NASEO Building Energy Codes Compliance Webinar
June 14, 2011 -
2:00-3:30pm ET
More than 120 state energy office
staff, state building regulatory agency
staff, code officials and building
design and construction professionals
received the latest information on
building energy code compliance
practices at a NASEO Building Energy
Codes Compliance Webinar on June 14,
2011. The purpose of the webinar
was to share with state and local
government staff involved with energy
codes some of the resources and tools
available to them for improving and
assessing code compliance.
The webinar started by providing an
update on the information related to the
U.S. Department of Energy’s Building
Energy Codes Program (BECP) activities
that support compliance with building
energy codes. David Conover,
Senior Technical Advisory with the
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
(PNNL), who is supporting the DOE BECP,
provided the update. The
information in the webinar helped to
increase awareness of the various
activities and no-cost resources
available from BECP to support any
efforts and activities associated with
ensuring compliance with building energy
codes. For example, the
presentation included discussion of
tools such as the State Sample
Generator, which is an online web
application that assists states in
randomly selecting buildings across the
state to evaluate as part of a
compliance assessment. The
generator provides statistically valid
samples for counties within a state,
based on estimated construction starts
and then separates those by climate zone
in the state relative to those starts.
Also presented at the webinar was the
Store and ScoreTM online web application
that collects building evaluation data
gathered as part of a formal state
compliance evaluation efforts. The
tool scores the data, on an individual
building and a statewide level, and
allows analysis of data collected across
states.
The status of BECP’s state compliance
pilot studies on several states was also
provided. These compliance pilot
studies are intended to help states in
their compliance efforts, while at the
same time provide insight into the
effectiveness of the current compliance
tools and identify suggestions for
improvement. The final reports are
due shortly and will aggregate results
and summarize the findings across the
participating states.
For more information on the BECP’s
technical support, resource guides,
publications, code notes, training
tools, compliance resources, etc., you
are encouraged to go to
www.energycodes.gov.
During the webinar a specific state
code strategy was presented by Laura
Richardson, the Recovery Act Coordinator
for State Energy Programs at the New
Hampshire’s Office of Energy and
Planning. She summarized New
Hampshire’s program that recently
completed 26 code training workshops
with over 1060 building professionals
trained on the International Energy
Conservation Code (IECC) 2009.
These efforts are helping to better make
the code-related tools and resources
more accessible, relevant, and widely
used. New Hampshire is also developing
workshops and tools for harder-to-reach
audiences, such as realtors and
appraisers. Additionally, the
state recently launched a public
awareness campaign involving a radio
public service announcement (PSA)
highlighting the benefits of energy
efficient building codes; the PSA was
shared with the webinar participants.
To further encourage peer-to-peer
exchange of information during the
webinar, a question and answer session
was provided. The webinar
attendees participated in a discussion
and exchange of strategies between
state/local jurisdictions on building
code related issues and challenges.
Webinar Information
For more information on this webinar
or building energy code activities,
please contact Brian Henderson at
bhenderson@naseo.org.
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