HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0766.018 2008-2010Murashige, Laura Sat 234(Co 1..(L4 7(oca
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Council Members,
4/6/2010
Emily Naeole [enaeole @co.hawaii.hi.us]
Monday, April 05, 2010 11:49 AM
counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us
FW: Energy Conservation Code
Attachments: Energy Code.rtf
I am attaching a letter outlining some of these problems.
Dennis Preston Davis, Architect
Page 1 of 1
P/Co
RED i. iVED
2010 RPR 6 1119 7 95
COUN' r CLERK
COUNTY OF HAWAII
From: Dennis Preston Davis [mailto:mangolay @gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 11:38 AM
To: dyagon @co.hawaii.hi.us; dikeda @co.hawaii.hi.us; jyoshimoto @co.hawaii.hi.us; donishi @co.hawaii.hi.us;
enaeole @co.hawaii.hi.us; genriques @co.hawaii.hi.us; bford @co.hawaii.hi.us; kgreenwell @co.hawaii.hi.us;
phoffman @co.hawaii.hi.us
Subject: Energy Conservation Code
I urge you to postpone the adoption of the Energy Conservation Code for 6 months. As an architect, I
see several severe problems for new and remodeled housing with the code as it is now written. Costs
will be increased greatly. Energy costs in most instances will not be reduced but will actually be
increased.
Comm. No.
Ref. To :
Ref. Date APR 0 7 2010
DENNIS PRESTON DAVIS
ARCHITECT
P.O. BOX 401, PAHOA, HI 96778 TELEPHONE (808) 217 -2508
March 31, 2010
Hawaii County Council
Re: International Energy Conservation Code of the County of Hawaii
I urge the Council to postpone the adoption of the above code for 6 months and
to change those portions of the code that will have severe economic and counter
productive effects on housing for our citizens.
Problems with the code as adopted are:
1. The code lumps all of our eleven climate zones into one. In reality, there
are considerable climatic variations from Volcano to Kona.
2. The intent of the code is to reduce energy usage in conditioning the
interior spaces with either heating or cooling. In Hawaii County the vast majority
of houses have no heating or cooling systems. The code would require extensive
changes in building insulation and types of windows. There would be no
reduction in the building's energy usage. However, the extra and superfluous
requirements would require more energy to produce, being counter productive to
the code's intent.
3. Section 101.5.2 as modified by the County code eliminates the clause that
buildings "that do not contain conditioned space" shall be exempt from the
building thermal envelope provisions of this code. If that clause had been
retained the code as adopted would be more reasonable. It would address the
problems outlined in 2 above.
4. As adopted, the code prevents an architect to intelligently adapt a house
to local climate conditions. In areas like Waimea and Volcano where winter
temperatures are cooler and rain and fog more common, we rely on winter heat
gain from south facing windows to provide free heat. The code's requirements for
fully shaded windows and for windows having high SHGC values (appropriate
only in areas with hotter, sunnier climates) prevent desirable heat gain. Again,
these requirements are counter productive causing a greater use of energy.
5. For an unconditioned house, the cost increases are considerable and
completely unwarranted with absolutely no gain in reducing energy costs. The
windows required to achieve an SHGC (solar heat gain coefficient) need to be
either tinted or reflective single glazing or dual - glazed windows with low -e glass.
In both cases, the required windows cost from 50% to 100% more that the typical
windows used here. Further they reduce the amount of light entering and reduce
solar heat gain where desired as discussed in 4 above. Tinted and/ or reflected
glazing requires greater dependence on artificial lighting, increasing energy
usage.
6. For most of our climate zones, the amount of roof insulation required is
excessive. In unconditioned houses in our hottest zones, R -19 is more than
sufficient to control solar heat gain. R -30 is excessive. In an unconditioned house
with light colored exterior walls no exterior walls are necessary. With open
windows the r value of the wall is irrelevant as the thermal envelop is broken.
The energy code as now proposed would have severe impact on new housing,
driving building costs unnecessarily up. For all new unconditioned houses, the
code would save no energy whatsoever and would actually increase energy
usage to order produce the unnecessary added material requirements.
I urge you to postpone the passage of the code for 6 months in order to modify it
to be more appropriate for our County.
A far more effective means of saving energy would be to ban the sale of
incandescent light bulbs, electric hot water heaters and space heaters.
Dennis Preston Davis, Architect