Links:

RESIDENTIAL ENERGY LABORATORY

Located within a Net-Zero Source Energy Home

• greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere?
• oil spills from wells blowing out or tankers colliding?
• foreign wars over oil supplies? 

Very little??  Actually, since buildings in the U.S. are estimated to consume 40% of the energy used in the country, these problems associated with conventional energy sources can be directly addressed by building energy efficient homes.  This is something that each individual can take direct responsibility for, and government and industry can only assist in.  The percentages may change some for other countries, but the conclusions are the same… individuals can dramatically reduce their energy use through proper design of their homes.

Objectives of this website:

• Provide a road map for designing a low-energy or net-zero energy consumption home, especially for a house located in a predominately heating environment
• Demonstrate computational tools that can be used by homeowners to design low-energy consumption houses, or retrofit existing houses for energy efficiency
• Demonstrate these tools as applied to a near-net-zero source energy home, the Residential Energy Laboratory (REL)
• Provide detailed operational data such as actual utility bills with energy consumption for the REL, as well as indoor and outdoor temperatures and humidity so that the accuracy of different computational tools may be evaluated
• Establish a forum to discuss improvements to computational tools used for energy-efficient designs