Fighting climate change through building energy codes

Join Fresh Energy's Eric Fowler and Isak Kvam for a conversation about why building energy codes matter for Minnesota's climate goals and to unpack upcoming residential building code updates that will make our buildings more efficient, affordable, and climate-friendly. This wide-ranging conversation covers everything from air tightness to insulation requirements and everything in between. 

Fresh Energy’s mission is to shape and drive bold policy solutions to achieve equitable carbon-neutral economies. Together we are working toward a vision of a just, prosperous, and resilient future powered by a shared commitment to a carbon-neutral economy. Learn about Fresh Energy's work and our bold "Vision 2030: Fresh Energy's Strategic Framework" at our website fresh-energy.org.


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Transcript

00:00:11 Isak Kvam 

Hello, and welcome to Decarbonize, the Clean Energy Podcast from Fresh Energy. 

00:00:17 Isak Kvam 

Fresh Energy is a Minnesota nonprofit working to speed our state's transition to a clean energy economy. 

00:00:23 Isak Kvam 

My name is Isak Kvam, and I'm the senior associate writer and editor on the communications team here at Fresh Energy, and I'm also your host today. 

00:00:31 Isak Kvam 

I'm excited to be joined by my colleague Eric Fowler, who's our director of building performance. 

00:00:36 Isak Kvam 

Hi, Eric, and thanks for joining me to talk about Minnesota's residential energy code update. 

00:00:41 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, thanks, Isak. 

00:00:43 Eric Fowler 

Happy to be here. 

00:00:44 Eric Fowler 

Excited for this chat? 

00:00:46 Isak Kvam 

Me too. 

00:00:47 Isak Kvam 

So we are here today to talk about Minnesota's buildings. 

00:00:51 Isak Kvam 

And buildings are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Minnesota, but they also represent one of the biggest opportunities for change. 

00:00:59 Isak Kvam 

And a key way to cut those emissions is by making our homes and buildings more efficient and climate friendly through residential energy code. 

00:01:07 Isak Kvam 

The energy code sets the baseline for how new homes are built. 

00:01:10 Isak Kvam 

And so when we make that code stronger, every new residential building will be built cleaner and more efficiently. 

00:01:16 Isak Kvam 

That's why updating the code is such an important step toward a carbon-free future. 

00:01:20 Isak Kvam 

And right now, we're at a really big milestone in that process. 

00:01:24 Isak Kvam 

So back in August, the Residential Energy Technical Advisory Group finished its review of the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code for adoption in Minnesota. 

00:01:35 Isak Kvam 

And Eric actually served on that group for two years. 

00:01:37 Isak Kvam 

So he's been deeply involved in shaping all of these updates. 

00:01:41 Isak Kvam 

And while the final code won't be in effect until 2027, this recommendation that they made marks a really big step in how Minnesota will build homes that are more efficient, affordable, and climate friendly. 

00:01:54 Isak Kvam 

So that all kind of sets the stage for what we're going to be talking about today with energy codes and helping to reduce emissions from Minnesota's buildings. 

00:02:03 Isak Kvam 

So Eric, 

00:02:04 Isak Kvam 

Before we dive into the specifics, can you give our listeners kind of a, what's the big picture here? 

00:02:09 Isak Kvam 

Why do building energy codes matter so much for Minnesota's climate goals and for regular Minnesotans? 

00:02:15 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, absolutely. 

00:02:18 Eric Fowler 

So the first thing I would say is, you know, the energy code is one of the books in a big set. 

00:02:27 Eric Fowler 

of Minnesota building codes. 

00:02:30 Eric Fowler 

And these are, these are a consumer protection so that we know across the state when you walk into a building that you are, going to be safe, that the building is going to be durable, and also that it will be comfortable and 

00:02:52 Eric Fowler 

and energy efficient. 

00:02:53 Eric Fowler 

And so the energy code makes sure that all new buildings, all new homes, that specifically the residential energy code we're talking about today, makes sure that all new residential buildings will be as responsible as possible with the energy that they're using. 

00:03:18 Eric Fowler 

And this is, 

00:03:21 Eric Fowler 

This is very different from maybe some of our listeners are going to be familiar with certain types of building certifications that go beyond code. 

00:03:33 Eric Fowler 

Think about LEED or Passive House or Zero Energy Ready. 

00:03:38 Eric Fowler 

These are awesome examples of sort of, you know, strivers and 

00:03:47 Eric Fowler 

and great examples of the direction that we're going, those programs on their own still represent, you know, a smaller portion of new buildings, whereas the code sets the floor for, you know, all new construction across the state. 

00:04:11 Eric Fowler 

It has, the code is mostly something that impacts new buildings. 

00:04:20 Eric Fowler 

There is a little bit of an impact on, old or existing buildings in that sometimes larger renovations will trigger code requirements so that you have to do something a certain way when you update it. 

00:04:37 Eric Fowler 

But 

00:04:39 Eric Fowler 

that's not all the time. 

00:04:42 Eric Fowler 

There's A trickle effect as trades adopt the practices from the newest codes and manufacturers create products to meet the new codes. 

00:04:50 Eric Fowler 

But for, you know, for old or for existing buildings and decarbonization, we largely look to other policies besides the code. 

00:05:03 Eric Fowler 

However, what we do with new buildings 

00:05:08 Eric Fowler 

matters a ton. 

00:05:10 Eric Fowler 

You mentioned the emissions picture. 

00:05:14 Eric Fowler 

And this is just like really striking to me that our greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial buildings in Minnesota are not going down. 

00:05:28 Eric Fowler 

They are still going up, right? 

00:05:31 Eric Fowler 

And a big driver of why those emissions are still going up is 

00:05:39 Eric Fowler 

particularly the expansion of fossil gas as we build out new buildings and developments that still are connected to the gas system. 

00:05:50 Eric Fowler 

And that development is outpacing our efficiency efforts, even though we are getting more efficient, but we are still overall installing a lot of gas lines and continuing to grow our emissions. 

00:06:08 Eric Fowler 

So, the so the opportunity with the energy code is to help, both our climate through greatly reduced emissions as well as saving on costs. 

00:06:29 Eric Fowler 

So when you build so today, when you build a code minimum home and you heat it in the winter, 

00:06:38 Eric Fowler 

How much do you, how much, what percentage of the heat do you think is just like wasted and goes outside? 

00:06:46 Isak Kvam 

Oh gosh. 

00:06:48 Isak Kvam 

Is it like 15%? 

00:06:49 Isak Kvam 

Does that seem high? 

00:06:51 Eric Fowler 

Way more. 

00:06:53 Eric Fowler 

It's way more. 

00:06:55 Eric Fowler 

The majority of the energy that you put into heating your home in January in Minnesota in a code minimum 

00:07:05 Eric Fowler 

house is wasted. 

00:07:08 Eric Fowler 

So the opportunity is huge. 

00:07:10 Eric Fowler 

And by improving our energy codes, which thanks to some legislation that Fresh Energy was very involved in passing, we do have a requirement to accelerate the efficiency gains in our energy code. 

00:07:29 Eric Fowler 

And that is going to help turn this around so that the majority of energy used to heat 

00:07:35 Eric Fowler 

our homes stays in the home. 

00:07:38 Eric Fowler 

And that has huge impacts for the climate and it has huge impacts for our wallets because we obviously don't want to be dumping most of our heat out into the outdoors. 

00:07:51 Isak Kvam 

Yeah, that makes total sense. 

00:07:52 Isak Kvam 

It's the time of year now, so we're recording this in, you know, mid-November. 

00:07:56 Isak Kvam 

I tried to hold out and not turn on my heating system until about Halloween or so, but we're a few weeks in now and, you know, I'm starting to notice. 

00:08:04 Isak Kvam 

that it's heating season and if my home could be more energy efficient and I could save money on heating, that would be a thing I love, especially during Minnesota winters as these kick off. 

00:08:15 Isak Kvam 

So I just want to make sure that folks understand the context here. 

00:08:19 Isak Kvam 

Eric also published a very long blog post 

00:08:22 Isak Kvam 

this past month all about what we're going to talk about here today. 

