If you are planning to build a new home, you should seriously consider making it as energy efficient as possible. While this may add a little to the cost of the home, you will easily recoup this money and more through substantially lower energy costs over the lifetime of the home. This article explores a few building design ideas that can dramatically reduce the amount of energy your home must consume to keep it comfortable year round.

Build a Better Shell

Your home's exterior shell protects you from the elements. A poorly insulated, leaky shell will result in far more heat loss in winter and more heat gain in summer than a tight, highly insulated one. Insulate your exterior walls to a minimum of R30 if you live in a cold climate, and R20 if you live in a warm one. Consider using structural insulating panels (SIPs) or insulated concrete forms (ICFs) for the exterior walls. Both of these options deliver superior performance. ICFs are particularly suited to warm, sunny climates. If you haven't already chosen a builder, seek out one that has experience using these materials. Make sure that he or she is well versed in modern techniques for sealing your home. Just because someone has been building homes for a long time doesn't mean that they are familiar with or proficient at implementing proper insulating and sealing techniques. Do your due diligence and research both potential builders and modern home building concepts. Don't be temped to cut corners on the exterior shell of your home. It is far easier to build an efficient house than it is to try to retrofit efficiency improvements later on.

Heating and Cooling Systems

Most homes have oversized heating and cooling systems. If you have designed your house with efficiency in mind, your heating and cooling systems will be smaller and run more efficiently, saving you money. When determining the size of the systems that you are going to install in your new home, have your HVAC contractor produce a written sizing calculation. This calculation, based upon your home's design, will indicate an appropriate size for heating and cooling systems. These systems and their accompanying duct work should be located inside the well insulated shell of your house. If you have a significant amount of ductwork located in uninsulated areas, such as crawlspaces or attics, then you are not getting the most out of your home's design. Don't build a highly efficient shell and then waste energy by running ductwork outside of it!

Renewable Energy

Are you planning to install a photovoltaic system or solar water heating on your new home? If you are, or even if you aren't planning to up front, consider designing your home so that installation if these systems is as simple and efficient as possible. Design the pitch of your roof so that you can best take advantage of solar energy. As a general rule of thumb, the angle of the roof should be equal to the latitude of the building site. This provides a good compromise between the high angle summer sun and low angle winter sun. Keeping panels flush with the roof will reduce the wind load on the panels substantially, as is generally more aesthetically pleasing. Talk to solar installers to find out what design features will simplify the installation of photovoltaic and water heating arrays. Installation costs on the systems are a significant portion of the total cost of these systems, so anything you can do up front to facilitate their installation later will save you money later when the systems are installed.

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