UPDATE: December 7, 2020:
NCBPA staff, members and partners will be attending today’s subcommittee meetings and tomorrow’s Council meeting to express opposition to these two residential energy code proposals. It’s not too late to email or call Council members to voice your opposition to these proposals.
Click here for Council member contact information! Click here for information on the December 7th and 8th meetings.
Click below to view an email sent from NCBPA member Dr. Amy Musser of Vandemusser Design, PLLC in Asheville voicing her opposition to these proposals:
UPDATE: October 29, 2020:
NCBPA staff, members and partners continue to email and call North Carolina Building Code Council members to express their opposition and concern to the two NCHBA proposals referred to below. Review the latest information here and scroll down for more resources and context.
Take Action Now! The North Carolina Building Code Council will meet on December 7th and 8th to discuss the two proposals below. Your public comments are needed ahead of these meetings to oppose both proposals. Click here for Council member contact information! Click here for information on the December 7th and 8th meetings.
Click here to view an email sent by NCBPA partner Green Built Alliance opposing Proposal #2. Use this language as a template for your own!
Have media contacts? Contact us to help amplify our message and garner attention for more public citizens, legislators and more!
Sample Language:
These statements from NCBPA’s Ryan Miller summarize key opposition points to Proposal #2:
- The home building industry will say that few builders will use the exemption to build homes without insulation, air sealing or thermostats as doing so is, to be frank, bad practice. So, what’s the point of the proposal then? We believe it is to continue their practice of eroding NC’s residential energy code even further than they have already. NC would be the only state to allow for this exemption.
- The primary reason that minimum code standards exist is to ensure the health, safety and welfare of residents, either that own or rent. This proposal will harm residents in the short and long-term, for the life of the home, by exempting state and nationally accepted building code measures that ensure residents are able to breathe healthy air, live in a home that is well built and not have an undue burden of high energy bills caused by a complete lack of energy efficiency measures.
- No one has performed a detailed analysis on how, and if, a builder could pass for energy code using this exemption. The responsibility to present that type of information is on the proponent at the beginning of the code proposal process. It appears that this analysis hasn’t been performed or communicated to the code council, though it is required as part of the submittal process. For that reason alone, the proposal should be rejected. The fact that the proposal has made it to the final tollgate without any discussion on this requirement not being met is concerning, and should prompt the proposal to be rejected in the Rules Review oversight process, which occurred last year for Proposal #1 for many of the same reasons.
- Low income residents will be the most harmed by the standards change proposal. It’s not going to be the average price, production or high-end builder who will use the exemption to avoid paying extra costs for the current minimum energy efficient code requirements. It’s the builder who is already focused on building the lowest cost home they can. This proposal will allow them to take shortcuts that harm resident health and safety, and will result in high energy bills.
These statements from NCBPA’s Ryan Miller summarize key opposition points to Proposal #1:
- Unfortunately what this group of proposals show is that the Building Code process in NC is badly broken. The Council has intentionally given itself just one meeting opportunity this December to discuss this major issue. For the spray foam change, this is an amended version of proposals that the Council previously passed last year without proper technical vetting, which became apparent when the Rules Review oversight process at the state level denied the Council’s own vote of approval due to a lack of legally required supporting documentation that all code proposals are required to provide. Unfortunately, the amended proposals lack the same justification and should be denied for the same reason.
- Taxpayers are funding a public interest process that doesn’t work for or serve them. How broken is the process if highly technical proposals are passed without proper vetting? Energy code is complicated, and the Code Council is the Governor-appointed rule making authority.
- Unfortunately, there is no Energy seat on the Council that is represented by an expert, as there are for plumbing, electrical, architecture and more. This Energy seat should be legislated to improve this process going forward. It would save time, save taxpayer funds and improve the ability of the Council to meet its statutory obligations.
Take Action Now:
Residential builders, contractors and all energy efficiency supporters are asked to take action by following these steps as soon as possible.
- Review the information below on the two proposals and prepare your message. Use language found in our messaging below as well as letters provided below to help frame your position. As in all advocacy messaging, the more personal and specific your message is, the better! Contact us if you’d like help!
- Several of our member companies have identified concerns with these proposals that involve health and safety concerns with the reduced and modified energy efficiency requirements, as well as concerns surrounding the short and long-term impacts to low income homeowners and renters who will experience higher energy bills as a result of these proposals. Messaging along these lines is encouraged.
- With your message prepared, email and/or call NC Building Code Council members now to voice your opposition to these proposals!
- All members should be contacted.
- These proposals will first be reviewed by the Residential Committee, then the Super Committee and then the full Council.
- We encourage individuals to contact these key members:
- Ralph Euchner – Chair of the Energy Ad Hoc Committee (not currently active).
- Gary Embler – Chair of the Residential Committee (2017 NCHBA President).