00:08:26 Isak Kvam 

And Eric, you mentioned in the blog post that there are federal policies that are making energy more expensive right now. 

00:08:32 Isak Kvam 

Can you talk about what's happening at the federal level and why Minnesota's state code is so important as a safeguard? 

00:08:39 Eric Fowler 

Yes. 

00:08:41 Eric Fowler 

Yeah. 

00:08:41 Eric Fowler 

So, I mean, the way I look at it, when energy costs are going up nationally, efficiency is the most effective way that state policymakers can protect energy affordability. 

00:08:55 Eric Fowler 

Unfortunately, you know, what happened earlier this year is the federal government decided to raise taxes on the cheapest sources of electricity in human history. 

00:09:08 Eric Fowler 

right, which is solar and wind, that is going to have an impact on our bills. 

00:09:16 Eric Fowler 

We're also looking at projections for methane or fossil gas costs. 

00:09:24 Eric Fowler 

continuing to rise, especially as the US is exporting more liquefied natural gas. 

00:09:31 Eric Fowler 

That exposes us to global prices for that commodity, which has like historically been extremely cheap in the United States. 

00:09:41 Eric Fowler 

So, you know, I mean, there's only so much that Minnesota can do about what is happening at the federal level. 

00:09:50 Eric Fowler 

And 

00:09:51 Eric Fowler 

One of the things we can do is align our policies and our resources to make sure that our buildings are sipping energy instead of guzzling it. 

00:10:05 Eric Fowler 

And 

00:10:06 Eric Fowler 

not just dumping tons of that expensive, expensive, hard-earned heat in the middle of winter into your yard and instead, keep that energy in your home. 

00:10:22 Eric Fowler 

It, yeah, it is a, it is a one-time investment 

00:10:28 Eric Fowler 

that lasts the life of the home, right? 

00:10:31 Eric Fowler 

So you put a little more in at the beginning in order to have a home that is going to be permanently more affordable to heat, cool, and also just more comfortable to live in. 

00:10:47 Isak Kvam 

All right, let's get into the good stuff. 

00:10:48 Isak Kvam 

So the TAG, the Technical Advisory Group, they recommended seven major improvements to Minnesota's energy code that will hopefully take effect in 2027. 

00:10:57 Isak Kvam 

And that's part of the reason why your work is so important is these code updates take years to happen. 

00:11:02 Isak Kvam 

This isn't something that we're doing twice a year or something. 

00:11:04 Isak Kvam 

These are multi-year long things. 

00:11:06 Isak Kvam 

And so when we're thinking about how to build buildings in Minnesota better, we need to be working right now so that we can actually meet our emission targets down the line. 

00:11:16 Isak Kvam 

And I was hoping 

00:11:17 Isak Kvam 

thing to talk to you, to walk through each and every one. 

00:11:20 Isak Kvam 

And Eric, feel free to get technical, but also help us understand what it means in practice for a homeowner or someone building a new home. 

00:11:28 Isak Kvam 

So our very first recommendation that's a major improvement to Minnesota's energy code is about air tightness standards. 

00:11:35 Isak Kvam 

Now, I think most people get that you don't want air leaking out of your house, right? 

00:11:39 Isak Kvam 

What you were talking about before with the majority of heat just being wasted and exiting your house, it makes, 

00:11:45 Isak Kvam 

you know, perfect sense, but you used this great analogy in the blog about a knit sweater in January. 

00:11:51 Isak Kvam 

Can you explain more about what airtightness is and why this code update matters? 

00:11:56 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, absolutely. 

00:11:58 Eric Fowler 

So we, I think insulation has a lot bigger profile in the public, maybe, you know, in terms of its importance in our buildings. 

00:12:12 Eric Fowler 

But air tightness and having a continuous, really solid air barrier is actually the secret weapon that lets the insulation do anything at all. 

00:12:26 Eric Fowler 

I imagine like trying to go skiing in 

00:12:32 Eric Fowler 

my biggest, chunkiest sweaters. 

00:12:35 Eric Fowler 

And I kind of think it wouldn't matter how many of those sweaters I layered over each other, because at the end of the day, there are big holes, right? 

00:12:46 Eric Fowler 

But if I put on a windbreaker, that is suddenly going to stop all of that air from just pouring through the insulation, or in this case, my sweaters. 

00:12:59 Eric Fowler 

And it's actually going to let the sweaters do their job. 

00:13:03 Eric Fowler 

So airtightness has this huge outsized impact. 

00:13:11 Eric Fowler 

And we're looking at kind of a cool thing, which is not only are we slightly improving the airtightness requirements in the next residential energy code update, 

00:13:28 Eric Fowler 

But we are also switching it to a different metric. 

00:13:34 Eric Fowler 

And you said I could get super technical. 

00:13:36 Eric Fowler 

So. 

00:13:36 Isak Kvam 

Oh yeah. 

00:13:37 Isak Kvam 

Like lean into it. 

00:13:38 Isak Kvam 

I think our listeners of this podcast like getting technical. 

00:13:40 Isak Kvam 

So I'd say lean into it. 

00:13:42 Eric Fowler 

Yeah. 

00:13:42 Eric Fowler 

Okay. 

00:13:42 Eric Fowler 

Well, here we go. 

00:13:45 Eric Fowler 

So. 

00:13:45 Eric Fowler 

Buckle up. 

00:13:46 Eric Fowler 

Yeah. 

00:13:47 Eric Fowler 

In the so the next version of the residential energy code, we are going to move from measuring air tightness with 

00:13:55 Eric Fowler 

ACH 50, which is air changes per hour at 50 pascals of pressure, 2 cubic feet per minute per square foot of enclosure area. 

00:14:10 Isak Kvam 

So these are just two different ways to measure air tightness in a home, right? 

00:14:13 Isak Kvam 

How much air is traveling through your home? 

00:14:15 Isak Kvam 

And ACH 50 is the old way. 

00:14:17 Isak Kvam 

And hopefully we are moving to 

00:14:20 Isak Kvam 

cubic feet per what was it? 

00:14:22 Eric Fowler 

Yes, CFM per square foot, you can say, is a little shorter. 

00:14:29 Eric Fowler 

So the test for those metrics is the same. 

00:14:34 Eric Fowler 

We take the Minneapolis blower door, the red door of truth from our 

00:14:39 Eric Fowler 

friends at the Energy Conservancy, and you put that in an open door of the house and using a fan and some monitoring equipment, that door is going to try to blow up your house like a balloon and see how hard it is to do that. 

00:14:59 Eric Fowler 

And the harder it is to do that, the more airtight the home. 

00:15:08 Eric Fowler 

The way that the metric gets calculated, so air changes per hour, that's measuring the volume, actually, right? 

00:15:18 Eric Fowler 

How many times is the total volume of air getting exchanged inside the building? 

00:15:30 Eric Fowler 

And that's not... 

00:15:32 Eric Fowler 

That's a lot of people are used to it. 

00:15:34 Eric Fowler 

It's been used for a long time. 

00:15:38 Eric Fowler 

It's not nothing. 

00:15:40 Eric Fowler 

You know, it's been super useful. 

00:15:42 Eric Fowler 

But it doesn't directly measure the thing we actually care about. 

00:15:49 Eric Fowler 

In terms of how leaky the building is, we don't care about the interior volume so much as we care about the envelope. 

00:15:58 Eric Fowler 

right, the actual exterior layer that separates the indoors from the out. 

00:16:05 Eric Fowler 

And one kind of weird thing about ACH 50, when you're, when you're basing it, when you're basing this measurement on volume, it, it slightly disadvantages smaller buildings because of 

00:16:29 Eric Fowler 

the surface area to volume ratio and what happens when you go, right, a smaller building has more surface area to volume than a larger building does. 

00:16:48 Eric Fowler 

So what we actually want to measure is the leakiness of that envelope, of that exterior. 

00:16:58 Eric Fowler 

and by switching to CFM per square foot, we make that a little bit more fair. 

00:17:06 Eric Fowler 

So the 

00:17:08 Eric Fowler 

So the new, if this proposed, if the current package continues to move forward through the rulemaking process, because code updates follow a rulemaking process in Minnesota, administrative rulemaking, the new code limit will be 0.18 CFM per square foot of enclosure area, which 

00:17:34 Eric Fowler 

And I'm going to translate it as imperfect as it is. 

