We prepare your Washington State Energy Code Permit Application and work local jurisdictions to obtain the necessary permit for your project and find the most cost-competitive path for bringing your project into compliance.
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There are three separate pathways for complying with the Washington State Energy Code:
Prescriptive
The most commonly used one is the prescriptive path. It is essentially a checklist of energy requirements that are necessary for compliance. However, some home owners and builders would like to incorporate design elements into their houses that do not comply with the prescriptive checklist. This can be accomplished by using either the UA alternative or performance alternative paths.
UA Alternative
With the UA alternative path, you can trade off design elements of the house’s shell in order to comply with code (walls, floors & ceilings).
Performance Alternative
With the performance path you can trade off design elements of the house’s shell along with mechanical components. One application where the performance path has been helpful for homeowners is when they are getting ready to sell their house and want to have a higher assessed value recorded at the county. They do this by converting their garage or other non-conditioned space into conditioned space.
We are PTCS certified to conduct air leakage testing for Washington State Energy Code requirement.
The Washington State Energy Code requires air leakage testing for new residential construction and for some remodeling jobs. The test uses a fan to depressurize your house by blowing air out of the building (called a blower door test).
The amount of air that goes out of the building is equal to the amount of air that is pulled back into the building. The incoming air is referred to as infiltration. It comes into the building through unsealed penetrations in the shell of the building (walls, floors, ceilings).
Before air infiltration testing was adopted into our state’s energy code, it was estimated by the U.S. Department of Energy that approximately 30% of a building’s heating and cooling energy usage was due to air infiltration. If your house is too tight and does not allow enough fresh air to enter, this can cause health problems. There is a ventilation health safety standard called ASHRAE 62. When I conduct a Blower Door test, I also determine what the ASHRAE safety standard is for your specific house. If the blower door test results show that your building is below the ASHRAE safety standard, then I will advise a strategy for restoring proper ventilation.
