The Power of Existing Buildings

Episode Transcript
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Stephanie Rouse (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by
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You're listening to the Bookedon Planning podcast, a project

(00:28):
of the Nebraska chapter of theAmerican Planning Association.
In each episode, we dive intohow cities function by talking
with authors on housing,transportation and everything in

(00:51):
between.
Join us another episode ofBooked on Planning.
In this episode, we talk withauthors Robert Strauff, craig
Stevenson and Beth Eckenrode ontheir book the Power of Existing
Buildings Save Money, ImproveHealth and Reduce Environmental
Impacts.
This is a book that's been onmy personal reading list for a
few years now, so I was excitedto finally get to reading it and
talk with the authors.

Jennifer Hiatt (01:12):
Yeah, reading this couldn't have come at a
better time for me, as I'mactually considering
improvements to my home, namelyadding rooftop solar, after we
lost power from a storm a fewmonths ago and I learned why I
might want to focus my initialenergies towards the envelope of
my house instead.

Yeah, it's something that I considered for
my home as well, and afterreading this, I've considered
upgrades to my home's envelopeas the first step, followed by
improving HVAC equipment andthen renewables as the last
approach, which is describedfurther in the book.
I was a little surprised thatthere's an online group out
there for residents in New Yorkwho never have to use a heating
system because their homes areso well designed.

Yeah, that really was cool to learn about,
and I'm such a cold bloodedperson that if I could maybe get
my envelope up to stuff, maybeI wouldn't ever have to use my
heater again, so that would becool.
I really enjoyed thisconversation and learned a lot
like rethinking how I thinkabout the city of Pittsburgh.
So let's get into ourconversation with Robert Craig

(02:11):
and Beth on their book the Powerof Existing Buildings.

Robert Craig and Beth, thank you all for
joining us on Booked on Planningto talk about your book, the
Power of Existing Buildings.
This book is based on the ideaof the natural order of
sustainability passive, burst,active second and renewables.
Last, can you discuss what thismeans in terms of building
design and where?

Beth Eckenrode (02:32):
this concept originated, sure.
So we started the Oros group toanswer one question for
building owners did you get whatyou paid for?
And when we did that, we had togo really deep in the world of
building science, because it'sin the world of building science
where you discover how to builda high performance building
without having to pay asignificant premium to do so.
And it's in the laws ofbuilding science that we came

(02:53):
across a standard called passivehouse, which is a little bit of
a misnomer in that it's notjust specifically about houses,
it's for buildings, andbuildings all over the world
have been built or renovated toa passive house standard.
The natural order sustainabilityis kind of our layperson
language to describe thatstandard, and the idea is that
there is a natural order to howyou begin and end in the world

(03:16):
of building science to build ahigh-performing building,
meaning that you start with thepassive systems of a building
first, which is reallyeverything that separates the
outside air from the indoor air.
That is what defines an envelope, and so that's passive, in that
once you build it, nothingreally happens to it and it's
rather enduring.
It lasts for a very, very longtime, and then the active piece

(03:37):
is really the second element ofit, which is once you get a
high-performing envelope set.
Now you can start to thinkabout how to build those active
systems, meaning mechanicalsystems heating, ventilating,
air conditioning.
You can think about doingthings differently.
They become much lesscomplicated, much simpler and
ergo much cheaper, becauseyou've built a high-performing

(03:58):
envelope.
So then you take thehigh-performing envelope, you
add it to simpler, easier,cheaper mechanical systems, and
those two together allow you tonot really think differently
about renewables.
So instead of building a bigphotovoltaic array to offset a
building that's not performingas well, now you've got a
high-performance building andthe amount of renewables you
need gets much less.

(04:19):
Again, it gets much simpler andmuch cheaper when you put all
of those three pieces together.
Now you've built what weconsider to be the highest
performing building for thelowest possible cost, because
you've just done it in a smarterway.

Let's talk about your version of the first cost
argument.
So I work in redevelopment allthe time and one of the very
first things that we hear isthat it's cheaper, easier,
better, take your pick,whichever to just level the
existing building that's thereand then start from scratch.
One of the main premises ofyour book is that's not always,
or even most often, the case.
So how should people startthinking about that first cost

(04:54):
argument?

Robert Sroufe (04:55):
Great question.
Thanks again, stephanie andJennifer for having us.
When thinking about first cost,we try to think about this more
as a systems opportunity.
When we look at first cost andonly lowest cost is typically
where most businesses go withmany decisions and those first
costs.
If I put this in the context ofa transportation system, I can
drive 60 years out of my life,about 14,000 miles a year and

(05:18):
spend maybe upwards of $130,000on gasoline for an internal
combustion engine and it seemslike it's a low cost approach to
doing it to begin with and Ithink about only the first cost
of that.
But if I actually look at thatwhole lifetime of driving and I
did it with a better system anddid it with, let's say, a new
vehicle, it'd be 90% moreefficient.
I'd spend maybe $13,000 in 60years and I would have

(05:39):
overlooked the lifetime cost ofthis, the life cycle
implications of this, theoperational costs.
So when we talk in context ofbusiness and first cost, for me
what really tends to land wellis that if you're only looking
at the lowest cost bid coming into begin with, you've missed
the entire opportunity to thinklifecycle, think whole systems
and think about how thatbuilding is connected to

(06:00):
everything else that we don'ttypically measure, which can
also include environmentalimpacts avoided and human health
and productivity that go wellbeyond just a first cost.