00:17:37 Eric Fowler 

Like, you can't perfectly translate it. 

00:17:41 Eric Fowler 

That's why we're changing metrics, because they are not the same. 

00:17:44 Eric Fowler 

But for the folks who kind of understand a little better intuitively what ACH means, on average, that 0.18 CFM per square foot is going to translate to around 2.5 or 3 ACH 50. 

00:18:01 Isak Kvam 

Gotcha. 

00:18:02 Isak Kvam 

So it's about both improving 

00:18:04 Isak Kvam 

you know, the airtightness of homes, but then also changing how we measure it too, so that we have a better system going forward as well. 

00:18:10 Eric Fowler 

Yes, exactly. 

00:18:12 Eric Fowler 

And I think this will definitely be a metric where we can continue to look for improvement as that code acceleration that I talked about, which is the statutory requirement to go through this administrative process really, really rigorously in order to achieve 

00:18:34 Eric Fowler 

some really important efficiency goals. 

00:18:36 Eric Fowler 

I think we are going to see a lot of continued attention on air tightness and that is going to look like the industry 

00:18:46 Eric Fowler 

kind of, bringing more attention to detail of sealing joints, avoiding gaps in initial framing and construction. 

00:18:59 Eric Fowler 

When we have trades coming in and, putting a hole in the exterior sheathing, we're going to we're going to want folks to get used to, you know, one one cord or one cable or, as folks say in the business, one penetration. 

00:19:19 Eric Fowler 

per one. 

00:19:25 Isak Kvam 

I know we're not. 

00:19:26 Eric Fowler 

Yes, thank you. 

00:19:28 Eric Fowler 

Rather than trying to shove, you know, a bunch of cables in one hole, and then that's kind of impossible to seal. 

00:19:35 Isak Kvam 

That's actually so. 

00:19:37 Isak Kvam 

Now I'm thinking about my home and I know that I have multiple cables going through one and I have a whole bunch of putty around it. 

00:19:42 Isak Kvam 

And I know that it's very imperfect. 

00:19:44 Isak Kvam 

It goes to my basement. 

00:19:45 Isak Kvam 

And now I've been curious about doing an energy audit because I can tell that there is definite airflow coming through there. 

00:19:51 Isak Kvam 

Despite how much I try to see a light, it's not perfect. 

00:19:53 Isak Kvam 

So that makes sense. 

00:19:55 Eric Fowler 

Yes, when you try to do a bunch through a single hole, it will inevitably be a weak spot. 

00:20:00 Isak Kvam 

Makes sense. 

00:20:01 Isak Kvam 

Okay, so that's all about number one. 

00:20:03 Isak Kvam 

Number 2, the second improvement that we really like is duct leakage testing. 

00:20:07 Isak Kvam 

Now, I think a lot of us, maybe most of us have lived at that bedroom at the end of the hall that's always way too hot or way too cold. 

00:20:13 Isak Kvam 

And it seems like your system never really adequately heats or cools it. 

00:20:16 Isak Kvam 

Is that what we're solving here with duct leakage? 

00:20:20 Eric Fowler 

Yes, essentially, it's the goal here is to make sure that our ducks are distributing that conditioned air evenly throughout the home. 

00:20:32 Eric Fowler 

And I'm going to get nerdy again here. 

00:20:36 Eric Fowler 

Part of what is really important here is not just the air temperature, but is actually the 

00:20:47 Eric Fowler 

temperatures of all of the surfaces in that room. 

00:20:51 Eric Fowler 

Because not only if you don't do that level of quality control with your ducts, you know, and you end up with that room at the end of the line that's not getting very much warm air, 

00:21:05 Eric Fowler 

The air temperature itself is not actually the main reason you are going to feel so cold in that room. 

00:21:12 Eric Fowler 

The reason is because the mean radiant temperature, the, you know, the average surface temperature of everything around you is going to be really low. 

00:21:26 Eric Fowler 

Radiant temperature is a much bigger factor in, 

00:21:32 Eric Fowler 

our comfort than air temperature. 

00:21:35 Eric Fowler 

Air temperature is just like easier to measure because most of us aren't walking around with thermal imagers, you know, to look around at us. 

00:21:43 Isak Kvam 

I mean, maybe you are, but probably not most people. 

00:21:46 Eric Fowler 

Right, Yeah, and probably Sam on our team. 

00:21:49 Eric Fowler 

Yeah. 

00:21:51 Eric Fowler 

But what the thing, the really critical thing that air is doing is slowly bathing all of the furniture, all of the surfaces in that warm air to bring up that average temperature. 

00:22:06 Eric Fowler 

So yeah, so we like this. 

00:22:09 Eric Fowler 

We like the addition of duct testing. 

00:22:11 Eric Fowler 

There was already a requirement in the code to make sure that ducts are sealed. 

00:22:17 Eric Fowler 

This just adds a layer of, essentially proving it. 

00:22:24 Eric Fowler 

Some quality control that looks very similar to the blower door test, where, you're going to try to blow up the system and see how hard it is to do that. 

00:22:35 Eric Fowler 

And 

00:22:37 Eric Fowler 

And that kind of shows you not only how leaky the system is, but can also help identify when you pressurize that system that can help you find leaks and then actually not only check for for how good of a job of sealing you did, but make some improvements if there if if spots emerge that are clearly still leaking. 

00:23:02 Isak Kvam 

You're getting through this and it sounds like a lot of these updates are just really 

00:23:05 Isak Kvam 

common sense things where, I mean, I think every homeowner would want their duck system to be efficient and working well and doing its job. 

00:23:12 Isak Kvam 

And it seems like a lot of these improvements are just like small improvements so that your home performs better, which benefits everybody. 

00:23:19 Isak Kvam 

Is that kind of like the overarching theme of a lot of these? 

00:23:24 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, that's some of it. 

00:23:25 Eric Fowler 

These, updates tend to be often incremental in certain ways, or at least, building on themselves. 

00:23:34 Eric Fowler 

And I think a lot of people might wonder, well, like, why does it matter that much if the ducts are leaky? 

00:23:42 Eric Fowler 

It's all going, you know, it's all going into the home. 

00:23:48 Eric Fowler 

But 

00:23:49 Eric Fowler 

the distribution really matters. 

00:23:52 Eric Fowler 

there's a reason if you picture, so I don't have forced air in my home, we have radiators. 

00:23:58 Eric Fowler 

There is a reason why radiators so often go right by windows. 

00:24:05 Eric Fowler 

And it's because the, place where you most need that heat is 

00:24:13 Eric Fowler 

right there by the window, which is going to be the coldest place if it weren't for that radiator being right there. 

00:24:19 Eric Fowler 

So the location, the distribution, I know I'm using an example from a different heating system in order to make a point about a forced air heating system. 

00:24:30 Eric Fowler 

But the point is that the location and delivering that warmth in the right location really does matter. 

00:24:38 Isak Kvam 

That makes sense. 

00:24:39 Isak Kvam 

Okay, #3 is 

00:24:41 Isak Kvam 

stronger insulation requirements. 

00:24:43 Isak Kvam 

And this is where it gets technical. 

00:24:44 Isak Kvam 

You talk about R-values and cavity insulation, continuous insulation and thermal bridges. 

00:24:51 Isak Kvam 

I know a few of these. 

00:24:52 Isak Kvam 

So I insulated a camper van to camp it in the winter. 

00:24:55 Isak Kvam 

And so I know a little bit about R-values and I know a lot of it about thermal bridges. 

00:25:00 Isak Kvam 

But cavity insulation and continuous insulation 

00:25:02 Isak Kvam 

are not things I totally get, though I think I have an idea. 

00:25:05 Isak Kvam 

Can you break down what all of this means and what's actually changing with this code update for insulation requirements? 

00:25:12 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, this is going to be a big deal and really exciting. 

00:25:20 Eric Fowler 

So the current Minnesota energy code requirement, if you imagine a regular wood-framed wall, 

00:25:32 Eric Fowler 

is going to be R20 in the cavity. 

