Experimental Evaluation of the NightCool Nocturnal Radiation Cooling Concept: Performance Assessment in Scale Test Buildings
An evaluation has been conducted on a night sky cooling system that uses a sealed attic covered by a highly conductive metal roof which is selectively linked by air flow to provide cooling– largely during nighttime hours.

Zero Energy Manufactured Home Project (ZEMH) Deliverable for task 1.2 Side by Side tests of HUD code Homes
The Zero Energy Manufactured Home Project has demonstrated and promoted innovative energy saving technologies to the manufactured housing industry and home buying public, and evaluated those technologies’ energy performance. The ZEMH project examined two 1600 ft2 double section manufactured homes, built by the same manufacturer, using an identical floor plan. Both homes were built by Kit Manufacturing in the summer of 2002 and installed by Clearwater Homes for housing staff working at the newly built Nez Perce tribal fish facility.

Improving the Accuracy and Speed for Building America Benchmarking
The Building America Benchmarking process is time consuming.  One must first enter the parameters of the prototype home design into the Building America Spreadsheet tool to create the parameters of the Building America benchmark home and then use detailed software products to simulate both the benchmark home and the prototype home and then enter the results from these simulations into the spreadsheet to determine the resulting % improvement for the prototype.

Energy Efficient Renovations of Storm Damaged Residences - Florida Case Studies
This study documents the energy impact of retrofit options performed on four Central Florida homes suffering damage from hurricanes in the summer of 2004. Case studies are presented to show the costs and benefits of various retrofit strategies, including the potential to enhance comfort and durability. Results are based on pre- and post-retrofit home performance testing as well as analysis of simulated and actual energy savings.

Comparing Apples, Oranges and Grapefruit: An Analysis of Current Building Energy Analysis Standards for Building America, Home Energy Ratings and 2006 International Energy Conservation Code
The overall purpose of the work presented in this report is to determine the relationship, if any, between the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America Benchmarking Analysis methods and the energy-efficiency analysis methods used by the International Energy Conservation Code and the Residential Energy Services Network and the Home Energy Rating Systems industry for similar purposes. The IECC allows code compliance through a performance-based comparative analysis method and the HERS industry uses very similar standards and methods to determine a relative measure of energy-efficiency performance called the HERS Index.

Energy and Indoor Air Quality Recommendations for Cold Climate Habitat for Humanity Homes
During June 2005, BAIHP researchers visited six Habitat for Humanity affiliates in Michigan participating in the 2005 Jimmy Carter Work Project and HFHIs Congress Building America program. Energy analysis results, indoor air quality recommendations, and cold-climate best practices are provided in this report written for Habitat affiliates and the Michigan Habitat for Humanity state organizations energy incentives program.

Water Intrusion in Central Florida Homes During Hurricane Jeanne in September 2004
In September 2004 Hurricane Jeanne struck Florida. Most of the damage in the Orlando and surrounding central Florida area resulted from severe water intrusion. The local Home Builders Association received over 1,000 complaints from new home owners involving water intrusion. The water intrusion was perplexing for several reasons. First, most complaints were from residents of newer homes. Second, in many cases there were no obvious reasons for the intrusion. The objective of this research is to characterize what actually happened, to explain why it happened and to develop recommendations to reduce future water intrusion.

Energy and Resource Efficient Communities through Systems Engineering: Building America Case Studies in Gainesville, FL
Two Gainesville, FL builder case studies are presented that detail the critical elements of a systems engineering process that has resulted in increased sales and fewer callbacks for several builders. Additional benefits these builders realized include enhanced customer satisfaction through improved comfort, improved indoor air quality and lower operating costs. Each of these builders chose to improve the performance and marketability of their homes taking different paths. These two approaches will be described.

How Much Energy Are We Using? Potential of Residential Energy Demand Feedback Devices
This paper surveys past research and describes a pilot evaluation of two low cost monitoring systems in case study homes. We also develop an evaluation protocol to use such devices to determine the relative energy intensity of various energy end uses. An identified advantage of the technology is that it provides better guidance on profitable areas to reduce household electrical demand—many of which are often unexpected.

Cooling Performance Assessment of Building America Homes
Long-term monitoring of building energy use and environmental conditions has been a strong component of FSEC research since the 1980s. Fully-automated data collection, verification, archiving and management ensure accurate logging of large amounts of data simultaneously from numerous field sites prior to being made available for analysis and display via the internet.

Measured Crawlspace Conditions in a HUD-Code Home
FSEC conducted research utilizing two unconditioned, old, singlewide side-by-side manufactured homes, one with a ground cover and one with exposed dirt under it. Three different skirting options were tested, open or no skirting, perforated skirting, and solid skirting. Ambient and crawlspace dewpoints were recorded.

Recommendations for High Performance Homes
This is a checklist of general recommendations for the construction of energy and resource efficient homes in a hot/humid climate.

Development of High Efficiency Air Conditioner Condenser Fans
ASHRAE Review Document. Pending Publication and Presentation at ASHRAE Summer Meeting, June 2005.

Theoretical Evaluation of the NightCool Nocturnal Radiation Cooling Concept
An evaluation has been conducted of the potential of a night sky cooling system to substantially reduce space cooling needs in homes in North American climates. The report describes the innovative residential cooling system which uses nocturnal night sky radiation from a roof integrated radiator. The report describes a detailed simulation model of the relevant physical night cooling phenomenon, examining each particular parameter which was found to have an appreciable impact on performance.

Effect of Residential Ventilation Techniques for Hot and Humid Climates on Indoor Concentrations of Volatile Organic Compounds
Mechanical ventilation may be necessary to provide adequate ventilation in new houses due to the relatively low rates of infiltration achieved in new construction. However, in hot and humid climates, increased ventilation may raise indoor humidity to an undesirable level.

