrity of the building code, you have the fire code, the indoor air quality and mechanical code, waste water, the energy code. There are several codes that can be involved if you have one provision. Really going through these series of questions might help you identify where your barrier is and what code it might be in. The second question on here is - is the innovation specifically listed as an allowable alternative in the building code? And so if the yes/no - if it's yes then you can go to the next code in the diagram but if it's no then you would go to the next question on this list, which is - could the innovation be considered an allowable alternative if sufficient information on innovation performance is provided? Again, if yes, then you identify the necessary information needed and you go on to the next diagram. Again, there's a whole series and list of these codes that are in this guidance document that you can go through. But also with this it might take someone that understands a lot of these codes because there are quite a few codes that are involved and you could have, for one example, ducts. Ducts could be in several different codes. You have the duct construction or the duct material could be in one code, such as SMACNA. The duct sealing of the ducts and the sealant that you're using - the material of the sealant, the duct insulation that is going to go on the ducts, and the duct tightness - the duct testing parameter. Those all can be in different codes. So when you're dealing with one parameter or one provision you need to pay attention that you might have something that could be in several different one of these different code versions that are out there.                      

Now we're looking at standards. I've talked about codes and we have standards and we have rating methods and I mentioned SMACNA but we also have quite a few more. This is the same series. You're going to go through a series of questions. If you have a certain technology or an innovation that you're not sure has a barrier and you go through and, you know, I want to know if there's anything that's going to impede me for any standard that might be out there, any testing standard. The first question that is - does this standard apply to my innovation? And you'll go through and you'll look at ASHRAE. Does it apply to my innovation? If yes then you go to the next series of questions. You go down this series of all these standards that are listed and there are several more. There are several more standards. This is just a snapshot of a few of them, of some of the higher level ones I would say - ASTM testing standard, ASME, SMACNA, National Fenestration Rating Council, UL - Underwriters Laboratory, which is, you know, another laboratory of testing. There's a whole bunch of standards that you could step through to see if maybe one of your innovations or technologies might be up against a barrier. This might not even apply to you. You might be for your first step is to do the number one and reach out to someone that has existing knowledge in that innovation or that technology that you want to install in your building and start from there. This gives a different path. This gives another path to helping someone identify if they actually have a barrier. So it's just one option for them to go through these series of questions.

Let's take a look at the last one here. We can identify going through codes, through a series of codes - the IECC, the IRC, the fire code, the plumbing code, the mechanical code. We looked at standards. So we can look at ASRAE. We can look at SMACNA, ASTM. We can look at NFRC, which is fenestration, but now we're looking at rating. Now we're on to ratings and now you're going down the path and where you’re a rater or you’re developing. You're going through a rating system above code program and you want to make sure you're not up against any barriers. Maybe this path would work for you to make sure that there's nothing that's going to impede you down the road or have some unintended consequence that you were not, maybe when you started your construction you were not, aware of in the beginning and now you’re facing a code or standard barrier right in the middle of your construction process.

Here's another series of questions and different rating systems where you can look at - does the rating system apply to this innovation of mine or this technology? And you can look at high performance new homes. You can look at, if it's an existing home, there're high performance existing homes that could go through a series. The indoor rating air quality system is another one. Water efficiency - you might be just dealing with a new water system design and high efficiency water system that you're putting in, a heat pump water heater, whatever it might be. You want to make sure you are not up against any barriers. So another, you're going to get another series of questions that you could go through.                                         

I know this is a lot to look at but again this is where I want to prove the point here is that you can have one provision that can overlap a lot of codes. This is an example of an air conditioner with propane and carbon dioxide. It's one example. Going through just taking one provision and going through a series of going through the questions and answering yes or now and then identifying, you know, targeting those that have this barrier. As you see here, down on the left hand side, is that topic. You have building code, existing buildings, you've got the energy code, electrical, fire, green buildings, ventilation, and so forth and then the actual code itself. The second column is the building code or standard and then the potential conflict. It's yes, no, or maybe it's not applicable. Then over to the right is the potential conflict. When I say potential because it might be that it might be one so you want to make acknowledgement of it if you're even going down this path.

As you look here on the IECC at the air conditioner with propane that the equipment performance test method could be, could be a potential issue here for this provision. So I've listed out certain items under these codes so not only am I looking at the energy code but as you look further down I might have an issue with the fire code because I'm dealing with propane in a house. I also might have to deal with, if I'm dealing with above code, the green building standard. It has this, as equipment performance, as a test method there. The other impacts might be in the International Residential Code. The point of this example is I might be thinking as a builder I only have to look at one code and one only. Maybe I'm just looking in the IRC but that might not hold true depending on what your technology is or what you’re trying to install in the home. This one is I'm dealing in several different codes where I might have to go to the fire code and deal with this because of the propane that I'm using and maybe the distance and how I'm ventilating this air conditioner. There are a lot of things to look at. But again, that's to go to some of those experts that might be able to get you past some of these would be maybe your first step without having to go through all these codes.

I've talked about how to identify a code, standard, or rating method and three ways of doing and they're not easy. I mean, they can be very time consuming to go through some of those series of questions and identify, especially if you have several codes that you're looking in and it might be impacted on seven different codes that you're looking at. What are some approaches to overcome it if you know you have a barrier? There are five approaches and I talked about the last one and I have it in red here. Basically, if it's a barrier that's prohibited in code, then a code change is something that someone is going to want to take a look at, especially if it's a technology that's going to make that home perform better. Right? So, the long-term goal is to change the code standard or rating method. That's probably the biggest one and that's where the codes program comes in for a lot of these.