00:25:36 Eric Fowler 

And yeah, and what that means is that there's only insulation in between those studs. 

00:25:45 Eric Fowler 

But all of those studs are not insulation, right? 

00:25:52 Eric Fowler 

So that's what we call a... 

00:25:55 Eric Fowler 

a thermal bridge where you have a break in the insulation and you have a pathway for heat transfer to kind of sneak past the insulation. 

00:26:07 Eric Fowler 

A way more egregious example would be my fireplace. 

00:26:12 Eric Fowler 

If folks are familiar with or maybe live in an older home that just has a big old fireplace where the brickwork continues uninterrupted 

00:26:26 Eric Fowler 

from your living room straight to the outside of the house. 

00:26:30 Eric Fowler 

And when you go up to that in winter, it is so cold because bricks are terrible insulation. 

00:26:38 Eric Fowler 

And so you have a, that's a huge thermal bridge. 

00:26:43 Eric Fowler 

Studs are not quite so bad. 

00:26:46 Eric Fowler 

Wood is like a little better insulator than that, but it's still not helping. 

00:26:54 Eric Fowler 

So 

00:26:55 Eric Fowler 

One of the important things about the latest update is that if you are going to build that same R20 cavity-filled wall, 

00:27:08 Eric Fowler 

That's going to be with a two by 6 stud setup. 

00:27:14 Eric Fowler 

If you build that same wall under the new code, you are going to be required to add another five, another R5 of continuous insulation over the entire exterior of the wall. 

00:27:30 Eric Fowler 

So that's going to break up 

00:27:34 Eric Fowler 

those bridges and and and, you know, slow, slow down the slow down the heat transfer. 

00:27:44 Isak Kvam 

And so it's kind of like instead of just having studs with insulation in between, and then the cold can travel through the studs. 

00:27:49 Isak Kvam 

This kind of puts an extra layer between the studs and the wall to block that cold from coming in better, right? 

00:27:56 Eric Fowler 

Exactly. 

00:27:57 Isak Kvam 

Okay. 

00:27:58 Eric Fowler 

Yes. 

00:27:59 Eric Fowler 

And there's you 

00:28:01 Eric Fowler 

You know, there's a number of different options and materials and ways that you can do that. 

00:28:11 Eric Fowler 

Another alternative in the code is 

00:28:14 Eric Fowler 

So in this next update, say you really, really don't want to build with continuous insulation. 

00:28:22 Eric Fowler 

There are going to be other options. 

00:28:25 Eric Fowler 

One of the things about the code is like it usually gives you multiple pathways to accomplish similar outcomes. 

00:28:32 Eric Fowler 

So in the new code, you could put R30 

00:28:39 Eric Fowler 

in the cavities. 

00:28:41 Eric Fowler 

Now, the only way you're going to be able to fit R30 in those cavities is if you build using 2 by 10s. 

00:28:49 Eric Fowler 

So now you're going to have a thicker wall, your 2 by 10s 

00:28:54 Eric Fowler 

are going to be stronger than your 2 by 6s, so you actually need fewer of them. 

00:29:00 Eric Fowler 

So yes, you will still have some thermal bridging from those 2 by 10s, but the R30 in the cavity is really strong. 

00:29:10 Eric Fowler 

You're going to have fewer of them because the 2 by 10s are stronger and you don't need as many. 

00:29:16 Eric Fowler 

And that creates another alternative. 

00:29:23 Isak Kvam 

And that's also kind of nice too because it gives people and it gives builders more options for how to achieve a good outcome, right? 

00:29:31 Isak Kvam 

There's not like one way we need to do the thing. 

00:29:33 Isak Kvam 

It lets builders kind of have multiple ways a little more, right. 

00:29:37 Eric Fowler 

Exactly, exactly. 

00:29:39 Eric Fowler 

So we'll be able to, you know, 

00:29:42 Eric Fowler 

probably one of the most common options or implementations that we will see will be an inch of foam on the outside. 

00:29:54 Eric Fowler 

I mean, there are definitely downsides to foam. 

00:29:58 Eric Fowler 

It is, chemical-based, very carbon-intensive to manufacture, so we don't love that about it. 

00:30:08 Eric Fowler 

But there are also other lower embodied carbon options. 

00:30:13 Eric Fowler 

A lot of the energy benefits we're talking about today are about operational emissions and operational carbon, right, as you run the building on the day-to-day. 

00:30:24 Eric Fowler 

But there are some cool lower embodied carbon options for that continuous insulation. 

00:30:30 Eric Fowler 

You might do a couple inches of mineral wool or wood fiber. 

00:30:35 Eric Fowler 

You can even look at cork, which is like 

00:30:37 Eric Fowler 

super fire resistant and obviously also a natural material. 

00:30:43 Eric Fowler 

And either way, you are just sort of putting on an extra layer. 

00:30:49 Eric Fowler 

Rachel Wagner, an architect in Duluth and partner and friend, she likes to say that in Minnesota, we understand the value of an extra layer. 

00:31:02 Eric Fowler 

And that's what that continuous insulation does is, you know, 

00:31:07 Eric Fowler 

wrap up the house in another layer that is, you know, totally blocking those thermal bridges. 

00:31:15 Isak Kvam 

I think people from Duluth know that really well too. 

00:31:17 Isak Kvam 

I feel like in Minnesota, right, we have these intense winters. 

00:31:19 Isak Kvam 

We need to keep our buildings warm. 

00:31:21 Isak Kvam 

And so I give a very added layer of, what's the word, like honoring people from Duluth or up north that understand cold even more than I do in central Minnesota. 

00:31:32 Eric Fowler 

Absolutely. 

00:31:34 Isak Kvam 

Okay, so the fourth change that we're hoping in this latest code update is about Windows and Doors. 

00:31:39 Isak Kvam 

And hopefully it will improve Windows and Doors. 

00:31:43 Isak Kvam 

You mentioned U-factors in the blog post, and I know that that's different than R-values. 

00:31:48 Isak Kvam 

I also know when it comes to Windows, this seems like 

00:31:52 Isak Kvam 

It seems like when folks are kind of new to upgrading their home, they tend to think that the windows are definitely the worst, leakiest thing in their home and they need brand new windows. 

00:32:01 Isak Kvam 

And I think sometimes that's true and sometimes it's really not. 

00:32:04 Isak Kvam 

And so can you kind of explain what we're talking about here with U-factors and improving windows and doors in the home? 

00:32:11 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, absolutely. 

00:32:13 Eric Fowler 

definitely, I'm not going to step in it by trying to give anybody advice about their specific circumstances, because unfortunately, the answer to whether or not your windows are the best place to start is very much it depends. 

00:32:30 Eric Fowler 

But yeah, this is going to be a big deal. 

00:32:35 Eric Fowler 

And definitely at new construction, it's definitely worth it. 

00:32:41 Eric Fowler 

when you are building from scratch to invest in better windows. 

00:32:45 Eric Fowler 

There's no better time. 

00:32:46 Eric Fowler 

That should be one of my, you know, that's one of my main takeaways, I hope for everyone is that there is no better time to invest in super energy efficient building, particularly making sure that you're building envelope, which is all of those exterior components, including the windows and doors. 

00:33:10 Eric Fowler 

no better time to make sure that is as good as it can be than when you are building for the first time. 

00:33:19 Eric Fowler 

So when this code goes into effect, we are going to go from a requirement that, and I'll explain kind of what this looks like, but we are going to go from our requirement of 0.32 U factor 

00:33:39 Eric Fowler 

windows to 0.27. 

00:33:43 Eric Fowler 

You factor in in both in both climate zones. 

00:33:48 Eric Fowler 

We technically have two different zones in Minnesota. 

00:33:53 Eric Fowler 

So so this is this is good. 

00:33:56 Eric Fowler 

This is improvement going from 0.32 to 0.27. 

00:34:01 Eric Fowler 

The the Energy Star 

00:34:04 Eric Fowler 

If you get an Energy Star window, that's going to be 0.22, which is already quite a bit better than the code that we are talking about implementing in 2027. 

00:34:20 Eric Fowler 

So that leaves plenty of room for the industry to get ready to meet these requirements. 

