Multifamily

Never get the R-15 wool insulation pulled over your eyes again! Separating green from greenwash is getting harder as standards proliferate. Tristan and Paula from BuildingGreen bring you the latest in clever greenwash with this lively and interactive chat on what makes a label truly green. Even if you come knowing nothing about green building labels, you'll leave with new knowledge--as well as new wisdom. We'll show you how to ask the right questions and make your own judgment next time a company tries to convince you that its pet metric or label is the greenest of them all.

Advances in building envelopes and HVAC equipment enable widespread use of air source heat pumps by many in the "Net Zero Energy" and "Passive House" movements. Steve Bluestone will report on two related items: a three year performance study of an air source heat pump system using hourly measurements (done with Henry Gifford and built above his garage) and the design and construction of his new 101 unit high performance rental building in NYC utilizing the same technology.

With the drop in envelope loads and the rise in efficient heat pumps (even in cold climates), quite a few homes are moving away from fossil fuels towards electric HVAC. One recurring question is: what to do about water heating? This session covers various options - simple electric tanks, tankless electric heaters, solar thermal, heat pump water heaters, etc. - and presents real cost and energy data from several research & evaluation projects.

A number of multifamily affordable housing developments in the New York City area were hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Affordable housing organizations have learned from that experience and are working to improve the resilience--and sustainability--of their facilities, in ways both large and small. Alex Wilson and Jim Newman have been facilitating some of this work. This session reports on these efforts and presents practical strategies for making multifamily affordable housing--and all multifamily buildings--more resilient.

For many teams, it is an almost impossible challenge to simultaneously deliver high performance and cost efficient buildings while maintaining high customer satisfaction and profitability. Integrated design/build delivery providing single responsibility, from schematic design to construction through commissioning and monitoring has proved to be a viable model for successful delivery of cost efficient high performance buildings. This session will examine aspects of planning, marketing, estimating, system development, project management, human resources, accounting, and legal concerns.

This session will report on the results of benchmarking over 120,000 units of affordable housing in Massachusetts as part of the utility sponsored Affordable Housing Metrics project. The process, challenges, and successes of benchmarking at scale will be discussed.

This session will give real world examples of multi-family affordable housing projects that made decisions about trade-offs between construction costs and reduced operating costs. While project teams strive to have no- or low-cost implications for environmentally responsible building features, sometimes a simple payback analysis or life cycle costing can help make decisions. We will have perspectives from RMI’s Super Efficient Housing Program Manager, a green building consultant and an architect to explore some case studies.

Effective management of airflow in multifamily buildings is often attempted but rarely achieved. This session will focus on effective methods to air seal between units, as well as exterior walls. Compartmentalizing multifamily units in this way has proven benefits in comfort, health, efficiency, and operating costs. Certification programs such as Energy Star and LEED are catching up. Come to this session to learn how smart practitioners are doing it right.

This session will identify the many variables that influence HVAC & domestic hot water system selection for large (75+ units) multi-family projects. Several project examples will be illustrated including: new construction, mill conversions to housing and occupied rehabs. The large number of variables makes this a complex task that this session will aim to simplify.