So I'll add that even just in the last couple of
years, the idea of embodiedcarbon has generated so much
interest and enthusiasm that theidea of leveling in a perfectly
good existing building thatmight just need to be updated
has kind of gone out of favor.
I mean, think about schools,for example.
So what's often been the caseis that project teams come in
and offer a schoolsuperintendent a choice right

(06:32):
For the same price, for the samecost, you can either bring a
building down or build a new one, and your price is about the
same.
And the superintendent says,well, oh my gosh, I want to
build my own building, I want tobuild it the way I want it.
For 50 years that's been the waypeople have thought about that
choice.
Today, I would say it'ssomewhat flipped on its head.
The embodied carbon that isalready in an existing building

(06:53):
is such that if you don't haveto, you would never want to tear
that building down.
You would want to do anythingyou can in order to improve that
building and bring it up toproper standards today and build
the highest performing buildingfor the lowest possible cost,
which today would really leantowards leaving the building and
not tearing it down.

Which, as a preservationist, that was a lot
of where the field has gone inthe last couple of years.
Before it was save it for thesake of its history, but now
it's an addition to the history.
There's all of this embodiedcarbon in that building and it
makes way more sense to maintainthese buildings and renovate
them.

I think that's a great example, stephanie.
I mean, the historicpreservationists have gotten
much smarter, too in buildingscience, and now they're
understanding that there arethings you can do with a
building that if you give, ifhistoric preservationists give
design teams a little bit morewiggle room on, like how to
build up the envelope properlyfrom the inside out, but do it
in a way that allows us to getbetter performance, we can have

(07:49):
our cake and eat it too.
We can do both.
We can have a historicallypreserved building and a high
performance building, and Iwould say historic
preservationists and thepreservation group in New York
City is a great example of wherethey're finding that balance
between you know historicpreservation and being really
tight about it to loosening up alittle bit when you've got
building science people who canhelp you build a better
mousetrap.

One of my favorite quotes in the book is
that the building coderepresents the worst possible
building that you're legallyallowed to build, and sometimes
it feels a little bit like someof the sustainability rating
systems LEED, for example, havea tendency to result in this as
well, depending on how you useit If you're just adding a bunch
of bike racks to get a bunch ofpoints, but it's really
impossible to actually bike toyour building.

(08:26):
How do we avoid falling intothis trap of seeking
sustainability designationthat's only useful on paper?

Craig Stevenson (08:34):
First of all, stephanie and Jennifer, we are
excited to be here and I'm happyto be talking to you guys today
.
It is one of my favorite quotes.
It's those quotes you just hearand you can't unhear it, right,
because it's just true.
And the problem with thebuilding codes is that it's not
that the codes are terrible, forexample, it's the adoption of

(08:55):
the codes are left to the localmunicipalities.
And you know, in ourjurisdiction here in Western
Pennsylvania, we're two codesbehind because there's certain
lobbies out there that preventus from adopting the latest
codes.
And that's the problem, right?
So then owners are faced withthe decision I want to build a
new building or I want to do aretrofit.
What do I do?
Well, more times than not, theychase code because they want to
spend as little money aspossible and, to Robert's point,

(09:16):
they don't look at the overallimpact of all the costs.
Right, they're chasing oneparameter and that one parameter
is the cheapest building I canbuild.
But when you go buy a car, dowe do the same thing?
No, we don't right.
We want those amenities, wewant those customizations that
make us feel a little morecomfortable, that protect us a
little bit more, that have alittle bit more of a safety
valve for us.
So the idea there is that wethink that building owners are

(09:39):
asking the wrong question andthe question they should be
asking is how good of a buildingcan I build?
Once I know that, then I wantto weigh in those three factors,
and those three factors arefirst, cost, building
performance, which is anoperational cost or op-ex, and
then the goals that we want toreach for all parameters of
performance, from air quality tolight and sound, to material

(10:01):
toxicity and everything else inthe building.
So if the building owners onlyunderstand one edge of that
spectrum and they never see theother edge performance right One
edge is the worst building andlegally allowed to build and the
other edge is I don't know whatthat is right.
They don't know what it is.
They're asking the wrongquestion.
So when we say, if you ask theright question, then all of a
sudden you can see the value.
If I understand the right edgeof the spectrum on performance,

(10:25):
then I can look at value from anOpEx perspective over the next
life cycle of the building.
That gives us the opportunityto make better decisions and I
believe that.
You know, I grew up in thisindustry and spent a lot of time
in construction.
Leed, foundationally, is awonderful system.
We support it.
We still believe in it.
It got us on the pathway thatwe want to be on.
But the problem with LEED andASHRAE and other programs out

(10:48):
there is they say you must bebetter than by code, by X,
whatever that percentage is, andwe all know those programs
Right.
So now, all of a sudden, we'reasking the wrong question.
We're starting with the worstbuilding we're legally allowed
to build and we want toincrementally get better.
And incrementalism doesn't work.
It just simply doesn't workright.
Think about it, you know, whenwe incrementally want to improve
our buildings, what do we do?

(11:08):
Replace all of our lightfixtures Uh-oh, that didn't get
us there.
And then we replace all of ourvariable frequency drives Uh-oh,
that didn't get us there.
And the new buzzword of the dayis heat pumps.
All we have to do is do ourheat pumps and we're going to
get to our goals.
Uh-oh, that's not working.
And that's the problem, becausethey're violating, to Beth's
point, the natural order ofsustainability.

(11:29):
They haven't aggressivelyreduced their loads to get them
into an efficient building whereeverything else starts to work.
And when you violate thenatural order of sustainability.
You're going to pay a premiumbecause you've got to supplement
for what you miss.
If I don't lower my loads andI'm gonna deal with this all
with active systems how am Igonna do that?
Well, I gotta build moreelaborate, bigger active systems

(11:50):
that heat and cool my building,because all that energy is
going straight through myenvelope.
That's where this all comestogether.
All the questions you guys areasking us and what we wrote in
the book.
It all comes together and itjust makes sense.
Reduce your loads right, sizeyour system, do the math across
the operational life cycle ofthe building, understand the
right edge of that spectrum, andthat's building performance.