00:34:27 Eric Fowler 

And most 

00:34:29 Eric Fowler 

projects getting built already are meeting these because Energy Star Windows actually already have a huge market share. 

00:34:37 Eric Fowler 

They've, you know, they've done a great job with that program. 

00:34:39 Eric Fowler 

EU factor is the inverse of the R value and U factor actually came first. 

00:34:48 Eric Fowler 

It's more mathematically useful because you can combine U factors of different components 

00:34:56 Eric Fowler 

and then calculate the overall U value for a wall assembly. 

00:35:00 Isak Kvam 

Interesting. 

00:35:01 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, you can't do that with R value because R value is more of a marketing metric than a like engineering metric. 

00:35:11 Eric Fowler 

They came up with R value by inversing U value because they wanted to be able to advertise 

00:35:20 Eric Fowler 

better insulation with higher numbers. 

00:35:24 Isak Kvam 

Whereas it does kind of make sense. 

00:35:25 Isak Kvam 

Like with, we're looking at R and it's like, oh, we're going from R 20, you can go to R 30 and you know, the higher the better. 

00:35:30 Isak Kvam 

And I'm like, how can I get R 100 or something? 

00:35:32 Isak Kvam 

Like, you know, just being ridiculous. 

00:35:34 Isak Kvam 

But so with EU factors, it's all about getting smaller and we're going from 0.32 to 0.27. 

00:35:40 Isak Kvam 

Sounds small, but a decently good change for Windows. 

00:35:44 Eric Fowler 

Yes, exactly. 

00:35:46 Eric Fowler 

Yeah. 

00:35:46 Eric Fowler 

And 

00:35:47 Eric Fowler 

and they are I mean like you said uh the the again I'm not weighing in on what anyone should do with their individual house but it is true that the the um you know the windows and doors are these are the the weakest points in the building envelope um and so these improvements matter uh I didn't use the fun word here yet which is 

00:36:12 Eric Fowler 

Fenestrations. 

00:36:14 Eric Fowler 

This category of product in the code is known as fenestrations. 

00:36:18 Eric Fowler 

So if you hear that, you can know that that refers to your windows and doors. 

00:36:25 Isak Kvam 

It's just a fun little vocab tip for people. 

00:36:27 Isak Kvam 

I think you can even change it into, I'm the writer, so you can change it into a verb and you can defenestrate, which is to throw something out of the window. 

00:36:35 Isak Kvam 

I think I've used this a grand total of once in my lifetime. 

00:36:38 Isak Kvam 

So these are very practical words for listeners of Decarbonize to hear. 

00:36:42 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, very, very practical words. 

00:36:45 Isak Kvam 

We're just helping you out. 

00:36:45 Isak Kvam 

So #5, #5 in the code update relates to enhanced ventilation requirements, specifically ERV and HRV systems. 

00:36:55 Isak Kvam 

We love acronyms in Fresh Energy. 

00:36:58 Isak Kvam 

So we're going to learn about ERV and HRV too. 

00:37:01 Isak Kvam 

And this seems counterintuitive. 

00:37:02 Isak Kvam 

So, so far we've been talking about making buildings airtight, keeping it, keeping the cold out and the warmth in in the wintertime at least. 

00:37:11 Isak Kvam 

And now we're going to talk about ventilation and why it's important for homes to be well ventilated. 

00:37:16 Isak Kvam 

So, Eric, can you describe what's going on here? 

00:37:18 Isak Kvam 

How do you balance wanting great airtightness, but then also wanting ventilation in your home? 

00:37:24 Eric Fowler 

Yes, good question. 

00:37:27 Eric Fowler 

So 

00:37:28 Eric Fowler 

We definitely, we definitely need fresh air. 

00:37:31 Eric Fowler 

There's an old debunked saying, a house needs to breathe, which is not true. 

00:37:40 Eric Fowler 

People and pets need to breathe. 

00:37:42 Eric Fowler 

A house needs to dry. 

00:37:46 Eric Fowler 

A house does not need to breathe. 

00:37:48 Eric Fowler 

And actually uncontrolled air leakage through 

00:37:52 Eric Fowler 

walls is a terrible ventilation strategy because that uncontrolled air movement is going to carry moisture. 

00:38:04 Eric Fowler 

It might deposit that moisture inside your wall. 

00:38:09 Eric Fowler 

I actually forgot to touch on one of the benefits of continuous exterior insulation, which is that it 

00:38:19 Eric Fowler 

supports the durability of the wall because it warms up those framing members so that they are not cold spots and therefore vulnerable to moisture because if those studs get colder than everything else around them and moist air passes through them, 

00:38:42 Eric Fowler 

guess what? 

00:38:43 Eric Fowler 

Moisture is going to deposit onto that cold surface. 

00:38:46 Eric Fowler 

And so the continuous insulation also helps with durability. 

00:38:56 Eric Fowler 

Okay, totally sidetracked myself there. 

00:38:58 Eric Fowler 

So what do we say instead of a house needs to breathe? 

00:39:03 Eric Fowler 

Build tight, ventilate, right? 

00:39:05 Eric Fowler 

We do need fresh air for people. 

00:39:08 Eric Fowler 

The house does not need to breathe. 

00:39:10 Eric Fowler 

So the current code in Minnesota does require balanced ventilation, but it doesn't require energy recovery ventilation. 

00:39:23 Eric Fowler 

And this is super cool. 

00:39:24 Eric Fowler 

So imagine 

00:39:29 Eric Fowler 

Imagine that your strategy for fresh air is just opening the window. 

00:39:36 Eric Fowler 

But it's January. 

00:39:37 Eric Fowler 

So that fresh air comes in super cold. 

00:39:42 Eric Fowler 

It makes you really uncomfortable. 

00:39:45 Eric Fowler 

And it forces your heating system to constantly be trying to keep up with a bunch more cold air coming into the house. 

00:39:55 Eric Fowler 

So 

00:39:56 Eric Fowler 

what the what energy recovery ventilators and heat recovery ventilators do. 

00:40:04 Eric Fowler 

And they're they're very similar. 

00:40:08 Eric Fowler 

The the the benefit of the energy recovery ventilator is more more moisture control. 

00:40:19 Eric Fowler 

What both of these systems are going to do is use the heat 

00:40:24 Eric Fowler 

in the outgoing air because you can't bring in fresh air without air leaving the building somewhere to make up for that incoming air, right? 

00:40:35 Eric Fowler 

So in an ERV or an HRV, it controls both of those flows and it passes them by each other, taking warmth from the outgoing air and using it to temper 

00:40:50 Eric Fowler 

the incoming air and warm it up so that it is more comfortable when it comes in and so that your heating system has to do way less trying to keep up with that fresh air. 

00:41:03 Isak Kvam 

So people need to breathe in their homes. 

00:41:06 Isak Kvam 

Houses don't need to breathe, but people need to breathe. 

00:41:07 Isak Kvam 

And so we need ventilation. 

00:41:10 Isak Kvam 

But obviously, how you accomplish that ventilation is the important thing. 

00:41:14 Isak Kvam 

And so these systems are basically making sure that we're not bringing in, you know, really frigid January air or my least favorite, very humid July air directly into our homes, right? 

00:41:26 Eric Fowler 

Yes. 

00:41:26 Eric Fowler 

And that way your, you know, hopefully folks maybe who are listening to this have or are on the path 

00:41:36 Eric Fowler 

way towards heating and cooling their home with a heat pump system. 

00:41:42 Eric Fowler 

And that way, that heat pump system can be that much more efficient and save you that much more money because the incoming air from your ventilation system is getting tempered with the energy that would otherwise just be wasted getting exhausted to the outside. 

00:42:03 Isak Kvam 

So let's move on to #6. 

00:42:04 Isak Kvam 

Number 6 is the 6th improvement in our energy codes is all about compliance pathways. 

00:42:10 Isak Kvam 

And that's a fancy word for giving builders flexibility in how they meet these standards. 

00:42:15 Isak Kvam 

Can you walk us through the options going on in this latest code update? 

00:42:21 Eric Fowler 

Absolutely. 

00:42:21 Eric Fowler 

So this one was a little bit of an umbrella term. 

