What I want are designs that were created with energy efficiency/high performance in mind from the start, and actually built. We are hoping to build, and having something unique or one-of-a-kind is not a requirement. In fact, I'd actually prefer to use an "off the shelf" design. I could be wrong, but it just seems like going with something that's actually been built, tried and tested, a "known quantity" would have a better chance of having fewer surprises, everything working as expected, less unforeseen "gotchas", etc. I'd like to think I could also save some money on the architect's fee as well.

Posted By Hiralpatel on 04 May 2016 04:44 AM
Yes! There have been such designs, new as well as existing one where energy consumption was brought down by Energy Analysis as well as Building simulation. For Instance, A Dubai based company expected us to bring down energy costs by around 30% in constricted timeframe.

For that architectural engineering firm has prepared energy optimization reports & e-Quest model to enable them achieve the expected energy savings. One model was built in eQuest and another baseline 3D model in e-Quest as per standard ASHRAE 90.1-2007 were compared in order to evaluate the energy savings. Finally, the energy consumption report extracted and fruitfully able to achieve 29.72% energy saving.

I hope this helps!

Posted By jdebree on 04 May 2016 07:31 AM
One of the most important aspects of building an energy-efficient house is proper siting and orientation on the property, so stock plans suffer in that regard. A house really should be designed for the location that it will be built for many reasons, one of which being energy efficiency. Our house was designed for energy efficiency, and is performing very well, but it was designed for our specific climate, lot, and orientation. If I moved the exact same house to our lot we had in FL, it would be all wrong. I suppose you could look through stock plans and look for ones that work for the lot you have (or are planning), but even construction methods vary with climate.

I would think you could have canned designs bracketed by climate region. So I would start with stuff designed for my climate zone. And, the designs for neighboring climate zones probably don't need too much re-design to be made appropriate for my area.

Maybe another way to put it is this: I'd be happy with canned designs that are say "80% ideal" for my area. 100% ideal is custom-designed for my exact lot. But I'm looking for "pretty good" or "good enough", not necessarily absolute perfection. I am thinking of the 80/20 rule, which goes something like: You can get 80% of what you want with 20% of the effort; getting that last 20% of what you want costs 80% of the effort.

What I think would really be slick is some web-based software that is easy and intuitive enough for ordinary people to design their dream house. Start with a simple "wizard" that asks how many floors, basement yes/no, square footage, beds, baths, etc. It auto-generates stock floor-plans, then allows you to drag-n-drop the rooms around, and/or shrink/stretch walls to change dimensions. Furthermore, the "expert mode" would allow you to specify construction techniques, model thermodynamic performance, etc. And, it would all be backed by cost data (regional cost data would be killer) so you could price out the cost to build. And of course the plans could be then rendered into 3D so you could take a virtual walk through the home. My idea is something akin to what Kelley Blue Book (KBB) is to cars, you can price out your dream car with all the different options. I'm a technology guy, I believe this is completely doable. Anybody out there want to fund me to build it? :)

Posted By WannaBuildGreen on 04 May 2016 04:19 PM

Posted By jdebree on 04 May 2016 07:31 AM
One of the most important aspects of building an energy-efficient house is proper siting and orientation on the property, so stock plans suffer in that regard. A house really should be designed for the location that it will be built for many reasons, one of which being energy efficiency. Our house was designed for energy efficiency, and is performing very well, but it was designed for our specific climate, lot, and orientation. If I moved the exact same house to our lot we had in FL, it would be all wrong. I suppose you could look through stock plans and look for ones that work for the lot you have (or are planning), but even construction methods vary with climate.

I agree, that certainly makes sense. But I doubt it's a black-and-white affair, more of a shades-of-grey situation. The absolute perfect design is purpose-built to the lot/location: so take that perfectly designed and built house and move it to the lot across the street. It's likely now sub-optimal, but not wholly inappropriate. On the other hand, moving it to a wholly different part of the country is likely completely inappropriate.

I would think you could have canned designs bracketed by climate region. So I would start with stuff designed for my climate zone. And, the designs for neighboring climate zones probably don't need too much re-design to be made appropriate for my area.

