Zero Energy Ready Home
Zero Energy Ready Homes became available for homeowners like you to enjoy for a lifetime.
High-Performance Thermal Enclosure
High-Performance Windows
use advanced technology to keep heat in during the winter and out during the summer while brightening your living space all year long.
High-Performance Windows
provides a complete thermal blanket that snugly surrounds your home in comfort and quiet.
High-Performance Windows
is like wrapping your house in money with much lower heating and cooling bills while also blocking annoying dust, pollen, pests, noise, and moisture.
Any time work is being done on your home that involves wall penetrations or workers in your attic, make sure the contractor is required to maintain the insulation levels and air–tight construction.
Whole-House Water Protection
Buying a home is often the largest investment most of us will ever make. Thus, it is not surprising that damage from weather and moisture is one of a homeowner’s biggest concerns. Since there is one shot at getting critical details right during construction, your home includes leading expert recommended best practices for comprehensive water protection inside and out.
Dry-By-Design Construction
includes a comprehensive water barrier system that provides peace-of-mind your home is protected from roof to foundation.
Interior Moisture Control
provides maximum protection indoors in areas exposed to water with careful selection of materials and construction details.
Make sure to keep your gutters clean, avoid excessive watering of landscaping near the home, and check the grading around your home continues to slope away from the foundation.
High-Performance Comfort System
Comfort is about more than just a thermostat set-point and a basic ‘HVAC system.’ It’s about even temperatures and moisture control from room-to-room and floor-to-floor. It’s about being able to enjoy your entire home year-round.
High-Efficiency Equipment
employs advanced technology and higher-quality components and controls to deliver lower heating and cooling bills.
Professional Installation
ensures your comfort system contractor is quality assured and their work is independently checked to industry standards.
Interior Comfort Delivery System
locates heating and cooling ducts inside the thermal enclosure—instead of excessively hot or cold attics and crawl spaces—for superior comfort and energy.
When expecting a lot of guests during the summer, ramp up the cooling below your normal set-point before they come to be better prepared for the additional internal heat from more occupants. In addition, optimize heating and cooling set-points based on your occupancy and sleep schedule and any utility billing peak periods.
High-Performance Comfort System
With a high-performance enclosure and substantially reduced heating and cooling requirements, the components inside your home will consume more than half your energy use. That’s why advanced technology that saves energy and works better is provided throughout your home.
High-Efficiency Water Heating
saves energy, time waiting for hot water, and 1,000’s of gallons of wasted water down the drain.
High-Efficiency Appliances
work better, and often provide significant energy and water savings.
Advanced Lighting
delivers great color, lasts for years, and saves substantial energy.
High-Efficiency Exhaust Fans
not only save energy, but you can hardly hear them as they more effectively remove moisture and odors.
Whenever any light bulb fails or it’s time to replace any equipment, appliances, or fans, make sure to choose ENERGY STAR certified products.
Whole-House Health Protection
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that on average indoor air contains 2 to 5 times more contaminants than outdoor air. That’s why your home includes a comprehensive indoor air quality system.
Contaminant-Resistant Construction
uses materials that minimize or eliminate dangerous chemicals and includes features that block moisture, dust, pollen, and pests from entering your home.
Fresh Air System
ensures adequate outdoor air to dilute residual contaminants from construction, furnishings, and normal use of your home.
High-Capture Filtration Technology
effectively removes particles associated with respiratory problems flowing through the lungs of your home – your heating and cooling ducts.
Make sure to regularly check and change filters at your heating and cooling system and whole-house ventilation system and regularly check outdoor intakes to remove any blockage from leaves, insect nests, etc. Moreover, before turning off a ventilation fan, make sure to understand how it contributes important fresh air.
Whole-House Health Protection
Every Zero Energy Ready Home is so energy efficient it can offset all or most annual energy consumption with renewable energy. That’s why homes without solar are typically built so a solar electric system can be easily added whenever you are ready.
Solar Wiring-Ready
includes a built-in path to run wiring from the attic to your electric panel so solar panels can be easily connected with minimal cost and disruption.
Structural Load-Ready
means you can avoid $1,000’s of expense to obtain engineering calculations needed to document adequate roof framing strength.
Solar Components-Ready
ensures you have adequate space and electric panel circuit breakers to install the critical components of a complete solar electric system.
Make sure to store the structural engineering calculations in a safe place so they can save you the cost of duplicating them and also store your Solar Ready Checklist to help the solar electric contractor with bidding and construction.
Enhanced Quality Assurance
Every Zero Energy Ready Home comes with added peace-of-mind that your largest investment of a lifetime was held to industry-leading quality standards.
Independent Verification
means a home energy rating professional evaluated your plans, inspected construction practices, completed detailed checklists, and performed diagnostic testing to ensure performance.
Certified Performance
means your home is fully certified to meet three prominent high-performance home programs: DOE Zero Energy Ready Home; ENERGY STAR Certified Home; EPA Indoor airPLUS
Make sure to keep your Home Energy Rating System (HERS) and Zero Energy Ready Home documentation in a safe place because they can help enhance your home’s value when it’s time to sell.
