By Leah Missik, Built Green Program Manager

Lately, every year seems to be a big year for Built Green and 2016 was no exception! We acquired data for an innovative post-occupancy electricity use study (stay tuned!), put on a fun and successful conference, secured three new or improved city or utility incentives, had bus ads based on our silly indoor weather reports zooming around, and much more. In addition to these achievements, Built Green experienced a lot of certification growth. Let’s take a look at the numbers and see how we did in detail!

Total Certifications

In 2016, Built Green certified a total of 1,003 projects. That’s the first time we’ve hit over a thousand certifications since before the recession, back when Built Green did not require third-party verification at all levels and wasn’t as vigorous as it is now. This is quite an achievement for the program! In fact, the program has been steadily growing since the recession and we expect this progress to continue.

The graph above not only demonstrates the program’s growth, but also a shift to more certifications at the 4-Star, rather than the easier 3-Star level. We attribute much of this shift to the city and utility incentives that start rewarding builders whose projects meet the 4-Star level. One of the most popular incentives is Seattle’s Priority Green. Once enrollments in the Priority Green incentive picked up, the shift to more 4-Star Built Green projects was right behind.

Star Levels

In 2016, 4-Star made up a whopping 84% of all certifications. Now, let’s see if we can get more projects at the 5-Star and even Emerald Star levels. These projects are really special and ones that Built Green loves to highlight (we’ll have a report on the outcomes of Dwell’s Ballard Emerald Star out soon!). Which builder will achieve the next Emerald Star certification?

Project Types

Let’s take a closer group at Built Green’s 2016 numbers. What types of projects were being certified and where? Built Green certifications are given out by building, so one project receives one certification, but it may contain more than one unit. For example, an apartment building would account for one certification, but perhaps 100 units. The below graphs show the types of projects that were certified in 2016, both by number of certifications and by number of units certified.

As you can see, single-family and townhome projects accounted for the vast majority of 2016 certifications. However, when you look instead at the number of living units certified, multi-family units account for two-thirds of certifications.

Location

By far most Built Green projects in 2016 were certified in Seattle. Kirkland had the second highest number of projects, though all other cities trailed far behind Seattle in numbers. We would love to see more geographical diversity next year and are making plans on how to encourage more builders doing projects outside of Seattle to join Built Green.

Enrollments

Certifications aren’t the only activity going on, of course – new projects are always popping up, which means we’re steadily enrolling projects that are aiming for Built Green certification. In total, 1,105 projects were enrolled with Built Green last year, accounting for 2,120 units. Based on these numbers, we’re expecting our progress to continue.

This year, we plan to continue Built Green’s growth while trying to expand our reach, both by certifying more remodels and multi-family projects and by growing outside of Seattle as well. We’re thankful to the amazing builders and others in the green building sector who have made our successes and growth possible, and we’re looking forward to a great, green 2017!

Vital Stats	Section	Points
Location: Bellingham Star Level: 5-Star, NZE Checklist: 2021 Single Family/Townhome New Construction Verifier: Ecoe Company LLC Builder: TC Legend Homes Designer: Powerhouse Designs	Site and Water	148
	Energy Efficiency	148
	Health and Indoor Air Quality	134
	Material Efficiency Equity and Social Justice	69 30
	Total Score	687

Sitting on a stunning 5-acre lot nestled into the woods and surrounded by wildflowers and berries, the Samish Solar Home is a resilient oasis for a growing family of mountain bikers and nature enthusiasts.

This 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath, 2,345 square foot single family residence was built for a young family in Bellingham, Washington. The primary goal of this home was to serve as the owner’s permanent residence, even as their needs change over time, while adding a layer of resiliency towards our changing climate. The home was designed to support a growing family, temporary or permanent aging parents, a home office, and ample storage for outdoor recreation gear in the 1,936 square foot garage. Samish Solar home also features an additional sunroom on the south side of the house to enjoy the sunshine year-round.

