The Performance House: A Cold Climate Challenge Home - Old Greenwich

Working with builder partners on test homes allows for vetting of whole-house building strategies to eliminate any potential unintended consequences prior to implementing these solution packages on a production scale. To support this research, the Consortium for Advanced Residential Buildings partnered with Preferred Builders Inc. on a high performance test home in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. The philosophy and science behind the 2,700 ft2 Performance House were based on the premise that homes should be safe, healthy, comfortable, durable, efficient, and adapt with the homeowners. The technologies and strategies used in the Performance House were not cutting-edge, but simply best practices practiced. The focus was on simplicity in construction, maintenance, and operation. When seeking a 30% source energy savings targets over a comparable 2009 International Energy Conservation Code-built home in the cold climate zone, nearly all components of a home must be optimized. Careful planning and design are critical.
The Performance House demonstrates how a home can be designed and constructed in the cold climate zone to be energy efficient, low maintenance, sustainable, and comfortable. Lower price premiums are still needed for solutions such as ccSPF and light-emitting diodes, but this is anticipated as their market demand increases. For a solution package of this level to become commercially viable, there is still a need to improve the home appraisal process to better value the multiple benefits of a solution package of this type over standard builder practices.