(12:11):
How good can a building be?
So our recommendation would beto any building owner if you're
engaging in a new constructionproject or a retrofit of an
existing building, the veryfirst question you should ask is
how good could that building be?
Pre-renovals Once you know thatanswer, you're going to make
much better decisions.

I have to admit I underlined that we are always
working with developers.
They come seek tax andfinancing.
They have to work city.
I'm going to like throw thatinto my meetings.
I'm like I don't know, maybe weshouldn't build like the worst
building we're legally allowedto.
Let's elevate that through.
That's great.
I equally thought that anotherpoint that you guys made that

(12:47):
just like hit me and everybodyshould probably know this, but
I've never thought about it wasthat if you want to know if a
current indoor environmentalquality is good or not, you
should just ask the occupantswho are in the building.
Stephanie and I complain aboutour office all the time.
It's always so dang cold.
But you point out that anuncomfortable occupant is
actually a symptom, not the rootcause.

(13:08):
So how would you tell buildingowners to differentiate between
symptoms and causes?

I love that, jennifer, and sometimes you
don't even have to ask themright, you can see by what
they're wearing whether thewindows are open, the fans are
on, the air conditioners arerunning and they're all next to
each other in same space doingthese different things.
So, as we spend what 93% of ourtime inside, it's amazing how
much occupants don't get tointeract with those systems that
they depend upon, and that'spart of the symptom versus

(13:36):
causes piece is that whenthey're uncomfortable, it's a
symptom of an underlying problemtheir interaction with the
system.
Lack of interaction, badsystems maybe to begin with, no
data, no indoor air qualitymeasures, all that kind of pile
up.
But if we ask the question fivetimes and the question is why?
Why are they uncomfortable?
Why did they turn on that unit?
Why did they open the window?

(13:57):
Why?
And as we answer that each time, after doing about five times
through, you actually get to anunderlying root cause of
something.
Otherwise you're hitting allthe symptoms that are associated
with it.
So as we work our way downthrough symptoms into a root
cause and think about spending93% of our time inside, we can
then start flipping that intowhen we better understand this

(14:18):
and people can better engage inthose systems.
Students will do better on examsand school.
People recover faster inhospitals.
We will do better in terms ofour own human health and
productivity, and what we foundin retrofitting buildings in the
past too, is that it's a goodROI to begin with, right when we
start touching these things,and then as we look at
environmental impacts avoided,it gets even better.

(14:39):
We can bring a five-year ROI forsomething down to maybe three
and a half years if we look atthat carbon and environmental
impacts avoided, but ROI forsomething down to maybe three
and a half years if we look atthat carbon and environmental
impacts avoided.
But if we add the human healthand productivity piece, it can
be 10 times better than thefinancials to begin with, and
maybe we're taking somethingdown from five years to four
months in terms of its paybackperiod because we've finally
taken all these things intoaccount that are part of the
root cause of something and alack of human interaction within

(15:01):
the system.
That finally sets us up forunderstanding that this ROI is
an integrated bottom line andnot just a single bottom line or
something that's rudimentary.
It's really dynamic, but wejust typically can't get to it
because we're treating symptomafter symptom and not getting to
the underlying problem.

Yeah, I totally agree.
And I want to add one commentto Robert's response.
As much as I agree witheverything you just said is that
if you think about it from abuilding science perspective,
how are we reducing our loads?
We're changing the insulationvalue to a climate-specific
insulation value, so code mayrequire an R18, yet the
climate-specific insulationvalue we should target for load

(15:38):
reduction might be closer to anR25 to an R30.
So you're talking a few moreinches of insulation and then
you want to put in an airbarrier that is connected all
the way through six sides ofthat envelope, all six sides of
the cube.
We do insulation and we do airbarrier today, but we don't
really test it right.
If you drive by and look at abuilding and they have Tyvek on
the side of the building andit's flapping in the air and

(15:58):
it's not connected to thewindows and doors or the
sub-slab insulation, then it'sreally.
I mean, the air doesn't carewhere the hole's at, it's going
to go out of the buildingwherever the hole's at.
So when you take an approach tohigh-performance building,
we're connecting our thermal andair barriers.
Now think about that.
If I connect my thermal and airbarriers, I've got a pretty
tight building.
That means I can bring the airinto the building in the way I
want it to come in, notinfiltration and exfiltration,

(16:20):
but through my ductwork, and Ican throw a MERV 13 on it.
Guess what I just saw?
Indoor air quality.
They're connected.
So when you build a highperformance building, beth and I
always say to our clients andour business is that this is the
foundation.
If you build a good building,you can get after every
performance parameter and wedefine those and we talk about
in the book, in our owner'sproject requirements.

(16:42):
And OPR over owner's projectrequirements is a set of goals
and targets.
It's metric, based across everyparameter of performance in the
building and when we set that,we find that when we build our
envelope the right way, we'resolving about 80% of those OPR
metrics.
And that's where Robert'sgetting at on the IEQ.
He's talking about the value ofIEQ and we're telling you how

(17:03):
easy it is to deliver it inbuildings.
Just stop building forestbuildings, buildings that are
air leaking, and now all of asudden you can get that IAQ
pretty quickly and easily.

And speaking of performance, in the book you
discuss that the buildingindustry is moving from
performance-based standards toperformance-based accountability
.
What's the difference and whyis this shift in the right
direction?
So a couple of things.