Approach number one is search existing materials. So identifying barriers, we were searching out existing experts and asking them to help us identify if I have some barrier. Now that I know I have a barrier, now what's my approach? Well, there is a lot of material that's out there on the website. As you all know you could spend days trying to go through some of these. What Building America has done in the last couple years, coming up with the Building America Solutions Center, it's a great tool. I'm going to show that tool today and show you some new information that we're putting into that tool but that's one resource to go to up to that Solutions Center and that's where the leading edge technology is. That's where they're putting them. They're putting those guides out in that Solutions Center. That's one way to look for existing materials. There's another way to look for existing materials. You can go after the codes program. They have a lot of good information and I'll show you some of that. You could go out to overall Building Technologies Residential Buildings Program out on DOE's website - EERE and you can look through there. There's an abundance of information that might help get you where you need to go and then you might be done. You've got your material. You can hand it over to your code official. He approves it and you're good to go.

But if that doesn't happen then maybe approach two will be working for you, which is alternative materials method and in the code there actually is a code provision because the intent of the code is not to disallow new technologies. That's not the intent of the code at all.

Approach three is the reference newer versions of the code. Maybe what your innovation that you have is now in the newest version of the code, however, that code might not be adopted in your jurisdiction. So maybe if you reference that newer code, maybe it gets approved.

Approach four is obtaining a favorable interpretation. What does that mean? I'll talk about that. I call that medium term because that might take a little bit more time to get an interpretation of an approval of a certain technology.

Again, the last one, the long-term is changing that code standard rating method.

Approach 1 - searching existing materials. I talked about the Solutions Center and we will go out and take a look at that and then here is an example on the Build Energy Codes Program. They develop code notes and these code notes are basically the Building Codes Program has a help desk. That's when she introduced me today I really do answer questions around the entire US every day and it's to code officials, architects, engineers, you name it. It's through the entire US that have problems with the Energy Code. They are only asking questions because they are up against a problem. They are not asking me a question because they're happy, believe me. Typically it has to do with compliance. I mean they're trying to get their buildings into compliance. A lot of the questions are two-fold and the Codes Program has software, res check, com check that they use. They're free to use software tools. They use software to help calculate compliance but a lot of them are actual questions around commercial, residential buildings on specific provisions and as the codes get more complex, and they have, and more provisions get in the codes, the more and more questions that we've been getting. When that happens and I see a trend of questions that are coming about then we look at listing out well what can we do to help with these top ten questions that come in every year or top twenty and develop these codes notes to help them. This code note here is actually on residential buildings for mechanics service water heating piping. So it's piping insulation. It's a really good code note because it goes through the provisions and the sections in the 2012 IECC and the insulation provisions. There is a whole list of code notes that are out on the Codes Program website. There is a URL here, the energycodes.gov/resourcecenter that you can go out to. This is just one example of existing materials.

Approach 2 - this is the alternative materials clause. As I mentioned in the codes, so the IRC - International Residential Code, and the IECC. This is showing me that in the IECC section R102.1, that as I just talked about, the code is not intended to prevent materials, methods of construction, or design not specifically addressed in the code provided, and this is the biggie, it has been approved by the code official as meeting the intent of the code. How do you do that? How do you if it's not addressed in the code, how do you do that? That's where we're trying to give resources to help overcome this. This is an example that I found from Pierce County. I'm in Washington State. In Washington State it has its own state specific code but what Pierce County has done is they developed a form. This form here, and I'm not sure how well you can see it on the screen, is they are actually asking the builder if you are going to do an alternative method of material, I want some more information on it and you have to submit this form to me to approve it. They're asking for sections of where the provision might be in the code. They are asking what is the proposed alternative that you are willing to do, and clearly write it in a statement, and then the reason for your request. It also has on here what the permit number is, the site address of the project, and so forth. This is a system that they've used as an example that if a builder is looking at using some alternative method that's not in code and they want to use this clause that is in code to meet the intent that they want them to fill out this form. Maybe this form is something that another jurisdiction could use. There probably are forms like this in other jurisdictions and I just wanted to pull this one up as one example of overcoming this as an approach 2, which would be short-term, and it could be that gets approved by the code official and you are on your way.

Approach 3 was referencing newer versions of the code. Now we have the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code out there. We have the 2015 IRC and there are some new provisions, some big ones too, some exciting ones. If you work in the codes world, this is exciting stuff for us. This is exciting for me anyway. I've listed a couple of them - cladding attachments was a biggie. As the energy code, as the energy code becomes - the insulation becomes, I would say, more stringent where we're getting thicker insulation levels, continuous insulation in the prescriptive path - how are we attaching these thicker pieces of rigid foam board? In the 2015 IRC and the...we now have provisions that are allowing for those thicker pieces of insulation and I am going to show you because we just posted a code compliance brief on this. We have vinyl siding attachments that is a new provision - completely new in the IRC. Insulated siding is also new and air barrier - not so new but we have continued to keep improving on air barrier requirements on every code version and a lot of that, most of it, the beginning of that, had to do with Building America and their top innovation is the air barrier.  Unvented crawlspaces, again, another Building America, 2012, 2015. Rooms containing fuel-burning appliances are another new provision and then dynamic glazing. What is dynamic glazing? I'll get into that in a minute.