Maybe another way to put it is this: I'd be happy with canned designs that are say "80% ideal" for my area. 100% ideal is custom-designed for my exact lot. But I'm looking for "pretty good" or "good enough", not necessarily absolute perfection. I am thinking of the 80/20 rule, which goes something like: You can get 80% of what you want with 20% of the effort; getting that last 20% of what you want costs 80% of the effort.

What I think would really be slick is some web-based software that is easy and intuitive enough for ordinary people to design their dream house. Start with a simple "wizard" that asks how many floors, basement yes/no, square footage, beds, baths, etc. It auto-generates stock floor-plans, then allows you to drag-n-drop the rooms around, and/or shrink/stretch walls to change dimensions. Furthermore, the "expert mode" would allow you to specify construction techniques, model thermodynamic performance, etc. And, it would all be backed by cost data (regional cost data would be killer) so you could price out the cost to build. And of course the plans could be then rendered into 3D so you could take a virtual walk through the home. My idea is something akin to what Kelley Blue Book (KBB) is to cars, you can price out your dream car with all the different options. I'm a technology guy, I believe this is completely doable. Anybody out there want to fund me to build it? :)

Posted By WannaBuildGreen on 04 May 2016 03:57 PM

Posted By Hiralpatel on 04 May 2016 04:44 AM
Yes! There have been such designs, new as well as existing one where energy consumption was brought down by Energy Analysis as well as Building simulation. For Instance, A Dubai based company expected us to bring down energy costs by around 30% in constricted timeframe.

For that architectural engineering firm has prepared energy optimization reports & e-Quest model to enable them achieve the expected energy savings. One model was built in eQuest and another baseline 3D model in e-Quest as per standard ASHRAE 90.1-2007 were compared in order to evaluate the energy savings. Finally, the energy consumption report extracted and fruitfully able to achieve 29.72% energy saving.

I hope this helps!

Are these designs available for others (i.e. me) to review and use?

However, we've narrowed down the details enough that I'd be surprised if someone hasn't already built a house that would meet our requirements. How to find that builder? I don't think we're looking for anything too terribly exotic or unusual: two-story with full basement, about 1500 SF per floor (4500 SF total counting basement). 4 bedrooms up, open main floor plan with office, roughed-in basement. Location: western suburbs of Chicago (Downers Grove). We're not going for full-on Passive House or other top-tier energy efficient specs, but something along the lines of a Pretty Good House.

The size/layout/style I've suggested above appears to be typical/common in the new construction we've seen, save the energy-efficient considerations. In other words, we've seen plenty of new builds that would work for us if only the builder had incorporated some high-performance features. I have to believe that someone is doing this in the greater Chicago area.

As per the intent of this thread, my intuition says that we can save time and money if we can find a builder who's already done a house that is what we want. Surely the builder can better plan to do a duplicate of a home he's already built, while at the same time run into fewer "gotchas".

Feel free to PM me if you're a builder in the greater Chicago area and willing to discuss this.

Posted By Bob I on 04 May 2016 04:27 PM
The builders you spoke to from the PHIUS website would probably be able to help if you can give them an approximate budget (including or not including land, site work, well, septic - just be clear which you are talking about) and some ideas about the house you want to build. I can verify that not knowing any of this information means that you can spend a lot of time heading down the wrong path with potential clients, to no one's benefit. As far as the insulation levels you are looking for, the typical "high performance" house in that climate often has R-40 walls, R-60 roof, triple glazed windows and a fully insulated basement or crawl space. Some builders specialize in expensive houses, some the opposite, and you can often look at their pictures and figure out what companies are the closest to what you're looking for.

Well, this is frustrating. I haven't contacted all the companies listed on PHIUS, but most of the ones in the greater Chicago area. I'd say only 25% get back to me.

At this point, I've developed a form letter that basically says this: "I'm looking to build a high-performance/energy-efficient home in XYZ suburb. I am targeting the value sweet spot between code-min and Passive House, i.e. a Pretty Good House. My budget is $X. In the interest of saving time and money, I'd like to copy an existing design/build with these specs: (insert high-level specs here, e.g. floors, square footage, number of rooms, etc)."

I really don't think what I'm looking for is esoteric or even unique. In fact, if I omit the energy-efficient requirement, we've seen lots of houses in our target area with perfect floorplans. In fact, one builder we talked to said, "What you want is a pretty typical concept for the Western Suburbs." Yet I'm having a very low success rate getting through to anyone.

Any other tips or pointers?