The mission of the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance (EEBA) is to help industry pros design, build and sell well-crafted high-performance homes. Since great examples are great teachers, EEBA is always honored to showcase the best work of high- performance builders and designers.
For the first time ever, this year's annual Summit, held in October in San Diego, hosted three prestigious awards programs. The U.S. Department of Energy's Housing Innovation Awards and the Environmental Protection Agency's Indoor airPLUS Leader Awards recognized accomplishments of industry leaders. The Department of Energy's annual “Race to Zero” competition showcased the best designs created by student design teams from around the U.S.
DOE Housing Innovation Awards
The Department of Energy's Housing Innovation Awards honors forward-thinking builders who take innovative approaches to zero energy ready homes. This year's awards paid tribute to “Grand Winners for Innovation” in six categories.
Affordable Homes
For Profit: Thrive Home Builders, Denver Colo.
Nonprofit: Kalamazoo Valley Habitat for Humanity, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Custom Homes (for Buyers)
High Performance Homes, Gettysburg, Penn.
Custom Homes (Spec)
Dwell Development, Seattle, Wash.
Dwell Development in Seattle won the top Housing Innovation Award in the Spec home category for a 3-story, 3700 square foot net-zero energy home on Lake Washington. The company builds one-of-a-kind net-zero homes designed and detailed to compete with code-built homes.
Multifamily Homes
Revive Properties and Philgreen Construction, Fort Collins, Colo.
Production Homes
Thrive Home Builders
Most Homes Certified
Thrive Home Builders
For more information on the Housing Innovation Award winners please go to https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/housing-innovation-awards
Indoor airPLUS
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Indoor airPLUS Leader Awards recognize builders who lead their markets in creating safer, healthier, and more comfortable indoor environments for their homebuyers.
This year's awards recognized eight organizations with Indoor airPLUS Leader Awards, including two Leaders of the Year, cited for their ongoing commitment to building healthier homes.
2018 Leaders of the Year
Home Energy Rater: Energy Inspectors Corporation, Las Vegas, Nev.
Home Builder: Fulton Homes, Tempe, Ariz.
Phoenix-area Fulton Homes built 650 Indoor airPLUS labeled homes in 2017, earning it the Leader of the Year award. The company has made the Indoor airPLUS label a major part of its marketing message.
Affordable Builder Winner
Thrive Home Builders, Denver, Colo.
Small Builder Winners
C&B Custom Homes, Cottonwood, Ariz.
Charis Homes, North Canton, Ohio
Large Builder Winners
Fulton Homes, Thrive Home Builders, and Mandalay Homes (Prescott, AZ)
Rater Winners
Energy Inspectors Corporation, E3 Energy, LLC, Flagstaff, Ariz.
Steven Winter Associates, Inc., Norwalk, Conn.
For more information on the Indoor airPLUS Awards winners please go to https://www.epa.gov/indoorairplus/indoor-airplus-leader-award-winners
The value of these award programs is that they show builders and design professionals how to craft healthy, zero-energy homes while making a profit. “I found it enlightening and inspiring to learn about the amazing homes being offered by EEBA builders at market rates," said Brett C. Singer, Staff Scientist and leader of the Indoor Environment Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "They are demonstrating not only that high performance homes are possible, but also that they can be built at competitive prices."
The Race to Zero
Another highlight of this year’s Summit were presentations by seven winning teams that participated in the 2018 U.S Department of Energy “Race to Zero” Student Design Competition. The program's goal is to inspire students to become the next generation of building science professionals through a design challenge for zero energy ready buildings.
On the Summit’s final day, EEBA staged a special session where “Race to Zero” students delivered brief, but compelling overviews of their winning projects. The winners were as follows.
Grand Winner, Urban Single-Family Housing
Prairie View A&M University
A team from Prairie View A&M University in Texas was Grand Winner in the Race to Zero Student Design Completion for its "FlyFlat" urban single-family home design. A full project profile is on the Race to Zero Website.
Suburban Single-Family Housing
1st Place: The Pennsylvania State University
2nd Place (2 winners): University of Missouri-Columbia and Ball State University
Attached Housing
1st Place: University of Waterloo
2nd Place: Miami University
Small Multifamily Housing
1st Place: Miami University
2nd Place: Illinois Institute of Technology
Elementary Schools
1st Place: Middlebury College
2nd Place: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
For more information on the Race to Zero Awards, including a description of this year's winning projects, please go to https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/2018-results
Next Year's EEBA Summit will be from October 1-3 at the Embassy Suites in Downtown Denver, Colo. Registration will open in January. For more information, visit http://summit.eeba.org. Visitors to the site can also subscribe to EEBA’s newsletter and blog.