Let's talk about what it is.
It should have every buildingowner kind of on their toes
right now, because if you aregoing to build a new building or
you're renovating deeprenovating an existing building,
you need to be aware ofperformance accountability,
which looks and feels like fines.
It looks and feels likeaccountability based on
performance.
So, depending on how well yourbuilding's performing and now
you know the disclosures aretypically in place in most

(17:47):
cities and now many cities itwill look and feel like Local on
97 in New York or Birdo inBoston or Energize Denver, where
you know you have to get to acertain level of performance or
you're going to get fine.
So that's performanceaccountability.
Now, is it the right thing?
I don't know.
I mean, it's the only thing.
If we're not making progress onour environmental objectives

(18:09):
and goals and there's nofeedback loops, any other way to
tell people if the buildingsare moving in the right
direction.
As Craig said and as Robertsaid, you know buildings account
for so much of carbon emissionsthat if you don't have any
other feedback loops, that'swhat you're left with.
So I don't know if it's theright thing Right now.
It's the only thing.

(18:29):
Now let's fast forward a littlebit, three to five years from
now.
We tease out a lot of this inour book.
It might require a secondinstallment of the power of
existing buildings to really getafter this idea of the data
science side and what's possiblefrom a data science side.
Can you use data to inform abuilding and have the feedback
loops that give you an idea ofhere's where your building is

(18:49):
performing today from a trendedstandpoint?
Here's what's possible, here'swhat building science says you
can get to or you can perform at, and now we're going to give
you the feedback loops that tellyou how to get there, so we can
shift the paradigm from stickstick stick to carrot, carrot
carrot.
Now, all of a sudden, we've gota different way of thinking
about performance accountability.
So it's there.

(19:09):
Everybody should be aware of itand slightly nervous about it.
But is it right?
I think we can do better and Ithink we might need another book
in order to explain how to dobetter.

Well, if you write it, Stephanie and I look
forward to reading it anddiscussing it on a future
episode Outstanding and we'vetouched a little bit on this but
integrative design is justabsolutely vital to successful
sustainability projects.
Stephanie and I are in theMidwest, so maybe we're just not
seeing the industry shift thatmight be occurring on the coasts
, but how do we move the entiredesign industry as a whole

(19:43):
toward an integrated designapproach?
Because we're not seeing it outhere as much.

I tend to, with my own students in a graduate
school setting, start theconversations with design
thinking and realizing thatwe're pulling from existing
approaches that are acrossindustries.
We've been doing this for along time, but we don't seem to
leverage them very well incertain specific places or maybe
at different times.
From a design thinkingstandpoint, we know that the
earlier we can do this, the lessit'll cost us.

(20:09):
The more dynamic the impact,the better the end result will
be.
We've seen this in terms of howLead was set up to begin with
and it was launched as anintegrative approach.
We see this in integration andinformation systems, information
technology it's part ofintegrated management.
Now, in terms of how I teachabout how sustainability is
already part of every businessfunction.
We already have known drivers,enablers and performance metrics

(20:29):
for this.
So the earlier we move designinto the conversation upfront,
the better we get at designthinking, lifecycle assessment
and better high performancebuildings that are existing
buildings.
Because as we redesign not justthe first time, because we may
not have been part of it, right,but the next iteration and the
next time around, it's thedesign.

(20:49):
That has even been said byothers.
Design is the first signal ofhuman intention right, if I go
to Bill McDonough, if ourintention is to have
high-performance, sustainablebuildings, then we need to have
an integrated approach, and thethings that we've done for the
last 40 years throwing it overone functional wall to another,
then to another haven't resultedin anything close to what we
need for the future.

(21:10):
That needs thishigh-performance decarbonization
, embedded carbon and anopportunity to actually
understand the real value ofthese buildings when design
wasn't part of the earlythinking.

Well, as Craig mentioned earlier about the
owner's project requirements, itis probably the most impactful
tool we've come up with.
It's like 11 by 17 sheet ofpaper with all numbers on it,
and those numbers are specificmetrics to guide individual
pieces of performance, and wehave found that that drives
integration, because you've gotpeople all agreeing on those

(21:42):
goals and now, instead ofwriting paragraphs of narrative
into what their intentions are,as Robert was talking about the
intentions now we have peoplesaying, oh yeah, I can do that,
I can deliver a system thatdelivers that type of
performance, and so we stoppedthis whole back and forth
narrative of it's theirresponsibility, no, it's her
responsibility.
Now it's really a collaborativeenvironment and everybody's

(22:04):
agreeing on the outcomes asopposed to the path to get there
.

It feels like the design profession, like
architects, engineers, that sidehave a big role to play in this
shift, because they're the onesthat can advocate for and
provide the guidance and kind ofsteer building owners in the
right direction and kind of leadthem along the way.

Yeah, and we can kind of tease out a little bit
of a breakthrough, I think, inhow leaders in this space are
starting to think instead ofthat incrementality of here's
where we are and how much bettercan we get.
You know, any project teamworth their salt today, whether
it's a building owner or anarchitect or engineering group,
should be asking of themselvesthe question, especially of an
existing building how good canmy building get?

(22:46):
It totally reframes the way youthink about a high performance
building.
Reframes the way you thinkabout a high performance
building.
Instead of trying to finddiminishing marginal returns
from where you start, you go towhat's possible and then you
start to trade up based ondiminishing marginal returns.
And so it's really the best wayto get all of the juice out of
the squeeze is the way we say itright, Like if you're going to

(23:07):
tackle your building, tackle itand get everything out of it.
You can Get as much energy out,get as much indoor air quality
in, get as much thermal comfortin.
You know, do as much as you canwith the time and the money
that you have, Because once youdo it, you're not touching that
building.
For another 30 years, You'renot going to touch those systems
again until they're, you know,until they trigger out.

