As change to the energy performance of proposed buildings goes through the meat grinder of the legislative process, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the Ontario legislature brings meaningful change as they, rightly, slap consumers with higher electricity costs – albeit still substantially lower than EU rates. As a special to the Globe and Mail, John Lornic wrote two columns a few days ago focusing on the issues highlighted by Ted Kesik “a professor at the University of Toronto, [who] says the condo developers have exploited a loophole that allows them to erect towers clad in one of the least energy-efficient materials: glass.”
The sad truth is, it’s not just the high-rise sector that exploits energy simulation or modeling loopholes. The energy modeling loopholes also apply to the low-rise residential sector and BlueGreen Group is starting to see the fruit of the 2012 OBC changes in the volume of complaint calls from luxury homes, often with substantially more than 22% window to wall ratio. These well-to-do homeowners want to know what can be done to their new home to make the rooms more comfortable or figure out why their Ground Source Heat Pump is always running on auxiliary electric resistance as opposed to drawing from the bore field causing electrical bills in winter in excess of $2000. A $2000 monthly electrical bill isn’t chump-change, even for a rich guy.
Lornic touches on the Compliance concept in his second article saying “Despite all the political rhetoric about emissions reductions, if you want to build a really efficient home, you can’t rely on the code – you need to hire specialists to design it.” As we blogged a few days back about the myriad changes to SB-12 proposed for 2017, we wish more would have been done but hope at the very least that the proposed changes stick.
The proposed 15% increase in overall energy efficiency might just mean that serious changes to the building envelope and significantly better windows get installed – which by the way are still getting short shrift from building inspectors who rarely check that installed window performance is in compliance with what was promised in the Energy Efficiency Design Summary. For that matter, there are countless windows being installed TODAY that are NOT ENERGY RATED!
Compliance energy modeling differs from Performance energy modeling in that it only seeks to satisfy the bare minimum requirements building code. Compliance is the absolute minimum required by the code and it’s often calculated by a quirky piece of software – HOT2000 – written before the iPhone was available.
Whereas, performance energy modeling seeks to minimize utility bills and if the professional doing the energy modeling has a good grasp of building science, they bring comfort into the equation too by using more modern software like WUFI Passive. This is where the confluence of field experience and a deep understanding of how energy models or simulators work.
Just because an energy model says its OK, it still doesn’t trump common sense when designing a building and our diagnostic business is confirming that builds merely ‘complying’ with the code have some new home owners VERY frustrated. Some have been allowed to pain themselves into a glass corner, some were promised the Ground Source Heat Pump was a silver bullet.
Either way, if you’re an architect or design build firm, drop compliance energy modeling like a hot potato; it’s a liability to your reputation. Hire experts that do performance energy modeling and who can help you detail your building envelope to produce a home your client will be both comfortable paying the utility bills or lounging by a large window on a cold blustery day.