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Best Practice Upgrades for New Energy Efficient Homes in Hot and Humid Climates
Abstract
The EPA's ENERGY STAR Homes program is a
national voluntary program that promotes the
construction of new homes that are 30% more
efficient than the Model Energy Code. Accordingly,
with the Home Energy Rating System (HERS)
scoring system, ENERGY STAR Homes must achieve
a score of at least an 86. This performance-based
compliance requirement enables builders to be
creative in the specific energy efficiency features that
they build in their new homes. However, builders
often want to know what the minimum energy
efficiency features of an ENERGY STAR Home
would likely be - before they joined the program.
To solve this problem, EPA developed the Builder
Option Packages (BOPs). BOPS are currently used
as marketing tools to communicate the typical energy
efficiency features of ENERGY STAR Homes. This
paper will focus on the hot and humid portion of the
US. and explain the technical methodology used to
develop the BOPS as well as the energy use and
HERS scores obtained for the various configurations
analyzed.
Citation
Meisegeier, D.; Hall, J. (2000). Best Practice Upgrades for New Energy Efficient Homes in Hot and Humid Climates. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /6797.