Deep Energy Retrofit
If homeowners want to save some serious money on their utility bills, and if politicians are serious about decreasing America’s carbon footprint, we need to figure how to make existing homes more efficient. 
A good starting point seems to be the Deep Energy Retrofit (DER). The objective is to enhance the building envelope, increase the home’s energy efficiency, and decrease the costs associated with heating and cooling the home. The approach is to super-insulate the home, eliminate thermal bridges, create tight air barriers, and incorporate advanced ventilation technology.
About 80 percent of our current housing stock will still be in service in 2050. So even if the homebuilding industry figures out a system to build reasonably priced zero energy homes (which we have), an enormous inefficiency problem will still exist – as determined by a recent McKinsey & Company study.
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“The U.S. economy has the potential to reduce annual non-transportation energy consumption by roughly 23 percent by 2020, eliminating more than $1.2 trillion in waste – well beyond the $520 billion upfront investment (not including program costs) that would be required. The reduction in energy use would also result in the abatement of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually – the equivalent of taking the entire U.S. fleet of passenger vehicles and light trucks off the roads.” McKinsey & Company
The energy calculations on our own DER project show an energy consumption decrease of 60-80 percent, depending upon homeowner behavior. Contact us and let us show you how a DER can improve your home’s efficiency.
Boston Green Building’s DER Featured on This New House