BuildingWell BONUS Episode 7 Transcript

00:00:00

Music plays.

00:00:04 Alina Michelewicz, Michelle Moran

Bonus Banter by BuildingWell!

Laughter

00:00:08 Alina Michelewicz

Can I read you another quote Michelle?

00:00:10 Michelle Moran

Anytime.

00:00:13 Michelle Moran

This is Bonus Banter by BuildingWell after Episode 7 of the BuildingWell podcast from New Ecology.

00:00:20 Michelle Moran

Alina and I thought it would be nice to take a few minutes after each podcast episode and just reflect and talk about what we learned and what surprised us and what was interesting. We hope you enjoy this additional bonus episode.

00:00:33 Michelle Moran

Welcome to Bonus Banter.

00:00:36 Michelle Moran

So Alina, what did you think about that interview with Wen and Paul?

00:00:40 Alina Michelewicz

I think it was really interesting. The paper was amazing. I hope everybody reads it. The focus on energy burdens for low income.

00:00:48 Alina Michelewicz

Residents and the long-term climate resiliency is a really interesting topic. I learned a lot about why we are doing Passive House certifications on buildings and what that means for residents in the long term, which I think was really great.

00:01:05 Michelle Moran

Yeah, I think I personally had like two big takeaways. 1 was just how much

00:01:11 Michelle Moran

Of every piece of this process is kind of a guess, right? It’s estimated or it’s assumed or something, which is just interesting. It’s not bad or anything. And then the second part is if I personally were a selectman or on a board of a city in Massachusetts, I would definitely choose that passive ready energy code for my town.

00:01:31 Michelle Moran

Specifically because of what? Wen and it’s not going to be learned in this research. You know, if a home is already passive.

00:01:37 Michelle Moran

And well insulated, it’s going to burden the residents less as the climate continues to change and they won’t be impacted as harshly by severe weather events. You know their home will maybe stay cooler in the summer for a few more days or warmer in the winter for a few more days. In the case of.

00:01:52 Michelle Moran

A catastrophic weather event.

00:01:53 Alina Michelewicz

Yeah, totally. In the paper, they referenced Simmons at all.

00:01:59 Alina Michelewicz

2022, which said that passive house family buildings may be achieving 52 to 64% improvement in energy performance over existing buildings, which is a huge percentage as that was

00:02:12 Michelle Moran

It’s enormous.

00:02:13 Alina Michelewicz

I thought that was pretty interesting that it is just such a huge difference.

00:02:20 Alina Michelewicz

If I was in charge of the energy codes, I think I would be.

00:02:23 Alina Michelewicz

00:02:25 Michelle Moran

Right.

00:02:26 Alina Michelewicz

Also supporting that because the energy burden on low income folks in those buildings will be much less, it does kind of beg the question, though, of all this existing buildings like how do we move the needle there? So it’s great to say new construction needs to be.

00:02:41 Alina Michelewicz

Passive house. But then how do we how do we go about it? For the many, many hundreds, thousands of family existing buildings that we.

00:02:49 Michelle Moran

Right, exactly. It’s a huge undertaking. I know we talked about it with Marty and Pat in one episode and then a little bit also with Neil and Charlie with a domestic hot water lens. But I think it’s every something everybody’s thinking about right now. And I was surprised I didn’t know that Passive House has just put out a new existing buildings pathway.

00:03:09 Michelle Moran

That was great to hear because, like you said, Alina, if Passive House is the best and we have all these existing buildings, we want them to go up to the best standards as well, not.

00:03:17 Michelle Moran

Just new construction.

00:03:18 Alina Michelewicz

Yeah, there’s one quote from the paper on the second page, said “equity is defined as fair accessibility to affordable and efficient.

00:03:27 Alina Michelewicz

Energy. This is crucial because the affordability of energy used relative to low-income levels influences the scalability of the broader goals of sustainability and decarbonization.” The affordability of the energy use is so connected to the scalability of decarbonization that that is.

00:03:47 Alina Michelewicz

A really important piece that.

00:03:49 Alina Michelewicz

 I Wanted to highlight.

00:03:51 Michelle Moran

Yeah. And I think that even in specifically in Massachusetts, as far as we are in this realm, we’re not there yet, right, because electricity specifically is very expensive. Gas is still comparatively cheap, but we’re moving trying to move people towards, you know, passive house or decarbonization, which means a heavier reliance on electricity. So.

00:04:12 Michelle Moran

There’s a gap there that isn’t addressed.

00:04:14 Alina Michelewicz

Yeah.