00:42:26 Eric Fowler 

having different compliance pathways isn't necessarily new to the code, but we like some of the improvements and the approach to these different compliance pathways in this next code update. 

00:42:47 Eric Fowler 

The first one isn't actually a separate path. 

00:42:51 Eric Fowler 

the component performance alternative or total UA alternative. 

00:42:57 Eric Fowler 

So this uses what I was talking about earlier with doing math with U factors. 

00:43:04 Eric Fowler 

If you want to put in one window that doesn't actually meet 

00:43:12 Eric Fowler 

the minimum code requirement, but you make up for that efficiency somewhere else in the wall or maybe with other windows or maybe with a really excellent fancy door that is, you know, super airtight and well insulated. 

00:43:33 Eric Fowler 

You're allowed to look at the total wall and 

00:43:41 Eric Fowler 

use whether or not it passes sort of in aggregate rather than having to check off every individual component. 

00:43:51 Eric Fowler 

There is also, and this is going to be the 

00:43:56 Eric Fowler 

This is going to be a little bit newer. 

00:43:58 Eric Fowler 

There is an ERI pathway that stands for Energy Rating Index, which is basically a generic term for a HERS score. 

00:44:10 Eric Fowler 

Probably people are, some folks, some listeners might be familiar, you know, a HERS score that goes, you know, maybe older, you know, 

00:44:24 Eric Fowler 

older building might be somewhere around 100 most new construction in Minnesota right now is right around a 50 and where our 

00:44:38 Eric Fowler 

code acceleration target for Minnesota to reach with the residential energy code by 2038, that's going to be around a HERS 30. 

00:44:48 Eric Fowler 

And it's pretty easy to just imagine, you know, what a zero energy or a net zero home looks like on that scale because it is 0 on the scale. 

00:45:02 Eric Fowler 

So the TAG, the Technical Advisory Group strengthened 

00:45:07 Eric Fowler 

the max allowed HERS score in order to comply with the code using this pathway, strengthened it to a 47 from the model code suggested 53 or 52 depending on climate zone. 

00:45:28 Eric Fowler 

But what we know from HERS data, because this is a third party 

00:45:35 Eric Fowler 

verification process where, you know, records are kept. 

00:45:39 Eric Fowler 

And I think it's I think it's around half or over half of new homes in Minnesota that get a HERS score. 

00:45:52 Eric Fowler 

And the average score in Minnesota is already 47. 

00:45:56 Eric Fowler 

So this this pathway, you know, so bringing it to 47 is 

00:46:03 Eric Fowler 

you know, will have an impact. 

00:46:05 Eric Fowler 

It will bring along some of those projects that are not quite achieving that. 

00:46:10 Eric Fowler 

But it's not asking the industry to do anything like way out of, you know, way far away from from what we are already achieving in terms of her scores. 

00:46:24 Eric Fowler 

The the other the other thing is there there was a proposal advanced in the process 

00:46:32 Eric Fowler 

that says you can only make so many trade-offs to the envelope. 

00:46:39 Eric Fowler 

And, you know, the way that the model code is handed down from the national level that we base this on in Minnesota, 

00:46:50 Eric Fowler 

The national code allows for a little more, trade-offs and exchanges in some of these compliance pathways. 

00:46:58 Eric Fowler 

And we do want builders and designers and homeowners to have options, but if the goal is long-term energy affordability and resilience, 

00:47:14 Eric Fowler 

we really don't want to weaken the envelope because it is the most durable element of building efficiency. 

00:47:24 Eric Fowler 

So if we allow too many trade-offs with the envelope, the lifespans kind of just don't make sense. 

00:47:32 Eric Fowler 

Your building envelope might last 50, it might last 100 years, but some of these trade-offs 

00:47:40 Eric Fowler 

before we strengthened the recommendation in the tag process, some of these trade-offs would allow you to use, better mechanicals, so a more efficient furnace, for example, to trade off for a weaker envelope. 

00:47:56 Eric Fowler 

But that doesn't make sense because the lifespan of the furnace has nothing in comparison to the lifespan of the envelope. 

00:48:04 Eric Fowler 

So making sure that the thing that separates the indoors from 

00:48:10 Eric Fowler 

the outdoors remains really strong and can't be traded off too much is really important. 

00:48:20 Isak Kvam 

That makes like complete sense. 

00:48:22 Isak Kvam 

And so, okay, that's all about compliance pathways. 

00:48:26 Isak Kvam 

Let's move on to our last improvement that was made. 

00:48:30 Isak Kvam 

And this is about the R408 table. 

00:48:33 Isak Kvam 

This already sounds very technical. 

00:48:35 Isak Kvam 

Can you tell us what it is? 

00:48:37 Eric Fowler 

Yes. 

00:48:39 Eric Fowler 

So this is the R408 table. 

00:48:42 Eric Fowler 

This is going to be a new menu of additional efficiency options for builders and design professionals in Minnesota. 

00:48:55 Eric Fowler 

This was introduced 

00:48:57 Eric Fowler 

at the national level in 2021. 

00:49:01 Eric Fowler 

I think a lot of folks prefer the way that it kind of evolved in the 2024 IECC process, which is the base for this code update that we're talking about. 

00:49:17 Eric Fowler 

So it is a, the R408 requires 10 credits 

00:49:25 Eric Fowler 

of additional efficiency and then gives you a menu of options to fulfill those requirements. 

00:49:35 Eric Fowler 

And some of those options would be, you know, extra air tightness or having a certain type of heat pump system or having a ground source heat pump system, some folks refer to as geothermal. 

00:49:51 Eric Fowler 

You can even get points for things like 

00:49:54 Eric Fowler 

compact hot water distribution and this matters because you know you think about like uh having having a network of of relatively thin pipes um going throughout the house that are supposed to be carrying really hot water that you put you know good money and good energy into heating up um but then pardon me but then uh 

00:50:24 Eric Fowler 

But then if you have a really kind of, complex, inefficient pipe system where it's weaving all throughout the house, you're going to waste, you're going to lose a lot of that heat. 

00:50:37 Eric Fowler 

So a compact hot water distribution is an example of one of these ways that you can get extra points. 

00:50:45 Eric Fowler 

And I'm a fan of this table because it, you know, 

00:50:51 Eric Fowler 

Assuming that the International Code Council that creates this model code, assuming that they keep this table, which I think is the plan, that we will be using this for a while now, it makes it easier to add credits for new approaches or techniques or technologies or systems and give 

00:51:20 Eric Fowler 

give credit, give flexibility. 

00:51:24 Eric Fowler 

You know, we are not saying which of these options on this menu you have to do, but it sort of just offers recognition for a lot of different creative ways that builders can achieve that extra efficiency. 

00:51:40 Eric Fowler 

And in the code making process, it gives us the flexibility to keep adding to and 

00:51:49 Eric Fowler 

you know iterating on that credit table um I think you know we'll we'll see I think that'll be an area of development where we'll we'll continue to see more uh technologies and techniques go on there to continue giving um you know the the industry uh options uh 

00:52:14 Eric Fowler 

and flexibility as we go towards this 2038 target required by statute. 

00:52:23 Isak Kvam 

As someone who really likes to learn and, and just learn how systems work and, and things like that, I actually really kind of like this menu of optional improvements that you can do in your home because you start to realize that, you know, having an energy efficient home or a climate friendly home isn't just a one-size-fits-all. 

00:52:41 Isak Kvam 

Here's your 

00:52:43 Isak Kvam 

energy efficient, climate friendly home. 

00:52:45 Isak Kvam 

There's a lot of different systems in your home. 

00:52:47 Isak Kvam 

There's a lot of different components and a good home system. 

00:52:53 Isak Kvam 

There's a lot of different ways to achieve what you are trying to achieve, I suppose I'm trying to say. 

00:52:57 Isak Kvam 

And so a menu like this kind of acknowledges there's a credit system. 

00:53:01 Isak Kvam 

Here's a lot of things you can do to make your house be more energy efficient and giving room to builders to do that. 

00:53:11 Eric Fowler 

Absolutely. 

00:53:12 Isak Kvam 

All right, so we've talked about the big improvements in the code that TAG has recommended. 

