Building science blogger Allison Bailes contends that energy codes should only consist of two numbers that builders need to meet with the system they design for a building.
He got the idea from a video by Henry Gifford and Chris Benedict called The Perfect Energy Code, “where they propose a dramatic simplification of the energy code in New York City,” Bailes writes. “No more energy modeling. No more reference designs. No more prescriptive or performance paths.”
Instead, energy codes would be based on meeting the requirements of two formulas: the heating system input divided by the building’s square footage, and the cooling system input divided by the square footage of a building, looking something like this:
heating system input / square footage of building < x
cooling system input / square footage of building < y
Then, in each area, they can adjust the x according to local temperatures. “The colder the climate, the bigger the x would be,” Bailes writes.