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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.