So, I went through three approaches and now I'm on approach four, which is the medium term. I showed you the short-term ones and now we are looking at favorable interpretation. This is where I call it medium because this might not be as fast as you think. It's not going to take one hour going through unless there is something out there already written and you can pull. So, let's go through some of these. Let's say you want to get a formal interpretation from ASRAE standard. They have a way to do that and they have interpretations out there already that are published and you might be able to find one that has to do with your technology so I've listed URLs. It might be IAPMO, which is your plumbing, so you might want to go through if it's an issue with that and go through their resources. They have assistance that can help you for interpretation as well. There also is the ICC, so the International Code Council. They post opinions and they do more than post opinions. They also have the evaluation service as well. I'll get to that. Then you have the fire codes. The fire codes, actually, has a way of doing interpretations and answering technical questions on the fire code. Then there is SMACNA, which is another way. So, these are resources out there that can help you that have their own interpretations against their own standards or codes and they have technical assistance for you to help you just like other resources that are out there, such as the Codes Program has its own help desk. We do not do formal interpretations. We don't do interpretations at all on the energy codes. It has to be the actual ICC that does that, or ASRAE, but we do help people gain compliance and help them answer questions. The last one here that I'll talk about is I mentioned the evaluation service through ICC. This evaluation service is really taking if you have a technology and you want to make sure and identify that there are no issues around this new technology or innovation, you can go to the ICC, and it could be expensive and it could be very time consuming. One technology might take a year and they have the experts on staff to test it, to go through every code, and then to stamp it and say call it good and then get a formal report out there for you. A lot of manufacturers use the evaluation service for their products. Here is just a snapshot out on ICC's website for the evaluation service and a couple of the formal reports and the manufacturers. I took a quick screen shot to show you what I am talking about. Some of these can be very time consuming depending on what the technology is. Again, ICC has the staff to do that for them - evaluate that product, test that product if they need to even, and then stamp - I call it stamp but that's just my term, my terminology - get that report out there for them and that might be something that a builder and an engineer can grab and attach to their plans or their specs that they're submitting for plan review. That might be what they are going to need that for. So, when the plan reviewer is going through and they are looking for one specific product or one special sealant that is attached and there again that is saving everybody time because it already shows, it shows the proven technology has already gone through this evaluation service and there are no barriers. It has been tested by the proper testing procedure and it's met the intent of all the codes or the testing parameters.

I've talked about, I'll just recap on the approaches.  I went through four approaches. Now I want to get back to - I've talked about Building America's innovations that they've done. These are the top three and these have been out on their website for a while now. We have what was the barrier and what was the approach taken. These three right here, they did not go through this guidance document that was created. That guidance document, that resource, was just posted just over a year and a half ago. That wasn't available to them. What were they doing? I looked at all three of these innovations and they followed one or more of the paths that are in that guidance document but it took them a while to get some of these into code. Let's take a look at each one of these and see what they did to get to where they are today. So, let's look at the thermal bypass air barrier. That's a lot of reading so if you want to look at some of these you might want to look below the presentation and you can read about these more in detail. I'm just going to give a quick overview but the thermal bypass air barrier was a very very big success for Building America, meaning sealing the holes in a building, caulking around the windows, the doors, the damper, you know, all those things, they've been in code for a long time. Seal around all your openings, seal your ducts, it's not language that has not been around but what Building America did was they wanted to make sure that we added some additional language and how to seal all those cracks and holes and you name it and what happened was the barrier here actually fell into one of the barriers we've defined. It does not encourage Building America innovation that would lead to a better, more efficient home. That was one of the four barriers that I listed way up in the slides up above. What they did was they determined, through research and through inspecting and through building features and this thermal bypass checklist actually made it into the Energy Star Homes Version 2 specifications way back in 2006. It was so successful they did a code change proposal and it got into the IECC for the first time. There was language to seal up all your cracks in the 2000 IECC, seal everything up, but what this did was provide this additional language of where are all those areas that can impede and cause leakage into the home. Now we are tightening up the home. Now we have a checklist in the code. Now we have something that the inspectors can actually do a little bit more thorough to go through this checklist and builders can go through this series of things and information on how to seal all these areas within the building envelope. I've put this section in the 2009 IECC but what has happened recently is in the 2009 the big change was not only did we add the checklist - the checklist got in the '06 code - but in the 2009 code in the IECC then it came a provision that now we want to demonstrate the tightness of the building envelope. You can do it two ways. You could either test it or do a visual inspection. Then, now we're getting a little bit more. We're coming further down the road in the 2015 IECC visual inspection goes away and now you must test. So, along with that this air barrier, the beginning of time, this air barrier table actually was even further defined in the 2015 so it gave a little bit more detail as to where those areas are you must seal and how you must seal them. I think it's a great checklist. Go out and take a look at it if you have not seen it. It is in the 2015 and now keep in mind that if you are on the 2015 IECC in your area the visual inspection has all gone away. Now you have to adhere to a certain leakage requirement.

