Erie Ellington Homes
Erie Ellington: energy conscious design with healthy Indoor air quality
This is a summary of the resource conservation results because of the use of the Energy Conscious Option Dynamic Specifications adopted for design and construction documents for the multi unit developed by the Codman Square Community Development group for a building known as Erie Ellington in Boston, MA. This was a subsidized development and the overall objective was to decrease the energy and water usage without sacrificing home quality or increasing construction cost. Using a base case of a building conforming to the most restrictive adopted local building code, the performance of the typical Erie Ellington home used 42% less space heating energy, 27% less domestic hot water heating energy, and 59% less home electrical consumption. (These numbers reflect conscious, intelligent construction decisions, without regard to the argument that electric heat and hot water are allowable by code, but result in artificially high energy impacts). Another goal was the use of low water consumption devices (for water's sake, aside from the reduction of DHW demand and source pumping energy use), providing an 18% reduction in building water use. Key in this process was the use of a "Performance Based Specification" for unit air leakage, and control of ventilation and air exchange. Another benefit of this approach, was a healthier indoor air quality environment, which resulted in 8 out of 18 children with asthma type breathing problems having their symptoms markedly reduced. Using a dollar cost comparison basis, if we look at the Energy Conscious Options implemented we had: a 62% savings on space heating, 42% on domestic water heating, 75% savings on electrical use, and 9% water savings. The reason for the difference between the actual water usage versus base case design appears to be higher than design unit occupancy figures, because of the family demographics of the target market for these homes. It can be seen in the comparison of gas, electric and water costs, the increase in dollar costs of each of these resources is increasing at a rate substantially higher than the average inflation rate over the passed 5 years, so that a projection of the future stream of savings would result in a very high net present value making this an extremely conservative analysis. Finally, a side by side comparison of the dollar costs of each of the resource consumption area shows an overall cost reduction today of 49% or $2448, with a $750 contribution from decreased space heating demand, $216 from increased domestic hot water production efficiency, $714 from lighting and appliance conservation, and $74 from reduced water consumption. Energy conscious options, applied with a total building systems analysis can to a large extent, reduce initial construction cost by allowing the use of lower equipment capacities, which produce cost savings, which allow use of more effective building components, which then result in lower operating costs. It is also important to note that in many communities, resource availability, particularly water supply, is a limiting factor for the development or redevelopment of residential infrastructure