And a lot of the examples in the book are
primarily for larger buildings,but a lot of our cities have
upwards of 70% single familydwellings and if a large portion
of them were rehabbed undernatural order method could have
a significant sustainabilityimpact.
At such a smaller scale, is itstill possible to see the same
ROI and energy cost savings,like smaller HVAC systems

(23:48):
resulting from a better envelopein the building?

Oh, 100%, absolutely it does.
But the question is a really,really interesting question.
I want to break it down intotwo parts because I think if I
can do that, I can answer it foryou two different ways.
Number one let's start withtriggers.
Right, the title of the book isthe Power of Existing Buildings
, and that's purposeful, and thereason why we named it that way

(24:12):
is because we hear thesedevelopers calling these
buildings stranded assets and wehear them referring to these
buildings as buildings that areinefficient and they just look
at them as a negative.
We look at that as positive.
Why?
First, let's define what atrigger is.
So a trigger is a light.
It's life cycle stuff breaks,it's deferred maintenance,
planned renovations, anyopportunity to touch the

(24:34):
building, to renovate thebuilding, to do something to
mitigate the building.
If we maximize our triggers,you know a stranded asset has
every trigger you can imagine.
Now we've seen stranded assetsthat need the roof replaced and
windows need replaced and thebuilding's vacant and needs
renovated and the systems areall at life cycle, need replaced
.
Well, guess what?
We just touched every systemthat we want to touch to
transform our buildings frompoor performing buildings to

(24:56):
high performance buildings.
So the concept of triggers isreally, really important and
that will be persistent acrossany typology single family
through large commercialbuildings, if we respect
triggers.
What we want to do is we wantto stop replacing a kind, and
that's what we do.
Stuff breaks, we replace it andwe just immunize their building
for the next 20 years because,to Beth's point, we're never
going to spend money on a systemthat's not at life cycle and

(25:19):
replace it.
So that's my first point.
And the second point aroundlarger buildings.
The benefit of larger buildingsis they're easier.
Now that might soundcounterintuitive and you might
think, well, wait, a second.
Big buildings must be moredifficult because they're larger
and more complex.
Think about it from a buildingscience perspective.
When you think about thesurface of the wall versus the
indoor volume of air, that ratiochanges.

(25:42):
It makes the envelope lessimportant.
It makes the envelope lesscritical.
So my envelope doesn't have tobe in our 30, like it would have
to be in a smaller building.
It has to be closer to a codeour 18, our 20.
And we can hit all theperformance targets we want to
hit.
We still need our air barrierand we still need systems to be
right size.
But for the most part, bigbuildings are easier than

(26:02):
smaller buildings and that's oneof the reasons why we go there.
Plus, big buildings are super,super inefficient.
I mean, just walk outsideduring COVID and look at the
buildings with all the lights onand all the equipment still
heating and cooling.
When they're letting in thesebuildings, right, they're not
being set back.
So for us, there's a lot ofwaste in these big buildings and
they're easier to do For us.
I think if we attack that, wecan attack the biggest kind of

(26:24):
problem we have.
But the solutions work whetheror not it's single family or
large buildings.
So those were the two points.
The two points is the sizedifferential big buildings are
easier and the second point istriggers.
We've got to look for ourtriggers.
So if you have a single familyhome and your focus is on that,
a lot of people say, well,single family homes, harder to

(26:45):
do.
Well, how many homeowners aregoing to retrofit their inside
walls, rip out their walls, putbetter insulation or do an
outside in retrofit where youput your insulation and new
cladding on the outside?
They're looking for the easybutton photovoltaic array,
better windows, maybe a heatpump system, and those are all
good and we should do all thosebecause they're going to matter,
but to the extent you can touchthe envelope and reduce loads.
Now, guess what?
Now I don't have to turn thosesystems on for probably eight

(27:06):
months of the year, and that'sreally what happens in Passapas.
There's a club there you guysshould research.
It's called the no Heat Cluband these guys are in upstate
New York.
They never turn their heat on,Never.
They're paying for their singlefamily homes an average of $100
to $50 to $200 a year inutility in upstate New York in
the middle, including the middleof the winter, because they

(27:26):
have a no Heat Club, they don'tneed heat.
So, again, these are the thingsthat we should be thinking
about and we should createfinancial incentivization
programs around.
But we have to understand thatthe easier levers to pull are in
those big buildings with a lotof triggers, those so-called
stranded assets that are in factassets, which is the theme of
our book.

Well, and we haven't talked much about the
Inflation Reduction Act.
But the Inflation Reduction Actput a lot of money out there,
set aside for small singlefamily homes and, depending on
where your single family home is, there might even be more money
available.
So what happened early in theInflation Reduction Act is the
money was set aside for statesto basically build programs and

(28:05):
get that money from the federalgovernment to bring into the
individual states.
Most of the states havecompleted their programs.
They now have all of theirstructure around how they're
going to deliver that money andit's for all the things that
Craig talked about.
It's not just replacing systems.
It's for insulation, weatherstripping, sealing, new roofs,
new windows.
All of those things are nowavailable for funding through

(28:26):
the state IRA monies.

Including PV photovoltaic arrays.

Yeah.
Yeah, we've seen a bigger focuson the renewable energies here
in Lincoln and we have a heatpump program that we just
relaunched as of this morning.
It just seems to be easier tofund those kind of simpler
projects, I guess, versus likeyou mentioned, it's much more
challenging on a smaller singlefamily home to do the envelope.
But it would be interesting tosee what other communities

(28:52):
because there's weatherizationprograms that have been around
in a lot of communities but theydon't seem to be as holistic of
an approach as you really needto see the indoor air benefits.