00:53:17 Isak Kvam 

Let's kind of shift gears now from talking about what the updates are to talking about what TAG exactly is. 

00:53:23 Isak Kvam 

So the technical advisory group that's made these recommendations we've been talking about today. 

00:53:28 Isak Kvam 

How does this process happen? 

00:53:31 Isak Kvam 

How does Fresh Energy get involved with it? 

00:53:34 Isak Kvam 

I guess in a nutshell, Eric, tell me about what you've been doing the last few years working with TAG on this code update. 

00:53:41 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, absolutely. 

00:53:42 Eric Fowler 

So the, I think, maybe, I think maybe the technical advisory group could be described as a sort of, you know, subcommittee appointed by the sort of 

00:53:59 Eric Fowler 

next higher up body, which is called the Construction Codes Advisory Council. 

00:54:07 Eric Fowler 

And this is a, committee or a council that is established in statute in Minnesota. 

00:54:16 Eric Fowler 

It has members appointed in order to represent certain perspectives and, you know, in groups. 

00:54:25 Eric Fowler 

And it is in charge 

00:54:28 Eric Fowler 

of overseeing a lot of the code development process, the Construction Codes Advisory Council would not have time to go through line by line every single code book update. 

00:54:44 Eric Fowler 

Like I mentioned, there's multiple different books in 

00:54:48 Eric Fowler 

in the Minnesota building code, it's not just the energy code, right? 

00:54:52 Eric Fowler 

So the CCAC, Construction Codes Advisory Council, delegates the line by line review of each new code to a technical advisory group. 

00:55:05 Eric Fowler 

Now that that process has wrapped up, 

00:55:09 Eric Fowler 

In the case of the residential energy code, that recommendation from the tag is going to be presented. 

00:55:17 Eric Fowler 

I'm actually, depending on when you're listening to this, presumably this is in the past. 

00:55:22 Eric Fowler 

For me, it's not in the past, but on coming up on Friday, November 14th, will be construction codes advisory council meeting. 

00:55:34 Eric Fowler 

they vote on whether to move that recommendation forward. 

00:55:39 Eric Fowler 

There are a few other steps. 

00:55:41 Eric Fowler 

There is a durability review that happens at the staff level at the Department of Labor and Industry. 

00:55:51 Eric Fowler 

There is there's a possibility of legislative review if the 

00:56:02 Eric Fowler 

committees with jurisdiction so choose. 

00:56:05 Eric Fowler 

I don't know whether, I don't know that I expect that in this case. 

00:56:08 Eric Fowler 

The governor's office weighs in. 

00:56:14 Eric Fowler 

I said this out of order. 

00:56:15 Eric Fowler 

The commissioner of the Department of Labor and Industry also approves the language. 

00:56:21 Eric Fowler 

And I mentioned that code making follows administrative rulemaking process in Minnesota. 

00:56:29 Eric Fowler 

That also means there is an opportunity for an administrative law judge to hold a hearing if 25 or more people request a hearing and then and then there's a public comment period and a record established where the the administrative law judge will determine what's lawful and appropriate. 

00:56:53 Eric Fowler 

There could be additional changes at at that stage. 

00:56:57 Eric Fowler 

So I think 

00:56:59 Eric Fowler 

I would expect that what is presented to the CCAC will be pretty close to what ends up in effect in 2027. 

00:57:12 Eric Fowler 

But, things could always change. 

00:57:15 Eric Fowler 

And part of our role is to be there at every step of the process to monitor, to make sure that we are speaking up for the 

00:57:28 Eric Fowler 

you know, improvements that are going to deliver on our our efficiency requirements and and climate goals. 

00:57:36 Eric Fowler 

And, you know, make sure that we we we support a strong code at every stage that we can. 

00:57:44 Isak Kvam 

I think that really explains a lot of Fresh Energy's work in general too, is knowing these pretty technical regulatory processes, or just many processes, not even regulatory, just processes in general, and following them along every step of the way to make sure that we are advocating for a better Minnesota, a cleaner Minnesota, a more efficient Minnesota. 

00:58:05 Isak Kvam 

And as you were describing that process, you know, there's all these different stages that it has to go through. 

00:58:12 Isak Kvam 

This current iteration has been going on since 2022, but it won't be in homes until 2027. 

00:58:19 Isak Kvam 

That's a really long time. 

00:58:20 Isak Kvam 

Why does this process take so long? 

00:58:25 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, it takes so long because there is a lot of text to review. 

00:58:33 Eric Fowler 

Well, I won't go to the trouble of digging out my code book to show you because nobody listening to this will be able to see it. 

00:58:41 Eric Fowler 

But if I were to, I would go get a book that is, I don't know, I think that's larger than the Bible. 

00:58:55 Eric Fowler 

That is the 2024 model. 

00:58:58 Eric Fowler 

international residential code, which the energy code is part of. 

00:59:04 Eric Fowler 

And the amount of text and the amount of simply pages and pages of information in this process is a lot. 

00:59:14 Eric Fowler 

So that's part of why is that there is just actually so much content to go through. 

00:59:21 Eric Fowler 

And there's a lot of math, there's a lot of energy modeling that has to happen in the background to vet 

00:59:29 Eric Fowler 

what goes into that. 

00:59:32 Eric Fowler 

And then, and then there are also a lot of opportunities for the public to weigh in, right? 

00:59:38 Eric Fowler 

And that is also an important part of the process. 

00:59:41 Eric Fowler 

There are requirements for 

00:59:44 Eric Fowler 

how much notice is given uh before opportunities to comment or to weigh in um and and there are several of those opportunities along the way including the you know the technical advisory group uh meetings which did wrap up but there are other 

01:00:03 Eric Fowler 

technical advisory groups going on currently at the Department of Labor and Industry. 

01:00:09 Eric Fowler 

Those are open to the public. 

01:00:12 Eric Fowler 

Construction codes advisory council meetings are open to the public, and that's another opportunity for participation. 

01:00:19 Eric Fowler 

So it's both sort of the amount of content and technicality as well as, I think, a certain commitment to accessibility and, you know, transparency and participation. 

01:00:33 Isak Kvam 

That makes sense. 

01:00:34 Isak Kvam 

These things take time, and then also there's so much content that goes into it. 

01:00:37 Isak Kvam 

You were talking about how big the Energy Code book is, and I was picturing 1 listener maybe having theirs at the ready to page through. 

01:00:44 Isak Kvam 

And I don't know, it's the beginning of winter here. 

01:00:47 Isak Kvam 

The giving season is coming up. 

01:00:49 Isak Kvam 

If you need a wishlist item, maybe an Energy Codes book is in your future, you could join Eric line by line and we could do a reading or something. 

01:00:56 Isak Kvam 

I don't know. 

01:00:56 Isak Kvam 

This could be... 

01:00:58 Isak Kvam 

We're percolating ideas here. 

01:01:00 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, it's fascinating stuff, you know, U-values and fenestrations and all. 

01:01:06 Isak Kvam 

I mean, who doesn't love a good fenestration? 

01:01:10 Isak Kvam 

Okay, so throughout this conversation, we've talked a lot about climate and emissions so far today, Eric, but this also seems like it's about a lot more than just climate and emissions. 

01:01:19 Isak Kvam 

It's also about comfort, health, energy bills is a big one. 

01:01:22 Isak Kvam 

Can you talk about how all these pieces fit together? 

01:01:26 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, I think, I mean, honestly, the, you know, we supported as Fresh Energy this new energy code trajectory largely out of our motivation for climate action in every venue possible of policymaking in Minnesota. 

01:01:48 Eric Fowler 

So, you know, we're largely in this for the climate and the energy and emissions benefits. 

01:01:57 Eric Fowler 

But there are other huge benefits to dramatically improving the efficiency of our buildings that I think people are going to be really excited about. 

01:02:10 Eric Fowler 

The amount of comfort that you can experience in a building that is not drafty, you know, that has its 

01:02:23 Eric Fowler 

ducts properly delivering the amount of warm or cooled air to the right places. 

