Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Re: ICC Green Building Code

On Jul 14, 2009, at 1:23 PM, Timothy Hilton wrote:

> Insults aside, what about the construction concerns in his email?
Minnesota has had a related mechanical Code (called an 'Energy Code')
for a number of years. Energy efficiency is probably the chief point
of the code, since energy costs here are important factors. But there
are others involving air quality and appropriate ventilation along
with energy usage. For a while the big thing here was making houses
airtight to keep outside air outside, but it wasn't long before
homes, especially newer homes were having problems with carbon
monoxide and moisture retention. when a house is too tight air
quality suffers mold accumulates and gas appliances and furnaces
start having combustion problems when the interior pressure was
reduced because there was no way to supply fresh combustion. Lots of
cases of expensive new housing that was uninhabitable because of mold
resulting from moisture retention. That's serious damn business.

And of course there were the usual problems with builders using
energy efficiency to sell houses that weren't truly energy efficient
because there wasn't a standard for it. There was a lot of whining
and complaining from builders (except for the good ones) about the
code and how much it was going to affect costs and how they'd always
done fine before, but it seems to have worked. It also provides a
baseline for weatherizing performance in older houses which is a big
money saving, for the utilities and for people who live in (and
prefer) older houses.

As for the goofy looking fluorescent light bulbs, they make a huge
amount of real engineering sense. We started replacing old
incandescent bulbs with fluorescents. I think we've had the new
kitchen fixtures around 10 years with the original lamps still
working. Same in my office--two desk light replacements in 20 years.
They save real money, goofy or not.

Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at
chrisw@skypoint.com | this distance" (last words of Gen.
.......................................| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania
1864)
http://www.skypoint.com/members/chrisw/

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