• An extraordinary living experience
• An unparalleled connection to the outdoors
• Resilience to hurricanes and extreme weather conditions
• Naturally more energy-efficient and sustainable

Better yet, because the homes in the 360⁰ Signature Collection are pre-designed and extremely efficient to manufacture and build, we are able to pass on significant price and time savings to our customers.  The 360⁰ Signature Collection offers:

• 32 pre-designed floor plans carefully curated to reflect what our homeowners love most: spacious living at any size.
• Cost savings of approximately 25% compared to our custom design path.
• Our simplest process and fastest timeline.
• Models that are all net-zero ready and can achieve wind resistance of up to 170 mph.
• Single-story free-standing homes (no wings or connectors) with sizes from 517 to 2070 square feet.

While the 360⁰ Signature Collection does not allow for full customization, it has a large variety of bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and entry configurations to allow you to personalize your Deltec home.  Not to fret – if a custom-designed Deltec is what you dream of, this will always be available as part of the 360⁰ Design Studio. 

Every Deltec home, whether it is part of the 360⁰ Signature Collection or the 360⁰ Design Studio, is built with the same great materials and attention to detail and will be a panoramic retreat that you will love to come home to every day.

If the price of a Deltec home has been holding you back, we invite to look at Deltec in a whole new light.  The only question to ask yourself now is – am I ready to live outside the box?

-Steve Linton, President

The post Announcing the 360⁰ Signature Collection appeared first on Deltec Homes.

Our Head of Sustainable Technologies, Leigha Dickens, presented on a panel with four other builders who each use different types of “offsite construction” methods, plus a Pacific Northwest National Labs researcher who collects data on certified Zero Energy Ready Homes. The latter had put together interesting research showing that projects utilizing offsite construction techniques often have better air-tightness scores and better HERS scores than homes in the program that use stick framing alone–a topic that she and Leigha have presented about before.

This panel consisted of four building companies, each with a very different business model, yet all using structural components built in a factory. Longtime followers of Deltec might know that we started out as a panelized kit manufacturer back in the 70s, building our unique round homes and selling them to customers all over the country. But the use of panelized components is not unique to Deltec, and is indeed a growing trend in the industry overall. Leigha spoke on a panel with a production builder based in Delaware who purchases pre-built wall panels for all their single and multi-family projects, a SIPS builder based in NC, and a startup modular home manufacturer that builds exclusively to Zero Energy Ready Home standards. No matter the business model, all had found that factory pre-fabrication helps them to deliver a high quality product.

Leigha also presented on a panel on women in construction, highlighting the need to get more women into the industry at all levels and sharing insights on how to succeed as a woman in a still very male-dominated field.

And of course, the highlight of the week was receiving Deltec’s third Housing Innovation Award from the US Department of Energy for a Ridgeline project recently completed in Ohio. (View case studies on this home and our other past Housing Innovation Award winning homes.)

Other notes from the EEBA Conference:

• The competition for the Housing Innovation Awards was very impressive this year, with ground-breaking projects across the US looking at things like interconnected community energy management, embodied carbon accounting of the materials in the home, fire resilience, and more. We were happy to see our home state of North Carolina well represented with three winners, two from Asheville.

• Manufacturing concrete is a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions, yet concrete remains a necessary building material. One presentation estimated the impact of the manufacture of concrete at 8% of global carbon emissions–but also posited that reducing concrete by 3% could make a significant impact on the world’s progress towards Paris climate goals. There are ways that individual customers can reduce the concrete content of their projects, such as looking into concrete with higher fly ash content.

• Water availability remains a growing challenges for builders in the Western US, especially amid a changing climate. Deltec picked up some leads on some simple water-saving technologies that clients might be able to implement into their homes, such as Rainstick and Hydraloop.

• Resilient buildings benefit all of society. Recent work by the National Institute of Building Sciences found that for every $1 spent to build new buildings to current resiliency codes, $11 is saved. Deltec provides structures to meet and often exceed local energy and wind codes.

The post Dispatches from the Energy and Environmental Builders Alliance Summit 2023 appeared first on Deltec Homes.