Yeah, and that's where, to your point, the scale
of a larger building to do thephysics-based modeling and
simulation that we do thatreally is precise about where
you need maybe a little bit moreinsulation or you need a little
bit better ceiling.
You know, we can get veryprecise in a sophisticated
physics-based model.
Those don't necessarily existfor the single-family home.

(29:24):
In the same way, there's othertesting and other modeling you
can do, but it's not quite assophisticated and so it's a
little bit more difficult tofind the money to pay for those,
although California has aprogram now where they are
putting $5,000 aside forbuilding owners and smaller
single family homeowners to beable to do some of that modeling
and simulation work, albeit ona smaller scale.

(29:46):
They're able to do that and thestate has put that money aside.
So as we get a little smarterand a little smarter every year,
more of the dollars flow to theright things, as opposed to
just throwing money at something, having somebody check a box
and thinking somehow they didsomething magnanimous.
There's this accountabilitypiece out there now that people
are saying we need to know thatit made a difference.

Well, I have to admit, reading this book came at
probably the most perfect timefor me, because I was starting
to think about adding solar tomy home.
I have a 1950s war home and Iwork with developers.
We've talked about how to likerenovate and whatever, and so I
was like, well, maybe I shouldjust plop some solar panels

(30:26):
right on the roof.
Same simple help bringeverything down.
That's always where my mydevelopers go to.
The first conversation isalways about can we bring in the
solar, can we put a windgenerator on the roof?
But, as you guys talked aboutat the top, your system brings
in renewables last.
So can you help me put aresponse in my back pocket when
I talk with these developers andtell me why renewables should

(30:50):
be brought in as that last step?

Yeah, I would love that, Jennifer, I went
through the same process with myown home.
Right in this general context,I have a home that's 50% larger
than the average home inPennsylvania but I worked on
insulation and envelope andbringing it down, so now it
consumes less than 50% of theaverage amount of electricity
for a home.
So for a home half its sizesize actually consumes less than
half that.

(31:12):
And then to go beyond thatright size mechanicals
afterwards and then look at myactual load, because then the
size of the PV array that I puton top, like I alluded to
earlier on, was that my PV arraydoesn't have to be, let's say,
100 units.
It can be 70% smaller or 50%smaller, right.
So I'm spending half as much ona system if it's half the size
and then still meet my needs.

(31:33):
I then over-generate with that.
So I am not positive.
With the house I offload tocars, I can go 10,000 miles a
year for less than $200 with thevehicle, connect systems to
buildings, so I have mobilityand not just a place and a space
, you know.
So it generates something forme In doing that.
Heat pumps are part of it,induction, cooking is part of it
, getting rid of fossil fuels,other things that are all part

(31:54):
of that space that I wanted tobe part of.
But renewables were our lastdecision because we wanted to
bring everything else down asmuch as possible.
First, and almost like thatgroup that Craig talked about in
New York, we wanted to try toget to something like zero.
What if we could get to zero Ina passive house?
If you heat up a thousandsquare feet of a home with a
hairdryer, basically why would Ineed a full mechanical system

(32:15):
to do this?
Make it as small as possibleand then I can invest in other
things.
The PVs are great.
They're great visual.
By having them on our roof andother roofs, it increases the
chance of others around yougetting it.
We've put in six more systemsaround us, I think, within the
first four years after puttingour own in, and there's more
coming.
So I don't want to ever saypeople should not do it, but I

(32:37):
think, as Beth was saying, asmarter approach is to go
through this asset first, Ibelieve.
Second, renewables last, andthen right size your systems and
right size your payment forwhat you're going to be putting
down for this.
So that way you get a betterROI for that and it comes
quicker down for this.

So that way you get a better ROI for that and
it comes quicker.
So, from the city side, whatare ways that local governments
can encourage owners of existingbuildings to update their
buildings, with the mindset thatspending more upfront on
elements like the buildingenvelope will pay off in the
long run, with reducing energycosts, for example?
Or just to avoid the fix theone problem, versus looking at
it more holistically, like we'vetalked about in the episode?

Yeah, it's a really great question because I
think it's in some ways variousstates, governments, even the
federal government that justrecently the White House put out
a definition at the end of lastyear on what zero carbon
emissions really meant what iszero carbon?
And it defines the same way wewould define it using the

(33:35):
natural order sustainability,meaning if you don't go after
efficiency first, you aren'tever going to achieve in their
idea of zero carbon.
You're not going to achievezero carbon emissions.
You have to wring all theefficiency out first, which is
the right thing, I feel like.
As fast as we're evolving onthe data science side, the best
thing funders of any sort stategovernments, local governments,

(33:58):
federal government, foundations,anybody who's funding some of
these projects should requireautomated feedback loops.
I think what's going to happennext is, instead of putting more
and more sticks in place topenalize people, it's going to
look more like carrots, meaningthe higher performing projects
and the teams associated withthose higher performing projects

(34:18):
are going to get the funds flow.
So I think what's going tohappen is the more that you're
able to prove performance, themore you're going to get
refunded not refunded, butfunded again.
So you'll get funded again Likethink about LIHTC, for example,
and affordable housing.
In my opinion, I think what'sgoing to happen next is these

(34:39):
organizations that are puttingtremendous amount of dollars
against affordable multifamilyare going to start to require
feedback loops and demonstrationof results, and the more they
do that, the more it will be thefastest propelling and
accelerating of this work that Ithink we could get, and it's
just going to be turning thelights on and making it more
visible in terms of whichprojects are delivering and
which ones are not.

