EEBA's High Performance Home Newsletter

As code requirements and consumer demand raise the performance of U.S. homes, energy efficiency isn't the marketing differentiator it once was. Just ask Brandon DeYoung of DeYoung Properties. When he, along with his brother and sister, took over the family's Fresno, Calif. homebuilding business a decade ago they had a vision: build super energy-efficient homes with low electric bills and minimal environmental impact. They've succeeded. Their latest project is a community of 36 Zero-Energy production homes, the state's largest. But while that community is newsworthy, it doesn't put the company as far ahead of the pack as they would like to be. A new rule from the California Energy Commission will require all homes built after 2020 to have rooftop solar panels, so the DeYoungs did what all marketers always do: find additional ways to set themselves apart. The result was the DeYoung Smart Home. Every home is outfitted with a Samsung home automation hub, as well as a smart light... read more

When winter storms put the lights out in Matt Coffey's neighborhood he doesn't worry. "My house can stay in a comfortable temperature range for days," he says. That's because his 3-bedroom zero energy Cape-style home combines a high-efficiency building envelope and HVAC system with rooftop photovoltaic panels. Coffey is one of five staff architects with South Mountain Company (SMC), an architecture, building, and energy firm West Tisbury, Mass. The company is one of a cadre number of builders who realize that while energy-savings and healthy living remain the top selling points for high-performance construction, these homes can also be made resilient enough to keep going when the power goes off. Resilience in the face of weather events and power outages could shape up as the cutting edge of performance building. It's a benefit that builders of Net Zero Energy homes can easily offer with just a few adjustments. And outages are a fact of life. Hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards... read more