Tips for Seniors

The first step should always be to establish a communication plan. Have one person who is a local contact and one that is an out of area contact. Long distance calls may be easier to connect when local disaster areas are impacted. If you are living in a senior living community, ask for a copy of the emergency evacuation plan communication strategy. Become familiar with local senior living or nursing homes that offer sub-acute or respite care. A loved one may temporarily need a place to stay or need skilled nursing when recovering from an injury in an event like a natural disaster.

Respite rooms are in high demand during a natural disaster so it’s best to know what your options are before there is an emergency.

Stock your home and car with disaster supplies, including the items listed below. If you can, stock up before you know a storm is coming to avoid crowds and get the items you need. You should also keep support items like wheelchairs and walkers in a designated place for easy access.

• An emergency water supply
  • Personal care products
  • Emergency food
  • A first aid kit
  • Flashlights
  • A battery-powered radio 
  • Your medical insurance information, including Medicaid/Medicare cards
  • Prescriptions and prescription cards for refills
  • Medical tags with information about healthcare needs.

Pet Safety Tips

Special considerations need to be taken when preparing an evacuation plan that involves animals. Storms disrupt everyone’s routine and pets are no different. They can react impulsively and more unexpectedly than people during an emergency.

Assembling a pet-specific preparedness kit will put your mind at ease before a disaster strikes.

• A list of pet-friendly hotels/motels in your region. Consider Airbnb’s or VRBO’s (Vacation Rentals by Owner). Check what the restrictions are such as number and physical size or species of pet. View this useful website. 
• List of boarding facilities and vet hospitals. If your pet can’t stay with you, make sure to call ahead and make a reservation. Pet insurance is also something to consider. Although it can be expensive, if your pet is severely injured or needs surgery during a disaster, insurance can save you hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars.   
• Medical records / Medication. If you board your pet, you may need to show its vaccine history. Scan them into your phone and print a hard copy.
• Collar and leash with proper ID. Make sure the information is up to date, including your cell phone number and a backup number of a friend or relative. Consider getting your pet microchipped. Make sure the registration is in your name. But REMEMBER, the average person may not have the ability to scan for a microchip but will be able to read a basic ID tag.
• Current photos of you and your pet. If you become separated, this will prove ownership and assist emergency workers and neighbors locate your pet. Have copies on your phone and printed out.

You can use a small and lightweight GPS tracker of your dog.  Glow in the dark collars and leashes are also a great idea in an emergency when power is affected.

Help children learn about and prepare for hurricane disasters

Psychologists agree that children are the most susceptible to psychological trauma associated with natural disasters and a hurricane certainly falls into this category.

Numerous studies have shown that children experience a great deal of stress because of a hurricane. They are young so they do not really understand. They are displaced, evacuated from the only place they call home, have seen their neighborhood damaged or destroyed and have lost personal belongings. In some hard-hit areas such as Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, thousands of toddlers were left homeless. It is not shocking that many develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Symptoms include recurring bad dreams and feeling anxious.

Parents and caregivers can log online at NCTSN.org (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network). This website is a good resource for the public, professionals, and others who care about children and are concerned about child traumatic stress.

Have a Kid-Friendly Preparedness Kit

Some items will depend on your own needs but here’s a starting point.

• Spare clothing pack: Pack those old, less popular clothes they don’t usually wear. When the clothes they’re wearing get dirty or wet, even their least favorite duds are better than nothing. Also, pack extra socks and underwear.
• Kid-friendly foods: For example, canned ravioli, mac & cheese, fruit roll ups, trail mix, PB&J, applesauce, baked cheese crackers, and dry cereal. Keep in mind what foods your kids like to eat at home and those they don’t. If your child doesn’t like peas at home, don’t expect him to eat them from your prep kit.
• Baby wipes: If there isn’t running water, they’re perfect to wipe down you and those that created the stench in the backseat.
• Fun & Games: Pack of cards, board games, blank paper pads with crayons, and magnetic car games. Keep them from being bored, especially on long car rides, by packing a variety of activities to get the imagination going and pass the time.
• Comfort items: Favorite stuffed animals, blankets, toys, or anything else that brings your child comfort.

Valuable links for parents and caregivers

• Hurricane Emergency: News, Safety Tips and Relief Response | Save the Children
• The ready.gov website has an educational and fun resource for kids of all ages to help prepare for a disaster. There are games, like the Disaster Master Game and Build a Kit game. The Ready Kids penguin mascot, Pedro, will walk them through it.

