About Residential Building Programs
The Building Technologies Program (BTP) collaborates with home builders, energy professionals, state and local governments, utilities, product manufacturers, educators, and researchers to improve the energy efficiency of both new and existing homes. Our residential sector activities include:
-
Demonstrating to builders and remodelers how to build and renovate for high performance through best practice guides and case studies and continuing to developing innovative whole-house energy efficiency solutions through Building America research projects. We also provide guidelines and tools for researchers conducting building related research projects.
-
Promoting a trusted, whole-house process for upgrading existing homes with Home Performance with ENERGY STAR®.
-
Launching a new national energy efficiency rating—the Home Energy Score—that helps a homeowner compare their home's performance to other homes located in the same climate.
-
Recognizing high performance homes and leading builders with the DOE Challenge Home.
-
Partnering with community scale initiatives to make homes more energy efficient through Better Buildings Neighborhood grants.
-
Encouraging the next generation to design innovative homes through U.S. DOE's Solar Decathlon—a collegiate competition to design, build, and operate a low energy home. We also work with educators to develop tomorrow's building science curricula and standards and specifications like Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals that will help foster growth of a qualified workforce.
-
Collaborating with manufacturers on research of emerging products, building components and whole building technical barriers to energy efficiency and strengthening energy efficient building codes and appliance standards.
Benefits and Results
Improving energy efficiency not only benefits the homeowner, but the entire nation. If just one of every 10 U.S. homes cut their energy use by 25%, Americans could save over $5 billion per year on their energy bills and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 225 million cars off the road. Additionally, homeowners find energy efficient homes to be more comfortable because less air leakage and more insulation help minimize drafts and temperature variation.
-
Since 2009, over 10,000 homes across the United States have achieved the energy efficiency criteria of DOE's Builders Challenge initiative. Homes that meet the Builders Challenge are approximately 30% more energy efficient than a typical new home built to code.
-
The Better Buildings Neighborhood Program is testing new business models for community-scale energy efficiency upgrades with more than 40 competitively-selected state and local governments.
-
Over 200,000 homes have been retrofitted under the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR Program since its inception, with estimated savings ranging from 15% to 30% for homeowners
-
The Building America Research Program has led to numerous innovations and cost reductions in technology that make programs like EPA's ENERGY STAR, and DOE's Challenge Home affordable and ready for market adoption
-
The biennial Solar Decathlon has become the national show case for the future of housing. Its success has spread to Europe and China which will host their own solar decathlons in the coming year.