The home is built using a post and beam structural system in addition to structural insulated panel (SIP) exterior walls and roof. The double-height, vaulted ceilings in the living room provide excellent daylighting for current use, but a floor system and internal walls could be added in the future to transform this 4-bedroom home into a 5- or 6-bedroom home.

Sustainable Envelope & Mechanical Details

Working in conjunction with the graphite infused SIP walls and roof (R-29 and R-59 respectively), triple pane Vinyltek windows, an R-20 insulated slab-on-grade foundation and R-23.6 ICF foundation walls help complete the envelope of Samish Solar Home. Due to the sandwich design of SIPs, the envelope of the project started out very airtight, however in order to push the tightness even further and achieve an ACH of 0.27, Aerobarrier aerosol sealant was used to complete the air sealing. This project also features the tried-and-true TC Legend Homes HVAC model combining a Chiltrix CX-34, Fantech Hero 250, and rooftop solar. The CX-34 heat pump unit provides both domestic hot water and space heating/cooling through a zoned radiant hydronic system on the first floor and a fan coil unit on the second. These superior insulated materials coupled with our HVAC system and tight envelope create this high efficiency and high-performance home.

Climate Change Resiliency

With significant south facing windows and shading eaves, this home takes advantage of passive solar heating and cooling, which will help regulate the home’s temperature as summer and winter temps become more extreme. The triple pane, argon-filled windows also help to create a better barrier to the extreme outdoor temperatures. Since the roof will take the brunt of the solar heat, Cool Roof certified metal sheeting was installed to further prevent the home from overheating in the summer by increasing the albedo. The Fantech Hero 250 HRV provides the home with a constant flow of fresh air filtered through its built in HEPA filtration. This home maintains healthy indoor air quality even at the height of wildfire season, providing a safe haven for its occupants, friends, and family. The biggest resiliency feature of this home is the 28,000 gallon rainwater catchment system that supplies water for the fire suppression system and domestic water. The rainwater is filtered through a sediment filter, activated carbon filter, and UV filter to ensure it is fit for domestic use. The catchment system, which was required due to site water availability limitations, was significantly upsized in order to add resiliency. With the understanding that significant periods of drought are likely in the future, the larger catchment system will ensure adequate domestic water for the home and provide self-sufficiency in the future. Low-flow and water sense labeled plumbing fixtures also help to reduce water demands. The homeowners also opted to upsize the rooftop solar array to a 10.8kw system with Enphase microinverters. The solar system is battery ready for future resiliency additions and provides the home with more power than it needs, making the project net positive and allowing the owners to power an electric vehicle in the future. There is also plenty of roof area where additional solar could be installed if energy needs of the home change in the future.

Accessibility

In designing this home, it was important to the client that we future proof for aging parents who may need to utilize mobility aids and to ensure they, themselves, can grow old in the home. This meant designing with the essential spaces, such as the laundry room and kitchen, located on the first floor. All of the doorways were also widened to 3’ and the first-floor shower was made curbless to help ensure this home is functional in all phases of the owners’ lives. The unheated breezeway between the house and garage provides a central, stepless entry point and protection from the elements. This space also serves as a shoe removal area with a built-in bench and coat storage. At both the main entry and side entry, a stepless large, covered patio was installed, which can serve as a fantastic gathering area for everyone without any limitations. Lastly, in a less conventional form of accessibility, Powerhouse Designs will be adding Samish Solar Home’s premade plans to their website so others can build this home with a lower upfront design cost.

Embodied Carbon

Our team conducted embodied carbon calculations on this project using the BEAM tool to assess the material emissions of the house and sunroom. The material carbon intensity was modeled at 141kg CO2e/m^2 which is better than average on the BEAM reporting convention. Emissions data calculated on this project helps to inform the TC Legend Home’s model moving forward, guiding material switches to reduce future project emissions.

The time has come: Built Green is rolling out checklist updates! What are these, why do we do them, and what do you need to know to keep your projects current? Read on to get all of the answers.

What are the changes?