The post Hurricane Safety Tips appeared first on Deltec Homes.

As our climate warms, the world is experiencing stronger winds, higher storm surges and record rainfalls during the hurricane season.  Every year, hurricanes and storm-related flooding cause around $34 billion in damage to U.S. households and the areas at most at-risk, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and the beaches along the Atlantic.

Scientists have concluded that Earth’s apparent long-term rising temperatures can impact regular weather events, such as rainfall, hurricanes, tornadoes, and droughts.  Such extreme weather has the potential to devastate and impact peoples’ lives and property across the globe on an increasingly serious scale. According to the NOAA, global temperatures rose about 1.98°F (1.1°C) from 1901 to 2020, but climate change refers to more than an increase in temperature – it also includes rises in sea levels, rises in ocean temperatures, changes in weather patterns like drought and flooding, and much more.  In fact, the average global sea level has already risen by half a foot since 1900 — nearly four of those inches since 1970. Higher sea level can push more water inland during hurricane-related storm surges.

Many hurricane experts agree that there is a direct connection between climate change and stronger hurricanes. 

Hurricanes get their energy from the ocean and through the years, human-caused climate change has trapped enormous amounts of extra heat on the planet. Most of that heat–over 90 percent–has been absorbed into the ocean. That makes the ocean warmer, and that hotter water right near the sea’s surface acts like an accelerant to storms as they form. In Florida, ocean temperatures broke 100° F this summer–nearly hot-tub water territory. That hurt coral reefs and other marine life, and primed the region for more intense storms. Since the 1970s, about twice as many storms are spinning up into Category 4 or 5 cyclones as before. It’s nearly three times as likely that an Atlantic-born tropical cyclone will wind up as a hurricane as it was three decades ago.

As we anticipate a future of more disastrous storms, building homes to withstand extreme weather events is crucial. 

Hurricane season stretches from June 1 to November 30, but the financial hardship and long-term recovery from a hurricane can last for years to come. This is why, now more than ever, it’s important to consider hurricanes as you make choices concerning your current and future homes – especially if you live in a hurricane prone area.

Deltec Homes has been building round extreme weather resistant homes over five decades.  We are renowned around the world for our hurricane-resistant homes. In that time, we have built over 5,000 homes -many of them in areas hit by the biggest storms on record – including hurricanes Katrina, Charley, and Sandy.  Deltec Homes is the world leader in the design, engineering and manufacturing of hurricane-resistant residential structures.

Time after time, home after home, Deltec hurricane-resistant homes are left standing with no structural damage.

The post Growing Need for Resilient Homes That Can Withstand Extreme Weather appeared first on Deltec Homes.

The US Department of Energy just announced their 2023 Housing Innovation Award Winners, and we are thrilled to announce that for the third time, one of Deltec’s custom home projects was selected as a winner!

A team effort with the amazing homeowners (who acted as owner-builders, and were so inspired by high performance building that they started their own general contracting company), Deltec’s winning project was a customized Ridgeline Model, certified through the DOE’s Zero Energy Ready Home Program. This voluntary, third party green certification program sets forth a rigorous list of requirements during the design and construction of the home, including requirements for insulation, heating and cooling systems, water systems, and materials used in the home that maximize energy efficiency, comfort, and air quality. These requirements are achievable in today’s current building market, and yet represent a set of best practices for construction that tend to go well beyond what you typically see in new construction if such care and planning is not intentionally brought into the process.

Each year the US Department of Energy selects from among Zero Energy Ready Certified homes a subset of projects recognized as Housing Innovation Award winners. Additionally, from this group of winners a Grand Award winner will be selected in each of these four categories: Off the Shelf (projects with the best use of repeatable, cost effective features to achieve energy performance), Blazing the Trail (projects with the best examples of using innovation), Class is in Session (projects that spread education and training about high performance building), and DeCarbon Copy (projects that are exemplary in de-carbonizing the building process.)

The Housing Innovation Awards, and news as to which award winning projects are further selected as Grand Award winners, will be presented at the Energy and Environmental Builders Alliance (EEBA) Summit, where builders from all over the US with a focus on environmentally responsible building methods gather each year to share knowledge and resources. So stay tuned!

