Green building codes: One of the big environmental stories of 2007?

Codes are springing up in cities big and small

Posted by Kif Scheuer (Guest Contributor) at 12:23 PM on 21 Dec 2006

Just in the last month I've noticed signs of a major shift in green building practices around the country.

Green building codes and ordinances are springing up all over the place. We may be seeing the beginning of one of the best environmental stories of 2007.

Washington D.C. got a lot of attention early in December for passing rules that will force private development to green up (although not until 2012). Now Boston is entering the game, forcing all private development over 50,000 sq. ft. to meet LEED's minimum criteria (26 out of 69 possible points). In addition to large metro areas, smaller cities and counties are greening their codes or making their public buildings green up. The list I pulled from google this morning includes: Livermore, Calif., Santa Cruz, Calif., Montgomery County, Va., Chatham, N.C., and Babylon, N.Y.

All of these were announced this month! Most green building stories profile specific buildings -- but if what's happening in these cities is an indication of what's in store for the coming year, green building may be going mainstream in an even bigger way than I imagined.

Many of these cities are incorporating LEED or modeling their guidelines on LEED's point system, but there's a lot of variation.

Time will tell how this trend develops, and how effective these various codes will be. I would like to see more coordination of green building standards between communities, because a green code that only specifies materials has very little in common with a code that gets into energy, materials, site, IAQ, and water. But most citizens, if they are even paying attention to these issues, will be happy to know their community is greening their codes at all.

That said, I do think these code changes are absolutely essential to advancing green practices. Seeing this uptick in the number of communities institutionalizing green building was a holiday present I hadn't anticipated.

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amitious changes

As lite-green building (which is what LEED Silver is, really) is going mainstream, solar architect Ed Mazria has upped the ante with his Architecture 2030 Challenge. Basically, he's calling for an immediate 50% reduction in energy use by new buildings and major remodels, ramping up to true net-zero-energy operation by 2030.

This is a technically achievable but enormously ambitious goal, the sort of thing that usually gets dismissed as unrealistic goofy eco-idealism. But he's already gathered endorsements from the US Council of Mayors, the AIA, and the USGBC, so it's being taken quite seriously in circles that matter.

I don't know if the buzz will be translated to action, but I do think this is one initiative to watch: it's right of the cusp between barely feasible (mostly politically and economically, though it's a technical challenge too) on one hand, and the a vision consumate with the scale of the problem on the other hand. Here's hoping...

by GreenEngineer at 12:56 PM on 21 Dec 2006

It's all in the implementation

In 1991 Washington State adopted an 'energy code' requirement for residences. In 1994, they did the same for commercial buildings.

As the head of a utility energy conservation department, I obviously took great interest in this.

After the initial fanfare, enforcement was turned over to the local building code enforcement agencies. When inspecting buildings that were implementing utility programs, which were to exceed code, we found in many cases, the local jurisdiction did not look for or enforce the energy code requirements.

When I tried to speak to them about it (field inspectors clear up to department heads), I was told "we're here for health and safety, we could care less about that energy crap".

An entity with an interest in actually seeing the energy savings realized needs to be in charge of the inspections.

Common sense is an oxymoron...

by Engineer at 4:57 PM on 21 Dec 2006

The code requirements here in Washington State

for things like minimum insulation in walls, floors and ceilings, along with u values for doors and windows are called out in the building plans. That covers just about everything. 90 plus percent of those requirements are met by the contractors even if the inspectors don't bother to check simply because that is what the drawing calls for. The code works extremely well even with imperfect inspections. The stickers on the windows are obvious, as is the insulation. Hard to hide from an inspector in any case, not that you would want to. There isn't much money to be saved by replacing r-36 with r-24, or a window with a slightly high U value, especially when you risk having an inspector tell you to replace them all.

One worry is that the government may implement ideas that cost a lot but return very little. The size of your house is the single biggest variable for energy consumption. That is something the government won't and shouldn't regulate but hopefully, small is beautiful will catch on as a status symbol at some point.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 10:34 AM on 23 Dec 2006

Quality of inspections...

This will not come as a shock, but I'm a tad more pessimistic. Maybe it comes from doing follow up home inspections myself, or hearing reports from my staff inspectors.

Not 15 minutes ago, one of my inspectors brought me pictures of the attic in a new home he did an audit on as a result of a high bill complaint. The home was approved by the local jurisdiction as complying with the WSEC, yet there is not one bit of insulation in the attic. The plans call for it, but it wasn't installed.

I've heard the same thing from several other utility conservation program managers as well.

This is the third instance we've found in the last several months as a result of complaints. I hate to think how many are out there where we haven't received complaints. This code has been in effect since 1991, the inspectors ought to get it by now.

A few years back (when utilities were required to make a payment to the home builders based on local jurisdiction inspections), I pulled a random sample of payment requests and had my staff re-inspect them. Of the 10 building records I pulled, 8 of them did not comply with the energy code.

Common sense is an oxymoron...

by Engineer at 9:01 AM on 29 Dec 2006
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