Sandy Wiggins Lecture: Zero Energy House

Tonight the USGBC Baltimore Region Chapter hosted a seminar on Zero Energy House Design. The guest speaker was Sandy Wiggins, who was Vice President of the USGBC, founder of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, and current principal of Consilience  LLC. He is now dedicating most of his time to operating Consilience LLC which is [...]

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Jackie ONeil Home_Image 01

Tonight the USGBC Baltimore Region Chapter hosted a seminar on Zero Energy House Design. The guest speaker was Sandy Wiggins, who was Vice President of the USGBC, founder of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, and current principal of Consilience  LLC. He is now dedicating most of his time to operating Consilience LLC which is a sustainable consulting and development group.

The lecture he gave, which was admittedly the first lecture on Zero Energy House design he had ever given, was focused on two main topics. Mr. Wiggins summed up the amazing growth of the green building industry since the first LEED project was completed in year 2000. An especially interesting point was that the USGBC had certified only 6,000 LEED buildings between 2000 and 2006. In 2006 however, the total LEED certified building inventory jumped by another 6,000 in that year alone and continues to climb at an almost exponential rate.

Mr. Wiggins also said that the USGBC, in their own opinion, thinks that the growing public awareness of sustainability and green products is being pushed by the green building industry. In other words, the green building movement has become the catalyst or tipping point for a greater societal change. I do not necessarily agree, but certainly the two movements happened coincidentally. And it is about time!

The second portion of Sandy’s lecture was aimed at describing the process of building a net energy neutral housing project. The project was for a client outside of Philadelphia named Jackie O’Neil. The Jackie O’Neil Zero Energy Prototype Homes project became the first LEED certified home in the United States and was a testing ground for a number of strategies and technologies. For more information please visit the following article.

It is noteworthy to mention the lessons learned from the project:

  • Start the process with a charette that involves the entire design team plus client
  • A Zero Energy House starts with the basics - low infiltration rates, highly insulated, solar orientation, passive strategies
  • Use an energy modeler to test scenarios
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