It’s a been busy a year for high performance, green and sustainable building at Deltec Homes.
The US Department of Energy just announced their 2023 Housing Innovation Award Winners, and we are thrilled to announce that for the third time, one of Deltec’s custom home projects was selected as a winner!
A team effort with the amazing homeowners (who acted as owner-builders, and were so inspired by high performance building that they started their own general contracting company), Deltec’s winning project was a customized Ridgeline Model, certified through the DOE’s Zero Energy Ready Home Program. This voluntary, third party green certification program sets forth a rigorous list of requirements during the design and construction of the home, including requirements for insulation, heating and cooling systems, water systems, and materials used in the home that maximize energy efficiency, comfort, and air quality. These requirements are achievable in today’s current building market, and yet represent a set of best practices for construction that tend to go well beyond what you typically see in new construction if such care and planning is not intentionally brought into the process.
Each year the US Department of Energy selects from among Zero Energy Ready Certified homes a subset of projects recognized as Housing Innovation Award winners. Additionally, from this group of winners a Grand Award winner will be selected in each of these four categories: Off the Shelf (projects with the best use of repeatable, cost effective features to achieve energy performance), Blazing the Trail (projects with the best examples of using innovation), Class is in Session (projects that spread education and training about high performance building), and DeCarbon Copy (projects that are exemplary in de-carbonizing the building process.)
The Housing Innovation Awards, and news as to which award winning projects are further selected as Grand Award winners, will be presented at the Energy and Environmental Builders Alliance (EEBA) Summit, where builders from all over the US with a focus on environmentally responsible building methods gather each year to share knowledge and resources. So stay tuned!
GreenAcres High Performance Home Consulting, the homeowners turned owner-builders who spearheaded the work to have their home certified through this program, recently sat down with us at Deltec to share their excitement in being winners of this award with their home. Their project set a new benchmark of energy performance for the Deltec system, with a new air-tightness score of 0.46 ACH50 (reaching Passive House levels of air tightness) and a HERS index of 37 without PV. Said the homeowners, “The combination of a Deltec precision assembled panelized building system and an innovative high performance build by a contractor like Greenacres HPHC LLC can deliver exceptional home comfort, air quality, efficiency, and durability.”
Deltec certainly agrees that a panelized home system is a great fit for anyone looking to achieve energy and environmental performance that goes well beyond the status quo, whether that is in pursuit of a Zero Energy Ready Home, or any other performance goal. To that end, Deltec’s Sustainability and Innovation Lead Leigha Dickens (top, left) will be presenting at the 2023 EEBA Summit, along with a panel of other builders, on the energy performance benefits of using panelized construction methods.