FYI: Email from the Palo Alto CEAP re construction industry QA for green building

[bkengland]

From: bigbillcutler <bigbil...@yahoo.com>
To: PA_...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [PA_CEAP] Quality of sustainable systems
Date: Jun 18, 2008 10:48 AM

On a recent trip the New Mexico I visited some sustainable, off-the-
grid homes, and discovered an issue which CEAP might well address.
It would concern the Government, Business, and Neighborhood segments.

Many new, neophyte home owner-operators will be entering the market.
Many new and inexperienced designers, builders and installers will be
attempting to service this market. Sustainable energy and water-
conserving systems for homes and small businesses are extremely
complex and offer many ways that things can go wrong. If they are
not done right, it can create a bad reputation that will be hard to
overcome. However, it appears that comprehensive and accurate
information to support good practices in this field is lacking. The
information is probably there, but it is scattered around in obscure
places and hard to find, let alone understand and evaluate.

In the past the construction industry has relied on building codes
and inspections to insure the quality of the buildings constructed.
Reliance on traditional codes is, most likely, a poor way to insure
the quality of sustainable energy and water systems. Codes are based
on a checklist of acceptable practices. This will not work for
sustainable systems because, (1) it will inhibit the innovation and
creativity needed to discover the best solutions, and (2) passing a
checklist will not insure the performance, ease of operation, and
durability of the system. A remedy might be to shift to performance-
based standards, but that places a heavy burden on the inspector to
verify the system on the basis of analysis and demonstration, which
will require much more time and technical expertise than inspectors
can or will apply.