One of the areas that the book focuses on pretty
heavily is the city ofPittsburgh, and it's been a few
years since you guys publishedthe book, so can you give us an
update on what the city ofPittsburgh has been up to?

Sure, yeah, I think the city of Pittsburgh is
one of those thought leaders inthe nation that has a go out to
architects and engineers thatthey must design these buildings

(35:39):
new and retrofit to be nearzero energy ready, and they're
using the Passavata methodologyto do it.
What's interesting is they don'twant to certify.
Now they're using all of thestandard and they're using the
commissioning requirements whichwe believe are essential when
you build a high performancebuilding to commission it, and
they've already started to putin feedback loops through this.

(36:01):
They're called controllers thatgo into a building to do data
aggregation and they've startedto put these in the buildings.
So we've been involved, I think, in about 12 projects with the
city of Pittsburgh over the lasttwo and a half years and every
one of those projects isbasically they can zero out with
a small photo of a take or a atthis point, and they're really
incredible projects.
So I credit, you know, city ofPittsburgh, when they got on

(36:22):
this journey, reached out to theRocky Mountain Institute.
Rocky Mountain Institute camein and gave them a lot of
guidance on how to set up theirRFPs, how to train the employees
within the city to understandthese concepts and how to do it.
And then they also reached outto Carnegie Mellon University, a
local university here in thecity of Pittsburgh, to help them
further to go into operationalmode for these and how to set up

(36:44):
your smart buildinginfrastructure to get the
feedback loops they want.
And I can tell you throughdesign on the projects we're on.
Every single one of theseprojects right now is designed
at those levels of performancethey need to be, and I would say
about a half a dozen of theseright now.
That sound right, beth.
About a half a dozen of theseare in various phases of
construction right now.
So we are very eager andanxious, just like you guys, to

(37:05):
see when these things gooperational.
How do they start balancing theoperational performance with
the design performance.
But they're doing everythingthat they can in terms of the
design and setting up thetechnology-based feedback
systems in the buildings to getto those answers.
So it's really exciting.

And they're a great example of jurisdiction
that went through a processright.
First they required disclosure,then they required, you know,
any city building that's touchedhas to go to zero.
Now they're talking aboutperformance accountability in
the form of data.
Zero Now they're talking aboutperformance accountability in
the form of data.
And so, while they haven'tnecessarily said, okay, if your
project performs, you'll getanother project with the city,

(37:42):
and if your project doesn't, youwon't, they're not going that
far, but they're just turningthe lights on Again.
It's always.
The first step is to turn thelights on and make people aware
of what's going on, and thenwhat you'll see is adjustment.
People will begin to adjust asthey realize that the bar is now
a little higher.
The minute you do that,everybody raises their game, and
that's the way we make moreaccelerated progress.

This is just showing my bias because I've
never been to Pittsburgh, but Ihave to admit I was surprised to
find Pittsburgh, pennsylvania,being the leader in this
industry.

That's a relatively true statement.
I mean, if you think about it,10 years ago, when LEED came out
, 15 years ago, when LEED cameout, the city of Pittsburgh in
the early first few years forLEED, led the nation in square
foot of LEED projects and we hadsome conferences here, national
conferences, and I think that'sattributable to CMU, university
of Pittsburgh, theseinstitutions committing to the

(38:36):
sustainability and Robert was atDuquesne University at the time
and Duquesne was a leader onthat with the Sustainable MBA
program and now ChathamUniversity, again another
national leader in this space.
I think it's because of thoseuniversities, first and foremost
, and then the businesseslistening to them and starting
to embrace them and not saying,well, we can't.
Here's all the reasons why wecan't.

(38:57):
You build out a proof ofconcept.
Pnc Bank was a very earlyadopter into that.
They funded a lot of thesustainable organizations in
Pittsburgh and then they built atower that's sustainable.
So we've got demonstration casesthroughout the city which I
think, jennifer, it gives proofof concepts to the people who
say I don't know about that.
Right, that's what Beth hadsaid.
When the city of Pittsburghdemonstrates, hey guys, we can

(39:18):
do it.
And if we can do it as the city, you guys can do it.
And the university starteddoing it.
And then we had a lot ofdemonstration projects and large
organizations buy in.
And then the city did it.
And now all of a sudden peoplearen't saying I can't, they're
finding other excuses to resist.
But that's just construction,right, that's our market.
But now we know we can't.

Well, and because of the thought
leadership of the city which, atthe time, mayor Peduto really
put a lot of sticks in place andhad accountabilities and
requirements, and Mayor Ganey,who's coming behind him, is
requiring the same things, hehas not pulled back at all on
those commitments to get to zero.
So what that forced was theecosystem of practitioners to
evolve and to get smarter.

(40:00):
And so now I would sayPittsburgh has an outsized
ecosystem.
We have an ecosystem biggerthan anything we can do here.
So if there are othercommunities around the country
looking to do more of this work,all the practitioners are in
Pittsburgh.
That is a fact.
So, irrespective of where youare in the chain of construction
, we have more practicingnatural order sustainability
people here than we're probablyentitled to on our size.

Well, think about this too, Beth.
I mean, when Passive Housebecame popular and started to
increase in its use in squarefoots in the United States
Pittsburgh is leading that forthe first couple of years, I
mean, new York codified it andthey went way past everybody
really quickly.

But for Pittsburgh even to pace, with a
municipality like New York City,and square foot of Passapas
tells a story right there atalone.
So we've always been at thatforefront of sustainability to
best point.
That's fantastic.
This is Booked on Planning.
Obviously we're book nerds.
You guys wrote a book Seemslike you might be a little bit
of book nerds too, Craig,starting with you and we can

(40:57):
kind of go down the line.
What are some books yourecommend our readers check out?

