Three recent studies that address the advantages of energy efficiency on home ownership could have a significant impact on the way buyers finance home purchases.
After standing pat with its flagship energy program for the first 10 years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revamped the thresholds for Energy Star-backed new homes twice in the last half-dozen years.
AvalonBay’s Ava H Street apartment community in Washington, D.C., taps the Millennial mindset with such features as customizable closets and a Twitter wall in the lobby.
Sales of newly built, single-family homes rose 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 417,000 units in March, according to newly released figures from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The National Fenestration Rating Council approved changes to its NFRC 100 and NFRC 200 standards, allowing certain shading devices to be rated for U-factor and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is working on new building standards after discovering previously unknown indoor air pollutants.
The first group of Passive House-certified homes called the Stables will be ready for occupancy in spring 2013. The row of Passive House single-family townhomes is being developed by Onion Flats group with Domani Developers.
“The first dozen or so attempts to build net-zero [homes] in Oregon fell short because they missed the mark on efficiency and performance,” says Sam Hagerman, co-owner of Hammer & Hand and president of the Passive House Alliance US.
The New Mexico State Court of Appeals struck down an attempt to repeal energy-efficient building codes. The original decision to roll back the building codes came from a suggestion by Gov. Susana Martinez’s small business task force.