Manufactured Home Performance Case Study: A Preliminary Comparison of Zero Energy and Energy Star
The Zero Energy Manufactured Home (ZEMH) Project employs innovative energy-saving technologies. A comparison (base) home was built to the Pacific Northwest's Energy Star Program requirements.

Assessing Six Residential Ventilation Techiniques in Hot and Humid Climates
The addition of mechanical ventilation air to “tight” homes in hot and humid climates may adversely impact health, building durability, comfort and energy use by raising indoor humidity levels (RH) above 50%. High indoor humidity has been linked to microbial growth, building material decay, discomfort, and increased energy use (Moyer, et al, 2001).

Geographic Variation in Potential of Rooftop Residential Photovoltaic Electric Power Production in the United States
This paper describes a geographic evaluation of Zero Energy Home (ZEH) potential, specifically an assessment of residential roof-top solar electric photovoltaic (PV) performance around the United States and how energy produced would match up with very-efficient and super-efficient home designs.

Cold Climate Case Study; High Efficiency North Dakota Twin Homes
The Eastern Dakota Housing Alliance has completed 8 of 20 planned multi-family and single-family dwellings on Selkirk Circle in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Four twin-home (duplex) units were completed in March of 2003 (Phase I) and four more identical units were completed in February of 2004 (Phase II).

Energy Star Manufactured Homes: The Plant Certification Process
This paper outlines the Energy Star certification procedure for manufactured housing plants with the primary focus of achieving airtight ducts. Over 40 envelope and duct tests are compared with in-plant tests conducted by factory personnel.

Optimizing Manufactured Housing Energy Use
Two manufactured homes located on North Carolina A&T State University’s campus in Greensboro, NC were used in a side-by-side energy consumption comparison. The more energy efficient unit shows savings of 52% for the heating, cooling, and DHW energy use. This compares well with the energy savings predicted by FSEC's Energy Gauge program of 57%, even when accounting for the warmer than usual winter experienced during the testing period.

Standards for Clean Air Florida Homes
These standards should result in a house with excellent indoor air quality where allergy or asthma sufferers can breathe easier. These standards are designed for new, slab on grade homes built in Florida.

Alleviating Moisture Problems Hot, Humid Climate Housing
The Southeastern U.S. experiences hot, humid conditions throughout the summer months and in Florida, these conditions can prevail throughout most of the year. As a result it is not uncommon to find extensive mold, soft drywall, buckled floors, damaged ceilings and other moisture problems in new and existing site built and manufactured homes. This paper provides a brief summary of the state of the art and research needs for three areas - Manufactured (mobile) Homes, Unvented Attics and Slab-on-grade floors.

Achieving Airtight Ducts in Manufactured Housing
Data and findings presented here were gathered between 1996 and 2003 during 39 factory visits at 24 factories of six HUD Code home manufacturers interested in improving the energy efficiency their homes. Factory observations typically showed that building a tighter duct system was the most cost effective way to improve the product’s energy efficiency.

Technical services provided to the HUD Code and modular industry
The Building America Industrialized Housing Partnership (BAIHP) team is one of five Building America teams competitively funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy-Building Technologies program. BAIHP is led by the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) of the University of Central Florida (UCF). 

Measured and Simulated Cooling Performance Comparison; Insulated Concrete Form Versus Frame Construction
Four Centex homes near Dallas, Texas were monitored. Two home models were constructed twice; one with typical wood frame construction and the other using insulated concrete forms (ICF).

The Building America Industrialized Housing Partnership
This paper summarizes the multifaceted work being performed by BAIHP and provides specific data on 310 homes constructed in the Gainesville FL area with technical assistance from Florida Home Energy and Resources Organization.

Performance and Impact from Duct Repair and Ventilation Modifications of Two Newly Constructed Manufactured Houses Located in a Hot and Humid Climate
Two nearly identical houses situated next to each other in Bossier City, Louisiana were studied in an effort to better understand moisture and cooling energy related problems in manufactured houses with low thermostat set-points during the cooling season.

Moisture Problems in Manufactured Housing: Probable Causes and Cures
A number of new manufactured houses built to HUD code and located in the hot, humid Southeast are experiencing moisture problems including soft wallboards, buckled floors, damaged wood molding and mold growth. These problems do not respond to the standard service and repair strategies for water intrusion.

Preventing House Dust Mite Allergens in New Housing
House dust mite allergens are a major cause of asthma. The objective of this study was preventing dust mite allergens in new houses with wall to wall carpets, NOT eradicating dust mites from infested homes.

Design and Construction of Interior Duct Systems (Brochure | Full Report - PDF 649kB)
Over the past 15 years, duct related energy use has emerged as one of the most extreme and pervasive energy wastes in American homes, accounting for as much as 40% of annual heating and cooling bills. Duct leakage and conductive heat transfer also degrade building durability, comfort, and indoor air quality by altering surface temperatures and moving air through walls cavities and vented unconditioned spaces. Read about several case studies in this report and brochure.

Energy Efficiency and Moisture Retention Data Report
2001 Field Evaluation of 16 North Carolina Manufactured Homes

Ventilation in US Manufactured Homes
Presentation at 21st Annual AIVC Conference
The Hague, Netherlands

BAIHP Annual Reports

These annual reports summarize the work conducted by the Building America Industrialized Housing Partnership.

Project Publications (2000 to Present)

A comprehensive bibliography of BAIHP Books and Book Chapters, Papers, Contract Reports, Articles in Trade Press, Popular Press, and DOE Program Newsletters, One Page Fact Sheets, and BAIHP Web Page Contents.