“Passive House”, “Net Zero”, “High-Performance”, “Sustainable” are today’s buzz words when it comes to building design and construction, but do we really know what we should be doing to achieve these goals in our residential projects?

The non-profit Passive House Institute US, Inc. (PHIUS) is an organization committed to making high-performance passive building the mainstream market standard and far exceeds the standards outlined in today’s building codes. Their most recent performance standard, developed in conjunction with Building Science Corporation and with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building America Grant is the PHIUS+2018 Passive Building Standard - North America.
The non-profit Air Conditioning Contractors of America Association, Inc. (ACCA) is an organization that writes standards for the design, maintenance, installation, testing and performance of indoor environment systems. ”ACCA helps contractors comply with building codes. And we help code officials understand HVAC”. It is precisely these standards (ACCA Manuals B, D, J, S & T) which are referenced throughout the current and upcoming proposed changes to the Massachusetts Building and Energy Codes.

Today’s building codes are ever changing and often lag behind industry standards. With non-profit organizations such as PHIUS & ACCA leading the charge for more efficient and sustainable solutions, this course will focus precisely on the “Best Practices” for residential air conditioning. In particular, we will review some of the proposed updates to the 2021 ACCA S manual and learn how to properly size this high performance equipment for a Net Zero approach to residential building.

Topic

Climate