Yes. But the questions should read; “Can you cost effectively retro-fit an existing
building to be zero energy? The answer to that is Maybe. This must be identified
onsite. Since every existing building is different, there is no way for us to answer
this question. Designing a building and configuring it to use no regionally supplied
electricity can be easily and cost effectively achieved in new construction. In a
retro-fit, our architects and engineers will not be able to control many of the following
key design elements as closely: 1)Polar orientation, 2)Shading, 3)Insulation envelope,
4)Conservation, 5)Materials used, 6)Lot size, 7)area for renewable energy system
(Just to name a few). While a zero energy retro-fit isn’t impossible, it will involve
more intervention than a simple “plug & play” approach with solar arrays. To learn
what can be achieved for a specific budget we can evaluate and computer model a building
to learn how it will respond to specific retro-fit strategies and compare those results
with an energy audit. This can be conducted by our staff or from one of our engineering
firms that conduct field evaluations. If interested, please contact us today at zeroenergyhome@udcinc.org
or by calling one of our offices. UDC does not accept energy audits performed by
organizations that are not certified by us first. With our integrated approach, most
organizations that offer energy audits do not document all of the information we
require to ensure we achieve our post retro-fit performance levels desired by the
client.