GreenAcres High Performance Home Consulting, the homeowners turned owner-builders who spearheaded the work to have their home certified through this program, recently sat down with us at Deltec to share their excitement in being winners of this award with their home. Their project set a new benchmark of energy performance for the Deltec system, with a new air-tightness score of 0.46 ACH50 (reaching Passive House levels of air tightness) and a HERS index of 37 without PV. Said the homeowners, “The combination of a Deltec precision assembled panelized building system and an innovative high performance build by a contractor like Greenacres HPHC LLC can deliver exceptional home comfort, air quality, efficiency, and durability.”

Deltec certainly agrees that a panelized home system is a great fit for anyone looking to achieve energy and environmental performance that goes well beyond the status quo, whether that is in pursuit of a Zero Energy Ready Home, or any other performance goal. To that end, Deltec’s Sustainability and Innovation Lead Leigha Dickens (top, left) will be presenting at the 2023 EEBA Summit, along with a panel of other builders, on the energy performance benefits of using panelized construction methods.

The post Deltec Project wins Housing Innovation Award, Deltec Presenting at EEBA High Performance Home Builder Summit appeared first on Deltec Homes.

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The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, contains generous, unprecedented new funding for energy efficiency for homes, whose energy use currently contributes significantly to US total carbon emissions.

Although much ado has been made about the potential money coming to homeowners (including, in some cases, claims that the government will pay to replace your induction stove, water heater, gas furnace with more efficient and all-electric options) consumers should realize that the details of many those programs have been left to states to implement, many will have income qualification requirements, and most critically, will only apply to existing homes.  Even an expanded personal income tax credit for energy efficiency upgrades–a common source of questions for us among Deltec customers–is specifically applicable only to existing homes, and not to new construction.

However, there are improved rebates available specifically for newly constructed homes as well, and they, too, are more generous now that the IRA has passed. But they are also not simple, and critically, most are not targeted at homeowners directly, though homeowners will still benefit.

The IRA’s path for incentivizing energy efficient new construction (as opposed to renewable energy systems, which is discussed separately below) is a revised tax credit for builders, and is tied to participation in one of two third party green building certification programs. 

The Expanded Federal 45L Tax Credit for Energy Efficient New Construction for Builders

Historically, building companies that built new homes projected to have reductions in heating and cooling costs below a certain threshold (as measured by an energy model as part of getting a home HERS score) were eligible for a $2,000 business income tax credit per home through the 45L Business Tax Credit.  Because qualifying for the tax credit requiring having a calculation performed, builders wouldn’t typically know if a project earned this credit or not until the end of year.  Congress also had to re-authorize this tax credit separately every year—something that was often uncertain until actual year-end. 

Going forward from 2023, and for 10 years without need for congressional re-authorization each year, this tax credit (still called the 45L tax credit) has changed. Builders can now earn a $2500 income tax credit for every certified Energy Star Home they build, or a $5,000 income tax credit for every DOE Zero Energy Ready Home. 

Energy Star for Homes and the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home are both federally run green certification programs, and If you’ve visited this blog before, you’ll know that we talk a lot about the value of such programs for homeowners and builders alike.  Earning these labels is not automatic—it still requires hiring an Energy Rater during the build process and following each program’s requirements during design and construction, and testing the home at the end, which typically incurs some construction costs in the form of hiring the Energy Rater to oversee the program, and potentially upgrading the specifications of the home from code minimums in your area.  For the latter, we find that most Deltec homeowners are interested in specs for their home that already do that, and as for the former—the tax credit is one way that projects can potentially more than offset those costs.

Even though homeowners themselves do not receive this tax credit, they can benefit from the quality assurance, resale value, and science-backed best practices provided by those programs.  Builders benefit too, in the form of reduced callbacks and comfort complaints from homeowners, marketing credentials—and now this expanded business income tax credit.  The expansion of this tax credit is likely to drive expanded interest in green building among builders, which in turn can drive expanded use of and experience with green building and building science in the industry.  This too, only benefits homeowners looking to build a new home that works the best that it can. 