That was the air barrier. So that technology took many years. It was the '06 and it has continued to grow. What happened with the unvented crawl spaces? This was another leading top innovation from Building America. This took a few years too. This was that, way back in the older codes, crawl spaces had to be vented. They had to be. That was in the code. So, what was the barrier here? This barrier, which fell into one of those definitions here did not encourage innovation that would lead to a better, more efficient home, so what was happening in these hot humid climates was - well the code states that I have to vent this crawl space to the outside. In this hot humid climate you are bringing in all that moisture and if you are not sealing that floor completely, getting that good seal, you're bringing in all that moisture. You are causing mold. That was a big issue. What Building America researchers did is they tested and they tested and they proved the technology for an unvented crawlspace. They got it into code and this was a huge win for Building America. Now we have provisions and these crawl spaces are saving up to 20% on the heating and cooling energy of these homes. Now what have they done? They have really reduced the risk of moisture by sealing up these crawl spaces. Now, this isn't a provision, you know, something that every builder wants to do. A lot of them still want to vent their crawl spaces to the outside and that's fine. It might be fine in the colder climates, great, but they have proven and they have the backing of the testing methods and what they've done to show and the energy savings and also the cost on doing crawl spaces that are not vented - so unvented crawl spaces.

Where do you go find this information? If you want to start building unvented crawl spaces, Building America has a top innovation two-pager on this technology. It also has a guide on how to actually construct an unvented crawl space out under the Solutions Center out there as well, but this is one of their top key ones. So, let's go to the last one.

The vapor retarder and this took three code cycles. Three code cycles. When I say three code cycles a code is published every three years. So, this one took a long time to get it right and it's still being tweaked, just like the air barrier is. It is still being tweaked today but at least we now have it to where it's good. I mean it's good. Before, basically in the old codes, this is dating me because I've been around a while - not as long as Todd, but I've been around a while. It had a one sentence line in the code - a vapor barrier must be installed on the interior side of the warm end, winter side, of the wall. Boom, that was it. And, what is a vapor barrier? What Building Science Corp did was they really took the leading edge on this one for Building America and they researched this with four different wall assemblies and a test home and I have some pictures to show you here. They went through and classified vapor barriers into three classifications. They went through every climate zone and determined where and what type of vapor barrier should be installed and where it should be installed. This was a huge success and what this has impacted is now over 100,000 new homes are constructed each year that have an effective moisture control and they're durable. These homes are now more durable than when this vapor barrier got into code. This is my favorite one, of course; so, let's take a look at some of these pictures. Again, what was the barrier here? Before we came up with this definition of barriers. This was another one that it wasn't prohibited to do a vapor retarder. It was there but it did not mean that it was the right thing in certain climate zones. Vapor retarders probably shouldn't exist in certain climate zones, if you are familiar with vapor retarders and where they should be. What we've done with this under Building America has led to way way more efficient homes and we are on the leading edge with these.

For vapor barriers these were the test locations looking at each climate zone. We have up on the top left hand side we have Seattle, we've got Denver. On the right hand side we have Minneapolis and Kansas and so forth.

Just quickly here's the test had the picture of it for Building Science Corp. He uses this in a lot of his presentations. Again, fourteen different wall assemblies were being tested over several years on different ways, different moisture controls, and thermal controls. His example of when he's testing it from the beginning of time. One of the screen shots of one of the test heads. I will just quickly go through some of these but great success here on vapor retarders, all the system controls on testing the moisture flow. This is over; you're not just testing over a series of one month. This is over 12 months period in testing climate zones over there, especially if you are in a climate zone that has fluctuations in heating degree days and cooling degree days, such as where I live. I have the whole realm of cold to a very hot hot 110 degree dry in the summer. So, they've done a very excellent job of getting these vapor classifications into code. So, here's the climate zones and now that this climate zone map has been in code for quite some time, since the 2006. We used to have 18 climate zones in the older codes in the IECC and now we're down to...down to 8. Then this is the climate zone chart that Building Science Corp used to determine vapor retarder classification, when vapor retarder is not required, and where it is.

So you've got zones 1 through 3 where no vapor retarder would be required. You get to zone 4 and now we're looking at the perms on vapor permeability and now classifications - what a class 3 means, what a class 2 means. Here is for a class 3, which is the perm rating of under 1.0 perm and what does class 3 mean. I'm not going to get into all the details of this. Where all this information actual is, and it's in a lot of different places, so the IRC has a table that shows - the International Residential Code, shows the classification, shows what climate zones is applicable for what vapor retarder. We also have out on Building America we list out on some of the guides, depending on what the measure is. For one example I did a code compliance brief on double wall framing and where the vapor retarder should be installed on a double wall frame and this is a good reference to that to go out to the Building America Solutions Center. Zone 4 - here's the class III, where classification would be, which really is your paint with the perm rating. Again, the paint would have to have a special perm rating.

Zone 5 - now we're getting into different classifications as we get zone 6 we get into a class II, which could be craft paper like stucco or unfaced. The perm rating is a little bit different.

Then zone 7 and zone 8. I don't think...let me jump back one. Zone 7.

