On April 1, NESEA kicked off the 2016 Pro Tour Series with an event on Martha's Vineyard. After braving the rain to arrive in Vineyard Haven, attendees spent the afternoon touring two recently completed high-performance houses. The first house was a completely new structure, purpose-built to incorporate high performing energy systems and materials. The second house was a deep energy retrofit, where an existing house was reworked to become a net zero home. Attendees heard about the different approaches to these projects, which required different strategies to achieve the same energy goals.

Brice Delhougne and Marc Rosenbaum are the building energy geeks at South Mountain Company and these are the houses they built for their families. These guys are hands-on and measure a lot, so they understand some of the less obvious aspects of how the houses and systems perform.

Site 1 - Oak Bluffs Residence: Recently Constructed Home (Brice's House) 

Home features

• Newly constructed home, completed in June 2014
• Single family house, 1,300 sq.ft.
• Superinsulated and extremely air tight at 40-45 CFM50
• European tilt-turn windows, solar hot water
• Single zone minisplit heat pump wall cassette, solar thermal hot water, HRV
• Energy use of about 7,000 kWh/year, all-electric - includes onsite wastewater treatment

Site 2- West Tisbury Residence: Deep Energy Retrofit (Marc's House)

Home features

• Newly renovated home; this deep energy retrofit was completed in January 2015
• Single family house, 1,300 sq.ft.
• The envelope is water-blown closed and open cell spray foam, with triple glazed US windows.
• The systems are a fully-ducted minisplit heat pump, a heat pump water heater, an ERV, and 4.76 kW of PV.
• Net zero, about 2,000 kWh/year net export

Schedule: