Recommendations for the Development of a Residential Energy Standard

Abstract

In June 1983, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standards Committee appointed an ad hoc committee to revise Standard 90 for Residential Buildings. The charge to the ad hoc committee was to start the technical thinking process for the creation of a separate ASHRAE Standard 90 for residential buildings and to make recommendations to the ASHRAE Standards Committee as to how such a standard might best be produced. This paper discusses the elements of the technical review process which included a quantitative assessment of the envelope requirements of American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/ASHRAE/Institute of Environmental Sciences (IES) Standard 90A-80 and comparisons between this standard and to the requirements of other standards and energy conservation guidelines. During the review of Standard 90A-80, many requirements were identified that should be incorporated into the development of a new residential standard. In this regard, criteria for the technical and economic basis of a residential standard are outlined and discussed. Finally, recommendations for the development of a methodology for producing a new data base for residential building envelopes, the means for updating the new data base in the future, new simpler compliance procedures, and more accurate trade-off compliance procedures are presented.