One more thing to touch on for the vapor retarder, and I just took this screen shot, is I talked a lot about this long-term...the long-term goal is to getting a code change. Those are not as easy as you think to do. There are experts that, like the codes program, that only deal directly in the IECC. But the IRC, this code proposal is just a snapshot of how detailed it has to be to write a code change proposal and understand if there is anything else that might be a reference within your provision that you might have to reference into another section of the code. Again for this one, one thing that did get changed in the vapor retarder classification in the 2015 IRC is insulated sheathing. They changed that term to continuous insulation. That's probably one of the biggies. On this screen shot, this is from when this got into, I believe the 2012, and if you look into the table here it shows insulated sheathing and now in the 2015 that is now the term is called continuous insulation. That is one thing I'll point out. Again, a lot of detail goes into writing some of these code proposals, depending on what that innovation or that technology might be that you're trying to get into code. There are people out there that can help you, manufacturers that are out there, and a lot of resources - Building America research teams. If you’re going down that path go seek out these experts that are there that might be able to get you down that road.

Let's talk a little bit more about code compliance briefs real quick here. This is new for Building America. Again, it was - what else can we do? We have all these guides out there but some of these new innovations that are coming out from the research teams, there are some barriers.

The barrier might just be referencing a newer code and the example I will show you is the cladding - the cladding attachments. The intent was to come up with a systematical way of showing a code compliance brief that will work well for a builder and work well for a code official and here is the screen shot of the Solutions Center. I am going to show you where these code compliance briefs are. Really, it's underlining what the barrier is, how to plan review to it, how to inspect to it, and then any technical validation. Where it sits in the Solutions Center is out under each one of these there are several hundred guides that are out and then in the Solutions Center, guides A through Z if you see it on the left hand side. Believe me there is not a code compliance brief for each one of these. There are only a few that have been written so far and we continue to write more. If you click on the compliance tab and it has a code compliance brief, you'll want to click on that and that's where you'll see this additional information that talks about a specific provision in the code that might help you get past a barrier. And then, how do you plan review to it and how do you inspect to it and all the technical validation that maybe a code official does not have time to go read. Some of these technical reports can be hundreds of pages long. This is to help them create less time for them to go through paper and paper and paper and maybe ease up some of these barriers where they can approve something where, in other words, it might take a month or so to get one of these technologies approved because they've got to go through and read and make sure they're comfortable with approving a certain measure.

Again, as I talked about how this content is organized, this is the double walled framing that was posted a while ago because in the IRC it wasn't very specific on where the vapor retarder is to be placed on a double wall frame - on a double wall frame system. There's an overview piece, plan review, field inspection, technical validation and in each one of these they are all the same and then they have the information that pertains to that actual technology.

Let's go out and take a look at the Solutions Center. I'm going to go out to the live website. I'm just going to give it a second to make sure you guys can see that. So, out here I'm going to show you the newest one that we just got posted. I'm clicking on the guides and these are the guides listed from A to Z and I'm going to scroll down to it and it's on the continuous rigid insulation sheathing/siding. If I click on this guide and these guides are developed all the same way too. They all have similar tabs at the top, so there's a scope. There's description. There are successes. There's climate information, any training materials maybe for a trainer, there could be CAD drawings, there's a compliance tab - that's where I come into play, any additional information and any sales information. Maybe you're a sales person and you were out there and you want to start helping getting an innovation out there and so you want some sales information that might be helpful to you.

With this one the continuous rigid insulation, if you click on the compliance tab, again, what it will have in here is Energy Star version measures for this guide. It will have the Zero Energy Ready Home measures and any other test methods that might be applicable, any other codes that might be applicable. So, with this one if I click on the code compliance brief, I'll give it a second for it to freshen on the screen, this one was...I typically have not had such an amount of overview but I had to because this is new in the code. There is a lot of detail to this as far as the thicker pieces of rigid foam board, how to attach this, the specific fasteners, and what type of materials - meaning what type of wall assembly that you have, and then the provisions. So the overview piece really is - what was the barrier? Well, there were no provisions for these thicker pieces of foam board and how do you attach them? What happened was we had one of our research, Building America research, teams took the lead on this and they got this into code and so this was a great success, another good success for Building America that this is in the 2015 IRC. Now, you know, even manufacturers had issues with this one. The manufacturers specifications typically only went up to 1.5 inch thick rigid foam board and so if you were installing a 2 inch foam board the manufacturer might be void at that point because their specifications only went up to a certain thickness. There were a lot of issues around this one - manufacturer warranty, that there were no provisions in the code. So, several different barriers were involved and how did you overcome it? Well, there are manufacturers out there that now have provisions. New York actually put provisions in their New York state specific code and now we have it in the 2015. There are a lot of good resources now but way back when, and someone doing thicker pieces of foam board, there wasn’t a lot to pull from. So this code compliance brief came about because of that. Here we have plan review and here shows the provisions for if you have a wood frame above grade wall. It gives you the specifications for the prescriptive insulation values and this is where we have two codes. When I talked about I got one technology and I'm dealing with a thicker piece of rigid foam board, well the IECC might be telling me that my climate zone that I have to have this continuous insulation of this thickness and how am I installing that. I have to go to the IRC because I have to use specific fasteners to do it. You have two codes that you’re working in for one technology or one provision or one piece of material, so to speak. It gets a little bit more deeper. Not only do I have that but where does the vapor retarder come into play? So, really looking at one wall assembly you are dealing with an air barrier, the moisture, the attachment of that wall depending on if you have foam board or a continuous piece of insulation foam board, and climate zone - you have wind loads, you have dead loads, you have a lot of things to look at. The intent of these briefs is really to bring it back home and to tie it all together and to simplify it to really bring in all the things that might be applicable, where they are in the code and really help with those builders and code officials to get these out and technology out in the field.

