Comments on: Is Energy Efficiency More Important Than Indoor Air Quality?

By: John

John — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 05:45:54 +0000

I enjoyed reading this and
I enjoyed reading this and have a different perspective that validates the graph to some point. I recently crowd funded a device that can be marketed either as an energy efficiency or air quality device. As the funding went on I carefully modified my marketing message between the 2 and watched how it affected backers and views of the campaign. In the end, I completely eliminated the improvement in air quality message as it did not resonate with the audience that viewed the campaign.

So the graph makes sense as homes are designed toward what customers want and as Curt above mentioned, customers want what they understand.

By: Ted Kidd

Ted Kidd — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 00:20:57 +0000

After playing with AirAdvice
After playing with AirAdvice for a while I decided to simply ALWAYS recommend mechanical ventilation. (Unless you measure - continuously measure - how do you know if there is an issue or not? Sorry, you don't!)

I think people who base recommendations on proxies or esoteric averages, never checking results to projections, are charlatans pretending to be experts. I don't assume my drives land in the hole, and I want to see if they at least land on the green.

In my experience Leakage was no proxy for air quality. I have AirAdvice indicating terrible IAQ for some leaky houses, and some surprisingly good IAQ for tight houses.

Possibly more importantly, by always recommending it prompts IAQ discussion, which is the entry point to education. Also, when you bring things to people attention it is often like planting a seed. If it germinates, great! If not, well at least you can say you planted it.

And yes that's a CYA should it be found years later that IAQ may have been the cause of some health problem.

By: David Eakin

David Eakin — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 00:44:37 +0000

Allison – looks like a report
Allison – looks like a report from architects on what their clients wanted from them, not necessarily what the customer needed nor if there was a problem to remedy. That is where home performance analysis comes in; the customer doesn’t know what they don’t know (let alone how big the issue may be).

By: Gary Nash

Gary Nash — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:38:21 +0000

ALLISON: Sorry, but I don't
ALLISON: Sorry, but I don't know how to help you on finding the questions. I would try to find the person responsible & see if I could make contact by phone or email. AIA is not that big. You should be able to call them. I hope that they would be helpful, but don't really know how they will react.

By: Allison Bailes

Allison Bailes — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:39:46 +0000

Curt K.:
Curt K.: Good one. Yeah, I think that would get their attention.

Skye D.: Thanks. That's what I thought.

By: Curt Kinder

Curt Kinder — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 01:32:52 +0000

Flaws mentioned
Flaws mentioned notwithstanding, I think a root cause of the apparent disparity is that while people most certainly DO receive periodic energy bills, they do NOT receive periodic "IAQ" bills.

Folks, to a varying degree, "get" the relationship between home energy efficiency and utility costs.

If homoaners periodically got a statement in the mail along the lines of "your IAQ was really bad all last month, you owe $298 within 20 days", they might take more active interest in IAQ.

By: Allison Bailes

Allison Bailes — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 20:44:19 +0000

Gary N.:
Gary N.: Thanks for the info. Do you know anything about the details of this survey I pulled the graph from? It's called the Home Design Trends Survey, but I can't find the actual questions anywhere on the AIA website.

By: Allison Bailes

Allison Bailes — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 20:38:37 +0000

Bob: True.
Bob: True. I also think people don't have any idea how bad the air in their homes might be.

Lee: Unfortunately, no, I couldn't find any details about the actual survey questions or who they surveyed. You're right that those details can have a big impact, but I think the discrepancy may be real anyway. Energy efficiency seems to get a lot more coverage than IAQ.

Skye D.: Good points. I haven't looked at it in a while, but does WaterSense look at water quality at all?

Peter: Yes, it probably is a stretch, and I'll look at how I might revise it. What I meant was that those 28% didn't check the IAQ box on the survey.

By: Gary Nash

Gary Nash — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 20:31:20 +0000

Allison:

Allison:

I am an Architect, so I will try to help a little with your question.

As to what percentage of buildings are designed by Architects, pretty much all of them on the commercial side - by law. There are some exceptions and variations by local permitting authorities - including areas that have no permitting authorities - but pretty much all of the commercial construction has an Architect involved. That may be why you are not finding statistics on that question.

Residential construction is just the opposite. Architects are rarely involved with houses until they get big enough & custom enough that the Owner is willing & able to pay an Architect to get what they want - which is not a plan from a plan book with some minor modifications. Architects generally like to do houses & consider them an "existential" project type, but the vast majority of them being built do not have an Architect involved.

So AIA has stats on what clients in the residential sector care about b/c that is a sector of work for Architects & we need to know what the client cares about.

AIA is the best source that I know of for statistics / info on Architects.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:11:17 +0000
I agree with Lee - very
I agree with Lee - very difficult to get an overall understanding of the report using the chart alone.
Also, math aside, how do you make the leap to, "... didn't care at all about indoor air quality." That's a bit of a stretch.
Overall, great article. Thank you.