Well, for us, the macro trends in the industry
are connecting buildings totechnology or technology-based
feedback systems.
So I don't know if it'snecessarily books as much as
articles, because the industryis moving so quickly on the
technology side of this, betweendata layers or data lakes, that
we support all the time seriesdata for buildings and then the

(41:24):
digital twins or the dashboards,if you will, for these
buildings.
That technology is moving soquickly.
Jennifer, for me it's a matterof staying connected to those
macro trends and reading thosearticles, and we published a few
in the Construction Real EstateJournal.
They're on our website.
You can look them up.
I think Nexus Labs does a lot ofpodcasting and they do a lot of

(41:44):
journaling in there, and we payattention to that.
And then the Passive HouseAccelerator.
You can go on a Passive HouseAccelerator and really look up
any subject you want to look up.
So to me, I think it's adifferent way of reading things
in terms of where we're atbecause of the pace.
On the building science side,though, we think that our book
is definitely one of those booksthat's in the front.

Well, I will say I just met an author yesterday
and I was super excited becausehis book is interesting.
He's a developer out ofCharlotte.
His name is Gary Chesson andhe's a developer out of
Charlotte and his book isCreating Trinity.
So he comes at it as a realestate entrepreneur and investor
.
So he's got a reallyinteresting set of stories

(42:27):
around what Charlotte has doneas they've continued to grow at
really incredible rates, andalso how they got through COVID.
And so I heard him speakbecause I really loved his book.
I heard him speak and I wouldrecommend Gary Chesson's book.

I can do the blatantly self-serving thing
right and say my own books onsupply chain management and
sustainability, but in realityI'd kind of more pivot this
towards.
I think a bigger opportunity isto think about the context in
which I work and it's how healthand longevity of the world we
live in is impacted by educationand how university campuses are

(43:03):
living learning laboratories orat least they should be if they
are not and those buildings canbe connected so that they are
part of our curriculum and whatwe do.
So I'm coming to you today froma university campus that's 400
acres.
It's net positive, carbonneutral goals for it.
100-year-old buildings on sitewith ultra-modern, brand new
buildings less than 10 years old, bio-swells, renewables,

(43:25):
microgrids all that part of it,because it's part of what we
want to have our students touchand be part of in learning and
be part of a space and a placethat isn't something you learn
in a talk, lecture or a book.
So I think university campusesare where maybe the next book
should come from or be about insome ways, and I love that.
I'm part of a space thatactually tries to live this and

(43:46):
what we do.
We were the secondsustainability school in the
United States at ChathamUniversity.
Try to live this through ourbuildings, through organic
certified farm on campus theonly one in the United States
and try to do somethingdifferent in terms of how
students get an education and anexperience and not just a
degree or a class.

Have you guys heard of the book, the ESG
Mindset, that Island Press putout not too long ago?
Have you heard of that one?
I don't think we have.
No, yeah, that's kind of a goodone too.
They did some promotions aroundthat book, and I didn't read
the entire book.
I read excerpts of it and I'dlove to go back and read it
myself.
It looks practical.
So where ESG has gone is frompicking low-hanging fruit to now

(44:25):
oh crap, what do we do?
And you've got CEOs of majorcorporations making very, very
lofty promises and then handingthose promises and those goals
off to sustainability groups,esg groups, to try and figure
out how to execute.
And so there's this process ofgoing after a lot of this low
hanging fruit and then gettingto the point where you can't buy

(44:45):
bamboo farms in wild placesanymore and think that that's
going to count.
You now have to be much moretransparent about how you're
calculating your contribution interms of carbon emissions, and
so I thought that that booksounded.
Of all of them that I see kindof come across my screen, I
really felt like that one, andas I peeled it back a little bit
, that one had the mostpractical input.

(45:08):
So I think that's wherepotentially one of your podcasts
and also just another look foryour listeners.

Is it the ESG Mindset by Matthew Seckle,
seckle, seckle?
Yeah, okay.

Yep, we'll add it to our list.
I was going to say we'reputting together next year's
list already so we can add thatthrough.
There you go and I have toshare with you guys.
I added your book.
I'm going to be teaching anurban design course at the
University of Nebraska this yearand I added your guys' book to
the list because I was likestart them young, I guess.

Absolutely, absolutely.

That's great Well, especially if it kind of
helps you reframe your thinkingas you're getting ready to do
something.
There's how valuable it is in aprofessional environment, but
then there's just how valuableit is just in knowing the right
way to think about something.

Yeah, like I said, it changed the way I
thought I'd redo my house.

I'll start focusing a little more on my
envelope first, so all right,Jennifer, I'm going to have to
reach out to you and get a quotefrom my website.

I think I might have to find something for you
to add to our website and wehave had other urban planners at
different universities contactus about using the book, so it's
great to see it in use.

And any feedback you have about that too
would be helpful.
Well, beth Craig Robert, thankyou so much for joining us on
Booked on Planning to talk aboutyour book the Power of Existing
Buildings Save Money, improveHealth and Reduce Environmental
Impacts.
Thank you, you guys were great.

Thank you for having us.

It's an important topic.
Glad you're covering it.

We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
Robert Throff, craig Stevensonand Beth Eckenrode on their book
the Power of Existing BuildingsSave Money, improve Health and
Reduce Environmental Impacts.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher at
islandpressorg or click the linkin the show notes to take you
directly to our affiliate page.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts, and please rate,review and share the show.

(46:56):
Thank you.

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