Renewed Solar Energy and Geothermal Heat Pump Tax Credit for Homeowners

The IRA also expanded a very popular income tax credit for solar electric, solar hot water, wind, and geothermal heat pump systems, one that has been in use since 2006 but was starting to sunset in recent years.  As of 2023, the Federal Renewable Energy Tax Credit has been renewed for another 10, offering a 26-30% income tax credit for the costs of installing one of these system types.  Unlike other IRA provisions, which, as discussed above, apply specifically to either new homes or to existing homes but not both, this tax credit applies equally to a new construction project or to adding these technologies to an existing home, and unlike the 45L tax credit for energy efficient new construction, this is a personal income tax credit for the homeowner, not the builder. 

What About Other Incentives for Green Building?

Outside of the federal government, there were already a variety of incentives for energy efficient building from state, utility, or local governments.  This database, maintained by the North Carolina Solar Center, is the most comprehensive tool for researching rebates, incentives, and government policies to incentivize energy efficiency and renewable energy across the country.

We have seen that incentive availability varies widely across the country, with investor-owned utilities, and more populous areas, more likely to have incentive programs available than rural areas or areas served by electric cooperatives.  Utilities are the most likely entity, after the federal government, to offer incentives, although, like the IRA programs, utilities are more likely to reward only upgrades to existing homes, and fewer have programs that apply to new construction.

However, there are some noteworthy new construction utility programs out there.  Here are few that our clients living in eligible areas have taken advantage of:

Duke Energy Progress/Duke Energy Carolinas Residential New Construction Rebate:   Available in parts of North Carolina, and very recently added to parts of South Carolina, this program offers a rebate of 70 to 90 cents per kilowatt hour of energy saved, based on a HERS energy model, up to $6,000 to $9,000 (depending on whether your build site makes you a Duke Energy Progress, or a Duke Energy Carolinas customer.)  Although this rebate is for builders, owner-builders are allowed to participate. 

Duke Energy also offers a 5% energy rate discount to homeowners living in certified Energy Star homes in North and South Carolina.

Efficiency Vermont Residential New Construction Program offers technical assistance, a whole-home certification program and up to $6000 incentive for certifying to it, incentives for specific upgrades such as drain-waste heat recovery, balanced heat recovery ventilation, or all-electric construction.  Incentives go to builders, owner-builders possibly being eligible. 

Wisconsin Focus on Energy offers a cash incentive to builders who build to the Focus on Energy certification standards, potentially including owner-builders.

Build Green New Mexico: New Mexico offers a a Sustainable Building Tax Credit for homes and commercial buildings earning either LEED Certification or Build Green New Mexico certification.  This tax credit appears to be available to both homeowners and builders of new homes.

A Reminder: Deltec Offers a Rebate of our Own

Third party green building certification is such a great way to ensure quality in our projects that we at Deltec offer our own rebate to customers and their builders who get a green building certification—and this one DOES go to the homeowner!  You can read the details of that program here.

The Bottom Line

The IRA has expanded previous tax credits available for new green building in ways that are relevant to those building new homes—but the devil is in the details, because the programs available for new construction are different than the ones touted for upgrading existing homes.  Federal incentives align with participation in two federal green building programs: Energy Star for Homes or the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home, and qualifying for these programs likely requires designing in some of the same energy efficiency upgrades from the getgo.  Many Deltec homes have been built to these standards, in fact, many of our customers are already interested in getting that level of performance in their new home. 

The post What are the New Rebates for Green Building? appeared first on Deltec Homes.

A key thesis of Terri’s work when analyzing the performance of Zero Energy Ready Homes, is that many of their participants who use pre-fabricated construction, such as SIPS, modular, or panelized processes, achieve equal and often better energy performance compared to fully site built homes.  This benefit is seen in lower average HERS scores and better air-tightness.

A sneak peak at some data presented at ASRHAE, courtesy PNNL and DOE ZERH.  Deltec’s system is a panelized system, which, like modular and SIP construction, two other types of construction that use components of the home that are pre-fabricated in a factory, has shown a lower average HERS score, air tightness score (ACH50), and higher estimated energy cost savings among participating projects of this construction type in the DOE ZERH program, than the average of ALL DOE Zero Energy Ready Homes across all construction types. 