Let's scroll down a little bit more. Here is the fast version. I am not going to go through these because this might not be something that is applicable to you but I just wanted to give you an example of this brief that's out there now. I will scroll down to the very bottom where the technical validation is. With the technical validation it could be from, and there are some manufacturers that now have come up with some validations for these thicker pieces of rigid foam board, and they're great. I went out and read these and they really did a really good job of specifying how to do these fasteners on the specific framing materials. There are also some reports that have been done - Building Science Corp, Applied Building Technology Group. I mean there is some great stuff. If you are in the area of doing foam board that's thicker than 1.5 inches, this might be important for you to go out and take a look at some of this information.

Let's go back over to my slides and I'm going to change my tune now real quickly. I've been talking for quite a bit now. I've talked about barriers. I've talked about the Codes Program. I've talked about Building America but I haven't talked about the Appliance Standards Program, which is a really important program that also comes into play because they do all the appliances. I had one of the leading people that come from the Appliance Standards Program give me a couple slides on recent activity that might be important to you if you are in the area of looking at appliances. Some recent appliance standard rulemaking activity has just taken place and so one of those is on the residential water heaters. The changes are on the large tanks - the greater than 55 gallons electric resistance water heaters. There have been some changes to that and if you are of interest to that, and you have questions on the Appliance Standards Program, feel free I can get the person that is really knowledgeable on the appliance side and I'll get you in touch with her.

So, let's take a look at some of the activity on the water heaters and what's happening here. The timeline from 2010 to 2015 on the activities, so back in 2010 passed some new efficiency standards that require 55 gallon or larger water heaters. The heat pump water heaters now, as of April 16, 2015 in the Federal Regs, now have a new parameter. She wanted us to make sure that if you weren't aware of some of this new activity that it might be of interest to you. So the new standards that take effect for these newer systems, for these newer larger systems, were actually April 16. Another thing that has happened is that on February 26, way back, there was a waiver process on these large tanks that was proposed. I think I have a slide here that I'll go through that talk about some of this.

Here we go. Appliance standards rulemakings to be aware of - on the residential furnaces, DOE is proposing an update on the minimum standards and the comment period is currently open. If that is of interest to you there is a link to go out there on the residential furnaces. On the residential air conditioners and heat pumps, DOE has recently posted an RFI requesting comment on updating the actual standards themselves. On air conditioners and heat pumps (79 FR 65603) and then the regional standards. DOE is considering going from a national standard to regional on certain equipment in a separate process. If that is of interest to you there is a special certain docket number that you can go to. I just want to make sure that if on the appliance standard if this is something that you are interested in then here's some additional information that's out there.

While I'm talking about appliance standards, I'm going to jump back to the codes program because they have some things that are happening for them too. On the Codes Program side there is a request for information on their cost effectiveness methodology. Now their cost effectiveness methodology has been out there but they have extended the time frame for comment. That time frame has been extended through June 3. If you want to go out and look at this methodology on the cost effectiveness, and this is on the energy codes, then go do so. Here is a link out to the RFI and again they have extended the time frame out to June 3. There's also some additional information that's happening with the Codes Program and they are going to have a stakeholder meeting. This stakeholders public meeting, and it's open to the public, they want your ideas on concepts for the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code. So this is the next code cycle that is going to come about. They want to know what your concepts are. They want you to participate in giving them your ideas and they are also going to present their own concepts on what they might foresee the 2018 to look like. Here are the dates. It's on June 15 and 16. It's at the Colorado Convention Center but you must register so you can go out to the Energy Codes website and there are two different sessions that are going to be held. There is the residential code development, which is Monday, June 15 and then the commercial code development, which is on Tuesday. If that is of interest to you, again this is open to the public. They are looking at your concepts, your ideas, moving forward to the 2018 IECC. This is the Energy Conservation Code that they're looking at. If this is of interest go out to the energycodes.gov website. That kind of ends it. I went full circle. I talked about Building America and that's really the main focus; how to identify code, standard, or rating methods; and some approaches to overcome those barriers; some resources out there; some different methods of approaches. We looked at code notes. We looked at some code compliance briefs and I really think those are going to become quite popular as we get more and more of those out there. Again, if you have something that some innovation and you are maybe working with Building America, you're working Energy Star, you're working with an above code program, you're up against a code or standard barrier, please don't hesitate. Contact me and there's several avenues and so many resources out there that we can get you that probably could assist you. There just so much abundance of information and we also have the codes program help desk. They work directly in the energy code - the IECC and ASHRAE 90.1. That might be a path for you to help answer questions. You're probably going to hear from me because I'm the one who answers those but also there's the research teams that you can go out to on Building America's website. We have the appliance standards and I can get you the resources there through that program. So there're a lot of good things happening and I'll circle back to that big big circle I showed of that BTO Ecosystem, how we're trying to complement each other, and really try to tie all these programs together and work as a team. What the main goal is is for us all to start achieving these energy savings moving out 2025. We want to meet that goal for DOE. That's really where we're moving towards. As we're coming up and getting with these new technologies we have to work together and that's what going to take place but we want those resources out there for those builders and code officials so they have what they have in their hands not to stop a project and they can go through the process and we can see these things installed in these buildings and we see these high performance homes all the way to zero energy homes. I thank you for your time today. I don't know how many questions we have out there but I'm going to turn it back over to the moderator and see if there are any questions and I have Todd on the line so he can help answer those for me because he's truly the expert. Thank you again for joining today.