00:04:15 Alina Michelewicz

I’d like to get more into the grid resiliency.

00:04:18 Alina Michelewicz

As we move towards electrification, how we support the grid avoid, outages like all that, I mean it’s great that the research shows that passive house

00:04:27 Alina Michelewicz

Buildings are more resilient when there are outages, but there’s sort of another element there, not in the research about how we avoid the outages and like how resilient grid that we’ll be able to withstand the energy needs when it’s hotter and there’s more air conditioning where it’s really cold in the winter and there’s a lot.

00:04:44 Alina Michelewicz

Of heat.

00:04:44 Alina Michelewicz

So I think that’s an interesting topic.

00:04:47 Michelle Moran

Exactly. We didn’t really have time to get into it, but Paul was mentioning, you know, micro grids and things like that, which are some tools that can help us. But I’d really like to to dive into that a little more and.

00:04:57 Michelle Moran

Learn about it more.

00:04:59 Alina Michelewicz

Sure.

00:05:00 Alina Michelewicz

Can I read you another quote, Michelle?

00:05:02 Michelle Moran

Anytime.

00:05:04 Alina Michelewicz

“Regarding equity for low-income communities living in well insulated buildings.

00:05:10 Alina Michelewicz

The correlation between energy burden and climate change is.

00:05:13 Alina Michelewicz

Insignificant however, for those residing in poorly insulated housing, the energy burden decreases as the climate warms.”

00:05:23 Alina Michelewicz

Just so important that it’s well insulated, I mean, I mean, I feel that it’s like obvious.

00:05:30 Alina Michelewicz

That quote kind of gets me because it’s like the well insulated buildings are showing that climate change won’t have as much of an impact on people’s financials like on their personal finances as the energy burden won’t be as impacted. But if you’re in a poorly insulated building, it’s getting really hot in the summer. It’s getting really cold in the winter.

00:05:49 Alina Michelewicz

And your energy burden is gonna get worse. And so thinking through what we’re doing in buildings where passive house is really good in the winter.

00:05:58 Alina Michelewicz

And we might want to start thinking about like that humidity aspect that Paul was talking about. And like the heat in the summer here in Massachusetts, at least, like, how do we ensure that we’re prepared for that part and it’s it’s.

00:06:10 Alina Michelewicz

Year round, serving their residents not just focus on the winter since the summers are getting worse. I mean, we’re sitting.

00:06:17 Alina Michelewicz

Here and it’s like a heat.

00:06:18 Alina Michelewicz

Wave for.

00:06:19 Alina Michelewicz

Like the last.

00:06:19 Michelle Moran

Yes.

00:06:19 Alina Michelewicz

Two weeks and we’re releasing this in the fall. But like we’ve been in like 90° weather, yeah, days and days right now. So it’s definitely top of mind.

00:06:29 Michelle Moran

Oh yeah, exactly. And I mean, if you turn off your AC when it’s 95° and very humid out, you’ll know right away, which would be the same if your power went out, your AC would go out and all that cold air would.

00:06:39 Michelle Moran

Just bleed out the house really quickly, yeah.

00:06:41 Michelle Moran

So it makes sense.

00:06:42 Alina Michelewicz

Yeah, the paper references a step in the right direction being to incorporate those feature weather files in the models and the design process.

00:06:51 Alina Michelewicz

So that we’re starting to think about that and projecting it and planning for it in the building.

00:06:55 Michelle Moran

Yes, it’s not exactly the same, but it’s similar to what we talked about with Neil and Charlie about hot water, where models are based on assumptions and they might also in this case they are, they’re 30 years old. Those ASHRAE models they were talking about were 40 years old. It’s not what’s happening right now and it’s definitely not what’s happening in the future. And I think some of these guidelines have to update.

00:07:15 Alina Michelewicz

Yeah, the parallels are really interesting between the timing of that and then also the peak element.

00:07:22 Alina Michelewicz

And kind of flattening the peaks in the usage was both really interesting that it’s similar in domestic hot water as well as in heating and cooling.

00:07:30 Michelle Moran

Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:32 Michelle Moran

Thanks Alina, for you know, discussing this and just getting our thoughts out there. Sometimes these topics are really dense, so it’s nice to be able to reflect.

00:07:40 Alina Michelewicz

Absolutely and congrats on entering the second-half of our first season together.

00:07:45 Michelle Moran

Yes, congratulations.

00:07:48 Alina Michelewicz

All right. I’ll see you next.

00:07:49 Michelle Moran

Alright, see you on the next bye.

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