Page 29 - Green Builder Sept-Oct 2020 Issue

Zero Energy Ready Home award
winners hold an enduring appeal:
They’re not your run-of-the-mill
residential dwellings.
A virtual winner. Healthy Communities
in Williamsburg, Virginia, is among the
Grand Winner nominees at the U.S.
Department of Energy’s 2020 Housing
Innovation Awards, which is being held
virtually for the first time.
COURTESY OF HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
26-44 GB 0920 Building Science.indd 27
HUS FAR, HAS CHALLENGED
everyone to be better than they were last
year. Better at making choices, taking
action, and deciding whether to accept the
Tstatus quo or move on to something new.
In this year’s showcase of recent U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE)’s Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH)
Housing Innovation Awards winners, we feature
builders who opted to be better. Their projects
tackled long-standing homeowner problems—
climate control, high utility costs, durability and
the ability to simply keep the lights on during
Mother Nature’s wrath—and swatted them away
for something better.
There were ground rules: The ZERH program
requires certi’cation to Energy Star Certi’ed Homes
Version ”. , ”.• or ”. , as well as the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)’s Indoor airPLUS program,
the insulation mandates of International Energy
Conservation Code (IECC), and other mandatory
requirements of the DOE program.
But in the end, these uniquely planned and carefully
crafted projects met their developers’ ultimate goal,
one that all builders can strive for.
They were made to be better.
10/13/20 11:57 AM