Linh Truong: Thanks so much Pam and Todd. I know you are on the line. I am going to ask the first question that we have. We do have a few questions. The first question either Pam or Todd feel free to respond. The first one is -rather than an emphasis on meeting or changing codes or standards, what is being done to establish whole building consumption or performance targets?                                        

Todd Taylor: Okay, this Todd. I'll take a stab at that one. That's really a question that's more related to code development than what Pam has been talking about. So I'll answer directly and then I'll mention a key connection that Pam has been talking about. The most recent version of the International Energy Conservation Code, the 2015 version, does have a new compliance path that is based entirely on an energy rating index for which you can use the fairly well known home energy rating system, HERS rating, to demonstrate compliance. That is, for the most part, a pure performance specification. Those things are happening in the world of codes, however, even when the energy codes specify its requirements only in terms of performance the specific house features that a builder might use to achieve that performance can still run into barriers put up by the other codes - structural, plumbing, and fire code. So this issue doesn't go away at all just because the code moves to a more performance specification format.

Linh Truong: Great, Pam did you want to add anything to that before we go onto the next one.

Pam Cole: No, he answered it perfectly.

Linh Truong: Okay, I'm just going to share a comment and feel free to add on to this comment. One of them is that - the IAPMO Uniform ES also offers evaluation services as well.

Pam Cole: Oh, perfect. Perfect. I didn't list all the references that are in that guidance document but please, whoever sent in that comment if it's...and I think it is in the guidance document because we have this huge appendix of all these different places that have that. Send it in to us because I'll add it. If there're references the more we have out there for people to get reference materials or they have a technical support or doing interpretations on their specific codes, great! We want to provide that information and make it easier for the builders and code officials. Thank you for the comment. 

Linh Truong: Great, the next question we have and Pam, Todd, feel free to jump in - for the guide architectural drawings for solar photovoltaic systems, should the appliance tab be updated to include the solar ready provisions and the appendix U in the 2015 IECC?

Pam Cole: I would need to go take a look at that guide. A lot of those guides that were published in the Solutions Center, and they've got to look at time frame so they're time stamped, they're date/time stamped, and again, there are guides that are in there now that do not have 2015 measures in them. So, it will be a continuous maintenance on a lot of everything that gets posted, even the codes notes that are on the Codes Program. Any other reference materials, they're all time stamped so they'll have to look at being updated and I'll make note of that and we'll look at putting that information in there but just keep that in mind that when those guides were published there is a date on those and a lot of them you will not see 2015 code references in there. The baseline starting for Building America is the 2009 code to start with, but you won't see 2015 yet in there. 

Linh Truong: Okay, great, and this is another comment and I don't know, Pam, if you want to go back to the slide where you were talking about the meetings in June.

Pam Cole: Sure.

Linh Truong: I believe you said that the meetings are going to be at the Colorado Convention Center and this comment says that it's at the Crown Plaza? Do you want to...do you know off the top of your head or should we confirm after?

Pam Cole: Well, this is the Codes Program and this is Todd's. Todd Taylor will be there and he takes one of the leads on the Codes Program along with another gal named Vershalin Mendin, who is the residential lead. Todd do you want to answer pertaining this specific question on this stakeholder meeting?

Todd Taylor: Yeah, I believe the comment is correct. It was initially planned to be in one place but for whatever reason the venue was moved.

Linh Truong: Okay, so we'll confirm this. So it's going to be at the Crown Plaza?

Todd Taylor: I believe that's right, yes.

Linh Truong: Okay.

Pam Cole: So, for anyone who's on there, go look on the energycodes.gov. That's going to have the most recent information. This probably changed since I put these slides together so I apologize for that.

Linh Truong: And there's a request to go back to the slide that shows the code compliance briefs to see that web URL. Is it possible to move the slide back?

Pam Cole: So the code compliance brief, the URL is really long because the code compliance briefs there's only a handful of them done that are out there. If you go out to the Solutions Center and there's hundreds of guides, which I mentioned. I should have listed them for everyone. The double wall framing has a code compliance brief. Bathroom fan ratings have a code compliance brief. The continuous rigid insulation cladding sheathing, if that's the one of interest to you...oh, that URL is so long that's the only problem with that. Here's the quick way to do it. When you get out to the Solutions Center home page click on the guides - A to Z, find continuous rigid insulation, which is on that first page - scroll down, click on that guide, click on the compliance tab and here's an example for the bathroom fan rating, and you'll see under the compliance tab that that has a compliance brief. What we're eventually going to do when we start producing more of these that on the left hand navigational pane that's circled, which isn't there now but it will be, we're going to have a title for code compliance briefs. Since this is really new for the Solutions Center and, as I said, we only have a handful. When we start developing more and more of these it will have its own little navigational to get to all of them and it will list them all out. I would love your guys' input on ones that you think would be something of value because we don't want to write ones that will not help to a code official or builder. We want to write ones that are going to get used. If you have something that is impeding you and you think would make a great brief, that's a guide that's already out there, let me know. Call me or send me an email because I'm the one kind of writing them so I do have a list but it would be nice to know what issues are out in the field, so yeah, get a hold of me.

