Measured Home Performance: Guide to Best Practices for Home Energy Retrofits in California - Paperback

by Lew Harriman (Author), Rick Chitwood (Author)

This report to the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research Program (PIER) helps Home Performance Contractors train their crews to achieve superior results in home energy retrofits.

The book was updated and expanded in December of 2012 to include the impressive measured results from 15 home energy retrofits in Redding, California that were accomplished using the principles and practices outlined in this report.

Homeowners may also find this information useful, when they want to understand the techniques that regularly achieve utility bill savings of 40 to 70% on an annual basis.

This approach-called Measured Home Performance-is different from other means of saving energy. Most importantly, all of the home's energy features are redesigned and improved at the same time, so the synergies take effect immediately. Next, measurements are taken all the way through the process, to ensure that both the redesign and the installation are excellent. Improved comfort and energy savings are assured by high-tech field measurements, taken by the craftspeople themselves rather than by 3rd-party auditors. This process provides real-time feedback to the real decision makers-the technicians who do the work.

Measurements of critical parameters like duct air leakage, while-house air leakage, supply air flow at each grill, CO concentration & draft pressure of combustion appliances and superheat and subcooling of the AC equipment make the installation quality-good or poor-are instantly clear to the crews. They can fix any shortcomings on the spot, rather than waiting days or weeks for 3rd-party testing results.

Craftspeople measuring key parameters as they work transforms the workplace. Measured quality not only ensures successful results for the homeowners, it self-trains crew members in the field, where they learn more quickly than in the classroom. At the end of every day, workers know when they have achieved excellent results-a powerful motivator that works to everybody's benefit.

Author Biography

Rick Chitwood
Richard (Rick) Chitwood, BSME, is the founder of Chitwood Energy Management in Mount Shasta, California. As a design-build contractor for over 25 years, Rick is an expert in energy-efficient residential building construction, diagnostic testing, and performance evaluation.

Rick has extensive hands-on experience working with builders to improve the energy efficiency of new homes and with homeowners and remodelers to improve the thermal comfort and energy performance of existing homes. For example, he personally performance tested over 3,000 homes in Northern California though Pacific Power's Home Comfort Program. Rick holds California contractor's licenses A (General Engineering), C-2 (Insulation) and C-4 (Boiler), and has also been a certified as heat pump installation technician by the Refrigeration Service Engineers' Society.

Rick is a leader in the building science-based house-as-a-system approach to green home energy design and retrofits. As the lead diagnosis and remediation trainer for the California Building Performance Contractors Association (CBPCA) Rick is one of the principal designers of the CBPCA's training curriculum. He conducts over 80 days of training every year for Architects, Energy Consultants, HERS Raters, HVAC and insulation contractors.

Lew Harriman
Lewis G. Harriman III is the Director of Research & Consulting for Mason-Grant in Portsmouth, NH. He has 35 years of experience with HVAC, building energy reduction, humidity control and investigation and remediation of indoor moisture problems.

Lew has served as the lead author of several chapters in the ASHRAE Handbook (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers). He was also the Project Manager, lead author and illustrator of ASHRAE's Design Guide for Humidity Control, ASHRAE's Guide for Buildings in Hot & Humid Climates and the report to the California Energy Commission titled "A Builder's Guide to Mold Risk Reduction."

Lew has lectured extensively throughout North America, the Carribbean, Asia and Europe on the subjects of building energy reduction, infrared thermal analysis of building enclosures and humidity & moisture control.

In recognition of his consulting and teaching excellence, in 2009 Lew was elected a Fellow of ASHRAE.