- David Smith – Member of the Residential Committee (Wilmington area builder).
- Wayne Hamilton, Steve Knight, Deborah Shearin and Leon Skinner.
- Robbie Davis – Chair of the NCBCC (General Contractor).
- If able, make plans to attend the in-person Council meeting on December 8th in Raleigh. Virtual participation is NOT available!
- Proposal #1 will likely be heard between 10am – 2pm and will be open for Public Comment. Individuals may speak out against this proposal (group of proposals) for as long as they would like to in front of the Council.
- Proposal #2 will likely be heard between 1pm – 3pm. It will NOT be open for Public Comment. Council members will discuss prior public comment and vote on the proposal.
Background:
Led by North Carolina Home Builders Association (NCHBA), the state and national home building industry is attempting to weaken and gut North Carolina’s residential energy code through two code change proposals that have thus far passed the first and second of three tollgates at the North Carolina Building Code Council, respectively. These proposals will be heard for a second and third/final time at the December 1st meeting.
What NCHBA states in regard to Proposal #2 below as “yet another example of NCHBA’s continued commitment to promote energy efficiency in the most cost-effective manner” would, in fact and not opinion, eliminate all minimum energy efficiency code requirements in new construction homes. Think this is an outlier issue? NAHB is actively lobbying against beneficial energy code provisions at the federal level found in H.R. 4447 “The Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act”. NCHBA is also lobbying for its members to encourage Senator Thom Tillis to support amendment #1551 to “protect housing affordability from onerous energy targets” found in a Senate energy bill.
Proposal #2 would allow homes to be built:
- With no insulation or air sealing.
- With HVAC systems that do not have thermostats.
- With windows and lights that have no energy efficiency requirements.
North Carolina’s energy code protects the health and safety of renters and homeowners while providing reasonable minimum requirements for energy efficiency. Without these requirements, consumer utility bills will increase dramatically in favor of a few hundred dollars of additional builder profit on every home.
As the only advocacy organization in the state defending North Carolina’s energy code, NCBPA requests your urgent help.
Residential builders, contractors and all energy efficiency supporters are asked to take action by following the steps below as soon as possible.
Contact NC Building Code Council members now to voice your opposition to these proposals!
Proposal #1: Seeks to lessen residential energy efficiency requirements and create a lack of insulation product parity with regard to spray foam versus fiberglass and cellulose.
Current Status: Introduced during the September 1 meeting, passed the first of three tollgates, up for public comment at the upcoming December 8th meeting in Raleigh.
*Note that five individual but related proposals have been combined into one here for ease of understanding, which reflects action taken at the September NCBCC meeting.
Background: These proposals follow similar proposals submitted in late 2018 and approved by the Council in late 2019 but later denied by Rules Review as there was not sufficient financial analysis performed. Since this time, the proposals have been refined and the financial analysis performed. With this new information provided, we have determined that the proposals are not beneficial for North Carolina as they overly incentivize one product type, spray foam insulation, over others including fiberglass and cellulose insulation.
The intent of these proposals is not unique to North Carolina’s codes – proposals like these have been used by industry parties across the country to lessen energy efficiency requirements and create a lack of insulation product parity with regard to spray foam versus fiberglass and cellulose, in particular. On a call we held on June 10, 2020 to discuss these proposals with energy code stakeholders in our membership and outside experts, these proposals were quickly flagged as being technically sophisticated attempts to further weaken energy efficiency requirements that favor spray foam insulation. We support energy efficiency and product parity in North Carolina homes – these proposals go against those values.
Why This is Harmful:
- These proposals contain technical inaccuracies and errors that alone are cause for rejection.
- The proposals that Council members received in early June have been substantially amended since, which we believe is also cause for rejection.
- We do not disagree with all of the intent of these proposals but strongly believe that a more open and informed process is needed to enable the Council to perform its duties in evaluating these proposals.
- These proposals are evidence of the growing complexity of North Carolina’s residential energy code that should provide reason for the Council to consider forming an Energy Subcommittee that would prioritize requiring third-party energy performance testing, which would smooth out many issues with these types of code requirements and reduce many of the difficulties and costs that code officials, builders and others face in ensuring compliance.
Key Resources Include:
- Click here to view the publicly-available information on this proposal, which is now a group of proposals that includes: B-6, B-7, B-15, B-20 and B-21.
Action to Take:
- Builders are asked to email and call members of the NCBCC asking them to oppose this proposal and action by NCHBA.
- Contractors and energy efficiency supporters are also encouraged to email and call members of the NCBCC asking them to oppose this proposal at the December meeting.
- All energy efficiency supporters are encouraged to attend the in-person subcommittee meetings on December 7th and Council meeting on December 8th in Raleigh to voice their opposition to NCBCC members in-person. This proposal will be available for public comment, meaning anyone may speak out against it.