Linh Truong: Okay, great, the next question we have for both of you is you mentioned the movement toward net zero homes and he's curious what your thoughts are around using national graphs in those homes? Do you see code or ASHRAE moving towards source space energy instead of just site energy?

Pam Cole: Well that's a code development question isn't it, so, a good place for that person that asks that question probably would be to bring...you know to go to that meeting that is being held. They are looking at ideas of where these codes are going to go, you know, and Todd can talk more about that. As far as where the future will go, are they going to zero energy, you know, that sort of thing. Todd, do you want to add more to that?

Todd Taylor: Probably not much. It's I'll say it's a debate that has gone on for a long time. In the residential IECC code right now, at least in the traditional energy compliance path, you can use either source energy or energy cost and there's even provision to use site energy if the local official deems it appropriate. You know, what is going to happen in ASHRAE, I think the right answer is you kind of have to go and put your two cents in. It's a long journey to try to figure out what ASHRAE is going to do. So I don't know that I have any really insight into that.

Linh Truong: Okay, great and just so that we can ensure that we have time for this survey and the wrap up I just want to have a couple more. One is a comment and another question. The comment is - barriers to overall energy performance or in mandates in the IECC. Todd and Pam, do you have any additional comments to add to that?

Todd Taylor: I'm not completely sure I am interpreting that correctly. The mandates in the IECC there are a couple of classes of provisions for energy code requirements in the IECC, some that we'd call prescriptive, which are in general means you can kind of trade them up and down for improves or degradations in other parts of the building if you need flexibility. Then there are mandatory requirements that you can't trade away no matter what. I'm going to interpret this question to mean - do the presence of those mandatory requirements that you can't get out of no matter what have the potential to become barriers to an energy performance based compliance? That's a big question. You could probably think of a case where you might argue that. Right off hand I can't think of any of the mandatory provisions that would have a detrimental effect on energy. It is conceivable that you would have a detrimental effect on overall costs, for example, but right off hand I can't think of mandatory provisions that would be detrimental to energy in that context.

Linh Truong: Okay, great and the last question that I'll post to you today are - can new innovators begin discussing new technology with Building America or do you recommend a different organization?

Pam Cole: Building America definitely is going down a path. They've developed some new roadmaps and looking at a new five year plan, strategic planning, on the three areas that I mentioned earlier at the very beginning of the presentation. The three areas that they are going to focus on walls, indoor air quality, HVAC, air comfort, and I'm not saying them exactly but I had them on the actual slide. I think Building America is a good place to be talking about these new technologies and these new innovations. They just awarded five teams, five teams, that just came out actually on Building America's website. I was going to list those teams. I should have listed them. I'm kicking myself that I didn't have them on a slide that they just posted. The FOA was awarded and there are new teams that are now under negotiations and will be beginning their work shortly. Go back out to Building America to look at what teams have been awarded and where they'll be doing a lot of their research.

Linh Truong: Okay, great, Todd did you have anything to add to that?

Todd Taylor: No, nothing to add to that but I've been sitting here thinking about my answer to the previous one and I should probably add to that that it's entirely conceivable that there are mandatory provisions in the code that could, in some context, end up being a barrier of some sort and you would deal with those in much the same way you deal with the other provisions in terms of trying to deal with that barrier.

Linh Truong: Okay, great and I just wanted to thank Pam and Todd today for your time and before we start our quick survey, Pam, Todd did you have any closing remarks or additional comments that you would like to make?           

Todd Taylor: No, I don't think I do.

Pam Cole: No, the only one is if you're seeing that you have a technology related to Building America that you are up against a barrier of some sort, please contact me or one of the Building America research teams that might be involved in doing research on that particular innovation. They are the experts and we are flexible. These code compliance briefs were made for the builders and code compliance officials to help ease the time and not to have some unintended consequences of stopped work or a stopped work order out in the field where they can't get an innovation installed in a home. Again, feel free to contact me and thank you for joining us today.

Linh Truong: Great, thank you again Pam and Todd. Now I would like to ask our audience to answer three very short questions about today's webinar. Your feedback will help us to know what we are doing well and where we can improve. Heather. Heather has just displayed the first question. The first question asks whether the webinar content was useful and informative. To answer just click on the radio button right in the GoToWebinar panel. We'll give you a couple seconds there before we move to the second question. The second question just asks about the effectiveness of the presenters. We'll let you go ahead and answer that and then the third question asks if the webinar met your expectations. So, let's wait. The third question you should be seeing it now. We do appreciate you taking the time to answer and providing feedback in this survey.

We just wanted to give you additional information about the upcoming webinar. The June Building America webinar is ventilation strategies for high performance homes: climate and temperature based ventilation solutions and it will be held on June 24. Registration will open soon on the Building America meetings page. Also, you can subscribe to receive notices about upcoming webinars and other news at the website URL on the screen. On behalf of the Building America program I would like to thank our expert panelists for presenting today and our attendees for participating in today's webinar. We've had a terrific audience and we appreciate your time. Please visit the Building America website to download a copy of the slides and learn more about the program. We also invite you to inform your colleagues about Building America resources and services. Have a great week and we hope to see you again at future Building America events. Thank you for attending today.