ASHRAE was founded in 1958 as a society for academics and engineers who work in the heating, cooling, and refrigeration industry, or related fields.  They have been holding their topical “Buildings” conference, where academic research is presented on topics related to the energy use, thermal comfort, resilience, and environmental sustainability of the built environment, every 3 years since 1977. 

It was great to meet folks all across the engineering industry who are tackling the challenges of energy in the built environment.  While there, I attended talks about moisture monitoring in spray foamed roof decks in the southeast, building residence during extreme heat waves, advanced thermal storage, grid-interactive homes, thin triple pane windows, and more.  And got to have a tiny bit of fun in the Clearwater, FL Sun!

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 Q: I am planning on using ductless mini-splits.  Do I still need a fresh air ventilation system?

A: Yes! There is a misconception out there that whole house fresh air ventilation systems are only applicable to fully ducted HVAC systems, and that is simply not true.

Whole house fresh air ventilation is a recommendation for indoor air quality for every new home, and even for many existing ones.  Some states even require whole-house fresh air ventilation by code.

There are several different ways to do whole-house fresh air ventilation if you are going to do it; however, the most energy efficient way is with an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) or Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV.)  (Which one depends on which area of the country you live in, although the material difference between the two in many places are not that large.  Having one at all is more than half the battle.)

These systems consist of a small mechanical unit, separate from the indoor air handler of your standard heating/cooling system, with at least four ducts.  One duct brings fresh air into the home from the outside, passing that air through a heat exchanger core inside the unit.  Another exhausts stale air from the home, also passed through the heat exchanger.  A third duct pulls that stale air from the living space to the unit, and might be as simple as a register in a central location, like a laundry room, hallway, or bathroom* (*in some climates, if you have an HRV.)  Meanwhile the system would have at least one fresh air supply duct to the home.

An energy recovery ventilator hanging in a mechanical room. Ducts come off it it and in this case run throug the floor to a supply register in the living room for fresh air, and a return register in the hallway for stale air. Those air streams pass through the energy recovery core inside this unit.

The confusion comes in when people believe ERVs/HRVs must be installed so that this fresh air supply dumps into a central duct system.  That is indeed one way that an ERV/HRV can be set up, and doing so takes advantage of the existing ductwork to distribute this fresh air widely throughout the house when the system HVAC fan is running.  But it is also perfectly permissible to install a dedicated supply vent (or several) just from the ERV or HRV.  In fact, some green building experts argue that keeping these systems separate is a better approach.  In order to be economical, and realistic with available space for duct runs, many homes duct a fresh air supply to their great room, and maybe one to the main bedroom suite as well.

Fresh air ventilation design, like all HVAC design, often has more than one “right” answer, several pros and cons to choose between, and can be floorplan dependent.  But what is not in debate is that fresh air ventilation is essential in new, air-tight homes, and ERVs/HRVs offer the best way to achieve it.

Q: Should I insulate my basement walls, or the floor over my basement?

A: When designing basements, two related but separate questions must be asked about the room(s) within them:

1.) will this room be finished space? and

2.) will this room be a heated/conditioned space?

Usually when a basement space is finished, it is also heated/conditioned, so that is simple enough. But when you are planning to leave some or all of basement space unfinished, either for the long haul or with plans to come back and finish it later, you might choose separately whether or not that unfinished space is still a heated space, which in turn affects the code rules for how it should be insulated during construction.

If a basement room is unheated, you are required by energy code to insulate the floor over it, thermally separating it from the heated rooms above. Meanwhile if a basement room is heated/conditioned, then the walls around it must be insulated, thermally isolating it either from the ground or from adjoining unheated rooms. For a given basement space you must do one or the other, but you aren’t required to (and it doesn’t usually make sense) to do both.

 If you have a basement with some of each, that can be where the details get tricky, as getting the insulation and especially the air barrier between those rooms requires paying attention to the details.   The Energy Star for Homes Air Sealing Checklist can be a helpful resources for getting those air barriers right.

