A Cost-Effective Path to Healthy, Affordable, Net Zero Housing with DOE’s ZER Program

In this presentation, we’ll show how affordable home builders like United Way of Long Island, along with production, custom, and multifamily builders across the country, are building healthy, durable, energy-efficient homes that are achieving remarkably high performance and low Home Energy Rating System scores – with a program average of HERS 43 without PV and HERS 6 with PV.

Certified high performance, high indoor air quality, and net zero energy may sound like an expensive wish list for affordable housing, especially in locations that already have high land prices but a select group of affordable home builders has found a way to make clean, healthy, and net zero attainable by sticking to the criteria of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home program. In this presentation, we’ll show how affordable home builders like United Way of Long Island, along with production, custom, and multifamily builders across the country, are building healthy, durable, energy-efficient homes that are achieving remarkably high performance and low Home Energy Rating System scores – with a program average of HERS 43 without PV and HERS 6 with PV. We’ll give an overview of the choices builders across the program are making in terms of key energy-efficiency measures like wall assemblies, insulation types, HVAC equipment, water heating, etc. We’ll share some of their best design secrets for cutting costs without sacrificing performance. We’ll dive deep into the details with case studies of several of United Way of Long Island’s award-winning projects. And we’ll lay out a roadmap based on the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program so you can achieve high performance home designs too.