There are two checklist updates being rolled out right now. One is updating the single-family/townhome checklist to reflect the newest state energy code. The only changes pertain to the energy requirements. The other is a complete revamp of the multi-family checklist. View the updated checklists.

How do I keep up with these changes?

For both checklists, Built Green has enrollment deadlines: if you enroll a project after a certain date, the updated checklist must be used. Prior to that date, a builder can decide whether to use the old or updated version of the checklist. We set these enrollment deadlines in the future so designers and builders have time to adjust and so that plans that have already been made based on the older version of the checklist don’t have to be scrapped. Make sure you get your projects enrolled! Here are the dates to know:

• Single-family/townhome checklist enrollment date: Aug. 1, 2017
• Multi-family checklist enrollment date: Oct. 1, 2017

Again, all projects enrolled with Built Green after these dates will have to use the updated checklists!

We also have certification deadlines for projects using the older checklist versions to ensure that projects are certified in a timely manner, under the relevant checklist. Here are the certification deadlines:

• Single-family/townhome checklist certification packet due date: Aug. 1, 2018
• Multi-family checklist certification packet due date: Dec. 31, 2019

Certification packets for projects received by Built Green after these dates will have to use the updated checklist, irrespective of their enrollment date. Multi-family projects are given more time to certify under the old checklist due to the longer timeframe these projects generally require due to their size and complexity.

Built Green will be sending out plenty of reminders as these various deadlines approach. Please pay attention to these communications!

Homes in the Issaquah Highlands, most of which were built under the previous two iterations of the Built Green single-family checklist.

A home by McDowell Design Build, certified Built Green in June 2017—see the case study.

Why do you update the checklists?

Built Green is a relative certification system; projects are judged based on the building environment and code at any given time. Checklist updates take into account code changes, how widespread processes and products have become, new technologies, and current costs. For example, our checklists require that projects are modelled to demonstrate a certain percentage of energy efficiency compared to current code. As code updates, so must Built Green checklists. Otherwise, Built Green certification would lose its meaning as code requirements caught up with the program. The aim of this voluntary certification is to recognize builders who go above and beyond, after all!

This means that a 4-Star project certified in 2007 isn’t the same as a 4-Star project certified in 2017 in terms of environmental rigor when compared with each other, but that the cost and effort needed to complete each project given the context of its time was roughly the same. This relative grading system also means that Built Green provides builders with a framework to improve their product over time. A builder that commits to only building 5-Star homes will have to constantly innovate and adapt to continue to achieve this star-level over the years as the rating gets more rigorous over time. But this means that Built Green is helping to spur adoption of new technologies and techniques, and that builders who are dedicated to staying ahead of the curve are supported and rewarded for their endeavors!

How do you update the checklists?

We don’t do any of this alone. In fact, we heavily rely on the generosity of many different industry experts who support the program. This ensures that a variety of perspectives contribute to the checklist updates.

Since this single-family/townhome checklist update was only regarding the energy requirements, we worked with energy modeling experts and third-party verifiers to ensure that our new modeling protocol is robust and that the updated requirements strike the balance of being challenging without being too onerous. We worked with other local Built Green programs in different parts of the state to make sure that the various star-levels on offer also correspond with local markets and incentives available for energy efficiency, so Built Green builders can more easily demonstrate their projects qualify.

To update the multi-family checklist, we worked with a committee consisting of representatives from the public sector, consultants on green building, third-party verifiers, energy modelers, and builders. This team spent a year taking the checklist to the next level!

What else do I need to know?

Just a couple of things! First, the corresponding multi-family handbook update is forthcoming and will be published soon. It will be available online, for free, as a PDF. Second, it is important to discuss these updates with your third-party verifier to make sure you are on the same page about the transition and deadlines that you have to meet for current and upcoming projects. Finally, we know that—though necessary—these transition periods can be a bit confusing and hectic. Don’t worry! Built Green staff and third-party verifiers are available if you have questions, so don’t hesitate to reach out.

Now, let’s keep working to make the green building industry better every day!