An example unheated basement room, photo taken from a random home I once visited. The concrete block exterior wall is not insulated–it’s not required to be. The ceiling above the room is insulated, it is required to be. The wall dividing the unheated room from heated basement rooms on the other side IS insulated. However, that insulation could be improved…it should actually be covered with a rigid air barrier such as drywall to meet Energy Star for Homes performance standards. Whoever built this house should also pay attention to what’s going on in the floor system above that insulated wall–is it blocked off to keep air from moving between the two spaces?

Considerations for thinking through if a basement room should be heated, or unheated:

1.) is there an air-handler and/or HVAC ductwork within that space? Or even a water heater? if so, it tends to make more sense to insulate the basement walls in those rooms, not the floor, as HVAC equipment is most efficient when located inside conditioned space, and the equipment being in that room may serve to minimally condition that space anyway.

2.) How easy is it to detail the wall insulation vs the floor insulation? For instance, if you are building a basement with superior wall–a common choice for Deltecs–or an ICF, then the walls are generally pre-insulated, and it makes the most sense to treat the rooms enclosed as part of the heated space, even if the conditioning there is only minimal.

3.) What do you eventually plan to do with the space? A lot of people with some section of unfinished basement do have plans to go on and finish it one day, yet energy code requires that you make the deicison: floor insulation or wall insulation, at the time of construction. If it will be a very far off time indeed before you finish that space, it might make sense to go ahead and treat it as unheated space, knowing that later you will have to come back and add a heat source and insulate the walls. But if it’s going to be relatively soon, there might be some merit in going ahead and insulated the walls now, and designing your heating system to factor in that space. That’ll be less re-working you have to do later.

Q: Should I use a tankless electric water heater for my (small Deltec/spread out Deltec/Deltec that wants to eventually use some type of solar electricity?)

A: Unfortunately, there’s no perfect water heating solution, but our answer for a tankless electric water heater in particular is usually: probably not.

It’s very common for excited homeowners to design their floorplan without thinking through things like where to locate the water heater. I get it: to most people that part isn’t as exciting, and space can often be at a premium especially in smaller homes.

It’s also a growing trend for people to be considering an all-electric home, and (as mentioned in previous blogs) there are some good cost reduction and environmental benefits to doing so.

The convergence of those factors: no space for a tank water heater, and yet a desire to be all-electric, can sometimes have people planning to install a tankless electric water heater. Compact and inexpensive (sort of) to install, they can seem like the logical solution.

Unfortunately, there are some big caveats to tanklesss electric. (There are caveats to every water heating choice.) While tankless electric water heaters are no less efficient than their standard electric tank cousins, in terms of kilowatt hours of energy consumed over a year, they usually need to pull an incredibly high number of kilowatts at once to provide adequate hot water for bathing. Electricity is great at heating water, but you need a staggering amount of it at once to heat that water fast. It’s not uncommon to see tankless electric water heaters rated at 14 to 32 kilowatts. That’s like turning on 140 to 320 (1 kilowatt = 1000 watts) 100-watt incandescent light bulbs at once, every time you run the hot water.

A photo of a chart at a home improvement store showing the recommended tankless water heater size, in kilowatts, for the climate zone and number of fixtures. In some situations the recommended product is rated at 32KW!

This is terrible for the electric power grid in general, because it can cause issues with transmission and distribution of power, especially if multiple homes within a community are doing it. And for homeowners it can mean higher than expected installation costs, because a typical 200 amp service to a home may not be adequate to provide this much power, and upgrades to the electric service to the home may be required.

Another important comparison for those with solar ambitions: the size of the average residential solar array for a new, energy efficient home varies based on the location and home size, and whether or not there are batteries in the system, but you might see anywhere from 4 to 10 kilowatts of solar recommended. Even if the tankless electric water heater is draws at the lower end of the scale, 13 kilowatts, it already exceeds the maximum output the solar array can produce. The result is that an electric tankless water heater is not going to be getting much of it’s power from your solar array, that will have to come from the grid.

In some designs, electric tankless may make sense. A small floor plan, not a lot of space, not much planned use for bathing, maybe no other option. But for many customers with high performance goals and all-electric goals, a heat pump water heater, standard electric tank, or even a solar hot water system, may be a better choice.

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I’m talking about the gas stove (including propane).