- All members of the NCBCC should be contacted. Key members to contact include:
- Ralph Euchner – Chair of the Energy Ad Hoc Committee (not currently active).
- Gary Embler – Chair of the Residential Committee (2017 NCHBA President).
- David Smith – Member of the Residential Committee (Wilmington area builder).
- Wayne Hamilton, Steve Knight, Deborah Shearin and Leon Skinner.
- Robbie Davis – Chair of the NCBCC (General Contractor).
Proposal #2: Seeks to add the ANSI/RESNET/ICC 301-2019 Standard for the Calculation and Labeling of Energy Performance of Low-Rise Residential Buildings using an Energy Rating Index to chapter 11 of the NC Residential Code.
Current Status: Introduced during the July 14th meeting, passed the second of three tollgates, up for final vote at the upcoming December 8th meeting in Raleigh. If passed by the NCBCC, it will become law unless rejected by Rules Review, the NCBCC’s oversight organization.
Background: This proposal is yet another attempt by NCHBA and the national home building industry to gut North Carolina’s residential energy code, siding yet again with up-front and short-term builder profits of a few hundred dollars at the expense of monthly renter and homeowner energy savings over the lifetime of the home that only become more valuable as utility prices continue to increase. In this article, NCBPA’s Ryan Miller previously documented how NCHBA’s prior success at reducing the stringency of this very current energy code already removed opportunities for consumers to save $8 – $10 per month in utility bill savings, all for about $500 of up-front builder costs. This proposal will weaken North Carolina’s energy code even more, further eroding the few energy efficiency benefits currently available.
NCHBA is positioning this proposal as an alternative energy code compliance pathway that “would provide substantial cost savings while still ensuring significant energy-efficiency benefits.” The proposal, however, eliminates all energy efficiency requirements and would enable builders to meet energy code by using no energy efficiency measures at all but enough rooftop solar, for example, to meet the minimum Energy Rating Index (ERI) value (HERS Rating) required.
Despite NCBPA’s repeated warnings to NCBCC members at subcommittee and Council meetings, there has been no detailed discussion on this proposal. A credit to NCHBA’s power in the code writing process, the proposal has received pushback from only a few Council members and has essentially skated through the first two tollgates.
The proposal itself has been reviewed by NCBPA staff and national code advocacy partners and is known to be incomplete and inaccurate. No legitimate cost justification or reason statement has been provided, which are required by North Carolina law. Even if passed by the NCBCC, the proposal will most likely be rejected by Rules Review, the NCBCC’s oversight organization. However, advocacy efforts to stop the Council from approving the proposal is still desperately needed.
At the most recent September 1st meeting, NCBPA’s Ryan Miller offered the only public comments against this proposal, which was only supported in public comment by NCHBA’s Robert Privott.
Why This is Harmful: This proposal will create a new optional energy code compliance pathway that enables builders to construct new homes without any energy efficiency minimum or backstop requirements, so long as they meet the state’s currently available ERI value for their climate zone. The problem is that the established ERI values, which are already available as an optional energy code compliance pathway for builders, were formulated with the minimum energy efficiency and backstop requirements that this proposal seeks to exempt.
NCBPA’s opposition points to this proposal include:
- We fundamentally disagree with NCHBA’s continued attempts to erode our state code’s minimum energy code requirements.
- The proposal removes but does not replace the very foundation that the ERI target numbers are based on.
- The proposal will allow builders to build in ways most likely everyone in the construction and codes industry would agree is essentially incomplete or just a bad way to build.
- The proposal is incomplete based on the lack of information it includes – no matter what it argues for.
Action to Take:
- Builders are asked to email and call members of the NCBCC asking them to oppose this proposal and action by NCHBA.
- Contractors and energy efficiency supporters are also encouraged to email and call members of the NCBCC asking them to oppose this proposal at the December 8th meeting.
- All energy efficiency supporters are encouraged to attend the in-person subcommittee meetings on December 7th and Council meeting on December 8th in Raleigh to voice their opposition to NCBCC members in-person.
- All members of the NCBCC should be contacted. Key members to contact include:
- Ralph Euchner – Chair of the Energy Ad Hoc Committee (not currently active).
- Gary Embler – Chair of the Residential Committee (2017 NCHBA President).
- David Smith – Member of the Residential Committee (Wilmington area builder).
- Wayne Hamilton, Steve Knight, Deborah Shearin and Leon Skinner.
- Robbie Davis – Chair of the NCBCC (General Contractor).
Key Resources Include:
- Click here and go to page 31 to view the publicly-available information on this proposal, listed here as item C-23.
- Click here for more information on the energy efficiency savings that NCHBA already did away with in North Carolina’s current energy code requirements.
