For Designers

The role of windows in NAHB's Model Green Home Building Guidelines

Energy Efficiency is one of seven guiding principles in the Model Green Home Building Guidelines by the National Association of Home Builders. According to the Guidelines, there are two alternative ways how a home can be considered for Bronze, Silver, or Gold certification:

A. Performance path: Requires a REScheck analysis showing that the home exceeds the energy efficiency of a home built to the minimum criteria of the 2003 International Energy Conservation Code® by 15 percent (Bronze certification), 30 percent (Silver certification), or 40 percent (Gold certification). The NFRC-certified energy performance of windows factors into the result provided by the REScheck software.

B. Prescriptive path: Requires a combination of energy-efficient building features, each of which provides a certain number of points. 37 points must be reached for bronze certification, 62 points for silver certification, 100 points for gold certification. ENERGY STAR qualified windows contribute 8 points to the total. In addition, points can be gained for sizing, orienting and shading windows so that they provide passive solar space heating or passive cooling.

Note that these are model guidelines which local home builder associations (HBAs) may modify the requirements for certification according to their local needs and conditions. Click here for more information on the present model version of the Guidelines, which debuted in 2005.