It was certainly a sticking point for me.  I was one of those people who needed a gas stove. I consider myself a good cook, and the gas stove had become an important part of that self-image. Good cooks used gas. Bad cooks used electric. The still-electric alternative often proposed by green building experts, induction, was just a dressed-up version of electric. The best of the bad, but still bad.

Fast forward to my current home that I bought last year. In a tough housing market, compromises were made, and I ended up with a home with no gas hook up. In fact, gas was not available at all in the entire neighborhood. 

Alas, I was doomed to electricity as an energy source. I was distraught. But, I made lemonade out of lemons, and I purchased an induction stove. I bought a Bosch Benchmark Induction Stove.

And you know what? I am glad that I did.  It turns out I vastly prefer it to gas. I get the same precision of gas with some added benefits, including energy efficiency, a lower carbon footprint, and significantly better indoor air quality. I have read some reports which state that induction can be up to 90% efficient at delivering heating energy to the food, while gas stoves hover in the 40-55% range.  I have joined several professional chefs and experts in our preference for induction over gas.

These are the things that I have found, through my personal experience, that induction does as well or better than gas:           

1. I think I get the same or better quality of control as I had with gas and the food tastes just as good.
2. With the boost feature, I boil water for things like pasta incredibly quicker (up to 50% quicker by some reports).  
3. I have much better flexibility and control with low temperatures and warming (this was especially difficult for me using gas for melting ingredients or making sauces).
4. Clean up with a glass top is often much easier and faster than with gas.
5. Near instantaneous cool-to-the-touch elements after turning it off (avoiding burning yourself after, which I have done before).

These are the things that I have learned to live with:

1. There can be a slight buzzing with only a few pots (which isn’t that bad–just noticeable).
2. You need to be careful about scratching on the glass surface (and I have a few minor scratches already).
3. I had to spend a bit more, but in the scheme of things I think it still provides good value.

And now that I have overcome the emotional hurdle of using induction over gas, I have realized that gas is an inferior choice for several important reasons.

First is safety. This can be a huge issue that I learned firsthand in my last home. Malfunctioning gas stoves can be very dangerous. I was making something in the oven and my CO alarm went off. I thought this was strange, since I could see the burner flames in the oven.   But I sheepishly called my fire department out of an extreme abundance of caution. Fast forward 10 minutes later, and the fire department was urgently pushing me and my pets out of the home. While the oven was working, it was malfunctioning, and producing dangerous levels of carbon monoxide: the odorless, colorless gas that is often dubbed the “silent killer”.

Every year more than 400 Americans die from carbon monoxide poisoning, which can be produced without warning when a combustion appliance malfunctions.  If I hadn’t had a CO alarm, or hadn’t taken it seriously when it went off, I could have been a statistic.  (Which underlines the very strong emotional attachment I had to gas stoves since I still wanted another one in my current home, even after that scary experience.)

Second are the environmental and health issues caused by gas stoves.  Even properly functioning natural gas and propane stoves release formaldehyde, nitrogen dioxide , and other harmful pollutants into the air. These pollutants can reach unhealthy levels inside your home even with an exhaust fan.  There is a growing body of research on the harmful health effects of gas stoves, and the bad news on this front keeps mounting.

A 2020 Rocky Mountain Institute report reveals that homes with gas stoves contain approximately 50-400 percent higher concentrations of nitrogen dioxide than homes with electric stoves. This level of indoor air pollution results in levels of indoor pollution that would be illegal outside.

According to the EPA, brief exposure to high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in the air can lead to coughing and wheezing for people with asthma or other respiratory issues. Prolonged exposure to the gas can lead to the development of asthma and potentially increase susceptibility to other respiratory issues.

And kids can be especially prone to ill effects. Multiple studies have found that gas stoves have been linked to increased risk of asthma in kids. In a recent Slate article, they state that “A 2013 meta-analysis of 41 studies found that children living in homes with gas stoves had a 42 percent higher risk of experiencing asthma symptoms, and, over their lifetime, a 24 percent increase in the risk of being diagnosed with asthma.”

So, while I was a reluctant converter to induction stoves, I now find that it was one of the smartest choices I could have made. From a cooking standpoint, I get everything I want from a gas stove—plus some—while I have created a much healthier and safer environment for my family and me.

What’s not like about that?

Written by Scott Cocking/Marketing Director

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