Awards and Accolades, Green Building

360° Design Studio Home Wins Deltec’s 4th Housing Innovation Award

It’s been a busy fall of 2024 at Deltec, what with Huricane Helene wreaking unprecedented damage on our hometown of Asheville.  So hopefully we can be forgiven for delaying some in getting this news out there. But, we are nonetheless thrilled to announce that one of our homes has won our fourth US Department of Energy Housing Innovation Award.

This prestigious award is given out annually only to a small subset of certified Zero Energy Ready Homes–that is–homes that have taken the steps to be verified according to one of the strictest green building certifications in the country.  This project, located in the extreme cold of the upper peninsula of Michigan, may not have to worry about hurricanes, but certainly still has regular lake effect winds to content with.  The design optimizes both our wind resistant and net-zero ready capabilities.

The Home: A 1200 model round Deltec from our 360° Design Studio with a connector to a 24’x24′ garage, all built on a conditioned basement. This owner-builder’s goal was to create his own home, according to high performance goals he had been reading about and dreaming about for many years. Subcontractors willing to engage with advanced building science techniques were especially hard to come by.  The use of off-site fabrication offered some help to the owner-builder who tackled these challenges to build his unique home on a very beautiful build site.

The Certification and Award: Through a team effort between the homeowner, Deltec, and a local HERS Rating company, this project was built to the stringent standards of the DOE’s Zero Energy Ready Home Program (ZERH), one of the strictest green certification programs in the country. This is the first certified ZERH in this area, and one of the few in both a cold climate zone (zone 7) and a high wind zone and wind exposure category (115 MPH ASCHE deign winds, exposure D.)  Housing Innovation Awards are given out each year by the US DOE to a small subset of these homes, and such winning homes are featured on the US DOE’s list of high performance home case studies.

The Building Envelope: Deltec’s 2×10 thick double stuud wall panels, insulated on site with a “flash and batt” approach of closed cell foam + dense pack cellulose; pre-installed triple pane windows from Marvin; unvented attic with Rx60closed cell foam insulation, all on an R25 insulated concrete form (ICF) foundation. Blower door assisted air leakage diagnostics during rough in and dedicated air sealing work lead to an impressive air tightness score of 0.95ACH50. The heating load for this home, at a winter design temperature of -1F, was just under two tons. That is lower than the heating loads of comparable sized homes in many warmer climates.

The Systems: All electric home an Arctic Heat Pump air-to-water system offering radiant in floor heating in some areas paired with forced air heating and cooling from fan coil units in other areas, all with electricity and no fossil fuels. Backup EPA certified wood stove. Panasonic Intelli Balance ERV fresh air ventilation system. Heat pump water heater, induction range.

Other Special Features: A SPAN electrical panel to monitor energy use on a circuit level. Conduit for solar pre-wired, electric vehicle car charger pre-wired. An AirThings indoor air quality monitor. Indoor and outdoor sauna.

Check out more photos and info on our Housing Innovation Awards page. Additionally, this project is now one of our 360° Design Studio featured homes.