Page 28 - CodeWatcher Winter 2017 Issue
P. 28
The good news? Significant D EVELOPING ENERGY CODES with little
advances in efficiency have or negative savings will slow progress
been gained in the residential toward meeting efficiency goals, become
provisions of the IECC since a disincentive for states to adopt the code
the publication of the 2006 (why adopt a code that is less efficient than the code
IECC. Efforts by DOE and they currently have?) and result in more resources
advocacy groups resulted in being spent to increase the efficiency of the energy
a 15% increase in efficiency code in an effort to meet efficiency mandates required
between the 2006 and by state statutes. States wanting to adopt stretch codes
2009 IECC and an additional that are more efficient than the code that they have
15% increase between the adopted would need to develop their own instead of
2009 and 2012 IECC. These adopting the latest model energy code that is more
changes were fueled by DOE’s efficient than the code that they have.
push for a 30% more efficient
residential code by the 2012 The DOE, through EPact 92, is required to determine
edition of the IECC. whether a new energy code is more efficient than its
predecessor. If that energy code saves energy over
The bad news? That rate the earlier code, states must adopt it. A version of the
has slowed to a crawl. IECC with negative savings would be obsolete before
Specifically, the rate of it was published.
efficiency increases has
slowed significantly with only There have been several theories as to why earlier
a 0.8% increase in efficiency efficiency gains cannot be matched, including code
for the 2015 IECC and the fatigue, increasing the savings too quickly over a short
prospect of negative savings period of time without allowing the building industry
for the 2018 IECC. to catch up, and resistance to federal agencies setting
goals and driving the code development process to
28 CodeWatcher / January 2017 meet the goals.
All of these have contributed to a resistance
in advancing the code, but one that hasn’t been
mentioned is that the ICC IECC Code development
process is not designed to provide efficiency gains
on a consistent basis from code cycle to code cycle.
To meet the savings goals set by national initiatives
such as Architecture 2030 and states like Washington,
the code development process needs to be modified
to ensure consistent incremental savings.
The Proactive Advantage
T HE ICC CODE DEVELOPMENT process tends
to be reactive and not proactive. Changes
are typically proposed to a code because of
an event that leads to failure, such as an
earthquake or hurricane that leads to a building
failure or because of the adoption of new technologies
or techniques that advance building practice.
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