01:02:32 Eric Fowler 

I think people are also going to be, I didn't even write this down in my notes here, but just as I think about this, I think 

01:02:42 Eric Fowler 

sound and noise is going to be another huge benefit that, we don't really always talk about in our energy spaces, but the same things that insulate a home against, thermal loss or gain are 

01:03:04 Eric Fowler 

pretty much the same things that insulate it against noise. 

01:03:08 Eric Fowler 

And so you'll talk to people who live in, certified above code houses in passive houses or other, really well insulated airtight homes. 

01:03:24 Eric Fowler 

And they could live by a freeway and 

01:03:30 Eric Fowler 

not hear a thing as soon as they close their front door. 

01:03:34 Eric Fowler 

And, so there's a level of comfort that actually goes beyond just the temperature. 

01:03:41 Eric Fowler 

And then there's also the, extreme weather and extreme temperature benefits where when you, when you have a really well 

01:03:56 Eric Fowler 

insulated home and you're not just dumping most of your heat out into the yard or the rest of the city, that also creates time in the face of power loss. 

01:04:12 Eric Fowler 

That's maybe a weird way to say that, but you know, when you slow down heat transfer, you 

01:04:22 Eric Fowler 

extend your runway a ton for how comfortable and more importantly, how safe your home remains if you lose power. 

01:04:33 Eric Fowler 

So resilience to, outages and extreme weather is one of the really huge benefits of improving our energy code and improving our buildings. 

01:04:46 Eric Fowler 

You know, a well-insulated building is kind of like a battery, except 

01:04:52 Eric Fowler 

it doesn't require, certain types of chemicals and it is, it's not going to degrade and, need to be 

01:05:03 Eric Fowler 

replaced in, 5 or 10 years after you've, charged and discharged it a bunch. 

01:05:10 Eric Fowler 

Instead, you just have thermal inertia. 

01:05:13 Eric Fowler 

You just have a building that, could be heated up or cooled down at a time where the energy prices made more sense to do that, or at a time where you have a bunch of excess solar, and so you would rather run your equipment 

01:05:33 Eric Fowler 

at this time. 

01:05:34 Eric Fowler 

And then because your house is such a slow ship to turn in terms of the temperature change, you can then, you know, ride it out for a while off of the heating or cooling that you did when it was convenient or when it was cheaper or when you had power before you lost the power. 

01:05:58 Isak Kvam 

I've had my power go out during the winter before. 

01:06:00 Isak Kvam 

And it's one of those things that you never think about until it happens. 

01:06:03 Isak Kvam 

And then you're very, and then it's the only thing you're thinking about is, I can't heat my home right now. 

01:06:09 Isak Kvam 

How much longer do I have until I need to heat my home? 

01:06:11 Isak Kvam 

When is the power coming back on? 

01:06:13 Isak Kvam 

And it just really paints one of those benefits of more resilient homes are very important. 

01:06:19 Eric Fowler 

Yes, And I mean, another huge benefit is as we also increase safety requirements and stringency around combustion indoors and how that gets managed, you know, where and when it is allowed. 

01:06:43 Eric Fowler 

And also as we increase 

01:06:45 Eric Fowler 

ventilation requirements. 

01:06:48 Eric Fowler 

That that has huge impacts for indoor air quality and and our health, I think. 

01:06:58 Eric Fowler 

Presumably, some of our listeners have also been following, you know, the science and the research about the incredible harms of indoor combustion, especially the, you know, especially the stove is a particular offender in terms of the air quality. 

01:07:17 Eric Fowler 

And by making sure that we have better ventilation, that helps. 

01:07:26 Eric Fowler 

It's not the same thing as eliminating that combustion source, but I don't think that's going to happen through the code anytime soon. 

01:07:33 Eric Fowler 

What the code can do is, you know, make sure that we're ventilating well and that, you know, combustion is happening in the safest and best way possible. 

01:07:45 Isak Kvam 

One thing I'm curious about is 

01:07:48 Isak Kvam 

What should a person do who's planning to build a home in the next few years? 

01:07:52 Isak Kvam 

What should they know all about this? 

01:07:54 Isak Kvam 

Should they wait for the new code to come out? 

01:07:56 Isak Kvam 

Should they build to these standards now? 

01:07:58 Isak Kvam 

I mean, this is kind of a strange scenario, thinking of someone building a home and possibly waiting years, but you know, if you're building a new home, it's on your mind. 

01:08:05 Isak Kvam 

This new code is coming out. 

01:08:07 Isak Kvam 

What does that, what are the implications of that for folks that are looking at that? 

01:08:11 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, good question. 

01:08:12 Eric Fowler 

I would say there is no reason to wait and no need. 

01:08:18 Eric Fowler 

we already have, awesome programs and certifications and communities of folks who are really dedicated to building the buildings of the future today already. 

01:08:36 Eric Fowler 

I would, learn, learn 

01:08:40 Eric Fowler 

about building science, even just even just if that's if that's a new term, even just doing some research into building science concepts. 

01:08:51 Eric Fowler 

There are groups around there. 

01:08:54 Eric Fowler 

There's at least a Twin Cities and a Duluth BS and beer meetup. 

01:09:02 Eric Fowler 

The BS stands for building science. 

01:09:05 Eric Fowler 

And yeah, you'll find a lot of enthusiasts 

01:09:10 Eric Fowler 

in including builders, and maybe you'll find your builder at one of those meetups. 

01:09:16 Eric Fowler 

And those meetups are going to attract the professionals who are, really focused on excellence and efficiency. 

01:09:24 Eric Fowler 

You could look into Passive House, Minnesota. 

01:09:29 Eric Fowler 

You know, that is that is kind of Passive House is kind of the gold standard in terms of envelope and 

01:09:40 Eric Fowler 

energy efficiency and really using the sun, to maximum benefits and avoiding the sun when you don't want that heat in the summer so that your equipment 

01:10:00 Eric Fowler 

heating and cooling is having to do as little as possible. 

01:10:03 Eric Fowler 

The joke about passive houses is that you could heat them with a hair dryer in winter. 

01:10:10 Isak Kvam 

It sounds nice looking at energy pals, to be honest. 

01:10:13 Eric Fowler 

Yes, Another certification I should mention, you know, zero energy ready homes. 

01:10:22 Eric Fowler 

That's a DOE certification. 

01:10:26 Eric Fowler 

And I mean, you know, to a lesser extent, 

01:10:29 Eric Fowler 

Energy Star also has a certification for new homes. 

01:10:36 Eric Fowler 

It is it is it's it's nowhere near the efficiency level of a passive house. 

01:10:43 Eric Fowler 

But if you don't know where to start, that's another that's definitely another place to look into would be Energy Star certified homes. 

01:10:54 Isak Kvam 

That's good advice. 

01:10:54 Isak Kvam 

I think especially too, you talked about BSMBR. 

01:10:57 Isak Kvam 

And I think that when it comes to buildings, as someone who is not a technical expert in building science like you and Sam on our team, I think talking to people about your home is so helpful because I love researching things online, but buildings are truly unique and you can learn a lot online and by learning about these projects. 

01:11:15 Isak Kvam 

But when it comes to your specific home and what the most bang for your buck is when building a new home or upgrading your existing home to be more climate friendly, 

01:11:24 Isak Kvam 

There's really nothing replaces a good builder or contractor that you can talk to about your home specifically. 

01:11:31 Eric Fowler 

Absolutely. 

01:11:33 Isak Kvam 

All right, Eric. 

01:11:33 Isak Kvam 

Well, thank you so much for walking us through this. 

01:11:36 Isak Kvam 

I know this is really detailed technical work, but it's also very, very important for Minnesota's clean energy future and for making sure Minnesotans have comfortable, affordable, and healthy homes. 

01:11:47 Isak Kvam 

Thank you so much for walking us through this today. 

01:11:49 Eric Fowler 

Yeah, thanks for bearing with my deep dive into some of these details. 

01:11:56 Isak Kvam 

Thanks. 

01:11:59 Isak Kvam 

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01:12:08 Isak Kvam 

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01:12:23 Isak Kvam 

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01:12:27 Isak Kvam 

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01:12:38 Isak Kvam 

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01:12:46 Isak Kvam 

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01:12:49 Isak Kvam 

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