Healthy Indoors Magazine
Issue link: https://hi.healthyindoors.com/i/625507
TheTakeaway 526 January 2016 Why are we swimming upstream? Promote comfort and energy efficiency will follow. December 15, 2015 | by Robert Bean, R.E.T., P.L.(Eng.), Indoor Climate Consultants Inc. In 2004, I started www.healthyheating.com with a whopping start-up budget of $5,000 to experi- ment with the Internet as an educational tool. The purpose: to serve as an interpreter between the health and building sciences with a focus on thermal comfort, indoor air quality and the energy required to condition people and spaces. The key strategy: enable discerning consumers and building owners to make better decisions regard- ing their choice in architecture, interior design and HVAC systems without having to become academ- ics. With an annual operating budget of another "bank breaking" $1,000/year we have maintained a steady course in disseminating the work of scientists from all over the world. So what are the two key principles we have concluded to date? 1. Design for people and good buildings will follow. 2. For resilience and sustainability, improvements in first-law energy efficiency should not be done in isolation without increasing second-law exergy efficiency. I only have space in this piece to address item num- ber one. Let's begin by stating the obvious. Since 2004 it is likely hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in North America promoting energy efficiency rather than focusing on the five senses that humans use to judge the built environment. So hold that thought and consider this…the highly acclaimed Rocky Mountain Institute recently stated: "Seventy percent of whole home performance customers cited comfort as a reason for their upgrade." Stay with me on this. Comfort is a broad topic but as it pertains to the thermal part, as an example, only three percent of the industry can define it, only one and a half own the thermal comfort standards and less than one percent can list the ten key metrics. How do I know? I've asked. In fact, I've been asking audiences since 2004. If you want witnesses just ask the thousands of people who have sat in my classes. Consumers are telling the industry they want com- fort and we keep responding with energy efficiency as if the two were synonymous. I'm not a PhD, just a low life technologist trying to scratch out a living, but even I can figure out that if millions of people are looking for comfort from an industry purported to be in the comfort business, better than three percent ought to be able to define it, own the standards and be able to describe the metrics. So what are the consequences of investing heav- ily in the promotion of energy efficiency rather than comfort? Let me explain. When asked how to design a comfortable home, energy focused professionals will say design with simple geometries, orient the Concluded on page 14